Thomas Knapp

In 2016, Donald Trump ran for president as a kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar” candidate. Once in office, however, he escalated every war he had inherited, ending none of them, “surging” US troops into Syria and Afghanistan, making a public head-fake at withdrawing from Syria before changing his mind, abrogating the Iran “nuclear deal,” and negotiating a … Continue reading “Brian Mast As Foreign Policy Indicator: New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”

Wait, what? We’re talking about Joe Biden? Why? He’s a “lame duck.”  No matter who wins the US presidential election on November 5, he’s going home to Delaware on January 20.  His chances of asking  for, and getting, much from Congress during that two-and-a-half month interregnum are negligible. But as head of the US government’s … Continue reading “How Joe Biden Could Save Lives And Change American Politics on His Way Out the Door”

In early September, the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against two employees of RT (formerly Russia Today), alleging that the state media outlet “orchestrated a massive scheme to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on U.S. soil.” Separately, DOJ announced its theft (“seizure”) of 32 Internet … Continue reading “Would-Be Censors Peddle Yet Another Election Meddle”

On May 1, the US House of Representatives passed the fraudulently titled “Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023.” It’s not yet law, pending Senate passage and a presidential signature, but the lopsided House vote (320 to 91) should worry all Americans, including the country’s 7.6 million Jews. In theory, the bill merely clarifies how the US … Continue reading “We’ve Already Got an ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act.’ It’s Called the First Amendment.”

I’m too young to remember the campus convulsions of the 1960s, but older friends who were there tell me that the growing campus protest movement against US support for Israel’s war in Palestine bears a striking resemblance to those days. I happen to support that movement’s goals, at least to the extent of wanting to … Continue reading “Campus Protests: The Kids May Not Be Alright, But They Are (Mostly) Right”

“Absent a directed, sustained, and articulated policy of no daylight between the United States and Israel,” Matthew Continetti wrote in the Washington Free Beacon on March 29, “the rift between America and her ally will widen and the world will grow more dangerous.” Proof that Continetti had things completely bass-ackward arrived on April 1, when Israeli aircraft … Continue reading “US Foreign Policy: ‘No Daylight’ Is Where Peace Dies In Darkness”

On February 16, the Russian Federation’s Federal Penitentiary Service announced the death in custody of a prisoner at its FKU IK3 “corrective colony.” The prisoner – one Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny – “fell ill after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” according to an official statement, and could not be resuscitated by medical staff. US president … Continue reading “Russia: Why Navalny, and What’s Next?”

By way of marking the western date for Christendom’s most holy celebration, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced  that “at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq.” So much for visions of sugar-plums, etc.  Instead of … Continue reading “War and ‘Democracy’: An Appeal to Self-Interest”

Sherman’s march to the sea, by F.O.C. Darley. Public Domain. “You people of the South don’t know what you are doing,” William Tecumseh Sherman told David F. Boyd in 1860. “This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You … Continue reading “This Christmas, Remember That War Is Hell”

“US officials,” Nahal Toosi, Lara Seligman, and Paul McLeary write at Politico, “are worried that violence in Israel’s neighbors will spiral into a larger regional war.” More specifically, they’re worried that such a war will result in US casualties among US troops across the region. For some reason, though, the Biden administration is flooding the region … Continue reading “When It’s Always The Beginning of History, It Can Never Be the End of War”