The United States is Under Attack

                                      "Is The Republic at Risk?"                                        Part One - Outside Threats 

March19, 2018

The United States is, and has been, under attack for decades. Some of these threats emanate from outside the US and are put into operation by foreign nationals. Other threats have originated from people inside our country, many of whom, were US citizens. These threats have been numerous. Over the years, the negative effect of these threats has compounded. The fabric of our nation, the rule of law, and the beliefs that bind our country and its people together are beginning to deteriorate. If we want to stop this from happening, the only way that I know is that we have to put our petty individual needs and differences aside and put the country first. I am doubtful that this can ever happen. I don’t recall this level of division even during the Vietnam War. Our elected officials spend more of their time trying to gain political advantage than doing what’s best for the country. While we bicker, our enemies, both domestic and foreign, are on the job everyday trying to undermine our democratic republic.

          At the end of World War 2 the United States signed peace treaties with Germany and Japan. The ink was barely dry on these agreements and we were at war with the Soviet Union. Yes, it was a cold war, but it was a war, none the less. The US and its allies eventually prevailed. The Soviets tried to match the amount of money we were investing in defense. They lacked the resources to do this and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and went bankrupt. Fast forward to 2014. Vladimir Putin and the Russian government tried to corrupt and influence our election process during the 2016 presidential election. Russian operatives, at the direction of Vladimir Putin, received funding from the socalled Russian Oligarchs, who are basically proxies for the Russian government.  These operatives, posing as Americans, opened websites on Facebook and other social media outlets and posted propaganda and political ads. Sometimes their message favored one candidate and at other times they favored the other. Protest marches were also organized, sometimes favoring Hillary Clinton and sometimes favoring Donald Trump. With this in mind, it’s unclear which candidate they were trying to help. There was not a lot of money spent by these operatives. Actually, when compared to the approximately $2B spent on the election, it was a relatively small amount. This leads many people who are investigating this attack to conclude that this was just a dry run and we may see a larger and more disruptive attack during the next election cycle.

           In addition to affecting the election results, the other purpose of this plot was to sow discord and distrust in our election process. At the time of this writing there has been no evidence presented, in spite of the massive barrage of liberal media propaganda and Hillary Clinton herself, to show that any votes were changed. Even though this is so, the fact that an attempt was made by a foreign government to taint our election results should be a wake up call for the country that we are under attack.

            Another threat that we have been tolerating for years is the unfair trade policies and practices of our trading partners. China is the worst of the worst. One of their practices is to steal software from companies like Microsoft and resell it on the open market. From what I’ve read, even the Chinese government uses this pirated software on its government computer systems.

             Americans are the most talented and creative people on this planet. I don’t say this just because I have a need to prop up America’s creativity or sell it to my readership. I say it because it’s true. Sometime this summer The US Patent Office will issue its ten millionth patent. No other country even comes close to issuing that many patents. The entire world has benefited from US ingenuity and talent. New products and innovations that have come from these patents are worth in the trillions of dollars.Yet these patented innovations and other intellectual property are stolen almost at will. In some cases, maybe I should say most cases, with the blessing of the Chinese government.

             Another area where we are vulnerable to the theft of intellectual property is in the entertainment industry. America is the world leader in this business. We are the most prolific producers of entertainment products in the world. We write more books, more movie scripts and television scripts than any other people. Also, American production companies, produce, direct and distribute more movies and television programming than any other country.

             We are also the world leader in the music industry. Our song writers, one of which just recently won a Nobel Prize for literature, are the best in the industry. Our artists write, record, distribute and perform more music and better music than anyone. We are the world leaders in rock and roll, blues, jazz, gospel and country music. I would also say that we are among the world’s leaders, if not the world leader, in composing and performing classical music.

             The US is a major producer of video games. These are also being pirated by the Chinese. I’m not a big fan of video games so I really am not able to write intelligently about this product. It is however big business and here again the Chinese are ignoring our copyright laws and stealing millions in royalties.

              Here in the United States we have available to us hours upon hours of professional sports programming. With a click of the remote we can watch a Major League baseball game, an NFL game, an NBA game or an NHL game. The league sells the rights to broadcast these games to the television networks and they in turn have the right to broadcast these games and to sell advertising. We also have the option of watching a variety of college sports programming. The NCAA also sells the rights to broadcast these games to television networks and they then have the right to sell advertising.

              The Chinese have basically cut out the middle man, which happens to be the copyright owners of these sporting events. Why pay for it when you can steal it for nothing? They then rebroadcast the programming, which is the original  footage of the games, and sell advertising just like any legitimate concern. They make profit with no cost of product.

               These sports franchises are owned by American businesses .They own the rights to this programming. Ownership means that they own the right to sell the use of this programming to broadcasters. These rights are being stolen in the face of international law. Short of tariffs and economic sanctions, there seems to be little we can do about it. That has been the case for the last twenty five years. Donald Trump is now the president. He is imposing tariffs on those countries  who either do not have free, open and fair trade with the US or blatantly choose to ignore international copyright and intellectual property laws. Sometimes you just have to take a stand.

                In November 2017 the Chinese government  put new regulations in place that forced foreign based companies who had facilities located in China to move their R&D to China and give the ownership rights of their patents to China This is way beyond anything that we should be putting up with. These American companies should be looking for other venues to locate their facilities. These laws and regulations make it legal for the Chinese government to flat out steal intellectual property from these American businesses. There comes a point at which it is more profitable or less costly to pack up and move than to stay where you are and tolerate this legal thievery. Giving up future R&D innovations and patents for the honor and privilege of having a facility in China seems to be a very high price to pay. It seems as though these companies are sacrificing long term profitability for short term profit and stability. In my humble opinion, it’s a poor choice.

