Kissinger and Shultz have a thoughtful op-ed in the WSJ on the Iran nuclear deal. However, they criticize it without offering an alternative. Could the deal be better? Of course, Iran could have renounced all nuclear ambitions and completely shut down its nuclear activities. But I doubt that even Kissinger and Shultz could have negotiated an agreement on those terms. So what is the alternative? Implicit in their op-ed is the conclusion that only a military attack taking out all of Iran's nuclear facilities would prevent the proliferation of nuclear technology throughout the Middle East. But would "shock and awe" work better in Tehran than it did in Baghdad? It would probably bring on a wider war that would make the Iraq war look like a small skirmish.
Furthermore, they do not mention Pakistan (or India), the elephants in the room when it comes to the proliferation of nuclear technology in the region. India does not appear to be a problem under its present government and the present international situation, but Pakistan is a big problem. Pakistan has many nuclear weapons, most aimed at India, but available for other purposes, if the government so decides, or if terrorists get their hands on them, and Pakistan's Waziristan region is full of Taliban terrorists. Even if Pakistan does not sell a nuclear weapon and if the terrorists don't get their hands on one, it is a source of nuclear technology. It has probably already provided some assistance to Iran and North Korea.
Pakistan is a more clear and present danger to the world than Iran is, mainly because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and Iran does not. In theory Pakistan is a friend of the US, but in fact it is a fickle friend, often providing sanctuary for Taliban terrorists from Afghanistan who have been fighting American troops. In addition, it is probably a closer friend of China than it is of the US, with whatever geopolitical consequences that may produce. China is much less concerned about world peace than it is about the welfare of the Chinese state.
So, Secretaries Kissinger and Shultz, why should we be more worried about Iran than Pakistan? Shouldn't we be happy to turn down the heat with Iran, even a little bit, while new fires seem to be springing up daily in the rest of the Middle East?
Wednesday, April 08, 2015
Monday, April 06, 2015
Jews Bought Sen. Cotton's Letter to Iran
I was distressed by this article
in the NYT, “GOP’s Israel Support Deepens as Political Contributions Shift.” It says that Republican support for Israel in
partly ideological, but also “a product of a surge in donations and campaign
spending on their behalf by a small group of wealthy donors.” One of the main beneficiaries of this Jewish
largess was Senator Tom Cotton, the author of the Senate letter to Iran,
advising it not to negotiate with Obama and Kerry. It sounds like Sen. Cotton got well over $1
million from these Jewish contributors. The
article quotes a source downplaying speculation that the draft letter and plans
for its circulation were developed by Sen. Tom Cotton, Weekly Standard editor
Bill Kristol, and Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson in a room of Mr.
Adelson’s Venetian Hotel.
The growing Jewish support for Republicans is odd because
Jews have traditionally supported the Democratic Party, and tend to support
more liberal causes. According to J
Street, a majority of Jews still support liberal Democrats, but the fewer extremely
wealthy Jews supporting the Republicans throw the money balance in favor of the
GOP. For this group, the main issue is
support for Israel. This one reason
Republican House Speak Boehner invited Israeli PM Netanyahu to make a speech to
Congress attacking President Obama.
I don’t believe that American and Israeli interests always
converge. Thus I question Sen. Cotton’s
patriotism in supporting Israel over the United States. Clearly the choice of Netanyahu and his
Republican supports was (and is) to have the United States carry out a bombing
attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
There is certainly a significant risk that American planes could be shot
down, or that Iran would respond to the attack.
Among other potential targets, there are thousands of American service
men and women next door to Iran in Afghanistan, and a few still left in
Iraq. Sen. Cotton apparently is happy to
have them die for Israel.
Revisionist Holocaust History
For Jews, World War II was all about the Holocaust. How many people died in the Soviet Union or
Western Europe, or certainly in the Pacific doesn’t matter. All that matters in how many Jews died in the
Holocaust. Even there, what’s important
is only the Jews who died. They don’t
care about the Poles, the Gypsies, the blacks, the gays, or any other groups
who died in the German prison camps.
Jews are attempting to rewrite history to support their view, and because
of the single-mindedness of their effort, they are succeeding.
The latest shot in this Jewish war against honoring the
Allies’ victory in World War II is Nicholas Berg’s “The Holocaust and the West
German Historians.” According to the review
in the Wall Street Journal, this book is something of an academic attack on
West German historians for playing down the role of the Holocaust in their
histories of World War II. Appropriately
the reviewer, Brendan Simms, is somewhat critical of the book. He says:
Mr. Berg presents his case in a
tone of polemical outrage, which occasionally jars in an academic narrative but
seems excusable in light of the story he is telling.
Mr. Berg fails to acknowledge that
German historians were engaged in not only a personal but also a national
survival strategy. They were desperately seeking an intellectual and ethical
basis upon which the German people could start again amid the wreckage of 1945.
My main complaint is that Jewish historians do not give
enough credit to the Allies, Soviet, British and American, for their victory. As bad as the Holocaust was, life for Jews
would have been worse if the Germans had won.
I believe that the reason we have a World War II memorial on the
Washington Mall is that history, led by Jewish historians, has been rewritten
to downplay the Allied victory. WW II
vets thought that their victory would be memorial enough, but as their victory
became less praiseworthy, they eventually needed something concrete to
memorialized their deeds.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Why Is the GOP More Jewish than the Jews?
Peter Baker had a great article in the NYT about how Republican support for Israel has become unquestioning and an essential element of any candidate's foreign policy platform. It was pegged to former Secretary of State Jim Baker's speech to J Street, the moderate Jewish lobby, in which Baker was just slightly critical of Israel. He was pilloried by virtually every Republican in Washington. Jeb Bush had to disavow Baker's remarks, despite the fact that Baker was one of George H.W. Bush's most loyal supporters and had already been designated as an advisor to Jeb. It sounds as if failure to support Israel 100% is treason against the US. The article attributes this attitude to several factors:
- A greater sens of solidarity in the fight against Islamic extremism sinc 9/11
- A resulting increase in evangelical Christan support for Israel,
-The influence of wealthy Jewish political donors like Sheldon Adelson, and
- The GOP tendency to oppose anything Obama does, including feuding with Netanyahu.
The article points out that the current Republican attitude is much different from that of previous GOP leaders, who were more questioning of Israel, including Presidents George H.W. Bush, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, as well as Secretary Colin Powell, and NSC chair Brent Scowcroft. Even Ronald Reagan angered Israel by selling AWACs to Saudi Arabia, and by supporting a UN resolution condemning Israel for bombing Iraq's Osirak nuclear reacator.
