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In this mailing:
* Lawrence A. Franklin: China: Military Experts Urge Beijing to Prepare for War with U.S.
* Majid Rafizadeh: The Mullahs and Hezbollah, Lords of Drug Smuggling


** China: Military Experts Urge Beijing to Prepare for War with U.S. ([link removed])
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • August 12, 2020 at 5:00 am
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email/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gatestoneinstitute.org%2F16336%2Fchina-military-war&pubid=ra-52f7af5809191749&ct=1&title=China%3A+Military+Experts+Urge+Beijing+to+Prepare+for+War+with+U.S. [link removed]
* Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S. presidential election, speculating that "stirring up external frictions, especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for his re-election campaign."
* The leaders of China's Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by anyone, including the U.S., to stop China's grab of Hong Kong this year -- 37 years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green light to keep on grabbing.
* China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a "fishing fleet" of 250 vessels showing up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25 through August 2.
* If China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.

Chinese military expert Wang Yunfei is urging Beijing to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. Wang singled out the Scarborough Shoal in the Paracel Island Chain as the most likely initial piece of real estate that the U.S. might seek to seize. Pictured: An aerial view of part of the disputed Paracel Islands chain in the South China Sea, which China claims are part of its Hainan Province. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese military journalists are publicly urging the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. One expert at Zhejiang University's National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Shi Xiaoqin, claims that the U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke China. They also suggest the regime reinforce Chinese installations on reefs claimed by China.

If this analysis gains traction by Chinese political and military leaders, U.S. military commanders in the South China Sea should plan for the possibility that China might initiate hostilities in keeping with its doctrine of preemptive retaliation, a seeming attempt falsely to claim "self-defense."

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** The Mullahs and Hezbollah, Lords of Drug Smuggling ([link removed])
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by Majid Rafizadeh • August 12, 2020 at 4:00 am
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gatestoneinstitute.org%2F16332%2Firan-hezbollah-drug-smuggling&pubid=ra-52f7af5809191749&ct=1&title=The+Mullahs+and+Hezbollah%2C+Lords+of+Drug+Smuggling [link removed]
* "Presumed to have been issued by Iranian religious leaders, the fatwa reportedly read: We are making drugs for Satan — America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, we will kill them with drugs." — Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God, Hurst Publishers, 2013.
* According to an FBI report, declassified in November 2008, "Hizbullah's spiritual leader... has stated that narcotics trafficking is morally acceptable if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of the war against the enemies of Islam."
* The international community, the United Nations, and specifically its Office on Crimes and Drugs, remain totally silent on Hezbollah and Iran's large-scale drug trafficking across the world.

When governments or organizations that operate under the legitimacy of a state engage in smuggling drugs, the negative consequences can be devastating for other nations. The Iranian regime and its proxy Hezbollah appear to be increasing their efforts to smuggle illicit drugs to other countries, particularly in the West.

A Lebanese man, Ghassan Diab, was recently extradited from Cyprus to the United States for charges linked to laundering drug money for the militant group Hezbollah. According to the US Department of Justice, Diab is alleged "to have conspired to engage in, and actually engaged, in the laundering of drug proceeds through the use of the black market peso exchange in support of Hezbollah's global criminal-support network".

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