Michael Schaus
Well… On the bright side: The UN Climate Chief has finally decided to adopt a certain modicum of honesty in her crusade to rid the world of pollution. As suspected by capitalists, free market advocates, and anyone who read into the redistributive agenda of the UN Climate Scientists, Christiana Figueres has suggested that only communism is capable of successfully fighting global warming and “climate change”.
Of course it’s a strange statement, given the Soviet Union’s abysmal record on environmental issues, and red China’s horrific display of environmental abuse. Figueres even went so far as to suggest that communist China is leading the world, and should be viewed as a role-model, in the fight against environmental damage. According to the Daily Caller:
“[China] actually wants to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.”
She went on to suggest that China is a better steward of environmental concerns than the United States, Socialist Europe, or any capitalistic entity on the face of the planet. And, to an extent, she’s right… China would like to breathe air they didn’t have to look at… Of course, their solution so far has revolved around handing out face masks, and erecting giant LCD screens to broadcast the sunrise and sunset.
China has struggled with environmental disaster since central planning bureaucrats first crept into the field of industrial planning. And while China has suffered through smog storms that make 1910 Philadelphia look like a clean-air-utopia, the civilized world (led primarily by free markets and capitalism) has cleaned up their act environmentally and morally. While the Soviet Union was busy draining lakes, and pumping sulfur into the German atmosphere, the West was busy inventing catalytic converters and low-emission power-plants.
And while America’s carbon footprint has largely stood still, that of China’s has grown to a burdensome (and worrisome) level… So, objectively, Christiana Figueres is more than wrong… She’s an outright ideological shill with little concern for historical context, or objective evaluation of environmental stewardship. Of course, to be fair, environmentalism has never really been about caring for the environment.
Capitalism has proven to be the greatest anti-poverty scheme in history, and has also thrust most of the developed world into a space-age era of technological, and socioeconomic, progress. And while capitalism has pushed the human condition into realms of universal luxury not previously imagined, the statists, socialists, communists, and elitists have bemoaned the individual power guaranteed by economic freedom. With this freedom, ironically, has come a greater philanthropic spirit and a broader understanding of community issues.
After all… It’s a whole lot easier to spend extra money on environmental, or societal, concerns when a nation produces more wealth. It is, much to the dismay of socialist hacks like Figueres, the wealth built by capitalism that has financed Europe’s socialist agendas. traditionally "dirty" oil companies continue to lead the world in environmentally conscious research, while government funded “green energy” projects have continued to bankrupt themselves. Communism might be effective at reigning in the excess of prosperity, but it is wholly ineffective at delivering prosperity, efficiency, or technological progress. (I mean, let’s face it: Aside from suicidal novelists, firearms, and vodka, what did the Soviet Union really do well?)
Economic freedom is accompanied by an unpredictable trajectory of entrepreneurial philanthropy… And leftists hate the individualistic nature of self-interest. So, despite capitalism’s provably superior track record on environmental issues, communism has proven to be more admired by the big-government statists of the leftist environmental movement. After all, Communism promises a whole lot more power and cronyism to the friends of Figueres than an objectively market-driven laissez faire society.
Figueres’ assertion that the smog-plagued, carbon-hungry, toxin spilling nation of China is better at environmental stewardship than the increasingly earth-conscious western democracies is another illustration of the UN’s agenda over fact. Just like UN scientists omitted inconvenient data to sell the notion of global warming, Figueres is willing to spew ludicrous assertions in an advocacy for centralized government, and redistributive policies.
After all, what good is a UN Chief if they don’t push for ideology that was once adopted by the “evil empire”? Clearly, an ideology that led to millions of political prisoners and widespread environmental damage is best equipped to spur market based solutions to environmental pollution… Right?
But, hey… At least she is more transparent than the American champions of redistributive-environmentalism.
10 Jul 2014
AN INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN: WORLD I CONTINUES
Austin Bay
As the militant Islamic State (formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL) threatens to shatter Iraq's central government, the leaders of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government have called for the creation of Independent Kurdistan. In June, KRG President Massoud Barzani said, "the time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future."
I doubt Barzani intentionally echoed Woodrow Wilson's post-World War I call for political self-determination. Kurdish nationalists believe, with good cause, they were grievously wronged after World War I.
