James Delingpole
MUD HUTS AND CIVILIZATION
I just started a Twitter campaign called #Rhodesmustrise. It’s in response to the lunacy currently embroiling the most revered and distinguished university on our planet – Oxford University.
That would be the #rhodesmustfall campaign for the removal from Oxford’s Oriel College of a statue of one of its benefactors Cecil Rhodes. Below is the letter that Oriel College should have written in response.
Dear race-hustling grievance mongers of Rhodes Must Fall:
Cecil Rhodes’s generous bequest has contributed greatly to the comfort and wellbeing of many generations of Oxford students – a good many of them, dare we say it, better, brighter and more deserving than you.
Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest extant university. Scholars have been studying here since at least the 11th century. We’ve played a major part in the invention of Western civilization, from the 12th century intellectual renaissance through the Enlightenment and beyond.
And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in mud huts, mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short-lived Southern African civilization of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s be brutally honest here. The contribution of the Bantu tribes to modern civilization has been near to zilch.
You’ll probably say that’s “racist.” But it’s what we here at Oxford prefer to call “true.”
Join the forum discussion on this postMARCO AND THE GANG OF EIGHT
Marco Rubio has been criticizing Ted Cruz’s stand on immigration, especially regarding where they stood on the “Gang of Eight” bill. Let’s look at the facts.
The Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill passed the Senate after a series of votes in June 2013. Democrats, who controlled the Senate at the time, unanimously supported the bill, while most Republicans opposed it.
The four Republicans on the gang — Marco Rubio, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Jeff Flake — of course voted for it, and also agreed with Democrats on a plan to kill almost all GOP amendments.
Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid allowed just a handful of amendments to reach the Senate floor. One, from Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, would have prohibited the legalization of illegal immigrants in the United States until after the administration could prove it had maintained "effective control" of the borders for six months.
Rubio voted against the Grassley amendment. Sen. Ted Cruz voted for it.
DO GOVERNMENT CLIMATE FRAUDSTERS BELONG IN JAIL?
Another week, another study showing that our official climate data gatekeepers have been exaggerating the extent of “global warming” to make it look more scary, more urgent, more desperately in need of extra funding for our official climate data gatekeepers.
This one, co-authored by meteorologist Anthony Watts (of Watts Up With That? fame) shows that at least half of the “global warming” in the US since 1979 has been fabricated by NOAA.
While satellite records have shown no global warming for at least 18 years, the land based data sets like the ones maintained by NOAA for the US Historical Climate Network (USHCN) continue to show a warming trend.
One reason for this discrepancy, the study suggests, is that NOAA has been cherry-picking its raw data. That is, it looks like US government scientists and bureaucrats have committed a gargantuan fraud costing US taxpayers countless billions of dollars. Shouldn’t they be criminally prosecuted for doing so?
OBAMA’S FINEST HOUR OF UTTER FRAUD
Sometimes I wonder how the left can remain so woefully ill-informed on the subject of climate change.
Then I read articles like this piece of complete Chait that one of America’s leading liberal commentators has just produced for New York magazine and all becomes clear: because ‘progressive’ journalists who write about the environment don’t do research or due diligence — only fluffy sentiment and green propaganda.
Let me show you, with reference to Jonathan Chait’s article — excerpts from which I’ll put in italics, with my gloss below — what I mean.
This weekend, leaders from 196 countries approved the first global agreement to limit greenhouse-gas emissions in human history. The pact is a triumph of international diplomacy shared by diplomats across the planet.
The agreement is non-binding, carries no penalties and is entirely voluntary. That’s why everyone signed: because it meant nothing — not because any diplomatic skills were necessary.
Obama’s climate agenda has lurked quietly on the recesses of the American imagination for most of his presidency. It is also probably the administration’s most important accomplishment.
That last sentence is probably true — but only because from Syria to Russia to Obamacare to Benghazi to Common Core to the proliferation of divisive #blacklivesmatter identity politics lunacy, everything else on the administration’s watch has been an even bigger fail.
THE INTERNET HAS BEEN WEAPONIZED
And, I'm sorry to say, it is now pointed at you.
We more or less know this, of course. It's been beyond dispute since the Snowden revelations. What most people haven't done, however, is to face the fact.
