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* Judith Bergman: National Security Crisis: Russia's and China's Nuclear Threats
* Daniel Greenfield: Biden Takes Blind Sheikh's Terror Group Off Terror List


** National Security Crisis: Russia's and China's Nuclear Threats ([link removed])
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by Judith Bergman • May 25, 2022 at 5:00 am
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* Russia has not only been modernizing its nuclear triad; it has also been developing new types of nuclear systems....
* Russia, of course, is not the only nuclear threat to the United States. China has accelerated its nuclear buildup to the extent that Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee last April, "For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low."
* The Minuteman III ICBMs are badly in need of modernization -- they were built in the 1970s and were originally intended to last for just 10 years. The development of a next-generation ICBM, known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) has been decided, but the process has proven slow and the Air Force only expects the GBSD to begin replacing Minuteman III in 2029. According to General John Hyten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the GBSD system will not achieve initial operational capability until 2030, or full operational capability until 2035.
* "It's going to take us 10 to 15 years to modernize 400 [ICBM] silos that already exist. China is basically building almost that many overnight." — General John Hyten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Defense Magazine, regarding the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, September 13, 2021.
* The Minuteman III has grave structural problems stemming from the fact that "the missile itself is 51 years old," but the launch capsules and other support facilities are "58 years old." — Col. Erik Quigley, director of the Minuteman III systems directorate, Air Force Magazine, June 14 2021.
* In the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, the Trump administration decided that a new Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (known as the SLCM-N).... needed to be added to the US nuclear arsenal to provide the US with "a needed non-strategic regional presence" that would address "the increasing need for flexible and low-yield options." The Biden administration, however, removed it from the FY2023 budget, while several generals have disagreed with that decision, arguing that it is needed against Russia and China.
* "The Trump Administration proposed the SLCM-N in 2018. Message to Mr. Putin: If you drop a nuke on NATO soil, the alliance has the will and ability to respond in kind. This reduces the risk Mr. Putin will use a nuke," the WSJ wrote in April. "The Trump Administration said the U.S. might reconsider the SLCM-N if 'Russia returns to compliance with its arms control obligations, reduces its non-strategic nuclear arsenal, and corrects its other destabilizing behaviors.' How's that working out? Now Mr. Biden is surrendering this leverage—probably to placate progressives who are opposed to nuclear weapons as an article of faith." — Wall Street Journal editorial, April 20, 2022.

Russia has not only been modernizing its nuclear triad; it has also been developing new types of nuclear systems. Pictured: Mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers at a military parade in Moscow, Russia, on June 24, 2020. (Photo by Sergey Pyatakov - Host Photo Agency via Getty Images )

Russia's war on Ukraine has brought renewed attention to Russia's nuclear arsenal and the risk of nuclear war, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his country's nuclear forces on high alert shortly after invading Ukraine on February 24. Close to half of Americans are very concerned that Russia would directly target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and an additional 3 in 10 are somewhat concerned about that, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Russia has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons -- 6,255 warheads, compared to the United States' 5550 warheads -- according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 2021 yearbook. Russia has also been modernizing its huge nuclear arsenal for at least two decades, a process likely to conclude this decade.

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** Biden Takes Blind Sheikh's Terror Group Off Terror List ([link removed])
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by Daniel Greenfield • May 25, 2022 at 4:00 am
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l/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gatestoneinstitute.org%2F18554%2Fgamaat-islamiya-terror-list&pubid=ra-52f7af5809191749&ct=1&title=Biden+Takes+Blind+Sheikh%27s+Terror+Group+Off+Terror+List [link removed]
* The State Department is not removing Gamaat Islamiya from the terror list because it is defunct. Just the opposite. It's being removed from the terror list because the Biden administration expects it to be active again. And wants to be able to provide support for it.
* "Bin Laden will become a symbol of resistance to occupation," Tarek Al-Zumar ranted after the Al Qaeda leader's death. "The U.S. killing of bin Laden will undoubtedly galvanize reaction and retaliation attempts."
* This is what Biden's decision to remove Gamaat Islamiya from the terror list is whitewashing.
* Gamaat Islamiya is not defunct. It has longstanding ties to Al Qaeda and now ISIS, even while its political arm seeks power by copying the Muslim Brotherhood's political strategy.
* The Biden administration wants another Arab Spring in Egypt and it hopes that Al-Zumar and other Gamaat Islamiya Jihadists will help restore its Islamist allies to power. It's embracing Tarek Al-Zumar, the author of such key Jihadist tracts as, "Our Struggle" and "Bonds of Jihad" to pave the way for supporting his new Jihad.
* And above all else, Biden has once again betrayed America.

In the early 1990's, the Egyptian Jihadist group Gamaat Islamiya bombed New York's World Trade Center and plotted to bomb the Statue of Liberty and a range of targets all across the city. The Biden administration has now announced that it's taking Gamaat Islamiya off the terror list. The State Department is not removing the group because it is defunct. Just the opposite. It's being removed from the terror list because the Biden administration expects it to be active again. Pictured: Police comb through the site of the Gamaat Islamiya car bomb that exploded in a parking garage underneath the World Trade Center the previous day, February 26 1993, killing six people. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

In 1993, the United States finally arrested Omar Abdel-Rahman, popularly known as the Blind Sheikh, the religious leader of the Egyptian Jihadist group Gamaat Islamiya, after three years during which his followers bombed the World Trade Center and plotted to bomb the Statue of Liberty and a range of targets all across New York City.

The Biden administration has now announced that it's taking Gamaat Islamiya off the terror list.

During the original Jihad in New York, an undercover informant described meetings to case potential targets in which a member of the terror cell told him, "Stand here, brother, let me take your picture with the Statue of Liberty because it will not exist anymore" and "Brother, let me take your picture with the World Trade Center because it will not be here anymore".

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