If anyone still wonders how the Nazis were able to get millions of good, mostly nominally Christian, Europeans to round up and herd the Jews into railcars, to be shipped off to an unknown but obviously dire fate, just watch this video, and your eyes will be opened. Continue reading
Category Archives: Foreign Policy
Money talks University presidents are learning the hard way: promoting anti-Semitism costs schools deep-pockets donors
As we previously reported, on Friday the 13th, Marc Rowan, University of Pennsylvania alumnus, Wharton school of business graduate and CEO of Apollo Global Management based in New York, called on UPenn alumni and supporters to “close their checkbooks” until President Liz Magill and Chairman Scott L. Bok step down, saying that under their leadership, the college had embraced anti-Semitism. The linked article from The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that all four of the protesting trustees were Jewish.
And now there’s this:
Penn president said university ‘should have moved faster’ in opposing Palestine Writes speakers with a history of antisemitism
Liz Magill’s comments came within days of a trustee’s resignation over Penn’s handling of the event and after several heavyweight donors withdrew funding support.
by Susan Snyder | Sunday, October 15, 2023 | 2:53 PM EDT | updated: 6:12 PM EDT
The University of Pennsylvania “should have moved faster” to share its position strongly against some speakers with a history of antisemitism appearing at the Palestine Writes festival held on campus last month, the school’s president said in a statement to the campus community Sunday.
Liz Magill’s email comes one day after major donor Jon Huntsman Jr., former governor of Utah and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, China, and Singapore, said his family’s foundation would halt donations to Penn, which he said has “become deeply adrift in ways that make it almost unrecognizable,” according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, which obtained and published his email to Magill. Continue reading
“There are no friendly civilians!”
From First Blood:
Colonel Trautman: “Look John, we can’t have you running around out there killing friendly civilians.”
John Rambo : “There are no friendly civilians!”
It was inevitable, of course, that our nation’s major newspapers would allow opinions on the Israeli-Hamas War from ‘both’ sides, but I have to ask: is there really more than one ‘side’ in response to a deliberate terrorist attack which has killed more than a thousand Israeli civilians, including children and infants? Apparently Karen Attiah of The Washington Post believes that there is! Continue reading
I love it when a plan comes together . . . and when someone else’s plans fall apart! When people tell you who they are, believe them!
Perhaps my good friend Christine Flowers didn’t get to cancel these people herself, but it does show that while we all have our freedom of speech, other people have a freedom to listen, and some people might not like what you have to say!
Harvard students scramble to take back support for letter attacking Israel as some CEOs look to blacklist them
By Melissa Koenig | Wednesday, October 11, 2023 | 2:34 PM EDT
A flurry of Harvard University students and groups are desperately trying to backtrack on their support of a letter blaming Israel for the mass slaughter of its own people by Hamas terrorists — as some business titans seek to blacklist them from future jobs. Continue reading
The Israeli-Hamas War and the frustration of the Usual Suspects
As my good friend and occasional blog pinch-hitter William Teach has noted, the Editorial Board of The New York Times has unambiguously supported Israel following the sneak attacks by Hamas guerrilla fighters.
The brutal terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas is a tragedy, one that may change the course of the nation and the entire region.
The Editorial Board minced no words in calling the attacks “terrorist,” which they certainly were:
To the world’s horror, they attacked civilians — including older people, women and children — and took them hostage. More than 150 people remain captive in Gaza, in a further atrocity.
As we previously reported, the Times covered the attacks extensively. The 24-hour cable news networks? They are doing the same thing. But, as we also reported, the very #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading Philadelphia Inquirer has been strangely quiet on the whole thing. Columnist Trudy Rubin, who does appear to support the Israelis at least somewhat, criticized Israel’s security policies, which is at least realistic given that the nation was caught completely by surprise.
