The John Batchelor Show

Thursday 20 December 2018

Air Date: 
December 20, 2018

Photo: Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 certificate.  Today, three Canadians are being held in China, at least one apparently being tortured, in retribution for Canada’s accepting the legal obligation to detain Ms Meng after the United States isued an international arrest warrant for her on grounds that she’d committed significant illegal acts.
Certificate for Don Lee - Chinese Immigration Act - front. Date on the certificate is August 2, 1918. '...the sum of five hundred dollars being the head tax due under the provisions of the Chinese Immigration Act'. Vancouver B.C.  / VPL Accession Number: 30625 Date: Date of photograph not available Photographer/Studio: Unknown SUBJECTS: Chinese Canadians, Immigrants, Poll tax Organization: Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Permissions:  Vancouver Public Library Historical Photograph; no known copyright restriction exists. 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Sebastian Gorka, Fox; and Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents
 
Hour One
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 1, Block A:  Sebastian Gorka, author, _Why We Fight;_ network radio program starting on 3 January; in re: The fundamentals of the economy are strong, Wall Street is a roulette wheel spinning; _cf._ former Administrations,  when corporations refused to invest.  The Trump Adm confrontations with the pirates of Beijing, esp in the form of Xi Jinping.  He’s Sovietizing the success of private businesses in China . The best NSC info is that Xi does not understand Trump, does not take him serious,  Anticipate troubled waters.  HSBC and Standard Chartered break ties with Huawei.  China has just detained and harassed another Canadian citizen; Xi as bully-boy against Trudeau.  Ms Meng travels with six different passports; this is not business, it's espionage.
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 1, Block B: Sebastian Gorka,  author, _Why We Fight;_ network radio program starting on 3 January; in re:  The ordeal of general Flynn.
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 1, Block C: Francis Rose, host, National Defense Week; and francisrose.com, @FrancisRoseDC, in re: when a Secretary senses that a president no longer values his advice, he moves on. Mattis doesn't agree with the president’s decision to withdraw from Syria; worries about possible withdrawals from Afghanistan and perhaps Korea. A Chief Information Officer from a civilian agy said: I watch the DoD for policy, decision-making (incl back-office). Rumors are flying about the Mattis resignation, although he’s stayed about as long as most Secretaries do.
Federal furlough: those who aren’t required to report during a shut-down just don't appear, and are unpaid till the shut-down is over. An unfunded Agy is the Natl Parks Service. The VA is happier than it was a year ago.
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 1, Block D:  Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, in r:  Life on other planets?  Oxygen needed? Johns Hopkins test chamber (at Sarah Hörst's lab), funded by NASA, reconfigured from exoplanet data:  An earthling machine (Phazer) here created conditions similar to those on other planets, and created an oxygen-rich atmosphere.  What they're aiming at right now is an expected explosion in number of planets found by the James Webb telescope and others; producing reams and reams of new exoplanet info.  An artist creates “glimpses of other worlds.”    Haze affects spectroscopic analysis. 
 