Before I get into three examples of a Weaponized Internet being pointed at you, I'd like you to understand the most common problem with this material: When I explain these things, it's almost never the intellectual aspects of it that turn people away. Rather it's the psychological aspects, and denial in particular.
If you hold to an imperative that “it can't be that bad,” or, “the US military can never do wrong,” you'll find any number of ways to conclude that I'm going too far, misunderstanding, and so on.
So, make of this as you will, but please do so honestly and do your best to avoid living along that river in Egypt.
EURABIA COME TRUE
Europe has been going demographically bankrupt for awhile now because of its falling birth rates, so the socialists who run it have come up with an absolutely amazing plan they say can't possibly fail.
They're going to solve this demographic bankruptcy and this resulting economic bankruptcy when there's nobody to do the work or pay the bills or even write the welfare checks by bringing in millions and millions of Moslems to fill in the gap.
There's just one, tiny, little, minor problem with it, and I'm not talking about the terrorism, the Sharia, the no-go zones, the attacks on Jews, or all the other fun stuff. There's just one other minor problem, which is that the people coming in don't actually work.
There’s a basic cultural difference between the Western world which is a work ethic culture, and the Moslem world which is a slave culture. And when people from a slave culture come into a country where it has generous socialism, that has generous welfare policies, they're coming there not to work. They are not refugees – they are welfare migrants.
We cannot allow this to happen in America.
THE RIGHT WAY TO HONOR OUR HEROES
Our obligations to the heroes of our country
These days our men and women in uniform are usually treated with kindness and respect. Nobody begrudges someone in uniform getting to board a flight first, or getting comped a first-class seat.
Even those on the left who think that people in military service are misguided dupes of evil militarists no longer indulge the open scorn and calumny prevalent in the Vietnam War era, when a uniform was a target for spittle and charges of “baby-killer,” when in 1971 John Kerry appeared before the Senate and accused U.S. troops of rape, torture, and mutilation.
Yet under the surface of progressives’ seeming respect and sympathy there still lurks a subtle contempt for the virtues and values that make our warriors worthy of our gratitude and admiration.
THE PRESIDENT’S ALL TIME FAVORITE DICTATORSHIPS
Qatar is one of Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships. Secretary of State John Kerry recently launched an economic dialogue with Qatar. Qatar got a free pass to smuggle weapons past the NATO blockade of Libya even though the administration knew the weapons were going to terrorists.
While Qatar was buying weapons from Sudan, a country whose leader is wanted for crimes against humanity, to pass along to Islamic terrorists in Syria, the State Department was clearing Qatar to buy American weapons. Qatar was, of course, a Clinton Foundation donor.
The Reagan administration had cracked down on Qatar for illegally getting its hands on Stinger missiles. The first Bush administration had forced Qatar to destroy them. But these days we are the arms dealer for a nasty tyranny that has ties to terrorists.
But Qatar is only Obama’s second favorite Muslim dictatorship and state sponsor of terror. Topping the list is ...
MEMO TO GOP: CURB IMMIGRATION OR QUIT
America is about to break every known immigration record. And yet you are unlikely to hear a word about it.
The Census Bureau projects that the foreign-born share of the U.S. population will soon eclipse the highest levels ever documented, and will continue surging to new record highs each year to come.
Yet activists and politicians who support unprecedented levels of immigration are never asked to explain how they believe such a policy will affect social stability, community cohesion or political assimilation.
They can simply cry out, “We must pass immigration reform!” without ever explaining what they believe “immigration reform” means.
Immigration reform should mean improvements to immigration policy to benefit Americans. But in Washington, immigration reform has devolved into a euphemism for legislation that opens America’s borders, floods her labor markets and gives corporations the legal right to import new foreign workers to replace their existing employees at lower pay.
After nearly half a century of massive immigration it is time to turn our attention to our own residents. We need an immigration policy that shows compassion for Americans.
CANADA NOW HAS A PRO-TERRORIST LEADER
Justin Trudeau, the just-elected Prime Minister of Canada praying at an Al Qaeda affiliated mosque in 2011
With backing from Obama's campaign people, Canadian voters made a left-wing terrorist supporter whose only calling card was his last name, the Prime Minister of Canada.