The article points out that traditionally Jews have supported the Democratic Party, while Protestants have been Republicans.
The article quotes George W. Bush's White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Bush's strong support for Israel. It says Fleischer is now a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition's board of directors. Fleischer said, "Being pro-Israel is a no-brainer, absolutely moral issue to take inside the Republican Party."
- A greater sens of solidarity in the fight against Islamic extremism sinc 9/11
- A resulting increase in evangelical Christan support for Israel,
-The influence of wealthy Jewish political donors like Sheldon Adelson, and
- The GOP tendency to oppose anything Obama does, including feuding with Netanyahu.
The article points out that the current Republican attitude is much different from that of previous GOP leaders, who were more questioning of Israel, including Presidents George H.W. Bush, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, as well as Secretary Colin Powell, and NSC chair Brent Scowcroft. Even Ronald Reagan angered Israel by selling AWACs to Saudi Arabia, and by supporting a UN resolution condemning Israel for bombing Iraq's Osirak nuclear reacator.
The article points out that traditionally Jews have supported the Democratic Party, while Protestants have been Republicans.
The article quotes George W. Bush's White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Bush's strong support for Israel. It says Fleischer is now a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition's board of directors. Fleischer said, "Being pro-Israel is a no-brainer, absolutely moral issue to take inside the Republican Party."
No Iran Agreement Likely Worse than a Bad Agreement
Tom Friedman's last op-ed, "Look Before Leaping," in the NYT laid out pros and cons of a nuclear agreement with Iran. However, I don't think he sufficiently recognizes the downside of a possible war if we don't get an agreement. John Bolton's recent op-ed in the NYT, "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran," shows that there is sentiment for attacking Iran, in almost any case, deal or no deal, but the chances of a military attack on Iran certainly are higher if there is no agreement than if there is no agreement. If there is no military attack, Iran's obligations under the standard Non-Proliferation Treaty agreements would allow it to develop its nuclear capability up to the last few steps required to build an atomic bomb. In addition, the other parties to the negotiations -- Russia, China and the Europeans -- are unlikely to maintain sanctions if the deal fails, removing much of the pressure on Iran to bow to Western demands.
Friedman focuses mainly on whether an agreement is likely to bring Iran into the community of civilized nations and thus reduce its trouble-making in the Middle East. He finds arguments on both sides, probably correctly. But turning Iran into a responsible member of the international community is not the only issue. There are also those atomic bombs to worry about. Unfotunately, I think this makes Friedman's analysis faulty, and I worry that it is faulty for a reason.
Tom Friedman's analysis may be colored by the fact that he is Jewish. It may simply be that he is under tremendous pressure from other Jews to support the Israeli line that any Iran deal is terrible and that the only solution to the Iranian nuclear problem is to bomb Iran. I respect Friedman for his long reporting on the Middle East and his personal neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict. He did exemplary reporting from Lebanon and Israel for the New York Times. That's why when I detect even a little pro-Israel bias in his column, I suspect that he is under tremendous pressure. I don't worry about Friedman so much as a do about all the other reporters and policy makers in Washington who have less integrity than Friedman.
Friedman focuses mainly on whether an agreement is likely to bring Iran into the community of civilized nations and thus reduce its trouble-making in the Middle East. He finds arguments on both sides, probably correctly. But turning Iran into a responsible member of the international community is not the only issue. There are also those atomic bombs to worry about. Unfotunately, I think this makes Friedman's analysis faulty, and I worry that it is faulty for a reason.
Tom Friedman's analysis may be colored by the fact that he is Jewish. It may simply be that he is under tremendous pressure from other Jews to support the Israeli line that any Iran deal is terrible and that the only solution to the Iranian nuclear problem is to bomb Iran. I respect Friedman for his long reporting on the Middle East and his personal neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict. He did exemplary reporting from Lebanon and Israel for the New York Times. That's why when I detect even a little pro-Israel bias in his column, I suspect that he is under tremendous pressure. I don't worry about Friedman so much as a do about all the other reporters and policy makers in Washington who have less integrity than Friedman.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Attacks on Anti-Semitism, the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel
I am very disappointed in David
Brooks’ last column in the New York Times, “How to Fight Anti-Semitism.” Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last
refuge of a scoundrel.” Similarly,
screaming “anti-Semitism” is the last refuge of a racist Jew. Jews are virulent racists who have created an
apartheid state in Israel, but who then smear any critics with taunts of anti-Semitism. Netanyahu won the Israeli election by race-baiting
Israeli Arabs, and scaring racist Jews into believing that Arabs might actually
have some power in Israel. Israel
declares itself a Jewish state, which by definition would have no Arabs. Israel is for Jews only, and pretty much only
for Ashkenazi Jews, who look down even on Sephardic Jews.
As an Ashkenazi Jew, David Brooks is part of their
propaganda machine, getting the talking points for his column on anti-Semitism
from Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Dermer.
He is just spreading hatred. Atlantic Magazine writer Jeffrey Goldberg,
also a Jew who served in the Israeli Defense Forces like David Brooks’ son, got
the same message from the Jewish/Israeli hierarchy: smear non-Jews with the
anti-Semitism epithet. It’s all part of an orchestrated
Jewish/Israeli campaign of race hatred.
If Jews weren’t so racist, why would they be so easy to pick
out by people who are terrible terrorists?
If Jews just lived as ordinary people, they would not be so easy to
identify and attack. They don’t want to
be part of a society mainly consisting of people whom they consider inferior to
them. Their contempt for other races
makes them easy targets. By playing the
anti-Semitism card, Brooks and Goldberg reveal themselves as racists. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Dermer have both figuratively spit in the face of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. As an American I take offense at that.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Netanyahu Encourages American Disloyalty
I am disappointed in Netanyahu’s election, and suspicious of how his statements were handled by American news media. Just before his election, he said that he would not support a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Then after he was elected, and his comments had produced a strong unfavorable reaction in the US, he told Andrea Mitchell that he could accept a two-state solution. First, it seems suspicious that the gave this interview to Andrea Mitchell, a Jew, who at least in this interview revealed herself as a Jew first, a journalist second, and an American third. Netanyahu clearly chose her as a friendly means for getting his new statement out to the public with minimal questioning by the interviewer about why he completely reversed himself overnight on an issue that fundamentally affects Israel’s future existence. Other Jewish journalists, including the NYT’s David Brooks, picked up and defended his new statement, I believe using talking points probably circulated by Israeli Ambassador Dermer. They explained the Netanyahu statements as not being contradictory because before the election he was saying that a two-state solution was impossible “at this time,” and later that a two-state solution might be possible at some other time, although what time he was referring to in either case was not clear.
