Ignoring the nearly 200,000 deaths from the China virus, Conrad Black wrote, “Trump Has Had a Historically Great First Term,” for a website called “American Greatness.” This treatment of President Trump’s first term comes from someone pardoned by Trump for financial fraud. (The case for a pardon was supported by individuals as diverse as Henry Kissinger and Rush Limbaugh). Black wrote a pro-Trump book, Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other.

Despite several domestic and foreign policy successes, including breakthroughs for Middle East peace, Trump’s first term has been tainted. Some setbacks can be blamed on the Deep State, the Democrats and communist revolutionaries in the streets. But that still leaves the China virus. By any objective measure, the China virus is more deadly than the Islamic terrorists responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the post-9/11 anthrax attacks. 

One can argue this is China’s fault. But the China virus occurred on Trump’s watch. It is a major blot on his record. He will forever be remembered as the president in office when the China virus was unleashed on America and the world. 

At the same time, one can argue that his 2020 presidential opponent Joe Biden has no clue as to what’s going on, and that Trump, despite his faults, is better than the alternative. But claiming Trump has had a “great” first term on a website on “American greatness” is just wrong. 

Black also claims that Richard Nixon, who was forced from office in scandal, had a great first term, for “ending the constant recent anti-war rioting, skyjackings, and assassinations he inherited, withdrawing the United States from Vietnam while conserving a non-Communist government in Saigon, opening relations with China, signing the greatest arms control agreement in world history, starting the de-escalation of the Cold War, ending segregation and the draft, founding the Environmental Protection Agency, and beginning a Middle Eastern peace process.”

I’m not sure what he’s claiming in regard to peace in the Middle East. Israel has fought its enemies and won, but the nation’s survival is still at risk from various Islamic regimes in the region, several backed by Russia. Here, Trump deserves credit for withdrawing thenU.S. from the Syrian quagmire and facilitating normal diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.

Black praises Nixon for “opening relations with China” when that deal, arranged by Henry Kissinger, has clearly backfired. And “withdrawing the United States from Vietnam” was a precursor to the takeover of South Vietnam by the Communists, producing hundreds of thousands of boat people and the genocide in Cambodia.  Nixon’s EPA became a weapon in the hands of radical environmentalists. Trump has wisely cut back on the EPA’s heavy-handed regulation of American business.

Regarding Trump, Black says he “has recognized and gained international support for containment of the geopolitical challenge of China,” but that seems to be a little too late. Trump would have been better-advised to mount a bioterrorism defense against China before the China virus was unleashed. Instead, Trump saw the competition with China as economic and financial in nature. That was part of the China challenge, but now we know it was not the main part. We are likely to discover that China used research funded by the National Institutes of Health to manufacture COVID-19. This is a scandal involving the Medical Deep State.  

To make matters worse, in the midst of this pandemic, he tells Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that he played down the deadly nature of the virus. 

When we look back on 2020, we will acknowledge, as we have after so many disasters, that the federal government was not prepared. Part of the reason was that the CIA and FBI were spending their time trying to destabilize the Trump presidency instead of preparing for war from China. These agencies are mostly useless for defending America from its foreign and domestic enemies. They did not understand Chinese communism. 

Trump would be wise to advocate their abolition and replace them with a new and accountable structure. Their schemes almost cost him his presidency, and they can be assumed to be busy right now trying to elect Joe Biden. 

Don’t forget that, prior to September 11, 2001, the Islamic al Qaeda terrorists were training on American soil, even using American planes to practice their attacks. The CIA and FBI didn’t notice until it was too late and nearly 3,000 people were dead.  The FBI still can’t admit that al Qaeda terrorists stole anthrax from a U.S. lab and sent it through the mail, killing five people, infecting others, and destroying the U.S. economy. The FBI blamed those attacks on a dead American scientist. 

Nineteen years later, we still have little confidence in the CIA and FBI. And the cost of the American intelligence establishment has skyrocketed to $60 billion a year. But don’t worry. Under Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, a member of the gay Log Cabin Republicans, the agencies grew more friendly with the LGBTQ “community.” I still can’t see how any of this helps protect America from our enemies.

When the intelligence agencies fail us, the victims of 9/11 and the China virus pay the price. In the case of 9/11, our military was deployed to destroy the terrorist enemy in Afghanistan, and our soldiers are still there, 19 years later. Meanwhile, one head of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was killed, to be replaced by another, the Egyptian Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is hiding somewhere, probably in Afghanistan, and perhaps being protected by the Russians. 

Thousands of American soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tens of thousands have been wounded, fighting for Muslims that don’t want our help. The cost is several trillion dollars. 

We have an intelligence establishment that fails us, and when we are faced with yet another disaster on American soil, our soldiers are called upon to fight the enemy. They are still in Afghanistan 19 years later. 

As we struggle to recover from the China virus, and the deaths keep accumulating, China seems to have the upper hand economically and even militarily. The very expensive military-industrial complex won’t save us, either. In fact, their policy of sending more of our soldiers overseas makes no sense at all.

Americans are sick of being betrayed. We are tired of our soldiers fighting abroad and coming home in caskets or as wounded warriors.

The first step in correcting the situation is recognizing the truth about what is happening to us. Our intelligence agencies are not serving the interests of the American people. Our nation is in dire peril.

*Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org