Human Rights

Kasparov argues in Winter is Coming that Putin and his kleptocratic government poses serious risks for the world’s democracies as the oligarchs maintain their wealth and power by any means necessary.

A policy of patient preparedness—bracing for the worst, getting through another day, another year, another term without another war—is how U.S. presidents have measured success in Korea for 63 years. It’s a low bar, to be sure. But given what Korean War II would look like, it’s a worthy goal.

The rueful lessons of the Vietnam War, especially their roots in the hubris of modern liberalism, remain largely forgotten.

Harry Wu fought the good fight and finished his leg of the race. The rest of us who believe in human freedom need to take the baton he carried.

For America today to truly be America, it must be the world’s leading proponent of human rights at home and abroad. It is when it answers this great national vocation (first glimpsed by the nation’s founders) that America most fully gives expression to what, in seed, it has been from the very start.

It is as scandalous as it is shocking. It is much more than dereliction of duty. We ought to be soul-crushingly ashamed.