I don’t believe that Netanyahu would ever willingly accept a two-state solution at any time, but I also believe that at some point some Israeli leader may have no choice but to accept it. But I don’t currently see when that would ever be. At the moment I am more concerned that many American Jews in influential positions appear to be disloyal to the United States and more loyal to Israel. I include in this group former American Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who is actually Australian, and no qualification to be American Ambassador to Israel, except that the moved here and headed up a bunch of Jewish interest groups. He clearly is a Jew first, with little loyalty to either Australia or America. And of course, the two most recent ambassadors from Israel to the US, were American citizens, born in the US, before they renounced their American citizenship to become Israeli Ambassadors.
I don’t believe that Netanyahu would ever willingly accept a two-state solution at any time, but I also believe that at some point some Israeli leader may have no choice but to accept it. But I don’t currently see when that would ever be. At the moment I am more concerned that many American Jews in influential positions appear to be disloyal to the United States and more loyal to Israel. I include in this group former American Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who is actually Australian, and no qualification to be American Ambassador to Israel, except that the moved here and headed up a bunch of Jewish interest groups. He clearly is a Jew first, with little loyalty to either Australia or America. And of course, the two most recent ambassadors from Israel to the US, were American citizens, born in the US, before they renounced their American citizenship to become Israeli Ambassadors.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Netanyahu and Greater Israel
I am terribly disappointed by the election in Israel. With the victory of the right-wing, Netanyahu and Likud, Israel will become more obsessed with destroying its Muslim neighbors militarily, and it will become more of an apartheid nation as it increases discrimination against Arabs and other non-Jews in Israel.
I don’t understand the appeal of Israel for right-wing Republicans. It may be the brotherhood of one right-wing party for another. Republicans may hate Iranians because of the old 444-day hostage crisis, but do they also have a reason to hate Palestinians? It may be the appeal of militarism; the Republicans want to fight somebody, and the Israelis can tell them somebody to fight. However, these days Jews by and large don’t fight for America. Even NYT columnist David Brooks’ son served in the Israeli military, not the American military. So, the Republicans will be sending non-Jewish, mostly Christian, boys and girls to fight the Iranians for Israel, if it comes to that. Of course they will say it’s for America, but right now and for years to come, Iran poses no significant military threat to the United States. It does pose a serious threat to Israel, in part because of the millennia of racial and religious hatred between Persians and Jews. The US is a relative late-comer to this culture of hatred. In addition, there is the question of Jewish political contributions. At least some of the Republicans are motivated by the desire for the huge political contributions that rich Jews like Sheldon Adelson can make, as illustrated by the pilgrimages that potential Republican presidential candidates make to kiss Adelson’s ring. It is even more reprehensible if Republicans send Christian boys and girls to fight and die in combat in order for the candidates to rake in Jewish political contributions. There is also the possibility of Republicans wanting Jewish votes, but it’s not a big population in comparison to the entire United States; however, Harry Truman recognized Israel so quickly over the objection of his Secretary of State because he wanted the Jewish vote, and it worked; he beat Dewey. The main organization building the Republican-Jewish connection is AIPAC, which attracts leaders of Jewish community organizations, Christian evangelical leaders, and Republican politicians. I don’t understand how it works, except for money. AIPAC has tons of money, which it distributes to support right-wing Israel interests, and Republican politicians may be addicted to it. But if they send Americans to fight and die for AIPAC money, it strikes me as bordering on treasonous.
On the other hand, there are the Jews who are Democrats. It seems like the majority of Jewish politicians are liberal Democrats, with whom I probably agree more closely on policy issues than with my putative kinsmen, the white, Christian, Southern Republicans. Furthermore, Israel appears (or appeared before last night) to be more evenly split between right-wing, apartheid zealots and easier-going moderates who might be open to peace with the Palestinians. So, Jewish-American politicians and Israelis themselves tend toward being more moderate than the main Jewish political organization, AIPAC, and the main hawks in Congress, conservative Republicans. I don’t know where Jews stand in their innermost thoughts. Certainly the Holocaust cannot be ignored in their thinking, but if they really care about the Holocaust, how can they oppress the Palestinians the way that they do. Gaza is not unlike the ghettos that Hitler forced the Jews into during World War II.
The Jews may not have a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem like Hitler had to the Jewish problem, but Netanyahu’s renunciation of the goal of a two-state solution is certainly worrying. He has continued to build Jewish settlements on Arab land, and he has strongly encouraged European Jews to move to Israel. This may indicate that Israel is still expanding; it has no intention of returning to the borders established by the UN after World War II. Netanyahu’s goal is some kind of greater Israel. (It sounds terrible, but does Israel desire “lebensraum” like Germany did before World War II?) He appears to believe that Israel needs more land and more Jewish population to avoid being overwhelmed by the Jews in and around Israel. Right now, Iran is the greatest threat to this “greater Israel” ambition. Israel has to some extent co-opted the main Sunni states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to support Israel. So, the Shiite states present the greatest threat, and Iran is the leader of the Shiite states. Netanyahu may not be so worried about Iran’s future nuclear capability as he is about taking Iran down a rung now, to limit its power in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, etc. Screaming about the Iranian nuclear program is way to drum up support for an attack on Iran, or at least strong diplomatic pressure on it. That serves Netanyahu’s goal of building a greater Israel by presenting Iran with an array of enemies in the West who believe they are trying to limit Iran’s nuclear program, when in fact they are mainly meant to limit Iran’s current strategic leverage on Israel.
If this is the case, Secretary of State Kerry may think he is engaged in the noble goal of trying to limit Iran’s nuclear program, but in fact he is an agent for Jewish efforts to limit Iran’s strategic power, with or without nuclear weapons.