Far-left columnist Will Bunch? He gave the obligatory statement that yes, Hamas attack was “butcherous,” “immoral and unconscionable”, right before blaming Israel and it’s “long-running, brutal occupation regime”:
When I was 11, I naively hoped the song lyric, “War! What is it good for?” would be a transistor-radio memory and not a question I’d be asking myself again and again for the rest of my life. The butcherous attacks by Hamas on civilians in southern Israel are immoral and unconscionable — as are Israel’s policies that turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison for 2 million people. There were plenty of chances for the world to fight for peace in this troubled land, instead of waiting until the bombs are bursting in air, when it is always too late. On that same plastic radio, I heard John Lennon sing, “War is over … if you want it.” He would have turned 83 on Monday. . . . .
This week’s question: Most U.S. politicians have rightly condemned the barbarous attacks on civilians by Hamas, but with little mention of Israel’s long-running, brutal occupation regime. Is that fair under these circumstances? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me your answer.
American leftists supporting a people who would throw them in jail — or off a tall building — if they were actually queer in ‘Palestine.’
The newspaper’s Editorial Board? Pretty much the same thing, telling readers how horrible Hamas surprise attack was, but then turning right around to blame congressional Republicans, and, for good measure, Donald Trump:
Over the weekend, rather than uniting around a plan for peace, Republican leaders, including Trump, tried to sow division by blaming Biden for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets in August as part of a prisoner swap.
Never mind that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the money was earmarked for humanitarian support and had not been spent yet. Or that Trump may share some blame in provoking the Palestinians — and encouraging Netanyahu’s right-wing supporters — when he moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
It would take someone completely uneducated in economics to fail to understand that even if the freed dollars were entirely spent on “humanitarian support,” the fact that they exist frees up other money which can be then used for other things, including weapons. And President Trump was simply obeying a long ago passed law which mandated the embassy move to Israel’s capital. Continue reading
References
| ↑1 | From Wikipedia:
I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid. |
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Israel is great, militarily, but let’s tell the truth here: they have proven to be poor conquerors.
New York Times website main page, October 8, 2023. Click to enlarge.
That The New York Times is unabashedly liberal is of no surprise to anyone, but at least the Gray Lady does cover the news. My normal first read of newspapers is The Philadelphia Inquirer, which showed exactly one story concerning the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, on the website main page.
The Times had eight stories, covering the story from several different angles. Two clearly-labeled opinion pieces, by Thomas Friedman and Bret Stephens, added to the Times coverage, while none of the Inky’s columnists seemed interested in the story, the most important story of the day.
Hamas’s Control of Gaza Must End Now
by Bret Stephens | Saturday, October 7, 2023
It’s easy to note the parallels between Hamas’s attack on Israel on Saturday morning and the Yom Kippur war, which began 50 years ago Friday. Continue reading
Bill Kristol and the Neocons sure love them some war Mr Kristol never served, but he's very willing to get other people's kids killed!
See Robert Stacy McCain: A Self-Inflicted Disaster as Republi-cans Vote to Boot Kevin McCarthy as Speaker
According to the neocons like Bill Kristol[1]Mr Kristol, born into a well-to-do family, now with an estimated net worth of $10 million, was born on December 23, 1952, which had him turning 18 in late 1970. If he really believed that war was a … Continue reading and Matt Boot, if Russia wins in Ukraine, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will then send his troops into other countries, NATO countries, in further wars of conquest. After all, we didn’t stop Adolf Hitler at Munich, right, and after he took the Sudetenland, and the rest of Czechoslovakia, he sent the Wehrmacht rolling into Poland.
But this isn’t 1939, and the Russian army hasn’t rolled over Ukraine in three weeks, the way the Nazis did in their half of Poland.[2]The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact ‘gave’ the USSR the eastern half of Poland, which the Red Army took. It’s been over a year and a half since the Russians invaded, and the war has been a costly stalemate for Russia, which holds part of Ukraine, but if the Russians are not advancing and conquering the whole country, the Ukrainians have been unable to kick the Russians out. Ukraine is being devastated, industries damaged or destroyed, and people are being killed, but the war is simply not moving much.
This is where the neocons have gotten it all wrong. Even if Russia, in the end, finally wins and conquers Ukraine, its army has been seriously weakened, through the loss of men and machines. For a victorious Russia to then turn against one of the Baltic States, all of which are NATO member, would require many years, probably a decade of rebuilding, rearming, and re-equipping the Russian army. Simply put, Russia can’t turn against Estonia quickly.