Kurd demands for independence have been repeatedly disappointed; despite Iraqi chaos, they may be disappointed once again.
The Kurds' landlocked wedge of planet earth is a geographic "tweener." Using the old names illustrates the Kurds' historic difficulty. To the south, Kurdistan meshes with Mesopotamia; to the east with Persia, to the west with the Levant and to the north with Greco-Roman-Byzantine-Turk Anatolia.
For three millennia Kurds have fought various imperialists -- Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Turks.
However, they thought their time had come in August 1920 when the victorious World War I allies ratified the Treaty of Sevres.
Sevres addressed the defeated Ottoman Turkish Empire's territories. It divided Ottomans' Arab provinces between France and Britain, gave Greece a slice of Thrace and handed Italy a chain of Aegean Islands. France and Britain took de facto control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles (Turkish Straits).
With an irresolute nod to Wilsonian self-determination, Sevres promised the Kurdish people a state or perhaps several autonomous states conveniently advised by allied political officials.
Though Sevres did not specify Kurdistan's precise location, Kurdish nationalists were ecstatic. Today, Kurds are the largest ethnic group in Southeastern Turkey, Northeastern Syria and a small triangle of Iran (Turkey-Iraq border area). Kurds are definitely the majority in the KRG. Kurdistan 1921 would have formed somewhere in this area, probably Southeastern Turkey ... maybe.
But Britain and France were not committed to seeing through an afterthought Kurdistan. The secular Turkish nationalist movement, led by Kemal Ataturk, insisted on Turkish nationalist self-determination. Turkish nationalists opposed the war-weary French and British occupiers and the rump Ottoman dynasty (dictatorship) the occupiers supported.
The Greco-Turkish War took Sevres' Kurdistan off the diplomatic table. Greek leaders sought to seize control of the eastern Aegean coast. Turkish nationalists defeated the Greeks. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) settled the Greco-Turk fiasco, after a fashion, and made no mention of Kurdistan. Turkish nationalists would not cede another square-centimeter of territory.
Republican Turkey bitterly opposed an independent Kurdistan. Since 1923, Turkey has battled intermittent Kurdish insurgencies. The latest, which began in 1984, has Cold War connections. The Kurdistan Workers Party was a Marxist gang the USSR used to destabilize NATO's Turkey. The PKK, however, leveraged legitimate Kurd grievances and aspirations. Saddam Hussein's Iraq fought Kurd insurgents (hence the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds at Halabja). The Iranian and Syrian dictatorships confront Kurdish rebels.
Over the last decade, Turkish policy has evolved as the Turkish government sought a political solution to the Kurd insurgency in Southeastern Turkey. Turkey began investing in the KRG. KRG leaders encouraged the PKK to negotiate. Tit for tat? Probably. The KRG has tried to convince Turkey that it is a stable, moderate and reliable partner, politically and economically -- more so than Assad's Syria, ayatollah Iran or the chronically dysfunctional Shia-dominated Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki.
Iraqi Kurdistan has substantial crude oil reserves. This year, the KRG began selling crude without Baghdad's permission. The KRG ships its oil through Turkey.
If Iraq collapses, the KRG argues that, as Independent Kurdistan, it can provide Turkey with a stable buffer state also capable of stabilizing Kurdish Syria. Independent Kurdistan's peshmerga military forces, especially with Turkish support, can defeat the Islamic State militants.
In the wake of the ISIL invasion, the Turkish government said it supports Iraqi Kurdish self-determination -- self-determination, not independence. Turkish support for independence would have a high price: hands off Turkey's Kurdish region. The KRG, however, may not be able to make that guarantee. It has not been able to rein in PKK diehards. Iraqi Kurds may have to settle for a self-determined Kurdish autonomous zone notionally attached to Iraq, but supported by completely independent oil sales.
As the militant Islamic State (formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL) threatens to shatter Iraq's central government, the leaders of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government have called for the creation of Independent Kurdistan. In June, KRG President Massoud Barzani said, "the time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future."
I doubt Barzani intentionally echoed Woodrow Wilson's post-World War I call for political self-determination. Kurdish nationalists believe, with good cause, they were grievously wronged after World War I.
Kurd demands for independence have been repeatedly disappointed; despite Iraqi chaos, they may be disappointed once again.