I don’t understand the appeal of Israel for right-wing Republicans. It may be the brotherhood of one right-wing party for another. Republicans may hate Iranians because of the old 444-day hostage crisis, but do they also have a reason to hate Palestinians? It may be the appeal of militarism; the Republicans want to fight somebody, and the Israelis can tell them somebody to fight. However, these days Jews by and large don’t fight for America. Even NYT columnist David Brooks’ son served in the Israeli military, not the American military. So, the Republicans will be sending non-Jewish, mostly Christian, boys and girls to fight the Iranians for Israel, if it comes to that. Of course they will say it’s for America, but right now and for years to come, Iran poses no significant military threat to the United States. It does pose a serious threat to Israel, in part because of the millennia of racial and religious hatred between Persians and Jews. The US is a relative late-comer to this culture of hatred. In addition, there is the question of Jewish political contributions. At least some of the Republicans are motivated by the desire for the huge political contributions that rich Jews like Sheldon Adelson can make, as illustrated by the pilgrimages that potential Republican presidential candidates make to kiss Adelson’s ring. It is even more reprehensible if Republicans send Christian boys and girls to fight and die in combat in order for the candidates to rake in Jewish political contributions. There is also the possibility of Republicans wanting Jewish votes, but it’s not a big population in comparison to the entire United States; however, Harry Truman recognized Israel so quickly over the objection of his Secretary of State because he wanted the Jewish vote, and it worked; he beat Dewey. The main organization building the Republican-Jewish connection is AIPAC, which attracts leaders of Jewish community organizations, Christian evangelical leaders, and Republican politicians. I don’t understand how it works, except for money. AIPAC has tons of money, which it distributes to support right-wing Israel interests, and Republican politicians may be addicted to it. But if they send Americans to fight and die for AIPAC money, it strikes me as bordering on treasonous.
On the other hand, there are the Jews who are Democrats. It seems like the majority of Jewish politicians are liberal Democrats, with whom I probably agree more closely on policy issues than with my putative kinsmen, the white, Christian, Southern Republicans. Furthermore, Israel appears (or appeared before last night) to be more evenly split between right-wing, apartheid zealots and easier-going moderates who might be open to peace with the Palestinians. So, Jewish-American politicians and Israelis themselves tend toward being more moderate than the main Jewish political organization, AIPAC, and the main hawks in Congress, conservative Republicans. I don’t know where Jews stand in their innermost thoughts. Certainly the Holocaust cannot be ignored in their thinking, but if they really care about the Holocaust, how can they oppress the Palestinians the way that they do. Gaza is not unlike the ghettos that Hitler forced the Jews into during World War II.
The Jews may not have a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem like Hitler had to the Jewish problem, but Netanyahu’s renunciation of the goal of a two-state solution is certainly worrying. He has continued to build Jewish settlements on Arab land, and he has strongly encouraged European Jews to move to Israel. This may indicate that Israel is still expanding; it has no intention of returning to the borders established by the UN after World War II. Netanyahu’s goal is some kind of greater Israel. (It sounds terrible, but does Israel desire “lebensraum” like Germany did before World War II?) He appears to believe that Israel needs more land and more Jewish population to avoid being overwhelmed by the Jews in and around Israel. Right now, Iran is the greatest threat to this “greater Israel” ambition. Israel has to some extent co-opted the main Sunni states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to support Israel. So, the Shiite states present the greatest threat, and Iran is the leader of the Shiite states. Netanyahu may not be so worried about Iran’s future nuclear capability as he is about taking Iran down a rung now, to limit its power in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, etc. Screaming about the Iranian nuclear program is way to drum up support for an attack on Iran, or at least strong diplomatic pressure on it. That serves Netanyahu’s goal of building a greater Israel by presenting Iran with an array of enemies in the West who believe they are trying to limit Iran’s nuclear program, when in fact they are mainly meant to limit Iran’s current strategic leverage on Israel.
If this is the case, Secretary of State Kerry may think he is engaged in the noble goal of trying to limit Iran’s nuclear program, but in fact he is an agent for Jewish efforts to limit Iran’s strategic power, with or without nuclear weapons.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Netanyahu, Iran and the NPT
The US has weakened its ability to restrict Iran’s nuclear
program using the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The idea behind the NPT when it was created
in 1970 was to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Countries that had no nuclear weapons promised
not to develop them, but they were allowed to engage in peaceful nuclear
activities. Five countries that already
had nuclear weapons could keep them if they were grandfathered under the
treaty, although they undertook to eventually eliminate them. The countries allowed to have nuclear weapons
were China, France, Russia, Britain, and the United States. Although India, Pakistan, and Israel are all
known to have nuclear weapons, they are not parties to the NPT. North Korea also has exploded nuclear devices
and has had sort of an on-again, off-again relationship with the NPT. Iran is a party to the NPT.
The giant loophole that the US created for India under the
NPT the US determination not to make an issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons makes
it hard to demand that Iran cease all nuclear activities, as Israel wants and
as the US sometimes demands, depending on who is speaking. In the mid-2000’s, the US under George W.
Bush basically gave India an exemption from the NPT, saying that the US would
cooperate normally with India on nuclear matters and India could keep its
nuclear arsenal. The US generally protects
Israel’s nuclear arsenal from international diplomatic pressure. Meanwhile, Pakistan and North Korea have
successfully resisted international pressure to eliminate their nuclear
arsenals. Since America has basically
given a pass to four countries with nuclear weapons, it is hard for it to say
that it will go to war and destroy Iran’s nuclear program, which so far has not
egregiously violated the NPT safeguards.
Right now, today, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a greater threat to the United States than is Iran’s nascent nuclear program which so far has not one nuclear weapon. Pakistan is full of terrorist sympathizers in Waziristan and other territories that pose more danger to the US military in Afghanistan than to Israel. Hence, Israel says, “Don’t worry about Pakistan; Iran is the bad country because it holds more animosity toward Israel.” Jews want American gentile soldiers to die fighting in Iran to increase Israeli security. Netanyahu spoke to Congress because Israel cannot defend itself against Iran and thus wants America to fight Iran for it. Let the Jews fight their own battles.
Furthermore, when nuclear powers have negotiated nuclear
disarmament they seek mutual reductions in nuclear weapons. Israel wants Iranian nuclear disarmament, but
Israel is unwilling to negotiate over its own nuclear arsenal. Israel says we are allowed to have nuclear
weapons, but Iran is not. What is the
basis for this assumption? Is it because
the Israelis consider themselves God’s chose people, while Iran is not. Israel is demonstrating its extreme race
hatred, directed at Arabs as well as Persians.
Should the US be leading negotiations, which at bottom are fueled by
race hatred? Why should Netanyahu be
allowed to spew race hatred before the US Congress and be cheered for it? What’s wrong with this picture?