This is really bad for Canadians, but it turns our northern border into a serious national security issue. Because Canada's asylum policy has led to Moslem terrorist attack on America before.
Justin Trudeau is blatantly pro-terrorist. He opposes stripping terrorists of citizenship. He's an advocate for Gitmo rat Omar Khadr and spoke at a terror-linked mosque. In 2011, he visited and prayed at the Al-Sunnah Al-Nabawiah mosque in Montreal, identified by U.S. intelligence officials as a site where “known al-Qaeda members were recruited, facilitated or trained.”
On Monday (10/19) Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party which won a clear majority of seats in Parliament, became the Prime Minister of Canada.
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED
[This letter by Senator Ted Cruz in his capacity as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, was sent to Attorney General Lynch yesterday, October 14. It is a classic example of how Congress should investigate malfeasance by a federal agency.]
Dear Attorney General Lynch:
I write today to request information about the Department of Justice’s interactions with state and local law enforcement agencies across the United States.
I am very concerned that the Administration’s policies, as currently implemented by the Department, may be reducing the effectiveness of state and local law enforcement officials, chilling their ability to stop criminals in their communities, and fueling a nationwide crime increase.
At a time when the President’s anti-police rhetoric is emboldening criminals and fueling a nationwide surge in violent crime, the American public deserves to know if the Department is using the machinery of the United States government to suppress state and local law enforcement’s effectiveness.
I therefore request the following documents and information be provided to the Senate Committee as soon as possible, but no later than 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 20, 2015.
THE SURRENDER PARTY
What happens in politics when one side is absolutely committed to its principles, willing to fight for them no matter the cost, and the other side reflexively surrenders on every issue? We have modern-day Washington.
Today, President Barack Obama fights relentlessly for his liberal priorities. Like the Terminator, he never gives up, he never stops. And Republican leadership responds to every challenge by surrendering at the outset.
The core of this capitulation comes from Republican leadership’s promise that “There will be no government shutdown.” On its face, the promise sounds reasonable. Except in practice it means that Republicans never stand for anything.
Like Charlie Brown and the football, this disconnect explains the massive frustration with Washington. The American people do not believe Republicans will actually do what we say we will do.
The alternative? We actually do what we said we would do. We fight for commonsense conservative principles, and we use the constitutional authority of the power of the purse—which leadership has forsworn—to do so. Here’s how.
THE TRUTH ABOUT CARLY
The consensus is clear: Carly Fiorina won both the first and now second Republican Primary debates. As a result she is climbing in the polls and into the top tier of candidates. Her rise has led pundits to speculate about her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
I was a member of the HP Board of Directors much of the time Carly was the CEO (1999-2005). I was in the room for many of the decisions she made. I can attest to the strength of Carly’s leadership, the accuracy of her vision and the quality of her management.
Carly was an excellent CEO. She led HP through one of the worst economic times in decades. While other Silicon Valley icons like Sun Microsystems disappeared, Carly’s vision and execution not only helped to save HP but made it a strong, more versatile company that could compete in the changing technology sector.
Critics often claim was fired at HP because she was unsuccessful. As a member of the board, I can tell you this is not true. Here’s what really happened.
FROM A BLACK GLIB EGOMANIAC TO A WHITE GLIB EGOMANIAC
In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one — Donald Trump.
What is even more remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor.
No doubt much of the stampede of Republican voters toward Trump is based on their disgust with the Republican establishment. The fact that the next two biggest vote getters in the polls are also complete outsiders — Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina — reinforces the idea this is a protest.
It is easy to understand why there would be pent-up resentments among Republican voters. But are elections held for the purpose of venting emotions?
An election is not a popularity contest, or an award for showmanship. If you want to fulfill your duty as a citizen, then you need to become an informed voter. And if you are not informed, then the most patriotic thing you can do on Election Day is stay home.
Otherwise your vote, based on whims or emotions, is playing Russian roulette with the fate of this nation.
TOTO AND TRUMP IN ALABAMA
Toto the dog wasn’t needed in Mobile last Friday night (8/21) to pull the curtain from behind The Great and Mighty Trump. Trump let his own curtain flutter open, showing to much of the audience the humbug within.