The Kurds' landlocked wedge of planet earth is a geographic "tweener." Using the old names illustrates the Kurds' historic difficulty. To the south, Kurdistan meshes with Mesopotamia; to the east with Persia, to the west with the Levant and to the north with Greco-Roman-Byzantine-Turk Anatolia.
For three millennia Kurds have fought various imperialists -- Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Turks.
However, they thought their time had come in August 1920 when the victorious World War I allies ratified the Treaty of Sevres.
Sevres addressed the defeated Ottoman Turkish Empire's territories. It divided Ottomans' Arab provinces between France and Britain, gave Greece a slice of Thrace and handed Italy a chain of Aegean Islands. France and Britain took de facto control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles (Turkish Straits).
With an irresolute nod to Wilsonian self-determination, Sevres promised the Kurdish people a state or perhaps several autonomous states conveniently advised by allied political officials.
Though Sevres did not specify Kurdistan's precise location, Kurdish nationalists were ecstatic. Today, Kurds are the largest ethnic group in Southeastern Turkey, Northeastern Syria and a small triangle of Iran (Turkey-Iraq border area). Kurds are definitely the majority in the KRG. Kurdistan 1921 would have formed somewhere in this area, probably Southeastern Turkey ... maybe.
But Britain and France were not committed to seeing through an afterthought Kurdistan. The secular Turkish nationalist movement, led by Kemal Ataturk, insisted on Turkish nationalist self-determination. Turkish nationalists opposed the war-weary French and British occupiers and the rump Ottoman dynasty (dictatorship) the occupiers supported.
The Greco-Turkish War took Sevres' Kurdistan off the diplomatic table. Greek leaders sought to seize control of the eastern Aegean coast. Turkish nationalists defeated the Greeks. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) settled the Greco-Turk fiasco, after a fashion, and made no mention of Kurdistan. Turkish nationalists would not cede another square-centimeter of territory.
Republican Turkey bitterly opposed an independent Kurdistan. Since 1923, Turkey has battled intermittent Kurdish insurgencies. The latest, which began in 1984, has Cold War connections. The Kurdistan Workers Party was a Marxist gang the USSR used to destabilize NATO's Turkey. The PKK, however, leveraged legitimate Kurd grievances and aspirations. Saddam Hussein's Iraq fought Kurd insurgents (hence the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds at Halabja). The Iranian and Syrian dictatorships confront Kurdish rebels.
Over the last decade, Turkish policy has evolved as the Turkish government sought a political solution to the Kurd insurgency in Southeastern Turkey. Turkey began investing in the KRG. KRG leaders encouraged the PKK to negotiate. Tit for tat? Probably. The KRG has tried to convince Turkey that it is a stable, moderate and reliable partner, politically and economically -- more so than Assad's Syria, ayatollah Iran or the chronically dysfunctional Shia-dominated Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki.
Iraqi Kurdistan has substantial crude oil reserves. This year, the KRG began selling crude without Baghdad's permission. The KRG ships its oil through Turkey.
If Iraq collapses, the KRG argues that, as Independent Kurdistan, it can provide Turkey with a stable buffer state also capable of stabilizing Kurdish Syria. Independent Kurdistan's peshmerga military forces, especially with Turkish support, can defeat the Islamic State militants.
In the wake of the ISIL invasion, the Turkish government said it supports Iraqi Kurdish self-determination -- self-determination, not independence. Turkish support for independence would have a high price: hands off Turkey's Kurdish region. The KRG, however, may not be able to make that guarantee. It has not been able to rein in PKK diehards. Iraqi Kurds may have to settle for a self-determined Kurdish autonomous zone notionally attached to Iraq, but supported by completely independent oil sales.
SPYING ON INNOCENTS
Judge Andrew
In what appears to be one of Edward Snowden's final revelations, the former CIA and NSA agent has demonstrated conclusively that the National Security Agency has collected and analyzed the contents of emails, text messages, and mobile and landline telephone calls from nine non-targeted U.S. residents for every one U.S. resident it has targeted.
This puts the lie to the government's claims that it has only collected metadata -- identifying markers such as phone numbers and email addresses -- and not content from unsuspecting and unsuspected Americans. It puts the lie to the government's claims that it has studiously avoided prying into the private lives of Americans, in whom it has no intelligence-related or lawful interest. And this puts the lie to the government's contentions and the opinions of judges of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the NSA's spying is somehow lawful, constitutional and helpful.
