ANTHONY JOSHUA DETHRONED: HANDED A BROKEN EYE SOCKET AS A PARTING GIFT.

ICHEOKU says he reigned as WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion for some years until Ukrainian boxing great, Oleksandr Usyk, said not anymore by defeating him in a twelve rounds championship fight which the three judges scored all for the new champion, 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113. It was predicted by many boxing analysts that Oleksandr Usyk will not be an easy walkover for Anthony Joshua and although Anthony Joshua gave it his all, but his best wasn't good enough to retain his high perch on the heavyweight boxing pedestal. 

Dethroned, Anthony Joshua will now remain a former heavyweight boxing champion until he is  regains his composure and reclaim the lost titles. With the defeat, has also now gone his planned bout with Tyson Fury, who most likely would have also defeated him. It was a good fight anyway, both men haven gone mano-mano right through to the last round; and the 67,000 fans inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium England concur, admitted most of those English fans would have been happier with a different outcome.

As Anthony Joshua goes to hospital to checkout his broken eye socket, he will have many decisions to make including whether to invoke the rematch clause of the fight and give it another go at Olek or just to hang up his gloves for good. With this defeat, who knows how Tyson Fury and Deontay Wielder's rescheduled fight for October 9th 2021 will break, and whether the loser will have to fight Anthony Joshua and the winner fight Oleksandr Usyk and in that way, the hierarchical perching order of heavyweight boxers can be established. ICHEOKU says congratulations to Oleksandr Usyk, the new WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion.

CONOR MCGREGOR OR DR ANTHONY FAUCI: WHO PITCHED IT WORSE?

ICHEOKU says although baseball is not their strongest suit but they could have done at least slightly better than they did. Dr Anthony Fauci threw a horrible pitch and Conor McGregor apparently outdid him, throwing an even worse pitch which went off the home plate farther.

It was during the match between Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins at Wrigley Field Chicago. Recall that the coronavirus doctor pitched a ball  in July 2020 at National Park Washington DC in the season's opener between New York Yankees and Washington Nationals. 

Anyway, both men are authorities in their areas of specializations, with the doctor being the oracle of infectious diseases and the UFC badass being the one of the fiercest competitor in the blood and guts mixed martial arts sport. FYI: the video is even more hilarious, so Youtube it and see for yourself. 

NANCY PELOSI ELEVATES HER HYPOCRISY: WANTS PRESIDENT'S POWERS CURTAILED.

ICHEOKU says she is the undisputed leader of the Democratic Party's far left liberal wing and she suffers no fools about it, projecting that undiluted and near absolute authority which she wields with ruthless efficiency. She says it and so shall it be, and it does not matter for her that she serves others what she will not accept nor take. 

As usual, what is good for Nancy is never good for others, and as the undisputed, acclaimed mother superior, who makes the rules and decides who gets what, only Nancy can keep her powers but no one else. She is the George Orwell's Animal Farm's personification of "some animals are more equal than others" as she is particularly privileged and cannot share the same platform of expectations with we lesser mortals, including the president. She is again driving this point home, that everyone must understand it clearly, that there is one set of rules for Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi and another set of rules for everyone else. 

Just a few days after her interview on CNN alongside her British counterpart, the Speaker of House of Commons, Lord Lindsay Hoyle, information has come out that her controlled House of Representatives is working on a bill to reduce, minimize, curtail and diminish the powers of the office of the president. But in the said CNN interview, when she was asked about her own powers as a political speaker and whether she will ever think about reducing the powers of her office and become an impartial speaker like her British counterpart, she flatly said absolutely no.  

She said that there is no chance in hell she will ever contemplate that, especially not now when a woman is the speaker of the House of Representatives, questioning why it should be now that a woman is the speaker that such a thing is being brought up. Paraphrasing her, she said that she enjoys her powers as an executive speaker with overwhelming powers, and that she will continue to use it to try and fix many inequities in America, improve the odds of American women and women everywhere, towards forging a better American society where men and "white supremacy" will no longer lord it over everyone. She also blamed "white supremacy" for everything that is wrong in America. 

Her British minion, Lord Lindsay Hoyle, effortlessly nodded in agreement to every syllable that came out of her mouth. The House of Commons fella painted a picture a puppy beside its owner and was just lapping it up, casting a shadow of a specimen of the conquered Western male whose testicles have been locked away in a testicular lockbox by feminist crusaders. He rarely made eye contacts with Madam Speaker Nancy and on the few brief occasions he stole them, just to gauge her countenance that he has not gone off the rails.  He was a completely emasculated male and it showed. 

Anyway, the Brit is not the reason for this article, so we must forget the little digression and steer back on the road by moving on to Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi effort to diminish the powers of the presidency but guarding the powers of the Speaker so jealously. Why does she always protect her interests with every fibre of being in her, but readily trounces other people's interests. If she is the president will she ever contemplate curtailing the powers of the office? Of all the reasons she and the California congressman Adams Schiff are using as reason to reduce the powers of the president, does she think that some other people cannot make similar arguments for why the powers of the Speaker should be reduced? 

But no, the rule is always different for Madam Speaker than for others, including the president of the United States of America. She is always quick to remind everyone that she is the peoples speaker and was sent to Washington DC by the people as their representative; and you ask yourself, is the president not also sent by the people to Washington DC and who exactly does the president represent other than the people of America. But for Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it is only her being sent to Washington DC that really matters and in the same vein, only her representation of the people in Washington DC counts. Is she saying that she has never ever abused the office of the Speaker and that everything she has ever done could pass muster. 

Is she saying that were a man the Speaker, may be such power reduction could have been considered? Why the many impeachments and why use impeachments as a political weapon or does that not sound as a reason to curb some powers of the office which she currently occupies. If she has her way now with limiting the president's powers, how about the next speaker? So, Trump caused it, but how about the next future presidents and why must their powers be impacted because of whatever she accused Trump of doing that warranted her action. But it is Crazy Nancy and some of her actions are spontaneous and emotions tinged. 

It was the same way she did her hair during the coronavirus pandemic when the entire nation was in a lockdown with an acute lockdown imposed on San Francisco but that did not deter her from getting her hair done because what Nancy wants Nancy gets. Meanwhile millions of women in America as well as their esthetically conscious male counterparts went without visiting their hair dressers for nearly one year; but not Nancy, because she is mother superior and must always have her way. Then, her impeachment shenanigans and her repeated false claim that President Donald John Trump is mentally incapacitated, begging the 25th Amendment be invoked to remove him from office. 

The same Speaker Nancy Pelosi has largely remained silent ever since Joe Biden came into office and steadily manifesting a clear case of sputtering neurons which are not firing on their best cylinders. It would seem that the 25th Amendment has now become the 'N-word" and suddenly prohibited? Speaker Nancy Pelosi who always gets what she wants has now become more emboldened to go after the powers of the president. But why does she want a diminished presidency or does she intend to totally and completely subsume the presidency and have an absolute power over the office. Her seeking to diminish the powers of the president but not that of the speaker is a self serving power move, which might end up making the office of the presidency merely ceremonial. But is this what the founding fathers intended and is anyone listening? 

DANIEL FOOTE: A MAN OF HONOR, CANDOR, CONSCIENCE AND GREAT COURAGE.