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Netanyahu's Speech
Bibi Netanyahu gave an excellent speech to the American
Congress, but it was at its core full of race hatred. Clearly Jews hate Persians, and their hatred
is reciprocated. Iran wants a nuclear
program that would enable it to build a nuclear bomb sometime in the future,
and Israel wants to prevent that by all means, including war. But what Bibi really wants if for gentile American
boys and girls to fight that war, rather than Israeli Jews. Jews don’t fight for America, even with
America fights Israel’s wars, as in Iraq, who “weapons of mass destruction”
posed a much greater threat to Israel than to America. High ranking American Jews like Paul Wolfowitz,
Scooter Libby, and Doug Feith were happy to send Christians to fight and die for
Israel in Iraq. Now Bibi wants a new
cohort of American Christians to fight and die in Iran.
There’s nothing new about this. Anglophile Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to
join Britain in the War against Hitler, but despite his love of the British, he
did not do it until Japan invaded the US.
In this case, Bibi wants to stir the US to go to war before there is any
direct threat to the US. The Iranian
government hates the US, and has hated it for years, certainly since the US
overthrew the Iranian government and installed the Shah. Iran reciprocated by destroying Jimmy Carter
with the hostage crisis and installing Ronald Reagan as President, illustrated
by its release of the hostages as soon as Reagan was elected. Reagan thanked Iran by doing the Iran-Contra
deal, giving Iran some weapons it could not get otherwise.
In his speech, Bibi said that Israel can defend itself. Let it do so.
We don’t need any more American gentiles to die in Israel’s Middle East
wars. Meanwhile we have American Jews
deserting America for Israel. The last
two Israeli ambassadors, Ron Dermer and Michael Oren, were born in the US and
renounced their US citizenship. Many
young Jewish Americans serve in the Israeli military, two prominent ones are Chicago
mayor Raum Emanuel and NYT columnist David
Brooks’ son. Netanyahu has appealed
to Jews in Europe, particularly in recently attacked France in Denmark, to
leave Europe and move to Israel. He
implies that Jews cannot be loyal to any country but Israel.
The article on David Brooks’ son refers to Aliyah, the right
of return to Israel for Jews. It says
that you must have at least one Jewish grandparent. By that standard, Bill and Hilary Clinton’s
granddaughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, has the right of return, although
by Orthodox Jewish standards Charlotte is not Jewish, because Jewishness only
comes from the mother, and Chelsea is not Jewish. However, Charlotte’s father and his father and
mother are Jewish. So, Charlotte has three times what she needs
for Aliyah. Her grandfather, Ed
Mezvinsky, a former Congressman, was convicted of 31 charges of fraud in 2001
and served five years in prison. The
Clintons are of course friendly with Jews.
Bill Clinton was roundly criticized for his pardon of Marc Rich just
before Clinton left office. Ironically
Rich, a Jew, was under indictment for trading with Iran during hostage
crisis. According to Wikipedia, many
senior Israeli officials, including some from the Mossad, and Dick Cheney’s Scooter
Libby of Iraq War fame, urged Clinton to pardon Rich because of his assistance
to Israel. No doubt the pardon has
helped the Clintons raise money from Jewish sources. Recently there has been a lot of talk about
how much money the Clintons have gotten from foreign sources; presumably some
of them are Jewish.
Monday, March 02, 2015
Anticipating Netanyahu's Speech
We will have to see what Netanyahu says in his speech to
Congress. It sounds like he will say
that we must go to war with Iran if Iran does not end its nuclear program.
Implicit in this call for an end to Iran’s program is a call
for military force to destroy the nuclear program if Iran does not do so
itself. This military force seems likely
to be American, perhaps aided to some extent by the Israelis, maybe some Sunni
Arabs, and maybe some half-hearted Western European support.
There are a number of non-Jewish politicians who support
Netanyahu, including McCain, Boehner, and a lot of conservative
Republicans. Some are legitimately
concerned, but I worry that some are motivated by Jewish political
contributions. In return for Jewish money these politicians are willing to send
Gentile American boys (and girls) to fight and die in Iran to protect
Israel.
Iran presents some threat to the US, but not nearly as much
as it does to Israel. Pakistan probably
presents more of a threat to the US than Iran does, and Pakistan already has many
nuclear weapons. Pakistan is more
unstable than Iran and more opposed to American interests. Taliban training and taking refuge in
Pakistan often attack Americans and their Afghan allies in Afghanistan. So, if we were going to send some American
soldiers to die to stop a nuclear threat, it would make more sense to send them
to Pakistan than to Iran. Because of
this, I worry that American Jews are incapable of judging the real foreign
policy risks to America. Jews may be
willing to see America destroyed in order to preserve Israel.
Maybe Netanyahu, or some Jewish-American politician will say
something that will ease my concerns about Jews putting Israel’s interests
ahead of America’s, but I am not expecting it.
I find this whole dustup over Netanyahu’s speech deeply disturbing,
particularly because things seem to be heating up with Russia, but Russia is no
threat to Israel; so, Jews don’t worry about a potential nuclear way, except to
the extent that it may affect Jews in Ukraine.
Nemtsov and Maidan
If Putin is behind the murder of Boris Nemtsov, it may be
because he does not want a repeat of the Ukrainian Maidan Square protests in
Russia. Putin appears to have been
blindsided by the speed with which the Maidan protests ousted Ukrainian Premier
Yanukovych, leading to the low grade war going on now. Putin does not want to see something similar
happen to him in Russia. By killing
Nemtsov, he made sure that the Russian protests would not get out of hand.
I don’t know whether Putin order Nemtsov’s murder, but I
doubt that he was disappointed by it. It
is unlikely that it would have happened if Putin has been strongly opposed to
it, or even highly concerned about Nemtsov’s safety. Putin could have provided security for him
that would have made his assassination impossible.
The fact that Putin is so closely linked to the murder
raises serious human rights issues for Russia, and security concerns for many
Russians unhappy with Putin. It will
make it more difficult for the US to do business with him, in particular
getting Russian cooperation on Iran nuclear matters. There is an outside chance that Putin might
be more cooperative on Iran to ease some of the pressure resulting from the
Nemtsov murder.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Curse You for Your Service
David Brooks’ column
from the NYT ten days ago has been bothering me ever since. He purports to be concerned about the PTSD
that soldiers are subject to after combat.
Generally people think that soldiers suffer from PTSD because horrible
things were done to them in war – they were shot, they saw their friends shot,
etc. Brooks seems to think that they
suffer from PTSD because they have done horrible things in war; they return
from war overwhelmed by the horrible, immoral things that they have done. Brooks believes that America would be a better
place if we just shot each veteran in the head as war criminals when they get
off the plane from Iraq or Afghanistan. Brooks’
column is based on the book, “The Evil Hours,” and therefore may not exactly
represent Brooks’ personal thoughts on the subject.