We now know that the government has failed effectively to refute the Snowden claims that it has collected and maintained for future access massive amounts of personal materials about nearly all people in America since 2009. This includes the metadata and content of nearly every telephone call, email and text message made, sent or received in the U.S., as well as nearly every credit card bill, utility bill and monthly bank statement of nearly every person in the U.S.
This was accomplished through the issuance of general warrants by FISA court judges. General warrants do not particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized as the Constitution requires. General warrants authorize the bearer to use the power of government to search wherever he wishes. The use by British troops of general warrants was a principal motivation for the American Revolution, and the very purpose and literal wording of the Fourth Amendment was to outlaw and prohibit them.
Nevertheless, in their lust to appear muscular in our constitutionally sad post-9/11 era, politicians from both major political parties have defied the plain meaning and universally accepted history of the right to privacy and reverted to these odious instruments so condemned by the nation's founders and the Constitution's framers.
The recent Snowden revelations showed that about 900,000 innocent U.S. residents -- including President Barack Obama himself -- were subjected to heavy NSA scrutiny. This was done by NSA agents who knew that the subjects of their scrutiny were not the targets of their investigation.
How could that happen? It happened because the FISA court meets in secret, where the NSA has no opposition and the court has no transparency. This volatile mix has resulted in that court's granting well over 99 percent of NSA applications, including the "hop" rule implicated in the scrutiny of innocent Americans. In NSA-speak, a hop is a jump from one telephone conversation to another using a common phone.
In the sterile, isolated and secret environment of the FISA court -- where even the judges cannot keep records of their own decisions -- NSA agents and lawyers have persuaded judges to permit spying on people who are six hops from a target. Thus, by way of illustration, if A is a target and speaks with B, the NSA can listen to all of B's conversations, even those not with A. The leap from A to B is one hop, and the NSA gets six, so it can listen to any C who has spoken to B, any D who has spoken to any C, any E who has spoken to any D, any F who has spoken to any E and any G who has spoken to any F.
The 900,000 innocent U.S. residents whose private and personal lives have been subjected to NSA scrutiny -- including the examination of their photographs, intimate personal behavior, medical and financial needs -- consist of those who are within six hops from a target; in the illustration above, that would be every B, C, D, E, F and G whom the NSA can find. According to Snowden, there is no effort made by the NSA to minimize the scrutiny of those who are in the B-G category -- even though the chances that any of them are in cahoots with A are extremely remote, particularly once the NSA gets beyond B.
But remoteness does not trouble the NSA, and neither does the Constitution. Remoteness is a serious constitutional and practical problem. It violates the rights of known innocents, as the NSA has no constitutional or lawful authority to spy on any non-targets and FISA court judges have no power to authorize that spying. It also consumes the time and resources of NSA agents, whose job it is to find terror plots.
Is it any wonder that the Boston Marathon bombers discussed their plans with friends using their cellphones and the NSA missed it? Is it any wonder that when Gen. Keith Alexander, who ran the NSA for five years, was asked under oath how many plots his agents had uncovered with their spying on all Americans, he replied 57 and then the next day changed that reply to three and then was unable or unwilling to identify the supposed three? Is it any wonder that the two non-FISA court federal judges who scrutinized all this both found that it has uncovered no plots?
When the government sees or hears all, it knows all. And when the people tolerate a government that knows all, they will be afraid to be themselves. And the joy of being and expressing oneself is the very reason we have a Constitution designed to restrain government.
James Madison warned that the loss of liberty rarely happens in one great event but rather happens gradually, over time, resulting from the actions of government officials who claim to be fortifying security. He practically predicted today's events. The violations of our rights are obvious, undenied and undeniable. Yet what Madison probably feared most, he did not articulate: Once lost, liberty is lost forever.
In what appears to be one of Edward Snowden's final revelations, the former CIA and NSA agent has demonstrated conclusively that the National Security Agency has collected and analyzed the contents of emails, text messages, and mobile and landline telephone calls from nine non-targeted U.S. residents for every one U.S. resident it has targeted.
This puts the lie to the government's claims that it has only collected metadata -- identifying markers such as phone numbers and email addresses -- and not content from unsuspecting and unsuspected Americans. It puts the lie to the government's claims that it has studiously avoided prying into the private lives of Americans, in whom it has no intelligence-related or lawful interest. And this puts the lie to the government's contentions and the opinions of judges of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the NSA's spying is somehow lawful, constitutional and helpful.