               Finally, do we really need to do business in China? Is this the only choice that American business has? I am fully aware that we import over $500B per year from China. Some of these imports are component parts that we ship to China for them to assemble into finished product and then are shipped back to the US. Other imports are products that are manufactured in China and are then shipped  to the US for resale. Could this work be done elsewhere? How about Mexico for example? Moving this work to Mexico would benefit our country and American business on several different levels. It would prevent China from buying our debt with money that they make from us. It would also force China to find another source of funds to build up their military. We are funding their military with the money they make from trade with the US. How is that in our best interest? There is  one last thing I would like to mention. If American business decided to leave China they would not have to continue to sign over their new patents to the Chinese government. So the question persists, “Do we need China as much as they need us?”

               Mexico is our neighbor and as such, is more aligned politically with what we believe as Americans. We would also be creating jobs in Mexico which would give illegals less reason to leave their country and illegally enter our country.

               As I said above,China is funding their military, in part, with the money they make from trade with the US. This is not in our best interest. The reason being is that if China gets into a shooting war with another country, who do think that country would be? If you guessed the US, congratulations. You win the prize. Even if the conflict is not with us directly, we would still have to defend our allies that are located in the western pacific. Therefore, we would still be involved.

               Another foreign threat to the US is the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. This particular threat is at least partially the result of naive and gullible Americans. We have been negotiating with the North Koreans since Bill Clinton was in office and our negotiators have been taken advantage of every time. Do we just have bad negotiators or do want a deal so bad that we will give up anything to get it? No matter which answer you pick we lose. My Aunt Kitty used to say, “ You can trust a thief, but you can’t trust a liar.” She probably could have cut a better deal than any of these so called professional bureaucrats.

                We are now at the brink of a face to face meeting between Kim Jong Un and President Trump. This meeting, if it happens, will show us two things. First, it will show us whether or not Kim Jong Un is an honest negotiator. If his predecessors are an indicator, I would be a no vote on that. Secondly, we will find out if President Trump’s reputation as a strong negotiator is justified. Considering where he is in his life financially and his motivation to get things done, I would say that the odds are better than even that he will be able to strike a favorable deal.

                 The last foreign threat to our country that I want to discuss is the one posed by the country of Iran. The issue of Iran has been an open wound since 1979 when Islamic militants overran the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 American citizens hostage The American citizens were taken prisoner and held for 444 days. This was done in violation of international law which protects diplomatic personnel of all countries from being detained for any reason.

                  These Americans were beaten, subjected to mental and physical abuse and were otherwise mistreated for most of their time in captivity. Some were not given proper medical care or access to basic hygiene. One American almost died from neglect. Others were put into solitary confinement by their captors with their hands and feet bound for extended periods of time. This is not the behavior of civilized human beings.

                   This attack on our embassy was an attack against the United States. Embassy’s of” all nations are sovereign property of the nation it represents. Obviously our sovereignty was violated. According to Wikipedia this happened with the knowledge and help of the local police who  were assigned to protect the embassy.

                    President Carter’s response to this attack was tepid at best. We implemented economic and financial sanctions and also banned the importation of Iranian oil into the US. This last measure, I believe was difficult to enforce. Oil is a fungible commodity making it difficult to distinguish one country’s oil from that of another. That said, I’m not sure just how effective this last measure was.

                    In my opinion, when the hostages were released, we should bloodied their nose. We should have made the country of Iran pay a much higher price for their actions. We didn’t do that. That made the Iranians look strong and the US look weak. Of late the Iranians have become emboldened. They are now funding terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to fight proxy wars on their behalf. My point here is simple. When you are attacked you fight back, otherwise the problem will get worse.                                                                                                                      

                     It is the consensus of the US and its allies that Iran wants to take over the middle east and its wealth. If this were to occur, it would be a direct threat to the US and its allies. They are trying to accomplish this in large part by the use of proxies. Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels  are the two that come to mind. The government of Iran funds and arms both of these organizations. One of the main goals of these terror groups is the total annihilation of Israel. Another goal of Iran is foment unrest and to overthrow legitimately recognized governments of middle eastern countries and ultimately take control of those countries. If Iran were to be successful Russia would be the dominant power in the middle east. That would be a serious threat to the US and its allies. Iran is trying to accomplish this right now in the  country of Yemen.

               Since the beginning of human civilization humans beings have been at war. We started out fighting with clubs and throwing stones at one another. We then moved on to swords and firearms. We took a big leap forward with the inventions of airplanes, iron warships and tanks. We now have weapons of mass destruction. They are available in several different flavors, including nuclear, chemical and biological. Are we progressing or what?

               Today’s wars are being fought on line. They call it cyber warfare. Just about the entire world is connected by the internet. Our enemies have been able to infiltrate the computer systems of major corporations, and in some cases even those in our government. They are able to do this from anywhere in the world. They have been able to steal social security and credit card numbers as well as personal information. They have also hacked into government computer systems and stolen classified information which could threaten our national security. This is all part of the strategy of our enemies to take us down. I’m sure that solutions to these problems are being worked on right now. We need to harden our defenses and grow eyes in the back of our heads. It’s my opinion that this war is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

               These foreign threats to our republic are real.They are continuing as I write. Everyday our military and our intelligence departments confront these threats on our behalf to keep this country and its citizens safe. Sometimes we hear about their efforts and sometimes we don’t, but they are happening everyday. When you include our military, these efforts are costing us hundreds of billions of dollars every year. We are approaching the point when we will have to make a choice of which departments we can afford to fund and those which we cannot. Our national debt is ballooning out of control. The debt is becoming a national security threat that is the result of decisions made by our elected officials. In other words, this is not a foreign threat, but one that was created domestically by our elected officials. It must be confronted and confronted soon. Part two of this post will focus on domestic threats to the republic.