Brooks says, “[W]ar … is always a crime…. It involves … tainted situations where every
choice is murderously wrong.” He goes
on, “The self-condemnation can be crippling.”
Veterans “often feel morally tainted by their experiences, unable to
recover confidence in their own goodness.”
People don’t suffer from PTSD after natural disasters, but only after “moral
atrocities.”
Brooks apparently believes that self-defense is
immoral. If ISIS wants to murder his
children, he should let them. To kill
the ISIS terrorist would be immoral and would subject him to the same
self-hating PTSD that soldiers returning from the Middle East face. But Brooks confounds two issues, a soldier’s individual,
moral choices, and a nation’s moral choice to go to war or not. If immoral acts were committed in the Middle
East, it was because the United States waged an immoral war on rag-headed Arabs
and Muslims just because they were Arabs and Muslims, not because they were a
threat to the US that our soldiers needed to stop. In Brooks’ opinion, everyone who volunteers
to serve in the military is a war criminal, because war against anyone is
immoral.
I think Brooks is dead wrong. I have felt for years that Republicans are
unpatriotic cowards, and Brooks is firmly in that camp. It was brought home to me personally when
Newt Gingrich shut down the government on the day I was being transferred as a
Foreign Service officer from Warsaw to Rome.
The shutdown left my wife and me homeless in Warsaw. Fortunately a friend in Rome worked out a
deal under which we were allowed to travel to the embassy in Rome, although the
Republicans had technically made it illegal to travel during the shutdown,
which would have left us on the streets of Warsaw, or more likely in a hotel in
Warsaw at our own expense. I was serving
the US government, and the government walked away and said in essence, “We don’t
care if you die.” I care, and I will
never forgive this government for abandoning those it sent out to do its work,
whether military or diplomatic. Brooks
is firmly in the Newt camp abandoning those who defend this country, and denigrating
their serve. Brooks doesn’t say, “Thank
you for your service.” He says, “Curse
you for your service.”
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Reagan'sDebt
I think that President Ronald Reagan was one of the most
irresponsible spendthrifts in the history of our country. According to Wikipeida:
Spending during Reagan's two terms
(FY 1981–88) averaged 22.4% GDP, well above the 20.6% GDP average from 1971 to
2009. In addition, the public debt rose from 26% GDP in 1980 to 41% GDP by 1988. In dollar
terms, the public debt rose from $712 billion in 1980 to $2.052 trillion in
1988, a roughly three-fold increase.
This of course was while there was no war to fund, or even
any serious economic threat. Reagan’s
Republicans hated poor people and welfare programs. The Republicans under Reagan drastically cut
taxes led by OMB chief David Stockman. But
then, Reagan turned out to be such a nice guy that he couldn’t make the cuts
that the Republican budget cutters had planned on. As a result, budget deficits ballooned;
Reagan’s irresponsibility plunged the nation into a swamp of debt, from which
we still have not recovered.
Obama’s deficit spending will probably be worse than Reagan’s
but mainly because Republican President George W. Bush left him with a massive
financial meltdown, requiring more spending to avoid a second great
depression. Obama has actually been
paying Bush’s GOP debts.
The following is a chart from the Washington Post showing the huge increase in the debt under Reagan:
Bad News
Last week pointed out the terrible state into which American news reporting has fallen. Brian Williams got suspended for not telling the truth about an experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the real problem was that the network news has deteriorated into worthless fluff. The lead story is almost always the weather, because it is so easy to report -- no need for overseas bureaus, correspondents, language ability, etc. -- just put someone outside in the rain, the wind or the snow with a microphone in their hand, and you can fill up many minutes of time that is supposed to be devoted to the news. The thing is, if the weather story if relevant to you, you can look outside and see what you need to know, or get a much more detailed local forecast, and if the weather doesn't affect you, why do you care enough to watch it for five or ten minutes. As Carl Bernstein said on "Reliable Sources," it's really entertainment, not news.
The PBS Newshour does a good job of reporting the news, and now so does Aljazeera. Aljazeera makes the US network news shows look entertainment for idiots. ABC has even developed its own way of speaking, eliminating most verbs, and replacing them with gerunds. Instead of saying, "Obama was peaking to the press," ABC says, "Obama, speaking to the press." And they are very prone to saying things like "right here," or "right now." ABC seems to be trying to speak like newspaper headlines aimed at people with a sixth grade education. ABC believes it is speaking to an audience with no knowledge of English grammar or geography, or anything else previously taught in high school. They clearly believe the American education system is an abysmal failure. ABC illustrates that today a college dropout like Scott Walker has a good chance of becoming President.
It's amazing that the Muslim/Arab network Aljazeera has a higher opinion of the American public than Walt Disney (which owns ABC) does.
Bill Maher had a great editorial on "New Rules" about how bad the network news has become. We have learned that the executives of the networks have contempt for the American people and the future of the United States.
The PBS Newshour does a good job of reporting the news, and now so does Aljazeera. Aljazeera makes the US network news shows look entertainment for idiots. ABC has even developed its own way of speaking, eliminating most verbs, and replacing them with gerunds. Instead of saying, "Obama was peaking to the press," ABC says, "Obama, speaking to the press." And they are very prone to saying things like "right here," or "right now." ABC seems to be trying to speak like newspaper headlines aimed at people with a sixth grade education. ABC believes it is speaking to an audience with no knowledge of English grammar or geography, or anything else previously taught in high school. They clearly believe the American education system is an abysmal failure. ABC illustrates that today a college dropout like Scott Walker has a good chance of becoming President.
It's amazing that the Muslim/Arab network Aljazeera has a higher opinion of the American public than Walt Disney (which owns ABC) does.
Bill Maher had a great editorial on "New Rules" about how bad the network news has become. We have learned that the executives of the networks have contempt for the American people and the future of the United States.
Zbig on Morning Joe
The best thing about "Morining Joe" is when Mika's Dad, Zbigniew Brzeznski appears. He makes more sense than almost anyone else pontificating on TV. Today he warned that the US should do everything it can to avoid being perceived in the Middle East and remaining colonial power hated by all who lived under colonialism for the past 100 or so years. Many in the US seem determined to take on this mantel. Robin Wright warned against being sucked into defending the artificial Middle Eastern boundaries created by the West after WW I. The problem with this is that tearing up old borders and creating new ones may lead to more violence than trying to maintain the old ones. Look at what is going on in Ukraine, where the Russians are trying to establish new boundaries.
