Secure Freedom Minute

Over the weekend, Chinese military personnel unfurled the PRC flag on an uninhabited Pacific reef known as Sandy Cay, then claimed to have “maritime control” and “sovereign jurisdiction” over the tiny sandbar near a key Philippino outpost. 
This isn’t the first time the CCP has laid claim to such South China Sea features, some of which became bastions for power-projection and controlling their undersea resources.
This is, however, China’s first such incursion on Donald Trump’s watch. If there’s no push-back, there will surely be additional, and more fraught, acts of Chinese aggression in the region.
Fortunately, the United States can penalize the Chinese Communists without force by ending a May 2013 Memorandum of Understanding that gave their companies uniquely privileged access to U.S. capital markets.
This is a policy course-correction that needs to be taken anyway. Do it now.

A jihadist attack against mostly Indian tourists in Kashmir has precipitated a crisis that may see two nuclear-armed states go to war again. If that happens, it may be precipitated by the weaponization of water.
India holds Pakistan responsible for this act of terrorism and responded by suspending a treaty governing the Indus River’s waters. The Pakistanis say interfering with their access to such flows would amount to an act of war. 
Ironically, Pakistan’s patron and enabler, Communist China, initially denounced India’s water warfare. That’s particularly rich since the Chinese have diverted water from Tibet for years, creating drought conditions downstream in Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. 
Beijing is now threatening India’s access to river flows, as well. 
If shared use of transnational water sources in South Asia is not restored quickly, war – and perhaps a nuclear one – may well ensue.
This is Frank Gaffney.

Has Egypt switched sides? For over five decades, successive Egyptian governments have received enormous amounts of U.S. foreign aid and military assistance – essentially rewards for making peace with Israel and for remaining generally aligned with American regional policy and interests.
We had a taste of what could happen to this arrangement when Barack Obama encouraged the toppling of longtime ally, President Hosni Mubarak, and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Fortunately, the Brothers’ regime was overthrown before it fully imposed Sharia law and threw in with Israel’s enemies. 
Now, Egypt’s government is violating the peace treaty with Israel by massing forces in the Sinai. It’s recently conducted air and naval exercises respectively with China and Russia and improved relations with Iran. And it has released top Muslim Brothers from jail. 
These manifest the strategic equivalent of tectonic shifts. Brace for impact. 
This is Frank Gaffney.

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke yesterday about “trade, Iran, etc.” and are “on the same side on every issue.” Hopefully, that means no further extensions of the U.S.-Iranian disarmament negotiations past this weekend. 
Otherwise, there’s a real risk the mullahs will succeed in foreclosing the only outcome with a chance of precluding them from acquiring and probably using nuclear weapons – namely, their forcible removal from power.
More time invites the regime in Tehran to declare it’s acquired such weapons, transforming the calculus of contending with the threat it poses.
Alternatively, more time allows Iran’s Chinese and Russian allies, fresh from military exercises with an increasingly problematic Egypt – to increase their regional presence, arguably making an attack on the ayatollahs too risky.
Therefore, Trump and Netanyahu must stop the Iranian nuclear threat, without further delay.                                       
This is Frank Gaffney.  

Pete Hegseth is a change agent in the Defense Department. Like most institutions, especially highly bureaucratic and hierarchical ones, the Pentagon is inherently resistant to major course-corrections. And few have been more dramatic than those being undertaken by the Trump administration after four years in which the military was subjected to unprecedented, highly politicized and debilitating “fundamental transformation.”
The new Secretary of Defense has been tasked with restoring the warrior ethos to our armed services. That means eliminating the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion agenda that made promotions to leadership a function not of warfighting skills and achievement, but conformity with and championing of what amounts to cultural Marxism. 
At a moment when the prospect of a shooting war looms large, Pete Hegseth needs our support in clearing the Pentagon’s decks for action, not encouragement to those resisting the changes the times require. 
This is Frank Gaffney.

The passing of Pope Francis prompts an examination of his legacy and what it portends for Catholics and other Christians. An illustrative facet was his diplomacy with the Chinese Communist Party.
Since 2018, Francis has approved four deals with Xi Jinping’s regime. While they remain secret, their effects have been unmistakable. In short, they legitimized the CCP’s increasing domination, mutation and in some cases destruction of Catholic churches, icons, texts and doctrine. 
As part of their “Sinicization” of Christianity, the Chinese Communists have also increasingly made Xi the object of worship, appointed his bishops, barred children from attending mass, and harshly punished those who seek to continue practicing their faith in so-called underground churches.
Typical of Frances’ political proclivities, his legacy in China will be one of a radical leftist makeover of the Catholic Church at the expense of tradition and religious freedom. 
This is Frank Gaffney.