There’s more. Adolf Hitler was just 50 years old when Germany invaded Poland; President Putin turns 71 in three days. If it takes Russia ten years to rebuild its army to invade another country, Vladimir Vladimirovich would be 81 years old by that time. Will Mr Putin still be in power at age 81? Will he even live to see that age?
There is some serious World War II thinking infecting the neocons, but it isn’t World War II we are facing or fighting. The potential, if we get as involved as Mr Kristol wants, is not World War II, but World War III.
References
| ↑1 | Mr Kristol, born into a well-to-do family, now with an estimated net worth of $10 million, was born on December 23, 1952, which had him turning 18 in late 1970. If he really believed that war was a great idea, he was of age to have enlisted in the United States Army to help fight in Vietnam . . . but he didn’t. His draft lotter number was 171, so he was kind of on the cusp of being called up to serve, but in any event, never served a single day in uniform. Being Jewish, Mr Kristol could also have volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defence Force, which could have used his service in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, but he didn’t do that, either. |
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| ↑2 | The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact ‘gave’ the USSR the eastern half of Poland, which the Red Army took. |
World War III Watch: The British might send ‘advisors’ and ‘training’ troops to Ukraine Didn't President Kennedy do the same thing in Vietnam?
Just as the House of Representatives sends a continuing resolution to the Senate to keep the federal government from shutting down, a CR which maintains the current, hideous level of spending, but strips out money for Ukraine, we get this news from across the pond:
UK aims to offer military training inside Ukraine, minister says
Saturday, September 30, 2023 | 5:51 PM EDT
LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Britain’s government wants to deploy military instructors to Ukraine, in addition to training Ukrainian armed forces in Britain or other Western countries as at present, British defence minister Grant Shapps said in a newspaper interview.
To date, Britain and its allies have avoided a formal military presence in Ukraine to reduce the risk of a direct conflict with Russia.
Britain has provided five-week military training courses to around 20,000 Ukrainians over the past year, and intends to train a similar number going forward.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Shapps said there was scope to offer military training within Ukraine after a discussion on Friday with British military chiefs.
“I was talking today about eventually getting the training brought closer and actually into Ukraine as well,” he was quoted as saying. “Particularly in the west of the country, I think the opportunity now is to bring more things ‘in country’,” he added.
Sending American troops to train the South Vietnamese, but not to fight their battles for them; how did that work out? By November 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated, there were at least 16,000 US military ‘advisors’ in Vietnam.
Wars tend to be unpredictable things, but one thing is certain: British soldiers, who are quite literally NATO soldiers, actually in Ukraine, become targets. I’d like to think that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin would be sensible enough to tell his army not to target the Brits, but even if he does precisely that, poor intelligence, rotten guidance, lousy communications, and just the plain misfortunes of war could lead to some British troops being blasted away.
And what happens then? Such would not technically be an attack on NATO nations, since the British troops would be in Ukraine, but this looks a whole lot like the stupidity which led to over 58,000 names on the Vietnam War memorial wall, all for a war we just plain lost.
Losing the war in Vietnam was a tragedy, but it wasn’t an existential one. We didn’t lose our freedom, we were not conquered by the Communists. It was a loss at distance, a loss which cost us a lot of money and a lot of blood, but we survived just fine, thank you very much.
Ukraine is not the same thing. For Ukraine to win, Russia has to lose, and a Russia that is losing, especially if Vladimir Vladimirovich sees himself as possibly losing his hold on power, might react in ways which we would not like at all.
World War III Watch Warmongers gotta warminger!
We noted, just a couple of days ago, that American newspapers were starting to go all-out neoconservative in wanting to expand American and NATO involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian War. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s chief warmonger, Trudy Rubin, wants NATO to take in Ukraine, saying:
This is the moment when NATO members, led by Biden, should be laying out a clear path for Ukraine to join the alliance once the war ends. This is the moment, which, if seized, could plausibly lead to Ukrainian victory by year’s end.