It's too bad Joe or Mika did not ask Zbig about Ukraine. As Pole, this has got to be an issue that is close to his heart and that is perhaps more difficult for him to be objective about. After all, western Ukraine used to be an important part of Poland. The borders of poor Poland have moved east or west over the centuries, depending on which power was predominant (Russia or Germany), and who won the last war.
On the Middle East, Mika asked her dad about Netanyahu's address to Congress. Zbig correctly said that this invitation was a terrible idea. It was an attempt to undercut Obama's policy and negotiations on Iran. It was an attack by the Congress on the President. Joe said it was a diplomatic response; Katy Kay said it was pretty strong. I think it was a strong rejection of the Republican effort.
It's too bad Joe or Mika did not ask Zbig about Ukraine. As Pole, this has got to be an issue that is close to his heart and that is perhaps more difficult for him to be objective about. After all, western Ukraine used to be an important part of Poland. The borders of poor Poland have moved east or west over the centuries, depending on which power was predominant (Russia or Germany), and who won the last war.
On the Middle East, Mika asked her dad about Netanyahu's address to Congress. Zbig correctly said that this invitation was a terrible idea. It was an attempt to undercut Obama's policy and negotiations on Iran. It was an attack by the Congress on the President. Joe said it was a diplomatic response; Katy Kay said it was pretty strong. I think it was a strong rejection of the Republican effort.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Friedman on Turkey
I like Tom Friedman.
Despite his being Jewish, he is usually very evenhanded in his treatment
of Middle East issues. However, I have a
problem with his column
in today’s NYT. He starts off by
criticizing Turkish President Erdogan for anti-Semitism, which is a valid
criticism. Erdogan probably is
anti-Semitic, but he also probably has some reason to be concerned about Jewish
animosity toward him. Friedman, jokes
about the lack of a real Jewish threat to Turkey, “So few Jews, so many
governments to topple.”
Then Friedman proceeds to cite statistics from Larry Diamond
at Stanford about how democracy is failing all over the world. He says that Putin and Erdogan are the poster
children for this trend, concluding, “Rule of law in Turkey is being seriously eroded.” I couldn’t find out anything about Larry
Diamond’s personal background, but Larry Diamond is a typically Jewish
name. The closest connection I could
find was that Diamond lectured at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2013.
So, it seems that despite Friedman’s claim that Jews have no interest in
Turkish politics, a man who is probably a Jew is fiercely criticizing
Erdogan. Of course many Gentiles are
also fiercely criticizing Erdogan.
I wouldn’t worry so much about this if I didn’t think there
were more to it. Friedman’s posturing
that there’s nothing to worry about from us Jews -- we’re just sitting here in
Jerusalem minding our own business – rings hollow. A French Jew, Bernard-Henri Levy, led the
campaign to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, plunging Libya into chaos,
which is terrible for everyone from the Libyans, to the Americans, to the Italians,
but not for the Israelis, who rejoice when Muslims kill Muslims (or Christians). Jews win without fighting. But there is fighting going on, fomented by
Jews in Israel, America, France, and probably other places.
Of course the argument is that the Muslims are to blame, and
they are. But they have had a lot of
help stoking the fires of their animosity, from the creation of Israel in the
1940s to the invasion of Iraq in the 2000s.
Turkish-Israeli relations were not helped by Israel’s 2010 attack off
the coast of Israel on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza flotilla
raid, in which the Israelis killed eight Turks and one American.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Putin and the Jews
The op-ed “Save the New Ukraine” in the New York Times by Bernard-Henri
Levy and George Soros (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/opinion/bernard-henri-levi-george-soros-save-the-new-ukraine.html)
makes me wonder what prominent Jews are up to regarding Ukraine and
Russia. Levy, who is supposed to be a French
philosopher, was the man behind the ouster of Kaddafi in Libya, which has led
to much chaos and bloodshed. He no doubt
relished the humiliating death of Kaddafi and the ensuing Arab on Arab
bloodletting in Libya. So, now what
violence and chaos does he want to create in Ukraine and Russia? Soros, an extremely wealthy and powerful Jew,
lends his name to this enterprise, whatever it is. To the extent that Ukraine separates from
Russia and joins the West, it weakens Russia.
Putin realizes he is in trouble, but is being pressed on so many sides
that he is having difficulty dealing with the situation.
There is clearly a Jewish issue in Ukraine. Ukraine has the third largest Jewish
community in Europe and the fifth largest in the world, more than 250,000. Before World War II there were over one
million Jews in Ukraine. (http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/communities/show/id/91) So, it makes sense for Jews to concern themselves about Ukraine, not just from
an international relations perspective, but from a Jewish racial
perspective.
Meanwhile, Jews played an outsized roll in the creation of
the Communist state back in the early 1900s.
Then 75 years later, many (about half) of the billionaire oligarchs
created by the destruction of the Communist state were Jews. It’s these Jewish oligarchs who I think are a
thorn in Putin’s side and likely to be shoved out in favor of KGB and old party
types who are closer to him. In 2007,
the Guardian wrote (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/russia.lukeharding1)
…in a
country where anti-Semitism is still rife and openly expressed, nationalist
rabble-rousers have made much of the fact that of the seven oligarchs who
controlled 50% of Russia's economy during the 1990s, six were Jewish:
Berezovsky, Vladimir Guzinsky, Alexander Smolensky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
Mikhail Friedman and Valery Malkin.
The 2007 Guardian article goes on to say that some of the
Jewish oligarchs were replaced by Slavs who were closer to Putin. The 2007 oligarchs included Roman Abramovich,
Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (a Jew who ended up in jail), Boris
Berezovsky (a Jew who lives in London as Putin’s enemy), Mikhail Prokhorov,
Viktor Vekselberg, and Mikhail Friedman (a Ukrainian Jew then on decent terms
with Putin).
A 2012 Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/At-Putins-side-an-army-of-Jewish-billionaires)
article, “At Putin’s Side, an Army of Jewish Billionaires” described the
unveiling of the Red Army monument in Netanya, Israel. With Putin were Mikhail Friedman, Moshe
Kantor, as well as several other wealthy Russian Jews who now live in
Israel.
A January 2015 Bloomberg article (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/putin-said-to-shrink-inner-circle-as-ukraine-hawks-trump-tycoons)
said:
Businessmen who have long been close to
Putin are “on the periphery now,” said Sergei Markov, a political consultant
who helped monitor the referendum in Crimea that led to Russia’s annexation of
the peninsula in March.