We now know that the government has failed effectively to refute the Snowden claims that it has collected and maintained for future access massive amounts of personal materials about nearly all people in America since 2009. This includes the metadata and content of nearly every telephone call, email and text message made, sent or received in the U.S., as well as nearly every credit card bill, utility bill and monthly bank statement of nearly every person in the U.S.
This was accomplished through the issuance of general warrants by FISA court judges. General warrants do not particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized as the Constitution requires. General warrants authorize the bearer to use the power of government to search wherever he wishes. The use by British troops of general warrants was a principal motivation for the American Revolution, and the very purpose and literal wording of the Fourth Amendment was to outlaw and prohibit them.
Nevertheless, in their lust to appear muscular in our constitutionally sad post-9/11 era, politicians from both major political parties have defied the plain meaning and universally accepted history of the right to privacy and reverted to these odious instruments so condemned by the nation's founders and the Constitution's framers.
The recent Snowden revelations showed that about 900,000 innocent U.S. residents -- including President Barack Obama himself -- were subjected to heavy NSA scrutiny. This was done by NSA agents who knew that the subjects of their scrutiny were not the targets of their investigation.
How could that happen? It happened because the FISA court meets in secret, where the NSA has no opposition and the court has no transparency. This volatile mix has resulted in that court's granting well over 99 percent of NSA applications, including the "hop" rule implicated in the scrutiny of innocent Americans. In NSA-speak, a hop is a jump from one telephone conversation to another using a common phone.
In the sterile, isolated and secret environment of the FISA court -- where even the judges cannot keep records of their own decisions -- NSA agents and lawyers have persuaded judges to permit spying on people who are six hops from a target. Thus, by way of illustration, if A is a target and speaks with B, the NSA can listen to all of B's conversations, even those not with A. The leap from A to B is one hop, and the NSA gets six, so it can listen to any C who has spoken to B, any D who has spoken to any C, any E who has spoken to any D, any F who has spoken to any E and any G who has spoken to any F.
The 900,000 innocent U.S. residents whose private and personal lives have been subjected to NSA scrutiny -- including the examination of their photographs, intimate personal behavior, medical and financial needs -- consist of those who are within six hops from a target; in the illustration above, that would be every B, C, D, E, F and G whom the NSA can find. According to Snowden, there is no effort made by the NSA to minimize the scrutiny of those who are in the B-G category -- even though the chances that any of them are in cahoots with A are extremely remote, particularly once the NSA gets beyond B.
But remoteness does not trouble the NSA, and neither does the Constitution. Remoteness is a serious constitutional and practical problem. It violates the rights of known innocents, as the NSA has no constitutional or lawful authority to spy on any non-targets and FISA court judges have no power to authorize that spying. It also consumes the time and resources of NSA agents, whose job it is to find terror plots.
Is it any wonder that the Boston Marathon bombers discussed their plans with friends using their cellphones and the NSA missed it? Is it any wonder that when Gen. Keith Alexander, who ran the NSA for five years, was asked under oath how many plots his agents had uncovered with their spying on all Americans, he replied 57 and then the next day changed that reply to three and then was unable or unwilling to identify the supposed three? Is it any wonder that the two non-FISA court federal judges who scrutinized all this both found that it has uncovered no plots?
When the government sees or hears all, it knows all. And when the people tolerate a government that knows all, they will be afraid to be themselves. And the joy of being and expressing oneself is the very reason we have a Constitution designed to restrain government.
James Madison warned that the loss of liberty rarely happens in one great event but rather happens gradually, over time, resulting from the actions of government officials who claim to be fortifying security. He practically predicted today's events. The violations of our rights are obvious, undenied and undeniable. Yet what Madison probably feared most, he did not articulate: Once lost, liberty is lost forever.
9 Jul 2014
WHY AMERICA IS IN JEOPARDY
Dennis Prager
On page 563 of his latest biography — John Quincy Adams: American Visionary — author Fred Kaplan (biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Gore Vidal among others) cites this insight of the sixth president:
Christianity had, all in all, he believed, been a civilizing force, “checking and controlling the anti-social passions of man.”