In an hour-long verbal meanderthon at half-filled Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Trump allowed an atmosphere of electric excitement to dissipate, and then he split town without his promised post-show press conference. As I left the stadium, a red-hatted lady of my acquaintance spotted me and pulled me aside, saying: “Somebody needs to tell that man when to shut the you-know-what up. People were leaving in droves.”
The line of the evening belonged to Rob Holbert, a former press aide to Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi and now the co-publisher of the port city’s Lagniappe weekly. “That speech was more disjointed,” he said, “than a skeleton after tumbling down four flights of stairs.”
Sure, Trump’s speech got some bursts of enthusiastic applause. Still, compared with the remarkable buzz leading up to the tycoon’s visit, the actual performance was missed opportunity. Typical was this frustrated Facebook post by a local tea-party leader: “Substance!!!!!!!!! No substance!!!!! . . . Trump, please stop rambling. Please, do you have a plan???”
WORLD EXPLODES OVER DEAD LION, NOT OVER SELLING DEAD BABY BODY PARTS
On Tuesday (7/28), the world lost its collective mind – whatever is left of it, anyway – when media discovered the identity of the killer of a Zimbabwean named Cecil.
Cecil is a lion. Cecil, a lion, was by most accounts “one of Africa’s most famous lions.” Cecil, incredibly, was famous for being a lion, not for curing cancer, although you wouldn’t know that by the media coverage.
The man who shot Cecil, a lion, to death is Dr. Walter Palmer, a dentist in Minnesota who paid $55,000 for a big game permit. Celebrities promptly grabbed their pitchforks for the now-biweekly sport of “let’s find a jackass doing something nasty somewhere on earth and ruin his life to make ourselves feel moral.”
The American media have spilled copious amounts of ink and spent enormous amounts of bandwidth ginning up the mob over the death of Cecil, a lion. Meanwhile, the major media rush to ignore the fact that Democrats now force American taxpayers to foot the bill for hundreds of thousands of murders of babies by organizations including Planned Parenthood.
EUROPE’S SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN TERRORISM
What are we to make of the fact that no one has taken credit for Wednesday’s (3/23) Central Bus Station bombing in Jerusalem? Wednesday’s bombing was not a stand-alone event. It was part and parcel of the new Palestinian terror war that is just coming into view. As Israel considers how to contend with the emerging onslaught, it is important to notice how it differs from its predecessors. For both Fatah and Hamas, the most important target audience is Europe. Fatah, for example, is in the midst of a global campaign to build international support for a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence in September. The fact that Fatah and Hamas have neither waited until after September to attack nor sought to differentiate themselves from one another as the attacks coalesce into a new terror campaign indicates strongly that the Palestinians no longer feel they need to pretend to oppose terror to maintain European support for their war against Israel.
BREAKING NEWS: NPR AND HAMAS MERGE!
Gaza Strip -- Newly installed in her Gaza City office, National Public Radio’s Vice News Chief (Oppression and Victimization Department) Consuela “Muffy” Leer-Geist looks right at home. Generously granting her first on-site interview to FSM, Ms. Leer-Geist wore a tasteful chador, set off with a stunning Sweetbriar-logo headscarf (black is always correct). Her half-veil, designed by bad-boy fashionista John Galliano, completed an outfit that can only be described as a cutting-edge fashion statement that also displays cultural empathy.
Picking at her chickpea salad (and careful to use only her right hand), NPR’s reigning regional news-doyenne put down the script over which she’d been chuckling and opened our conversation:
TENDER LOVING CAIR
Islamist Bigots Lose One - And They're Outraged The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is furious. For the first time since the birth of Mohammed, it isn’t getting its way in Washington. In the past, whenever our government raised the possibility of doing the least little thing of which CAIR might not wholeheartedly approve, the soft-core jihadis shrieked, “Bigotry!” And presidents, cabinet secretaries, senators, representatives and bureaucrats—even intelligence analysts and military officers--ran for cover (while, no doubt, suggesting that their spouses don head-scarves for a probationary period).
In the face of Islamist terrorism, we’ve been foolish. In the face of Islamist bullying of our government, we’ve been cowards.
Now, just this once, CAIR isn’t being allowed to dictate its sharia-flavored will to our nation’s capital.