"I will not be associated with the United States' inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants back to a collapsed state which cannot support the infusion of the returning migrants." - Daniel Foote.

ICHEOKU says with those words of great audacity, the now former United States Envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, resigned his appointment, rather than be left marooned in Port-au-Prince, trying to explain the inexplicable hostile action of his government to his host nation. He should be commended and applauded for the uncommon courage he displayed by calling out his government over the inhuman and harsh treatment of those Haitian immigrants at Del Rio. His action is exemplary to say the least, when viewed against the background of the unbridled sycophancy of many bureaucrats and political appointees who would rather stay on the invite list silenced, than become a pariah of any administration. 

It is only an unconscionable, acute partisan, who will not see and will refuse to see the picture of America's inhumanity painted with that display at Del Rio. The other time it was Iraqi's prisoners in Abu Ghraib in orange jumpsuits and now women and children Haitian immigrants that mounted horses were set at. It is about image and America cannot be going about preaching good behavior for countries around the world when it lacks of it, or at least, the appearance of it. How does America expect her diplomats around the world to torture themselves trying to explain to their host countries, the images coming out from Del Rio of innocent black Haitian immigrants being attacked by giant horses. If Abu Ghraib was a mistake, how about Del Rio and how many more of such unpleasant images does anyone require to see before concluding it is now a pattern of behavior.

The issue is not whether any idea was ignored or any situation was mischaracterized; no, the issue is the damage caused to America's image by what was captured on video, mounted horses charging at and stampeding Haitian immigrants back into the river at Del Rio entry point. The White House, in desperation to damage control the incident and mitigate the horrendous scene, is now attacking the ambassador for not discussing his immigration concerns instead of resigning. But how can any conscionable diplomat discuss what the whole world saw, played out in Del Rio? It is obviously their attempt to claw at any straw because they have no answer or response to either what happened and why the diploma resigned. But try as they may, they can never succeed in demonizing the career diplomat for putting his conscience over and above partisan slobbering. 

Which ample opportunity to discuss what is the White House talking about anyway when the issue was so instantaneous; and that mounted horses were used by Joe Biden immigration enforcers against Haitian immigrants when no other immigrants from other countries have ever been subjected to such a harsh and cruel treatment. The ambassador's resignation was not premised on America's immigration crisis under Joe Biden getting worse; no, it was solely on the horse attack of Haitian immigrants. So, what exactly does the White House mean by protesting that the ambassador had ample opportunity to discuss his immigration concerns instead of resigning. But even speaking to that, is the palpable situation in Haiti not to everyone's general knowledge? 

It is pathetic that the White House, instead of taking full responsibility for the Del Rio scandal by demanding Immigration Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' resignation, is here piling up on a man who summoned the courage to do the right thing. The ambassador resigned in protest for what has now become another sad chapter in America's storied history of heartlessness. It is a huge stain on the Joe Biden's administration and marks his disposition towards black people, despite lying to them that he has changed his racists ways, which made black people vote for him during  last year's presidential election. 

Is using mounted horses to intimidate, harass and scare unarmed women and children who are merely seeking a better life in America back into the river a good idea? It is a shame that Joe Biden has gone this too far to register his dislike against black people because someone acting under the color of authority and his agency, authorized and sanctioned those mounted horses being used to charge against those Haitian immigrants. 

Meanwhile when Haiti asked for America to send them some troops to help them secure their country following the assassination of their president Jovenel Moise, the White House refused. When Haiti was devastated in a huge earthquake ten years ago which killed almost 500,000 Haitians and destroyed their country and economy, where was the Marshal Plan for Haiti by the American government? When Haiti was recently hit by another devastating earthquake few months ago which killed thousands and destroyed more stuff, what level of aid did Washington DC send to Port-au-Prince? 

These were ideas that were probably ignored, admitted that not all ideas are good ideas but building Haiti back better would surely have been one heck of a very good idea, which would have helped Haiti long before and prevented the people from being forced out of their country in search of salvation. So, yes, it is inhumane for the American government under Joe Biden, a known racist, to still take additional step to compound the problems of a people already traumatized beyond reason, by not only stopping them at the southern border but also doing so  in a manner that is reminiscent of slavery and Jim Crow era. 

American people should in unison commend Emeritus diplomat Daniel Foote for taking such a bold step to reject an outrageous and outlandish obvious racist attack on black Haitians. No other immigrants have ever been treated so harshly and his standing up against it is the stuff uncommon courage is made of. We should pray to have more Daniel Footes within the American diplomatic community, so that every American diplomat will have the courage just like like him and speak up whenever the situation calls for it, regardless of the consequences. 

Showing such a backbone and not being an accomplice to inhumane treatment of people from countries they are sent to represent America in, will help improve America's image and resonate the message of what America stands for. It took courage and great audacity to stand so tall and speak truth to power, especially to a government under whose behest he served, until the Del Rio scandal happened. Kudos to Ambassador Daniel Foote.

Joe Biden is aware that Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere has been hit in recent weeks by a presidential assassination, un-abating gang violence and major earthquakes, yet he chose to return their immigrants back in plane loads. It only shows that Joe Biden is still who he is and never really cared nor liked black people. Haitians need asylum more than the Afghanis being brought into America in plane loads. 

As Al Sharpton succinctly put it, "If you come from a nation where the president has been assassinated in the last 60 days, followed by an earthquake, followed by a hurricane, I don't know how you can more qualify for asylum than that." Daniel Foot represents what is good in America, thank you Dan for standing up for the helpless when others including Jim Clyburn are still wavering. #Evacuate100,000Haitians.

CHARGING AT HAITIAN IMMIGRANTS WITH HORSES: A RACIST TACTICAL MANEUVER.

ICHEOKU says among them were women and children and infants as young as two days old. But these pertinent facts did not deter Joe Biden as he sent his immigration agents on mounted horses to charge at Haitian immigrants simply seeking refuge in America. It is his government, his Immigration Secretary, his immigration policy and his immigration enforcement officers and the buck stopped on his desk. 

So, no amount of denial or remedial effort will take away the shame of what happened in Del Rio or absolve him from it because they are Joe Biden's immigration enforcement officers and they acted under the color of his authority and his immigration higher ups ordered those mounted horses to Del Rio. 

Joe Biden is therefore fully responsible for what took place and he did it because those Haitians are black and his long history with racists tendencies is undeniable, admitted he would rather that chapter of his life be buried in the past where they supposedly belong. If they were not black would his administration have sent mounted horses to confront those Haitians with whips and hoofs? Why were those Mexican and South America immigrants not similarly confronted? And pushing the envelope further, were those Haitians confronted in this manner because their blackness does not meet Joe's "you ain't black" benchmark. 

Imagine the outrage which would have resulted had it been that President Donald John Trump is in the White House and mounted horses charged at black Haitian immigrants. But no, it is Joe Biden and good ol' boy Joe can do no wrong, hence the tepid reaction over what happened. Immigration Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has not fallen on his sword neither has the black Jamaican-Indian point person on immigration, Kamala Harris, resigned the appointment as Immigration tsar or rather tsarina over the unfolding scandal. It is retro slavery and Jim Crow's intimidation of black people into obedience through forceful corralling by mounted horses. 