That insight is pretty much all an American needs to know in order to understand why the American Founders considered religion — specifically ethical monotheism rooted in the Hebrew Bible — indispensable to the American experiment; and why the America we have known since 1776 is in jeopardy.
It is easy to respect secular Americans who hold fast to the Constitution and to American values generally. And any one of us who believes in God can understand why some people, given all the unjust suffering in the world, just cannot believe that there is a Providential Being.
But one cannot respect the view that America can survive without the religious beliefs and values that shaped it. The argument that there are moral secularists and moral atheists is a non sequitur. Of course there are moral Americans devoid of religion. So what? There were moral people who believed in Jove. But an America governed by Roman religion would not be the America that has been the beacon of freedom and the greatest force for good in the world.
In order to understand why, one only need understand John Quincy Adams’s insight: How will we go about “checking and controlling the anti-social passions of man” without traditional American religious beliefs?
There are two possible responses:
One is that most Americans (or people generally, but we are talking about America here) do not have anti-social passions.
The other is that most Americans (again, like all other human beings) do have anti-social passions, but the vast majority of us can do a fine job checking and controlling them without religion as it has been practiced throughout American history.
These are views with which virtually every American who attends secular high school or university is explicitly and implicitly indoctrinated.
Both are wrong. And not just wrong, but foolish — and lethal to the American experiment.
To deny that human beings are filled with anti-social passions defies reality and betrays a lack of self-awareness. One has to be taught nonsense for a great many formative years to believe it.
If we weren’t born with anti-social passions — narcissism, envy, lust, meanness, greed, hunger for power, just to name the more obvious — why the need for so many laws, whether religious or secular, that govern behavior?
The second objection is that, even if we do have anti-social passions, we don’t need a God or religion in order to control them. Only moral primitives, the argument goes, need either a judging God or a religious set of rules. The Enlightened can do fine without them and need only to consult their faculty of reason and conscience to know how to behave.
Our prisons are filled with people whose consciences are quite at peace with their criminal behavior. As for reason, they used it well — to figure out how to get away with everything from murder to white-collar crime.
But our prisons are not filled with religious Jewish and Christian murderers. On the contrary, if all Americans attended church weekly, we would need far fewer prisons; and the ones we needed would have very few murderers in them.
Meanwhile the record of the godless and non-Christianity crowd is awful. I am not simply referring to the godless and secular Communist regimes of the 20th century that committed virtually every genocide of those hundred years. I am referring to those Americans (and Europeans) who use reason to argue, among other foolish things: that good and evil are subjective societal or individual opinions; that gender is purely a social construct and therefore the male and female distinction is of no importance; that marriage isn’t important and is just a piece of paper invented by the religious to keep women down; that a human fetus, even when it has a beating heart, a formed human body, and a conscious brain, has less of a right to life than a cat; and that men, let alone fathers, aren’t necessary. (Think no one really believes the latter? See, for example, The Atlantic’s “Are Fathers Necessary?” and the New York Times’s “Men, Who Needs Them?”) And that is a short list.
For proof of the moral and intellectual consequences of the secularization of America, look at what has happened to the least religious institution in America, the university. Is that the future we want for the whole country?
On page 563 of his latest biography — John Quincy Adams: American Visionary — author Fred Kaplan (biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Gore Vidal among others) cites this insight of the sixth president:
Christianity had, all in all, he believed, been a civilizing force, “checking and controlling the anti-social passions of man.”
That insight is pretty much all an American needs to know in order to understand why the American Founders considered religion — specifically ethical monotheism rooted in the Hebrew Bible — indispensable to the American experiment; and why the America we have known since 1776 is in jeopardy.
It is easy to respect secular Americans who hold fast to the Constitution and to American values generally. And any one of us who believes in God can understand why some people, given all the unjust suffering in the world, just cannot believe that there is a Providential Being.
But one cannot respect the view that America can survive without the religious beliefs and values that shaped it. The argument that there are moral secularists and moral atheists is a non sequitur. Of course there are moral Americans devoid of religion. So what? There were moral people who believed in Jove. But an America governed by Roman religion would not be the America that has been the beacon of freedom and the greatest force for good in the world.
In order to understand why, one only need understand John Quincy Adams’s insight: How will we go about “checking and controlling the anti-social passions of man” without traditional American religious beliefs?