IRAN IS THE PRIME BENEFICIARY OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
A new Middle East is upon us and its primary beneficiary couldn't be happier. For generations, the stability of global oil supplies has been guaranteed by Saudi Arabia's reserve capacity that could be relied on to make up for any shocks to those supplies due to political unrest or other factors. When Libya's teetering dictator Muammar Ghaddafi decided to shut down Libya's oil exports last month, the oil markets reacted with a sharp increase in prices. The very next day the Saudis announced they would make up the shortfall from Libya's withdrawal from the export market. In the old Middle East, the Saudi statement would never have been questioned. Oil suppliers and purchasers alike accepted the arrangement whereby Saudi Arabian reserves - defended by the US military -- served as the guarantor of the oil economy. But in the New Middle East, Iran feels comfortable questioning the Saudi role. With each passing day, the Iranian regime is actively destabilizing Saudi Arabia's neighbors and increasing its influence over Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority in the kingdom's Eastern Province where most of its oil is located. The Obama administration has failed completely to understand what is happening.
THE WEST’S PROXY WAR AGAINST THE JEWS
It was a stunning moment of moral clarity. As the South Vietnamese refugees clambered onto rickety boats in the South China Sea to escape the victorious Communists, the American Left that orchestrated the US defeat through a sustained campaign of propaganda and fake calls for peace stood silent.
As Pol Pot, the "progressive" dictator tortured and murdered a third of his people in Cambodia, the leftists "peace" activists in the US and Europe who never saw a US military operation that was justified, turned a blind eye.
The silence of the likes of Susan Sontag, Jane Fonda, Noam Chomsky and their fellow travelers came to mind last week when the Western media and intellectual elites averted their gaze as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the long exiled spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood spoke before a crowd of millions at Cairo's Tahrir Square.
LARA LOGAN AND THE MEDIA RULES
To date the most egregious attack on a foreign journalist in Cairo's Tahrir Square took place last Friday, when CBS's senior foreign correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten by a mob of Egyptian men. Her own network, CBS, took several days to even report the story, and when it did, it left out important information. The fact that Logan was brutalized for 20 to 30 minutes and that her attackers screamed out "Jew, Jew, Jew" as they ravaged her was absent from the CBS report and from most other follow-on reports in the US media. This week, a group of female US soldiers filed a class action lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. The plaintiffs allege that both men and the US defense establishment are responsible for the sexual assaults they suffered during their military service. They claim that the men who abused them were a product of US military culture. The US media has provided blanket coverage of the story, which effectively places the entire US military on trial for rape. What is interesting about the lawsuit story is that it highlights the alleged perpetrator. Coverage of the lawsuit has been heavy on details about the alleged misogyny of US military culture. In stark contrast, coverage of Logan's sexual assault makes almost no mention of the perpetrators.
THE GYPPER AND THE GIPPER
IDENTITY THEFT & THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY In one of the most bizarre political gambits in our history, President Obama and his dwindling band of cheerleaders—nervously eyeing the big game in 2012—have been trying to cast an over-inflated community organizer as the reincarnation of the Gipper. No matter how often Obama drops President Reagan’s name or how shamelessly his flaks attempt to link this shrinking, spineless president to the bold, visionary giant who turned a broken nation around, nobody’s buying this preposterous propaganda. Comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is like comparing Bernie Madoff to Warren Buffett: Hustling your clients isn’t heroism, and fraud’s not a formula for enduring success.
REBUILDING THE REAGAN COALITION
To all outward appearances, the just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was a huge success. It was attended by a large, boisterous crowd, a substantial part of which was student-age - a promising indicator of the movement’s appeal to the coming generation. A number of luminaries, including several prospective presidential candidates, addressed enthusiastic audiences clearly invigorated by November’s successes at the polls. CPAC’s apparent vigor, however, obscured the fact that the conservative movement is at a crossroads: Will it continue to be comprised of, and appeal to, all three elements of Ronald Reagan‘s winning coalition - fiscal discipline, traditional family and other social values, and a national security approach rooted in the philosophy of “peace through strength”? Or will it be reduced to a libertarian-dominated, small-government agenda that ignores or repudiates Reagan‘s conservative values and robust defense platform? Upon the answer rests not only the future of this vital movement, but of America.