Joe Biden is doing to black people in 2021 exactly what were did to them centuries and decades ago. His government is showing no mercy nor pity to black Haitians, unlike the hospitality which it showed to lighter skinned Mexicans and South American immigrants who similarly poured into the country. Meanwhile Haitians who made it out are being summarily returned back to Haiti in plane loads.

ICHEOKU says Kamala Harris is scheming for a 2024 presidential run and therefore approaching the issue with great caution, afraid not to upset many democrats who do not like taking seriously the issue of blacks inequality and mistreatment in America. Democrats, who merely appeal to black people's sentiments only at election time, emphasizing that they should vote for them simply because they are not republicans. But how many issues militating against black people in America have been addressed by the democrats? Even Congressman James Clyburn who deceived, misled and lied to some unthinking black Americans during last year's presidential election campaign that Joe Biden is not a racist, has not been seen throwing a fit over what Joe Biden's administration is doing to black Haitians at the southern border in Del RIo. 

At least Jim Clyburn is old enough to know what Jim Crow law did to black people's psyche in America, reminiscent of their slavery experience when black people were horse whipped and horse corralled into forced obedience. Now, the same Joe Biden who he helped imposed on America by first imposing him on black people have now gone cuckoo on black Haitian immigrants and what has Jim Clyburn said about it. Recall that Jim Clyburn only got a non binding promise from Joe Biden to appoint a black female Supreme Court Justice as the bargain for black votes in 2020. A non vacant position, which might not even open up during Joe Biden's term; yet this was what Jim Clyburn based his endorsement of Joe Biden on. It says a lot about the cavalier manner with which these supposed black leaders treat and approach issues concerning black people in America. 

What crime did those black Haitian immigrants commit other than seeking a better life for themselves and their families, just like every other immigrant coming to America from around the world, especially from lighter skinned countries, including those from Southern America and Mexico. These other light skinned immigrants were allowed in their tens of thousands into America without being whipped or horse harassed. They were welcomed, fed, hydrated, given medical attention and later bused to various cities in America to "wait" the final decision on their immigration petition. But black Haitians, the treatment has to be different and harsh and inhumane. Why is the treatment meted to them different or is the color of their skin in the way and does not meet the standard color of acceptable immigrants in Joe Biden's America.

Who speaks for black people when Kamala Harris has largely remained mute. What has Jim Clyburn got to say about his lies to black people that Joe Biden loves black people, when he is practically reenacting Jim Crow at the southern border as the true custodian of that era's policies against blacks in America. Those Haitian immigrants being charged at by these mounted horses include some pregnant women, nursing mothers, little children and infants some as old as only two days. Who will protect black people in America when black leaders have literally been compromised and will not do their job, at least not any more. Imagine the good trouble which late Georgia 6th district Congressman John Lewis would have caused Joe Biden were he still alive. Is it a crime to be black or do we blame God Almighty, who in his wisdom, made some of his people black. 

It is horrific reliving the Jim Crow era experience under the Joe Biden administration. It was like a time travel back to that era watching those black Haitian immigrants being hoofed after and stared down by toothy stallions. Those Haitians are human beings too and their black lives should matter as well. They deserve to be treated with some respect and dignity. They are not anybody's slaves nor property that they should be subjected to horse corralling. Seeking asylum anywhere including in America is not a crime. They should not be treated like criminals and savages that will pollute America if allowed to come in. 

Nobody is advocating for open borders or unlimited immigration or that anybody who gets to the border should be allowed to come in or stay. No, only that there should be a one cap fits all immigration enforcement such that if Mexican and South American immigrants are cordially welcomed, so should Haitian immigrants too. No immigrants, no matter the shade of their pigmentation, should be harassed with giant horse hoofs, bellowing and snarling of teeth forcing them back into the waters of Rio Grande where they could have easily drowned. Joe Biden did it to the Haitians and since the buck stopped on his desk, he should take full responsibility for it just like he did with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. It is sad the bargain black people entered with Joe Biden just because James Clyburn made them do it. 

JOE BIDEN CHARTS A NEW DIRECTION IN HIS SPEECH AT THE UNITED NATIONS.

"Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, my fellow delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to this noble mission of this institution. It’s my honor to speak to you for the first time as president of the United States. We meet this year in a moment of intermingled with great pain and extraordinary possibility. We’ve lost so much to this devastating pandemic that continues to claim lives around the world and impact so much on our existence. We’re mourning more than 4.5 million people, people of every nation, from every background. Each death is an individual heartbreak, but our shared grief is a poignant reminder that our collective future will hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity and to act together.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the clear and urgent choice that we face here at the dawning of what must be a decisive decade for our world. A decade that will quite literally determine our futures. As a global community, we’re challenged by urgent and looming crises, and where in lie enormous opportunities if we can summon the will and resolve to seize these opportunities. Will we work together to save lives, defeat COVID-19 everywhere and take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic, for there will be another one? Or will we fail to harness the tools at our disposal as more virulent, dangerous variants take hold?

Will we meet the threat of the challenging climate we’re all feeling already ravaging every part of our world with extreme weather, or will we suffer the merciless march of ever worsening droughts and floods, more intense fires and hurricanes, longer heat waves and rising seas? Will we affirm and uphold the human dignity and human rights under which nations in common cause more than seven decades ago formed this institution? Will we apply and strengthen the core tenants of the international system, including the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as we seek to shape the emergence of new technologies and deter new threats. Or will we allow those universal principles to be trampled and twisted in the pursuit of naked political power?

In my view, how we answer these questions in this moment, whether we choose to fight for our shared future or not, will reverberate for generations yet to come. Simply put, we stand in my view at an inflection point in history. And I’m here today to share with you how the United States intends to work with partners and allies to answer these questions. And the commitment of my new administration helped lead the world toward a more peaceful, prosperous future for all people.

Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are fixing our eyes on devoting our resources of the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future. Ending this pandemic, addressing the climate crisis, managing the shifts in global power dynamics, shaping the rules of the world on vital issues like trade, cyber, and emerging technologies and facing the threat of terrorism as it stands today.

We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan. And as we close this period of relentless war, we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy, of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world, of renewing and defending democracy, proving that no matter how challenging or how complex the problems we’re going to face, government by and for the people is still the best way to deliver for all of our people.

And as the United States turns our focus to the priorities and the regions of the world, like the Indo-Pacific that are most consequential today and tomorrow, we’ll do so with our allies and partners through cooperation and multilateral institutions like the United Nations to amplify our collective strength and speed, our progress toward dealing with these global challenges. It is the fundamental truth of the 21st century within each of our countries and as a global community, that our own success is bound up in other succeeding as well. To deliver for our own people, we must also engage deeply with the rest of the world to ensure that our own future, we must work together with other partners, our partners toward a shared future. Our security, our prosperity, and our very freedoms are interconnected in my view as never before. And so, I believe we must work together as never before.

