Author: Clifford D. May

  • May: Faithless

    May: Faithless

    Religious freedom, the most basic liberty, is under attack in more and more lands “I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.” So said President George W. Bush in 2004. Leave for another day the debate over whether such a belief is more hopeful than realistic. What we…


  • May: Why Boeing and Airbus deals with Iran shouldn’t fly

    May: Why Boeing and Airbus deals with Iran shouldn’t fly

    Aiding and abetting terrorists is bad business Sometimes international law is ambiguous. Sometimes not. When it comes to murdering civilians and using chemical weapons to get the job done, there are no grey areas, no fuzzy lines, no mitigating circumstances. Such practices are clearly and specifically prohibited under what’s called “the law of war.” That…


  • May: The end of Turkey’s democratic experiment

    May: The end of Turkey’s democratic experiment

    Erdogan now has the power to make his country more authoritarian and more Islamist On the grounds of the Turkish Embassy facing Massachusetts Ave. in Washington, D.C. is a statue of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, father of the Republic of Turkey, the nation-state he built from the rubble of the defeated Ottoman Empire and Islamic caliphate.…


  • May: A mission accomplished in Syria

    May: A mission accomplished in Syria

    President Trump is re-establishing the power of deterrence If you’re still unsure about whether President Trump did the right thing when he launched 59 cruise missiles at Syria’s Shayrat airbase last week, consider the alternative. He knew that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad had yet again used chemical weapons to murder Syrian civilians, women and children…


  • May: Letting freedom fade

    May: Letting freedom fade

    Surrendering liberty has become the Western response to Islamist threats Whatever happened to Charlie Hebdo? For years, the French satirical magazine threw spit balls at polite society. Its writers and cartoonists particularly delighted in ridiculing religions and pieties. Some people found that amusing and thought-provoking. Others were appalled and offended. Such is life in a…


  • May: Obama’s ‘boy wonder’

    May: Obama’s ‘boy wonder’

    How Ben Rhodes helped the president manipulate the media deceive the public Among the most serious charges that President Obama and his supporters have leveled against President Bush and Vice President Cheney: They “cherry-picked intelligence.” The phrase suggests that, while in office, they sorted through the information provided by America’s spy agencies, selecting the tidbits…


  • May: How much ruin is there in a nation?

    May: How much ruin is there in a nation?

    To fix what’s broken in America requires some knowledge of what has worked in the past People think early European immigrants to America were seeking religious freedom. In fact, they sought escape from religious persecution. Not quite the same thing. The policy not to molest or hinder those practicing even what were seen as false…


  • May: The Mr. Rogers Doctrine

    May: The Mr. Rogers Doctrine

    Obama wants Saudi Arabia and Iran to ‘share the neighborhood’ Barack Obama last week visited Saudi Arabia, an unusual nation with which the United States has had a relationship that can be accurately characterized as both strategic and strange – and one that is now severely strained. To understand how we got to this juncture…


  • May: Can America change course?

    May: Can America change course?

    The next president needs a new approach to national security. That may be easier said than done. As you watch the circus that is the 2016 presidential campaign, which candidate strikes you as having a coherent vision of national security for the post-Obama era? Who has told you what he (or she) will do about…


  • May: Obama’s dollar deal

    May: Obama’s dollar deal

    The president wants to grant Iran’s theocrats another big concession President Obama’s critics charge that he’s never developed a strategy to defeat terrorism, the weapon of choice for those waging what they call a global jihad. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist whose ear Mr. Obama most likes to bend, says that’s wrong — that the…


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