AS THE LIES COME CRASHING DOWN
Pakistan is a textbook example of a disaster of biblical proportions in the making. Its hyperactive nuclear expansion, weak central government, impoverished, radicalized population, and pro- Islamist military and intelligence arms are sources for major concern. That concern becomes all-out alarm in light of the Taliban/al-Qaida's control over anywhere from a quarter to a third of Pakistani territory and the widespread public support for them throughout the country. Since taking office, the Obama administration has failed to conceive of a strategy for contending with the situation. One of the main obstacles to the formation of a coherent US strategy is the Obama administration's move to outlaw any discussion of the basic threats to US interests. Shortly after entering office, President Barack Obama banned the use of the term "War against terror," substituting it with the opaque term "overseas contingency operation." Last April, Obama banned use of the terms "jihad," "Islamic terrorism" and "radical Islam" in US government documents. Given that US officials are barred from using all the terms that are relevant for describing reality in places like Pakistan, it is obvious why the US cannot put together a strategy for contending with the challenges it faces there. The Obama administration's decision to ban relevant language from the official US policy discourse was ideologically motivated. And in choosing ideology over reality, the Obama administration has induced a situation where rather than construct policies to deal with reality, at all levels, US officials have been charged with constructing policies to deny and ignore reality.
THE WAR ON THE CONSTITUTION
Challenges in court to the constitutionality of Obamacare have exposed the broader agenda of those who are committed to the permanent expansion of government power which that legislation represents. The specific legal issues are almost irrelevant because Obamacare is so clearly outside the scope of limited, constitutional government. This has made it necessary for the advocates of unrestrained government power to either attack the U.S. Constitution itself or the very concept of constitutional limits on the tyranny of the majority or of a ruthless minority elite. Some try to sidestep the attack on the Constitution by substituting a war on English. They claim to support the Constitution but deny that words have any objective meaning.
ISRAEL WOUNDS ITSELF
As the threats against Israel mount from all directions, the job of the IDF Chief of General Staff is becoming more challenging by the day.
First on the list of threats is Iran. While it is apparently true that the Stuxnet computer virus continues to wreak havoc on Iran's nuclear program, it is also true that Iran remains dedicated to moving forward, despite all obstacles.
Then there is Egypt. Iran's dictator-in-chief Ali Khamenei has spent the two weeks since the anti-regime protests began in Egypt bragging that the unrest shows Iran's star is rising. The "Islamic awakening" hearkened by the 1979 Iranian revolution is unfolding before our eyes, he says.
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS in Egypt, as well as the sabotage of the natural gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel at el-Arish, show that the southern front is active again after 30 years. The IDF needs to prepare for the possibility of a conventional war in the south and the north. It will have to relearn how to fight a war in the desert. New weapons systems will have to be developed and procured. Troops will have to receive expanded training.
In short, the ways the IDF thinks about war, plans for war, arms for war, trains for war and wages war are all going to have to change.
In light of these awesome challenges, the IDF's next chief of general staff will have to have the attitude of a revolutionary as he guides the IDF through massive change, and commands it in complex and perhaps existential battles.
Unfortunately, chances that such a commander will arise received a blow last week when Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decided to force the government to cancel its decision to appoint Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant to replace outgoing Chief of Gen. Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi next Tuesday.
JEWS OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa is a country of paradoxes. On the one hand, it is exhilarating to see the blacks now in charge after their long struggle. On the other, the ruling African National Congress' record of governance is at best a mixed bag.
This has been a great year for South Africa. Throngs of tourists visited during the World Cup soccer championship, and the international press coverage was fantastic. Unfortunately, the relative safety enjoyed by World Cup tourists was a striking deviation from the norm. The ANC has failed to provide personal security for South Africans. According to the UN, South Africa has the second highest per capita murder rate in the world. South African sources place the annual murder rate at 23,000.
South Africa is the rape capital of the world. In a 1998-2000 UN survey, one in three women said they had been raped in the past year. One in four men admitted that he was a rapist. Nearly 20 percent of South Africans are infected with the HIV virus.
On top of this, the ANC regime is one of the most anti-Israel governments in the world today. Although the physical beauty of South Africa is arresting, and the material standard of living that South African Jews enjoy is impressive, it is clear that Jewish life in South Africa will only get worse.