Over the last eight months, I prioritized rebuilding our alliances, revitalizing our partnerships, and recognizing they’re essential and central to America’s enduring security and prosperity. We have reaffirmed our sacred NATO Alliance to article five commitment. We’re working with our allies toward a new strategic concept that will help our alliance better take on the evolving threats of today and tomorrow. We renewed our engagement with the European Union, a fundamental partner in tackling the full range of significant issues facing our world today. We elevated the quad partnership among Australia, India, Japan, and the United States to take on challenges ranging from health security, to climate, to emerging technologies.

We’re engaging with regional institutions from [inaudible 00:07:10] to the African Union to the Organization of American States, to focus on people’s urgent needs for better health and better economic outcomes. We’re back at the table in international forums, especially the United Nations to focus attention and dispar global action on shared challenges.

We are reengaged at the World Health Organization and working in close partnership with Kovacs to deliver life-saving vaccines around the world. We rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and we’re running to retake a seat in the Human Rights Council next year at the UN. And as the United States seeks to rally the world action, we will lead not just through the example of our power, but God willing with the power of our example. Make no mistake. The United States will continue to defend ourselves, our allies, and our interest against attack, including terrorist threats, as we prepare to use force, if any is necessary. But to defend our vital US national interest, including against ongoing and imminent threats. But the mission must be clear and achievable. Undertaken with informed consent of the American people. And whenever possible, in partnership with our allies. US military power must be our tool of last resort. Not our first. It should not be used as an answer to every problem we see around the world. Indeed, today, many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed through the force of arms. 

Bombs and bullets cannot defend against COVID-19 or its future variants. To fight this pandemic, we need a collective act of science and political will. We need to act now to get shots and arms as fast as possible, and expand access to oxygen, tests, treatments to save lives around the world. And for the future, we need to create a new mechanism to finance global health security that builds on our existing development assistance and a global health threat council that is armed with the tools we need to monitor and identify emerging pandemics so that we can take immediate action.

Already the United States has put more than $15 billion toward the global COVID response. We’ve shipped more than 160 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to other countries. This includes 130 million doses from our own supply and the first tranches of the half a billion doses of Pfizer vaccine, we purchased to donate through COVAX. Planes carrying vaccines from the United States have already landed in 100 countries, bringing people all over the world, a little dose of hope as one American nurse termed it to me. A dose of hope direct from the American people and importantly, no strings attached.

And tomorrow at the US hosted Global COVID-19 Summit, I’ll be announcing additional commitments as we seek to advance the fight against COVID-19 and hold ourselves accountable around specific targets on three key challenges. Saving lives now, vaccinating the world, and building back better. This year has also brought widespread death and devastation from the borderless climate crisis. The extreme weather events that we have seen in every part of the world, and you all know it and feel it represent what the Secretary General has rightly called code red for humanity.

And the scientists and experts are telling us that we’re fast approaching a point of no return in a literal sense. To keep within our reach the vital goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, every nation needs to bring their highest possible ambitions to the table when we meet in Glasgow for COP26. And then to have to keep raising our collective ambition over time.

In April, I announced the United States ambitious new goal under the Paris Agreement. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the United States by 50 to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030, as we work toward achieving the clean energy economy with net zero emissions by 2050. And my administration’s working closely with our Congress to make critical investments in green infrastructure and electric vehicles will help us lock in progress at home toward our climate goals. And the best part is making these ambitious investments isn’t just good climate policy, it’s a chance for each of our countries to invest in ourselves and our own future.

It’s an enormous opportunity to create good paying jobs for workers in each of our countries and to spur long-term economic growth that will improve the quality of life for all of our people. We also have to support the countries and people that will be hit the hardest and that have the fewest resources to help them adapt. In April, I announced that United States will double our public international financing to help developing nations tackle the climate crisis. And today, I’m proud to announce that we’ll work with the Congress to double that number again, including for adaptation efforts.

This will make the United States leader in public climate finance, and with our added support together with increased private capital from other donors, we’ll be able to meet the goal of mobilizing $100 billion to support climate action in developing nations. As we deal with these crises, we’re also encountering a new era. An era of new technologies and possibilities that have potential to release and reshape every aspect of human existence. And it’s up to all of us to determine whether these technologies are forced to empower people or to deepen repression.

As new technologies continue to evolve, we’ll work together with our democratic partners to ensure that new advances in areas from biotechnology to quantum computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, and more are used to lift people up, to solve problems and advance human freedom, not to suppress dissent or target minority communities. And the United States tends to make a profound investment in research and innovation, working with countries at all stages of economic development to develop new tools and technologies to help us tackle the challenges of this second quarter of the 21st century and beyond.

We’re hardening our critical infrastructure against cyber attacks, disrupting ransomware networks and working to establish clear rules of the road for all nations, as it relates to cyberspace. We reserve the right to respond decisively to cyber attacks that threaten our people, our allies, or our interest. We will pursue new rules of global trade and economic growth to strive a level of playing field. So it’s not artificially tipped in favor of any one country at the expense of others. And every nation has the right and opportunity to compete fairly.

We will strive to ensure that basic labor rights, environmental safeguards, and intellectual property are protected, and that the benefits of globalization are shared broadly throughout all our societies. We’ll continue to uphold the long-standing rules and norms that have formed the guardrails of international engagement for decades that have been essential to the development of nations around the world. Bedrock commitments, like freedom of navigation, adherence to international laws and treaties, support for arms control measures to reduce the risk and enhance transparency.

Our approach is firmly around it and fully consistent with the United Nation’s mission and the values we’ve agreed to when we drafted this charter. These are commitments we all made, and that we’re all bound to uphold. And as we strive to deal with these urgent challenges, whether they’re long-standing or newly emerging, we must also deal with one another. All of the major powers of the world have a duty, in my view, to carefully manage their relationships. So they do not tip from responsible competition to conflict.

The United States will compete and we will compete vigorously and lead with our values and our strength. We’ll stand up for our allies and our friends and oppose attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones, whether through changes to territory by force, economic coercion or technical exploitation or disinformation, but we’re not seeking, say it again, we are not seeking a new cold war or a world divided into rigid blocks. The United States is ready to work with any nation that steps up and pursues peaceful resolution to share challenges even if we have intense disagreement in other areas, because we’ll all suffer the consequences of our failure, if we do not come together to address the urgent threats like COVID-19 and climate change or enduring threats like nuclear proliferation. The United States remains committed for ready to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Where are working with the P5+1 to engage Iran diplomatically, and to seek a return to JCPOA. We’re prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same.

Similarly, we seek serious and sustained diplomacy to pursue the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We seek concrete progress toward an available plan with tangible commitments that would increase stability on the peninsula and in the region, as well as improve the lives of the people in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

We must also remain vigilant to the threat of terror, that terrorism poses to all our nations. Whether emanating from distant regions of the world, or in our own backyard. We know the bitter string of terrorism. The bitter sting of terrorism is real. We’ve almost all experienced it.

Last month, we lost 13 American heroes and almost 200 innocent Afghan civilians in a heinous terrorist attack at Kabul airport. Those who commit acts of terrorism against us will continue to find a determined enemy in the United States. The world today is not the world of 2001 though, and the United States is not the same country we were when we were attacked on 9/11, 20 years ago. Today, we’re better equipped to detect, to prevent terrorist threats and we are more resilient in our ability to repel them and to respond. We know how to build effective partnerships to dismantle terrorist networks by targeting their financing and support systems, countering their propaganda, preventing their travel as well as disrupting imminent attacks. We’ll meet terrorist threats that arise today and the future with a full range of tools available to us, including working in cooperation with local partners so that we need not be so reliant on large scale military deployments.