The Washington Post’s Max Boot, who is, as we have previously noted, very much pro-war, said:
Yet there is deep and understandable reluctance among Western European states and the United States to admit Ukraine to NATO, because it is at war with Russia and will be for the foreseeable future. This isn’t a stable stalemate like the division of East and West Germany or North and South Korea. This is a dynamic, ongoing conflict that, if NATO were to take in Ukraine, could draw other members into a shooting war with a nuclear-armed Russia.
It’s true, as Scheunemann and Farkas argue, that Article 5 — which holds “that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies” — “does not mandate a specific response by member states.” NATO members could say they are complying with Article 5 by doing what they are already doing: supplying Ukraine with weapons, training and intelligence and imposing sanctions on Russia. But there has always been an implicit assumption that an armed attack on a NATO member would result in military action by other NATO members. If that’s not the case, it would risk watering down Article 5 and reducing the overall effectiveness of the NATO alliance. Do we really want to send a message to Putin that he could invade, say, Lithuania and the West won’t fight to defend that embattled democracy?
Marc A. Thiessen and Stephen E. Biegun, writing in The Washington Post, and very much wanting to increase US/NATO aid to Ukraine, wrote:
No serious person advocates NATO membership for Ukraine while the current fighting continues. That would be tantamount to a declaration of war with Russia. But it is equally true that after a cease-fire, a durable peace cannot be achieved unless that peace is guaranteed by NATO membership.
Bill Kristol, the neoconservative founder and later destroyer of The Weekly Standard, because as a dedicated #NeverTrumper he couldn’t stand to allow any support of Donald Trump in a magazine marketed to conservatives and Republicans, and who is so pro-liberty that he wants to force people to be vaccinated, wants you to believe that he is a serious person, but by Messrs Thiessen’s and Biegun’s definition, simply is not. Mr Kristol tweeted[1]Mr Kristol’s tweet, shown above, is a screen capture of the original, in case he decides to delete the stupidity he wrote.:
Perhaps the simplest and strongest argument for a clear commitment to Ukraine joining NATO as soon as possible is that it would show Putin he cannot win. It thus would make a quick end to the war more likely. If you’re for peace, you should be for Ukraine in NATO.
There is no reasonable way to read that as anything but Mr Kristol wanting NATO to take in Ukraine while the war is still raging. If “Ukraine joining NATO as soon as possible” is the best way to “show Putin he cannot win,” then showing Vladimir Vladimirovich that he cannot win follows Ukraine joining NATO. If Mr Kristol was somehow thinking that he really meant after the war was over — and I would never put it beyond conception that Mr Kristol could foul up his verbiage — then a path for Ukraine to join NATO after the war only provides more incentive for President Putin to continue the war until Ukraine is conquered, so it can’t join NATO.
Mr Kristol, born into a well-to-do family, now with an estimated net worth of $10 million, was born on December 23, 1952, which had him turning 18 in late 1970. If he really believed that war was a great idea, he was of age to have enlisted in the United States Army to help fight in Vietnam . . . but he didn’t. His draft lotter number was 171, so he was kind of on the cusp of being called up to serve, but in any event, never served a single day in uniform. Being Jewish, Mr Kristol could also have volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defence Force, which could have used his service in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, but he didn’t do that, either.
Bill Kristol just loves him some American involvement in wars, but let’s tell the truth here: he supports having other people fight in those wars, not himself and not his children. And now he’s advocating a position in which even his fellow traveler, Max Boot, has said would probably involve the United States directly in a war with Russia, with nuclear-armed Russia.
So many of the neocons, with their World War II thinking, seem to just blithely wave off any threat of such a war going nuclear, but the closer such a war would get to defeating Russia, which the warmongers all seem to think would be the case, then the greater the temptation for Russia to reverse a defeat through the use of ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons. If the nuclear threshold is crossed, no one can know when things would stop.
References
| ↑1 | Mr Kristol’s tweet, shown above, is a screen capture of the original, in case he decides to delete the stupidity he wrote. |
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