The core group around Putin is led by Security Council
Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov,
Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov and Defense Minister Sergei
Shoigu, according to Markov.
It will be interesting to see how Putin’s relationship
develops with Russia’s Jewish oligarchs as he comes under increasing international
pressure from the West. Will he trust
the Jews to continue to support him? The
Jews close to him will come under increasing financial pressure from Western
sanctions, which may make them rethink their support for Putin.
Monday, January 26, 2015
The Moneychangers
I just finished reading The Moneychangers by Upton Sinclair, and was surprised by how little the financial industry has changed in the 100 years since he wrote the book. Sinclair is best known for The Jungle about tainted food and general poor living conditions of immigrants in America, which resulted in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Since he wrote The Moneychangers, the US has created the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, but the main difference is that the unscrupulous bankers and traders are now billionaires instead of millionaires, and the old trusts are now called hedge funds.
The 2008 “Great Recession” was very similar to the Panic of 1907 that Sinclair wrote about. Lehman Brothers went down in bankruptcy in 2008 as the Gotham Trust Company did in The Moneychangers. One of Sinclair’s main points was that Wall Street tycoons made their money by using other people’s money, usually leaving the little guys exposed to the loss if anything went wrong. In the housing meltdown, it was the homeowners and retiree pension funds that suffered most of the losses, while the fat cats got bailed out by the government. The nation can endure thousands of small individual foreclosures and bankruptcies, but not one huge one. Lehman was just small enough to let die.
Relating to my obsession with the involvement of Jews in the financial industry, The Moneychangers only mentions the word Jew once, when a cleaning woman tells the main character that a man who looked like a Jew had paid her to go through his trash. Presumably all the stock market manipulators were Episcopalian Christians, who perhaps had not paid too much attention to the sermons. They all loved the show of money in their elegant town houses, their massive Newport beach “cottages,” their yachts, etc. It sounds like the titans of Wall Street today. And the banking practices still sound almost the same. They have made some changes to get around the regulations designed to protect the public, but the results are pretty much the same, and as 2008 showed, the public is still not protected.
The 2008 “Great Recession” was very similar to the Panic of 1907 that Sinclair wrote about. Lehman Brothers went down in bankruptcy in 2008 as the Gotham Trust Company did in The Moneychangers. One of Sinclair’s main points was that Wall Street tycoons made their money by using other people’s money, usually leaving the little guys exposed to the loss if anything went wrong. In the housing meltdown, it was the homeowners and retiree pension funds that suffered most of the losses, while the fat cats got bailed out by the government. The nation can endure thousands of small individual foreclosures and bankruptcies, but not one huge one. Lehman was just small enough to let die.
Relating to my obsession with the involvement of Jews in the financial industry, The Moneychangers only mentions the word Jew once, when a cleaning woman tells the main character that a man who looked like a Jew had paid her to go through his trash. Presumably all the stock market manipulators were Episcopalian Christians, who perhaps had not paid too much attention to the sermons. They all loved the show of money in their elegant town houses, their massive Newport beach “cottages,” their yachts, etc. It sounds like the titans of Wall Street today. And the banking practices still sound almost the same. They have made some changes to get around the regulations designed to protect the public, but the results are pretty much the same, and as 2008 showed, the public is still not protected.
Friday, January 23, 2015
The Charlie Hebdo Terrorists Won Something
The Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack aftermath showed serious problems with democratic institutions and national security among western nations. By publishing a cover that was a challenge to Muslim terrorists, Charlie Hebdo put the West on the spot after all its protestations that “We are Charlie.” Clearly we were not Charlie. Only CBS TV news initially began showing the new Charlie Hebdo cover, and after all other major news outlets turned out to be absolute cowards, CBS began showing only pieces of the cover, like everyone else.
Certainly there are restraints on free speech. Just ask anyone remotely controversial who has tried to speak on a college campus recently. Colleges are the leading centers of censorship. Students abhor free thought and college administrators let them have their way. Certainly there should be limits on free speech, but we find free speech much more restricted than it was fifty years ago. Big brother is here and monitoring what you say. Surprisingly, it is not so much NSA or the FBI, but your friends, neighbors and fellow students, who stand ready to attack you for anything you say that they think is “wrong.” America is less free than it used to be.
In addition, there is the national security issue. News organizations do not believe that the various levels of government (national, state, local) can protect them from terrorism. They are afraid that if they show the Charlie Hebdo cover they will be killed on the way to work, or at work, like Charlie Hebdo. They have some good arguments. The best is probably that they have Middle Eastern correspondents in the region and that showing the cover would put those correspondents lives in danger. But there is also the implication that the network anchors and newspaper editors are afraid for their own lives and refused to show the cover out of cowardice, which means that the terrorists won.
I think on balance you have to say that the Charlie Hebdo terrorists won something. They did not significantly change the societies they attacked, but they did illustrate the moral and security weaknesses of those societies. France claimed to be a home for unfettered free speech, but then restricted the free speech of those criticizing Jews and some others. These restrictions may be reasonable but they do not correspond to the high ideals enunciated after the attacks.
Certainly there are restraints on free speech. Just ask anyone remotely controversial who has tried to speak on a college campus recently. Colleges are the leading centers of censorship. Students abhor free thought and college administrators let them have their way. Certainly there should be limits on free speech, but we find free speech much more restricted than it was fifty years ago. Big brother is here and monitoring what you say. Surprisingly, it is not so much NSA or the FBI, but your friends, neighbors and fellow students, who stand ready to attack you for anything you say that they think is “wrong.” America is less free than it used to be.
In addition, there is the national security issue. News organizations do not believe that the various levels of government (national, state, local) can protect them from terrorism. They are afraid that if they show the Charlie Hebdo cover they will be killed on the way to work, or at work, like Charlie Hebdo. They have some good arguments. The best is probably that they have Middle Eastern correspondents in the region and that showing the cover would put those correspondents lives in danger. But there is also the implication that the network anchors and newspaper editors are afraid for their own lives and refused to show the cover out of cowardice, which means that the terrorists won.
I think on balance you have to say that the Charlie Hebdo terrorists won something. They did not significantly change the societies they attacked, but they did illustrate the moral and security weaknesses of those societies. France claimed to be a home for unfettered free speech, but then restricted the free speech of those criticizing Jews and some others. These restrictions may be reasonable but they do not correspond to the high ideals enunciated after the attacks.
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