One of the most important ways we can effectively enhance security and reduce violence is by seeking to improve the lives of the people all over the world, who see that their governments are not serving their needs. Corruption fuels inequality, siphons off a nation’s resources, spreads across borders and generates human suffering. It’s nothing less than a national security threat in the 21st century. Around the world, we’re increasingly seeing citizens demonstrate their discontent. Seeing the wealthy and well connected grow richer and richer, taking payoffs and bribes, operating above the law while the vast majority of the people struggle to find a job or put food on the table or to get their businesses off the ground, or simply send their children to school. People have taken to the streets in every region to demand that their governments address people’s basic needs, give everyone a fair shot to succeed and protect their God-given rights.

And in that chorus of voices, across languages and continents, we hear a common cry. A cry for dignity, simple dignity. As leaders, it’s our duty to answer that call, not to silence it. The United States has committed to using our resources and our international platform to support these voices, listen to them, partner with them, to find ways to respond that advance human dignity around the world. For example, there’s an enormous need for infrastructure in developing countries. With infrastructure that is low quality or that feeds corruption or exacerbates environmental degradation, may only end up contributing to greater challenges for countries over time. Done the right way, however, with transparent, sustainable investment in projects that respond to the country’s needs and engage their local workers to maintain high labor and environmental standards, infrastructure can be a strong foundation that allows societies in low and middle income countries to grow and to prosper. 

That’s the idea behind the Build Back Better world. And together with the private sector and our G7 partners, we aim to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment. We will also continue to be the world’s largest contributor to humanitarian assistance, bringing food, water, shelter, emergency healthcare, and other vital life-saving aid to millions of people in need. When the earthquake strikes, the typhoon rages or disaster anywhere in the world, the United States shows up, we’ll be ready to help. And at a time when nearly one in three people globally do not have access to adequate food, adequate food just last year, the United States is committing to rallying our partners to address immediate malnutrition and to ensure that we can sustainably feed the world for the decades to come. To that end, the United States is making a $10 billion commitment to end hunger and invest in food systems at home and abroad.

Since 2000, the United States government has provided more than $140 billion to advance health and strengthen health systems. And we will continue our leadership to drive these vital investments to make people’s lives better every single day, just give them a little breathing room.

And as we strive to make lives better, we must work with renewed purpose to end the conflicts that are driving so much pain and hurt around the world. We must redouble our diplomacy and commit to political negotiations, not violence, as a tool of first resort, to manage tensions around the world. We must seek a future of greater peace and security for all people of the Middle East.

The commitment of the United States Digital Securities, without question, are our support for an independent Jewish state is unequivocal, but I continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish democratic state, living in peace, alongside of viable sovereign and democratic Palestinian state. We’re a long way from that goal at this moment, but we must never allow ourselves to give up on the possibility of progress.

We cannot give up on solving raging civil conflicts, including in Ethiopia and Yemen, who are fighting between warring parties is driving famine, horrific violence, human rights violations against civilians, including an unconscionable use of rape, as a weapon of war. We’ll continue to work with the international community, to press for peace and bring an end to this suffering.

As we pursue diplomacy across the board, the United States will champion the democratic values that go to the very heart of who we are as a nation and a people. Freedom, equality, opportunity, and a belief in the universal rights of all people. It’s stamped into our DNA as a nation and critically it’s stamped into the DNA of this institution, the United States, we sometimes forget. To quote the opening words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, quote, “The equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world. The founding ethos of the United Nations places the rights of individuals at the center of our system, and that clarity and vision must not be ignored or misinterpreted. 

The United States will do our part, but we’ll be more successful and more impactful if all of our nations are working toward the full mission to which we are called. That’s why more than 100 nations united around a shared statement, and the Security Council adopted a resolution outlining how we’ll support the people of Afghanistan moving forward, laying out the expectations to which we’ll hold the Taliban when it comes to respecting universal human rights. 

We all must advocate for the rights of women and girls to use their full talents, to contribute economically, politically, and socially, and pursue their dreams free of violence and intimidation, from Central America to the Middle East to Africa to Afghanistan, wherever it appears in the world. We all must call out and condemn the targeting and oppression of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, whether it occurs in Xinjiang or northern Ethiopia or anywhere in the world. We all must defend the rights of LGBTQI individuals so they can live and love openly without fear, whether it’s Chechnya or Cameroon or anywhere. As we steer our nations toward this inflection point and work to meet today’s fast-moving, cross-cutting challenges, let me be clear. I am not agnostic about the future we want for the world. 

The future will belong to those who embrace human dignity, not trample it. The future will belong to those who unleash the potential of their people, not those who stifle it. The future will belong to those who give their people the ability to breathe free, not those who seek to suffocate their people with an iron hand. The authoritarians of the world may seek to proclaim the end of the age of democracy, but they’re wrong. The truth is, the democratic world is everywhere. It lives in anti-corruption activists, human rights defenders, the journalists, the peace protesters, on the front lines of this struggle in Belarus, Burma, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and everywhere in between. It lives in the brave women of Sudan who withstood violence and oppression to push a genocidal dictator from power and who keep working every day to defend their democratic progress. It lives in the proud Moldovans who helped deliver a landslide victory for the forces of democracy with a mandate to fight graft to build a more inclusive economy. It lives in the young people of Zambia who harnessed the power of their vote for the first time, turning out in record numbers to denounce corruption and chart a new path for their country.

And while no democracy is perfect, including the United States, we’ll continue to struggle to live up to the highest ideals to heal our divisions, and we face down violence and insurrection. Democracy remains the best tool we have to unleash our full human potential. My fellow leaders, this is the moment where we must prove ourselves the equals of those who come before us, who with vision and values and determined faith in our collective future built our United Nations, broke the cycle of war and destruction, and laid the foundations for more than seven decades of relative peace and growing global prosperity. Now we must again come together to affirm the inherent humanity that unites us is much greater than any outward divisions or disagreements. We must choose to do more than we think we can do alone, so that we accomplish what we must together.

Ending this pandemic and making sure we’re better prepared for the next one; staving off climactic climate change and increasing our resilience to the impacts we already are seeing; ensuring a future where technologies are the vital tool to solving human challenges and empowering human potential, not a source of greater strife and repression. These are the challenges that will determine what the world looks like for our children and our grandchildren and what they’ll inherit. We can only meet them by looking to the future. I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years, the United States is not at war. We’ve turned the page. All the unmatched strength, energy, and commitment, will and resources of our nation, are now fully and squarely focused on what’s ahead of us, not what was behind.

I know this; as we look ahead, we will lead. We will lead on all the greatest challenges of our time, from COVID to climate, peace and security, human dignity and human rights, but we will not go it alone. We will lead together, with our allies and partners, in cooperation with all those who believe as we do, that this is within our power to meet these challenges, to build a future that lifts all of our people and preserves this planet. But none of this is inevitable. It’s a choice. And I can tell you where America stands. We will choose to build a better future. We, you and I, we have the will and capacity to make it better. Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot afford to waste any more time. Let’s get to work. Let’s make our better future now. We can do this. It’s within our power and capacity. Thank you. God bless you all."

