“30 seconds over Syria.”
The revenge of the Obamanauts. Welp. That didn’t take long. Late in February, little more than a month into the Biden presidency—or, perhaps more accurately, the Obama restoration—the Pentagon carried out airstrikes on what it alleged were Iranian proxies active…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Enforcing Orthodoxy
To censor is an act of deprivation, a taking away. To enforce an intolerant orthodoxy is an act of imposition. The two cannot be understood separately from one another. YouTube’s decision to remove a Consortium NewsCN Live! segment on Feb. 24 formidably takes its…
“The China choice.”
Between reason and paranoia. News arrived yesterday that the U.S. Navy dispatched a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Curtis Wilbur, on one of those “freedom of navigation” sails through the Taiwan Strait. The Wilbur’s home port is Yokosuka, a harbor and shipyard south of…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Diplomacy of No Diplomacy
We now watch as Biden and his foreign policy people effectively allow Israel to dictate the conditions under which the president can fulfill his campaign promise on Iran. A return to diplomacy: Let us hold this thought up to the light….
“Sanctions and drift.”
America’s alienating addiction. Trans–Atlantic drift—the creeping alienation of Americans and Europeans—is nothing new. Certainly it predates Trump—let us be clear on this straightaway. Depending on how one counts, this problem extends back to the mid–Cold War decades, when the Continent…
Biden is Already Breaking Promises
Tony Blinken will be secretary of state with the élan and faux sophistication the nakedly bankrupt foreign policy requires if the U.S. pantomime is to be sustained another four years. It was inevitable that President Joe Biden would betray numerous…
“On social media: A podcast.”
The censorship regime and its discontents. In an exchange this evening, Scrum founding editors Marshall Auerback, Patrick Lawrence, and James W. Carden discuss Marshall’s latest piece, “Social media’s reckoning,” written in response to Silicon Valley’s extraordinary speech crackdown after the events on Capitol Hill…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: US Meddling in Hong Kong
An honorable democracy movement that held its head high for many decades now falls to Beijing’s heavy hand after U.S. meddling. Midway in a week of shocking news, I awakened last Wednesday to a piece in Asia Sentinel that made my heart…
“The Assange ruling.”
This will not end well, regrettably. There is relief and surprise in London today, and everywhere else the world over where those of humane and principled sentiment have gathered in behalf of Julian Assange these past many months. There is…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Missing Link with Europe
While the Continent welcomed the Cold War’s end, America — which would be utterly lost without an enemy — never has. President Joe Biden at last got his chance to “sit at the head of the table” when he addressed (virtually, of…