Hour Two
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  Mike Singh in re: US pull-out of Syria, Lebanon.   US air has been critical in Syria. The future is also worrisome.  . . . Russia welcomes the US departure: Assad will retain control over the whole country and Russia? Will it provide funding to rebuild? The population has little interest in being ruled by Assad. Right now, it's Kurdish and oppo forces that control the area from which the US will withdraw; this’ll be a big blow to US friends there.  ISIS moved in where there was a pre-existing civil war.  Will American air power be withdraw from Syria?  If so, that’ll have a major effect on Israel’s [geopolitical] thinking.
●        https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/us-syria-envoy-syr...
●        https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/19/trump-undermines-his-...
●        https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/12/19/donald-trump-ordering-...
 Michael Singh is the Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and managing director at The Washington Institute and a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council.
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:  Eli Lake, Bloomberg:  Mattis’s resignation implies that he doesn't think the president respects our alliances, or understands [the extent of the problems here].  This puts John Bolton and Mike Pompeo in a difficult situation.  The way that the president is withdrawing from Syria – happening as the stick market is variable and other matters . . . Real possibility that many brave Kurds who've been our essential support in Syria will be slaughtered. US has just announced it’ll sell Patriot missiles to Erdogan, who announced that he’ll use them on Kurds.  This withdrawal is not a policy question; it’s a fundamental matter of the American position in the world. 
·         https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-19/trump-s-syria-with...
·         https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-17/how-a-senate-debat...
Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 2, Block C:  Aykan Erdemir, in re:  Turkey’s move in Syria with the US pull-out. Erdogan has two reason: publicly, across the Turkish spectrum, most citizens see the YPG (Kurds in Syria) as an existential threat.  The YPG is ht core component isn Syrian democratic forces; His ulterior motive: In March next year Erdogan has a challenging local election while the economy is in a tailspin, so he needs a rally-‘round-the-flag operatin; nothing better than a cross-border fight. S35 Stealth fighters and other problems; Friday’s phone talk with Trump had him persuade US forces out of Syria and also sell sophiticated military system to Turkey. Even so, Turkey will buy the Russian S400, too – unheard-of for any country, least of all a NATO member, do this.  . . . Can open a divide between Kurds on the street and their representatives in parliament.  Will create a void that Iranian proxies./militias will fill. Both Erdogan and Rouhani are more vocal than ever. Does appeasement work? Looks like the announcement of the change in Syria hasn't made either one compromise. Quite the opposite; they're more emboldened in defying US sanctions, which diminishes the strength of the US alliance. The joke in DC is: The only ones not caught off-guard are Erdogn’s inner circle.
 
A troubling thought.
 
·         https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/as-washington-p...
·         https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/19/a-messy-multi-billion-dollar-weapon-sale...
·         https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkey-threatens-to-bury-kurdish-mi...
·         https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/19/us-turkey-take-key-step-toward-patr...
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 2, Block D:  Jonathan Schanzer, in re:  Recent travel in China; sanctions; Syria. Enemies and adversaries of the US around the world are cheering!
Amazing that the US media rare drawing on Turkish sources for news about Khashoggi – I’m accuse  do fi[madly diverse unthinkable villainy]. Meanwhile turkey is the number-one jailer fo journalists in the world today.  Today, Turkey arrested a US serviceman. Expect turmoil around he world, esp in Washington, in the coming days/  Military morale is at an all-time low with MAttiss’s resignation. Jordanians, Kurds, many others, feel thrown under the bus. Many pleased enemies; Iran. Hezbollah, Russia. China is watching the managed decline of the US – from Afgh, where there are precious minerals to be mined; its One Belt-One Road initiative is looking well- treated by the US today, The Gulf states are not pleased at all. India is most concerned about a hasty retreat from Afghanistan  Worry not just in the Levant but across Asia. Nations eventually recognize that the US has been overall a force for good since the Second World War.
·         https://www.weeklystandard.com/jonathan-schanzer/im-a-wonk-at-a-think-ta...
·         https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/16/world/turkey-cavusoglu-cleric-gulen/index...
·         https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-18/iran-steers-exporters...
·         https://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/bahrain-signs-more-agreement...
·         https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/US-Navy-may-stop-docking-in-Haifa-afte...
Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at FDD, where he oversees the work of the organization’s experts and scholars. He is also on the leadership team of FDD’s Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance, a project on the use of financial and economic power as a tool of statecraft.
 
Hour Three
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 3, Block A: Malcolm Hoenlein, in re:
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 3, Block B: Yossi Kuperwasser, in re: The departure of the IS from Syria is “problematic’:  will be much more difficult for Israel iof protect itself from Iran; to boot, Israel my have to fly over Syria more, displeasing the Russians.
All the element trying to use Syria to threaten Israel will have much more capabilities to operate from Syria.  Iran, Hezbollah, even ISIS. They’ll interpret this move as the US showing it's weak. UNIFIL [sells drugs within sight of Israel’s border –editor], cannot be expected to help with Israel’s security. We must rely only on ourselves to [an enormous degree]. 
“Pay to slay”: PA pays 7% of its budget, $340 million per year, to families of those who’ve murdered Israelis. Israel will stop delivering the full complement of [supplies] to Palestinians as long as they do this.
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 3, Block C: 
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 3, Block D:  
 
Hour Four
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 4, Block A: 
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 4, Block B: 
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 4, Block C: 
Thursday 20 December 2018 / Hour 4, Block D:  
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