FEMI FANI KAYODE: THE MAN IN THE MIRROR AND HIS MOMENT OF TRUTH.

ICHEOKU says everything he accused others of, he is; and everything he condemned, he caused and cuddled. But all along, he was too cowardly to show his true self and was hiding under a mask of pretentiousness, while parading himself as the gold standard of what Nigerians should aspire to be. At last, the gods have outed him and exposed him for Nigerians to see who he truly is, a great pretender who has been hiding under his mask of Zorro to deceive Nigerians into believing that he was a righteous person and on the righteous path. What a moment of truth, the great reveal, as his mask finally fell off.

So, instead of his years of righteous indignations at Buhari and the North, he should have courageously owned up that he was merely seeking their attention and did not actually mean all his pretended outburst and stand on issues effecting Nigeria. If only he had looked in the mirror much earlier, he would have seen the real bogeyman of Nigeria in disarray and spared himself of the troubles of bombarding Nigerians with his avalanche of diatribes. But in his wise one complex, he wants Nigerians to believe that the same "god" who once told him to wage war against the North, the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari have now appeared again to order him to make peace and reconcile with the North and Buhari and also to join the All Peoples Congress. 

Suddenly, it is no longer Almajiri Peoples Congress but a newly minted Noah's ark of All Peoples Congress which every Nigerian, seeking salvation from their political doldrum, must enter for a political rebirth. Could it be that the hour has finally come? Could it be that "thy kingdom has come?" Could it be that Jesus Christ has finally returned on his second coming? What persuaded this about turn by Femi Fani Kayode and forced on him into an allegiance which he previously foreswore will only happen over his dead body? Why did he suddenly disregard his own preconditions and discard all the oath he took never to be on the same breathing space with Buhari? Why did he rejoin the APC or did he just not care about eating his own poop.

He said he had a divine calling to put Nigeria First and you ask yourself what country has he been putting first before the revelation. Was it the country of the disrespected and abused Southern wife and her vagrantly abusive, savagery and uncircumcised North husband? It is very shocking to see what some people are capable of doing and using the name of God to do it, despite the biblical injunction in Exodus 20:7 that "Thou shall not take the name of God in vain." He regularly swore with the name of God each time he lashed out at the North, called them infidels who will perish in the lake of fire. He called them filthy almajiris, who are not educated, poorly educated and blamed them for Nigeria not attaining greatness. 

Femi Fani Kayode effectively helped "divide" Nigeria between North and South with his polarizing, acerbic and incendiary hogwash of rhetorics. He called the North fat and ugly, callous and abusive husband who were lording it over the South weak wife. He charged the atmosphere which is now overheating and which has irreparably pitched Nigerians against one another, particularly the North against the South and vice versa. He represents to the North what Buhari represents to the South, two people who drew a knife on Nigeria's unity and it is bleeding heavily today as a result of their actions. He stirred the tension in Nigeria so much by pillorying the North that they believe that the whole South are waging a war against them.

But suddenly, he had an epiphany and it was revealed to him that he is the chosen and anointed one, sent on a mission to super glue Nigeria back together. A country which he actively preached, practiced and championed its disunity. A Nigeria which he also threatened and supported its disintegration that he palled with secessionists, but now is yearning for its unity. He lambasted the North but is now dinning with them and you wonder if he goes to dinners with them with the proverbial long spoon since he also called them the devil. What exactly does this fella see each time he looks in the mirror that he comes out attacking some Nigerians and Northerners instead of attacking himself as the real problem with Nigeria. How can any person be this convoluted. 

ICHEOKU says what struck Saul on his way to Damascus pales in comparison to the demonic encounter which Femi Fani Kayode had which forced such a sea change in him. Whatever hydra-headed spirit that accosted him and issued him with such a marching order to quickly scurry back to the North and Buhari and beg them for forgiveness must have added an unpalatable alternative such as a quick agonizing death. Things do not just happen and the Femi Fani Kayode's sudden change of heart could not have just happened out of his own free volition. He was either pushed or forced to jump following a hot pursuit by some evil forces which he froze upon sighting and floundered into the deep ravine to his fatal fall.

It is a sad commentary that so many Nigerians, particularly Nigerian politicians, lack conviction of their belief and that they can be so easily swayed by assuaging the yawning of their stomach. Recall that Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida once said, "except for Gani Fawehinmi, every Nigerian has a price." So, how much was the asking and purchase price of Femi Fani Kayode that the North and Buhari paid to finally take him into "slavery?" Did they make him an offer which he could not refuse to induce such a change of mind for him to join the same people he repeatedly derided and castigated as  odious and callous; and who he swore never to have anything to do with as long as he shall live. 

Could it be that they reeled him in to have him in closer proximity to serve him an Abiola tea or Tunde Idiagbo's soft drink; or better still, to later disgracefully throw him out as a repayment for all the insults he leveled against them. ICHEOKU says is just seeking answers to enable us understand what made the lion eat grass; and not that any Nigerian politician is above board. Former Vice President Abubakar Atiku abandoned the party which gave him eight years in office as Vice President and unconfirmed report also has it that former President Jonathan Goodluck is equally planning to abandon the party which made him president. FFK is not the only politician in a country of least trust. 

What will Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho be thinking about the man who lied to them and encouraged their secessionist agitation, assured them of his support all the way? Does FFK not know shame or have no regard for his character; or is he incapable of differentiating between reputation and notoriety? Does it matter to him that millions of people heard him gush about his freedom fighting and civil rights credentials and what the people will be thinking of him now, particularly how he lied to them. Is he this shameless that he does not care nor give a damn about how people perceive him? But should a man who is now on his fifth marriage, who kissed and told on two Igbo ladies, be any longer bothered by "ordinary" reputation damage?

ICHEOKU says what FFK did should not rattle any reasonable person who has been closely watching him because he has always manifested a lack of candor, principles, conviction and trustworthiness. He is the Nigerian Judas Iscariot whose befitting moniker should be "ONCE THE PRICE IS RIGHT". He turns more tricks than professional prostitutes. What he did touches a very sensitive thinking in Nigeria that certain people from a part of Nigeria are hardly trustworthy and that you can only deal with them at your own risk; and if you must, to first verify because they are likely to betray you. 

But for Goodluck Jonathan who rehabilitated him as his 2015 reelection campaign spokesman, when he was in a political wilderness after Bola Tinubu's threw him out of the AC, where would the chameleon be today? But he steadily ran his foul, filthy mouth against Jonathan's government forcing Jonathan to pacify him by bribing him with the position. It is also noteworthy that he failed to deliver and was unable to out-spin and out-speak Buhari's communications team and you wonder if he was similarly compromised then as well. To a large extent, Femi Fani Kayode contributed heavily to the loss which Project reelect Jonathan 2015 suffered. 