THE AGE OF DISSIMULATION
Today, practically, the only individuals willing to speak honestly about who Islamic supremacists are and what they want are the Islamic supremacists themselves.
For instance, in an interview last week with Reuters, the Islamic supremacist Hamas movement's "foreign minister" Mahmoud al- Zahar told the Christian West, "You do not live like human beings. You do not [even] live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?"
Al-Zahar also made the case for Islamic feminism. As he put it, "We are the ones who respect women and honor women ... not you. You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. You don't know who is the father of your sons, because of the way you respect women."
THE SCOTT BROWN PRECEDENT AND ISRAEL
Last year, in an attempt to block Obama's plan to nationalize healthcare, Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate. Brown was elected because he pledged to block Obamacare in the US Senate.
Rather than heed the voters' message and abandon his plans, Obama abandoned the voters. Instead of accepting his defeat, Obama changed the rules of the game and bypassed the Senate.
So it is safe to assume that for the next two years, Obama will do everything he can to bypass the Congress and govern by executive orders and regulations. Although much can be done in this fashion, Congress's control of the purse strings will check his domestic agenda.
In matters of foreign policy however, Obama will be less burdened by - but not immune - to Congressional oversight. We can therefore expect him to devote far more energy to foreign affairs in the next two years than he devoted in the last two years.
This bodes ill for Israel.
THE INCREASING IRRELEVANCE OF ISRAEL’S OPPOSITION
Olmert's and Livni's assaults on Netanyahu made clear that like most of their colleagues on the Left, they believe that relations between countries and relations between governments are the same thing. Leaders of the Israeli left believe the major determinant in the quality of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is the view of the U.S. president.
Luckily for Israel, Livni, Olmert and the Left they represent have no idea what they are talking about. As a poll released last week makes clear, Americans are far more likely to ditch leaders they believe are harming the US-Israel alliance than they are to ditch the alliance.
CAN YOU SUPPORT OUR VETERANS AND OUR ENEMIES AT THE SAME TIME?
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Political Action Committee has endorsed "Senator Ma'am for re-election. Scott Swett finds this odd. So do the leaders of the VFW, who have asked the VFW PAC to rescind that and other endorsements of anti-military Democrats, and who are contemplating abolition of the PAC, which is run separately from the VFW.
AHMADINEJAD’S TARGET AUDIENCE
By Iranian and Hizbullah accounts, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon this week will be a splendid affair. The man who stole his office and then killed his countrymen to protect his crime will be greeted as a conquering hero. Billboards bidding him welcome and Iranian flags will line the roads from the Beirut airport down to the border with Israel.
AHMADINEJAD'S VISIT must be seen within the regional context that it is taking place. Specifically, it must be seen against the backdrop of Lebanese politics. It must also be seen in the context of waning US power and influence in the region. Finally it should be evaluated in terms of Iranian domestic affairs and Ahmadinejad's ongoing struggle with his people who reject his leadership. While Iran's ill-intentions towards Israel remain static, all of the other developments in the region are dynamic.
One aspect of Ahmadinejad's visit is abundantly clear. It is the diplomatic equivalent of a victory lap. Iran's ruler is using his trip as an opportunity to flaunt his position as the colonial overlord of Lebanon.
That means that Iran now believes it is in its interest to expose that Lebanon today is nothing more than an Iranian colony.
THE LESSONS OF STUXNET
There's a new cyber-weapon on the block. And it's a doozy. Stuxnet, a malicious software, or malware, program was apparently first discovered in June.
Although it has appeared in India, Pakistan and Indonesia, Iran's industrial complexes - including its nuclear installations - are its main victims.
No other malware program has ever managed to move from cyberspace to the real world. And this is what makes Stuxnet so revolutionary. It is not a tool of industrial espionage. It is a weapon of war.
ISRAELI LEFT CHOOSES PRE-EMPTIVE DOOM
Beginning around 2006, the Left began threatening that if Israel does not remove itself from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the US will abandon us. On Sunday night, former prime minister Ehud Olmert presented this argument in his keynote speech before the Geneva Initiative's annual conference.