But of what political value and utility is he anyway that makes him a worthy catch for any political party when he cannot even win his ward in an election. All he is bringing is his rabidity and loquacity which has turned off so many and will be a deficit for the All Peoples Congress. No Nigeria will cross over to or join the APC or even decide to vote for APC because FFK joined the party. A man has never achieved anything meaningful in life and who but for his recognizable last surname, would not have been appointed by Olusegun Obasanjo as a minister, has nothing to contribute to the APC. Why the red carpet reception in Aso Rock as if he is a doyen of Nigerian politics.  

If only Bola Tinubu was not sick and smitten in London, battling debilitating arthritis of the lower extremities and other undisclosed diseases, he would have resisted the crossover of this vagabond back into the APC. The party knows that Tinubu does not like FFK and hates his penchant for treachery,  and would not have signed off on his rehabilitation back in the party, the reason they decided to act while the Jagaban is still indisposed. It is possible too that his readmission to the party is a part of the grand design to frustrate Jagaban's planned 2023 push for Aso Rock. 

FFK only reaffirmed that the only standard required of a Nigerian politician is to have no standard at all. That is why Nigeria is stalled politically since 1999 as the same people are just recycling themselves and repeatedly doing the same thing and excepting things to change which meets the definition of madness. The only way democracy can indeed grow and begin to mature  in Nigeria is for the two main political parties to outlaw this incessant criss crossing of politicians between parties, depending on who is in Aso Rock. Nigerian politicians are not ideologically forged, they are any party in power politicians, who are driven solely by where their bread will be buttered most. 

Therefore, the news that the loquacious fella went back to his vomit is not actually news worthy as it is normal in Nigeria politics. They ply the same trade and can go to any length to justify their action. Just listen to FFK that he spoke against Buhari from the outside and now knows him better from the inside. When did the "inside" knowledge begin exactly, since FFK did not just fall down from the skies of Nigeria last week but has been very much around since December 31st 1983 when Buhari first happened on the Nigerian stage. So after 38 years of knowing Buhari from the "outside", his few hours of meeting Buahri at Aso Rock changed everything and imputed to him special knowledge from the "inside", which supplanted everything he previously knew about Buhari.

Femi Fani Kayode once said of Buhari, "when Buhari was in power he locked people up, he crated people, he killed people with retroactive legislation, he carried people on the streets of London illegally, turned Nigeria into a pariah nation; a man that looted PTF." 

When he made the statement he knew Buhari from the outside and possibly defamed Buhari then. But he has now slept with Buhari, seen his naked body and now knows that all he previously said or knew about Buhari were tissues of lies and made up stories; and that Buhari is innocent of all the charges which FFK leveled against him. Did he even apologize to Buhari for "wrongly" defaming him or did he capitalize on Buhari's Joe Biden situation, believing that he is hovering on the borders of senility to recall all the vituperations and invectives which he poured in full measure on Buhari, his fellow Northerners and their Fulani terrorists herdsmen. 

After visiting Buhari in Aso Rock, it was FFK conclusion that Buhari's tyrannical rule of 1983 to 1985 did not happen simply because FFK knew Buhari then from the outside. Now he can attest to Buhari's saintliness and angelic nature because he slept with him and saw his inside. He also only knew the APC from the outside when he called them Almajiris Peoples Congress just a few months ago, but now that he knows them from the inside, they have magically metamorphosed into All Peoples Congress. It is also instructive that everything happened with a lightening speed such that FFK must be one heck of mind reader to in fact have such a wonderful understanding from being inside. 

A political liability who is as unstable as mercury and who blows in the wind like a willow. Since he swore to rather die than join the dark, filthy and rats infested sinking ship APC, may be Nigerians should now get ready for his funeral. Since he swore to oppose the APC for the rest of his natural life and that he will never join the APC no matter what, it is time to prepare for his end of life. Since he swore the APC is nothing but darkness and that he stood for the light and that there can never be fellowship between light and dark, it is time to appreciate that FFK has been dark all along, only that he mistook his light complexion for light. He is a lesson in paradox who deserves pity than condemnation because he does not know what he does; his center of equilibrium has shifted. #JudasOfOduduwa.

THE WRONG WAR WAS FOUGHT IN AFGHANISTAN.

ICHEOKU says one thing with ideology is that you can kill the messenger but can never kill the message. Long after you think you have killed the promoters, some people who were already indoctrinated and who had survived the cleansing, will always emerge from their relative obscurity to continue propagating the ideology. They will become the new torch bearers of the message and will pass it on, in continuation of the mission, spreading it from where their inductors had been forced to stop. This is why it is often very difficult to kill an idea by simply killing those who manifestly possess it, because the idea might be incubating in some people who were similarly inculcated and other escapees and survivors of the earlier bloodletting. 

In the battle of ideas, conviction is the key; the reason it is always better to attack the mind than the body of those whose idea you want to supplant with yours. You have to convince them on why your idea is better than theirs, and why they should change their mindset and replace it with what you have brought along. The mindset is a deeply rooted place that once something takes root, it stays and is often difficult to upend it without some serious effort. It is mindset that make  believers and followers do what they do and sometimes even die for their cause. The Taliban is  convinced in the rightness of their position and that what they have is the best and superior to any other and that it is either it or nothing at all. So, no matter how many of them were killed, it would not have made any difference as many more will readily pop up to take the place of the killed. 

It happened in the Bible with early Christians where believers were willingly going to their deaths rather than change their conviction about heaven, Jesus Christ and God. The Bible is filled with such stories where believers were thrown into dens of lions, stakes driven into them, some burnt alive, tortured and beheaded, yet they refused to bulge or renounce their faith. They were simply convinced and they believed; and they would rather die and go to paradise than recant their faith. The Taliban is not an exception as they are equally convinced in the rightness of their cause and that what they believe in is pure; and therefore not amenable to change or subject to any other superior teachings out there. This is their driving force and it helped them stay the course until they retook Afghanistan. 

The policy wonks of America did not do their homework very well as they failed to appreciate  what exactly drives the Taliban that made them so committed and loyal to their cause that they would gladly die than accept what they consider philosophy of "invaders" in their country. They believe in their divine calling and that what they are doing is sanctioned by their Allah and no human being compares to Allah to make them change course. It is so deeply entrenched in them and they are convinced that if they die fighting, it will be an automatic ticket to paradise as martyrs. For them paradise is far much better than earth, hence the incentive to make it quickly over there; the reason they were not afraid nor intimidated by the all powerful American military and eventually drove them out of their Afghanistan.

It takes more than ordinary courage to stay the course and eventually achieve such a feat against what is considered the mightiest military on earth. This is why the Taliban is  over joyed and celebrating, alongside some other countries tacitly; that finally, the almighty America military which nobody has ever dared before now, were finally "defeated" and forced to beat it out of Afghanistan. They had the staying power and tenacity to go the long haul, unfazed by death and unperturbed by the military prowess of America; and it was only their conviction that propelled them to the finish line, securing a victory over America. As far as they were concerned, it did not matter that they lost 60,000 fighters against less than 10,000 "invaders", provided their ideology survived and lives on.

Instead of targeting and killing the physical Taliban, the mental Taliban should have been targeted and killed; and thereafter they can be reprogrammed with the new Western ideology that places women over men. The American people are like the Taliban in some ways, in that they are resolutely passionate about their country and maintains an abiding conviction that the American ideal is superior to every other. Americans also are convinced that their country is the best country on earth and that everything and anything America is better than any other. Americans also believe that homosexuality is good and they will not allow anyone to tell them otherwise and will sometimes go to war to defend their values and what they believe in. Similar drivers move the Taliban, the reason they will not allow anyone to tell or dictate to them otherwise. 

It comes with early indoctrination of so many years where American kids are taught that their country is exceptional, that they can be whatever they want to be and that their country is the greatest country on planet earth. Majority of Americans will rather die than submit to any other country's authority or bow to alien philosophy other than what they grew up enmeshed in. It is this nationalistic commitment in their country and ideals that they share with the Taliban in that the Taliban were also born that way. The Taliban were raised, believing in the superiority of the male over the female; and that women are  here in this world to just incubate babies put in their wombs by men and also to take care of the home. This cast in stone mindset is what was left un-attacked in the wrong war fought in Afghanistan which went for the body of the Taliban and not their mind.

It is embedded in their DNA and no Jupiter would have made them change their ways simply by killing them. This is why America lost the war. America went for their body instead of their mind. America should have aimed the battle at deconstructing the many years of unbroken indoctrination which forged them into battle tested and fearless soldiers of Allah. The Taliban should have been convinced on why their orientation is not the right one. We killed them for oppressing women when we should have convinced them on why it is wrong to oppress women. We killed them for being too harsh on their people when we should have reorientated them on better approach in meting out justice, law and order. Simply put, it was a clash of civilizations and one failed to defeat the other, period.

ICHEOKU says strongly believes that had America fought the right side of Taliban, gone for their minds and not their physical bodies, that the war would have been successful and ended much sooner than it lasted. Like Communism, if America had applied the same kinetic force against it, communism would have still been a thriving force today. But no, America attacked the mind of communism and was able to convince communists that capitalism is a better economic way of life and with it, the added democracy. We battled the wrong demon in Afghanistan by fighting the Taliban with bullets and bombs instead of literatures, kindness and the power of persuasion. 

The Taliban should have been approached like another "ism" (Taliban-ism), conquer their mind and they would have easily succumbed their body in addition. Deeply entrenched beliefs are very difficult to uproot any other way, short of completely erasing the mindset which drives them and repopulating it with a new memory. The early Christian missionaries, after watching Crusaders fail, changed course and adopted the war of the mind approach. Instead of swords, they used their bibles, kindness, gifts and power of persuasion; and once the local population took the bait, they were then able to convince them to drop their beliefs and such other practices that were disagreeable in order for the goodies to keep on coming. This was how many places were won and colonized and it lasted as long as it did; that even after independence, these former colonies are still largely tied to the apron string of their colonial masters. 

Slavery was pulled off in the same way as slave masters convinced African kings and chiefs that instead of going to battles and killing each other, they should capture war prisoners and exchange them for some goodies including gunpowders, which will in turn improve their odds in waging wars as they will be using guns instead of bows and arrows. They also convinced them on the economic viability of trading in slaves as there is much money to be made in the business and persuaded Africans to start kidnapping each other to be sold as commodities for the trans Atlantic human merchandize. They did not bomb Africans into trading slaves and not all the guns in the Western world would have made Africans to do so. They simply went for their minds and such approach would have worked in Afghanistan, although it is doubtful the military industrial complex would have allowed it as such is not as profitable. 

DEL RIO IMMIGRATION CRISIS HYPE: IT IS THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN, STUPID.

ICHEOKU says suddenly the Joe Biden's administration has woken up from its slumber on the Southern border immigration crisis. It has decided to carry out its immigration responsibility with a ratcheted up deportation exercise; primarily targeted at Haitians, who merely followed the examples of Cubans, Mexicans and other light skinned South Americans and made it into America. Now, the government is sending hundreds of border agents to the southern border in Del Rio and fortifying the border defenses to ensure that these black Haitians don't enter into the country and that those who have already entered, are quickly deported back to Port-au-Prince, using as many charter flights as they could possibly find to effectively accomplish the task.  What's the rush to send back these black Haitians to the country from where they are escaping in search of a better life in America; or are Afghanis the only people who deserve a better life?

Entry point Del Rio is now the main and to some extent, the only focal point and staging ground of illegal immigration crisis hyperventilation on nightly news and newspapers editorials.  This is possibly because the color of the immigrants streaming across the Rio Grande river through Dell Rio into America is not the right skin color; they are black. But throughout last year and continuing for most part of this year when hundreds of thousands of light skinned Mexicans and other Southern Americans immigrants were "invading" the Southern border through El Paso, despite some media mention, the government looked the other way and when they looked, it was only to provide them with humanitarian assistance, busing them into American cities for rehabilitation and resettlement. 

But with those black skinned Haitians arriving through Del Rio, Americans don't want them in their country because they are too dark for the country, the reason the quick reaction and order to get them deported back to Haiti. Otherwise, how else does anyone explain the double standards in treatment of these two different immigrant groups from the two sides of the southern border, Del Rio and El Paso? What is going on with respect to the bias immigration enforcements typifies the general treatment which is meted to black people in America, where black lives don't truly matter nor really counts. How can anybody rationalize or meaningfully argue that the two treatments of the Haitian immigrants at Del Rio and those Mexicans and Southern Americans immigrants through  El Paso, meets fairness? 

It is not only not fair, but it is cruel; as Haitians need more help than even those Afghanis being brought into America in planeloads. Haiti is suffering untold economic hardship from years of deprivation, natural disasters and political turmoils, some of which were created through endless Washington DC's interference in their internal domestic affairs matter. Their president was recently assassinated and a desperate people are seeking shelter in America but are being denied it. Where is the humanity in America which they preach overseas and sometime go to wars to emphasis it, if already arrived Haitians are being removed and forcefully sent back to the same despondency where they escaped from. Cubans who manages to set their feet on American soil are allowed to stay, but not Haitians, why?

Must it only be only when America goes to war in another country and is later forced to pull out, like in Vietnam and Afghanistan, that the citizens of such country deserve to be airlifted and boat-loaded into America. Haiti is our neighbor and within the same geo-political influence of America and deserves some cordial and most favored status immigration treatment more than those Afghanis from thousands of miles away in South Central Asia being brought in planeloads. Must Haiti first become a terrorist hotbed or an enemy of America by joining forces with China and Russia, before America can begin to seriously take their needs and problems as America's responsibility. There is a lot of empty spaces in the heartland and these Haitians can be easily bused over there and encouraged to rebuild their lives back better there. 

Even the country Haiti itself deserves a sort of Marshal Plan to help rebuild and reposition it in order to discourage and dissuade these migrations. But they are black and blacks don't usually count nor matter in America's foreign policy decisions. An issue which is even more disheartening because Joe Biden's immigration tsar or tsarina, Kamala Harris, is herself a black Indian-Jamaican, yet black immigrants from Haiti are being summarily deported back to Haiti without even extending to them the same accommodations granted to their Mexican and Southern American immigrants from across the El Paso Southern border. It was not a crisis nor rose to the level demanding immediate intervention when only light skinned immigrants were crossing the southern border, but suddenly became such once dark skinned Haitians joined the exodus. It is sad.