If Israel does not withdraw from the territoires occupied after the 1967 war, its cities will remain secure and its population will not be in crisis. But Israel will have to contend with a hostile US government threatening to take unknown steps to force it to contract to within indefensible borders.
What will those US threats involve? Washington is already arming and training a Palestinian army. It is already selling the Arabs the most advanced weapons in the US arsenal. It is already providing military assistance to the Hizbullah-controlled Lebanese army. It is already permitting Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Would Olmert and his leftist colleagues have us believe that the US military will invade Israel to force us to exit Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem?
If that is what the Left is hinting, let us assume it is right. But if the Left is right, is Israel better off preemptively dooming itself to chronic wars and strategic vulnerability by accepting indefensible borders than by refusing to do so? At least if we refuse to stick our neck in the noose, the US government will be forced to make the case for destroying Israel to the American people.
WHO LOST TURKEY?
You have to hand it to Turkey's Islamist leaders. They sure know how to get their way. In the seven years since they first took power, the Islamist AKP party has successfully transformed Turkey from a staunch ally of the US and Israel and a member of NATO into a staunch ally of Iran and a member of NATO.
And that's not all. Turkey's Islamist leaders have used the Western language of democracy and freedom not only to abandon the West. They have used that language to destroy the foundations of Turkey's Western-style secular democracy and transform the governing system of NATO's sole Muslim member into a hybrid of Putinist autocracy and Iranian theocracy.
THE PERILS OF DIPLOMATIC THEATER
The current flurry of diplomatic activity is deeply disturbing. It isn't simply that the Obama administration has strong-armed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into participating in diplomatic theater with the PLO whose successful completion will leave Israel weaker and less defensible. It isn't merely that the newest "peace process" diverts our leadership's attention away from Iran and its nuclear weapons program.
The most disturbing aspect of the latest round of the diplomatic kabuki is that Israel's leaders and Israel's staunch friends in the US are enthusiastically participating in this dangerous project.
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER: MORALITY LAB
I came to the World Trade Center in early 2002 expecting to find a disaster zone, which I certainly did. But I also found an important surprise. I can't imagine that I was the only one to walk away from the WTC with these impressions and with these ideas running through my mind, but if anyone else has tread this ground, I haven't seen it, and it is far too important to let pass in silence.
ACCEPTING THE UNACCEPTABLE
Last weekend the mullahs took a big step towards becoming a nuclear power as they powered the Bushehr nuclear reactor.
Israel's response? The Foreign Ministry published a statement proclaiming the move "totally unacceptable." So why did we accept the totally unacceptable?
The answer to this question was provided in large part in an article in the National Interest by former Clinton Administration National Security Council member Bruce Riedel. Titled, "If Israel Attacks," Riedel -- who reportedly has close ties to the administration - asserts that an Israeli military strike against Iran will be a disaster for the US. In his view, US is better served by allowing Iran to become a nuclear power than by supporting an Israeli attack against Iran.
Riedel's reason for deeming an Israeli strike unacceptable is his conviction that such a strike will be met by an Iranian counter-strike against US forces and interests in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. While there is no reason to doubt he is correct, Riedel studiously ignores the other certainty: A nuclear-armed Iran would threaten those same troops and interests far more.
AT CYBERDAWN WE SLEPT
Antique laws endanger America. It's as if, in the age of the automobile, we relied on traffic laws from horse-and-buggy days. Absent appropriate legal codes, our government turns to lawyers without laws.
Cyberassaults go on, 24/7. Security leaks haunt the Internet (and our amoral media). Terrorists kill, then sue us. In the first case, we take our beatings and slap on bandages. In the second, we huff, puff and do nothing. In the third case, an apprehended terrorist gets better medical care than an out-of-work American.
Even the civil laws and military codes we do have on the books are not enforced. If found guilty, that Army private who allegedly passed over 90,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks should get the "full Rosenberg," a shortened life and a hot exit. Instead, he'll do a few years at most -- at most -- then get a book contract. (Can't wait for the movie!)
Congress is AWOL in these undeclared wars us. Legislators in both parties play for short-term political advantage, while our enemies act with impunity. If a cyber-Pearl Harbor -- on a far-greater scale than that savage attack -- hits our country, don't blame our military or call it an intelligence failure.