There are two possible responses:
One is that most Americans (or people generally, but we are talking about America here) do not have anti-social passions.
The other is that most Americans (again, like all other human beings) do have anti-social passions, but the vast majority of us can do a fine job checking and controlling them without religion as it has been practiced throughout American history.
These are views with which virtually every American who attends secular high school or university is explicitly and implicitly indoctrinated.
Both are wrong. And not just wrong, but foolish — and lethal to the American experiment.
To deny that human beings are filled with anti-social passions defies reality and betrays a lack of self-awareness. One has to be taught nonsense for a great many formative years to believe it.
If we weren’t born with anti-social passions — narcissism, envy, lust, meanness, greed, hunger for power, just to name the more obvious — why the need for so many laws, whether religious or secular, that govern behavior?
The second objection is that, even if we do have anti-social passions, we don’t need a God or religion in order to control them. Only moral primitives, the argument goes, need either a judging God or a religious set of rules. The Enlightened can do fine without them and need only to consult their faculty of reason and conscience to know how to behave.
Our prisons are filled with people whose consciences are quite at peace with their criminal behavior. As for reason, they used it well — to figure out how to get away with everything from murder to white-collar crime.
But our prisons are not filled with religious Jewish and Christian murderers. On the contrary, if all Americans attended church weekly, we would need far fewer prisons; and the ones we needed would have very few murderers in them.
Meanwhile the record of the godless and non-Christianity crowd is awful. I am not simply referring to the godless and secular Communist regimes of the 20th century that committed virtually every genocide of those hundred years. I am referring to those Americans (and Europeans) who use reason to argue, among other foolish things: that good and evil are subjective societal or individual opinions; that gender is purely a social construct and therefore the male and female distinction is of no importance; that marriage isn’t important and is just a piece of paper invented by the religious to keep women down; that a human fetus, even when it has a beating heart, a formed human body, and a conscious brain, has less of a right to life than a cat; and that men, let alone fathers, aren’t necessary. (Think no one really believes the latter? See, for example, The Atlantic’s “Are Fathers Necessary?” and the New York Times’s “Men, Who Needs Them?”) And that is a short list.
For proof of the moral and intellectual consequences of the secularization of America, look at what has happened to the least religious institution in America, the university. Is that the future we want for the whole country?
OBAMA REINVENTS 1979
Michael Schaus
It must be nice being an economist for a living. Much like meteorologists, university professors, and the Clintons, getting almost everything wrong doesn’t seem to impact job security. Remember when economists were forecasting 3 percent GDP growth for 2014? Well, that is pretty much already debunked, after the first quarter contracted; but the rest of the year might have its own distinct setbacks. The biggest “headwind” we can expect in the second half of 2014 can be summed up in two words: Oil prices.
David Williams, with Williams Edge, expects the price of crude to increase by “biblical” proportions in the near term. And while his technical analysis is sound, it is further buoyed by the events unfolding throughout the Middle East. Some experts have even predicted oil climbing above $125 a barrel. Let’s face it, $125 oil isn’t exactly going to help an economy that is clawing and scratching for the most modest of gains.
Hooray! Higher gas prices! And this hike in prices, of course, will conveniently coincide with increased inflation, stagnating wages, record joblessness, and anemic economic growth. (Haven’t we seen this movie before?)
As prices start to climb, those evil speculators and oil companies will quickly earn the wrath of liberal pundits and clueless CNBC analysts. And, really, the message is bound to stick. I mean, it’s pretty easy for people to hold a little grudge against big businesses when they’re watching those numbers roll over at their local gas station. But, the truth is much simpler than some convoluted conspiracy between “speculators” and oil giants… After all, contrary to the rants of anti-business liberals, oil companies actually prefer slightly lower prices. Unreasonably high prices tend to curb consumption; and let’s face it: You can charge anything you want for a gallon of gasoline, but if people aren’t buying it you won’t make much of a profit.
The bigger news (yes… there are more important things than the profit statement for Exxon Mobile) is what such prices will do to our already fragile economy. And the blame can be put squarely on the shoulders of our almighty central planners in DC.
Our Campaigner in Chief has done his best to avoid creating an environment that encourages job creation and economic growth. And, while the hike in oil prices might not have been completely avoidable, a more robust economy would certainly temper the impact of climbing crude prices. Instead of allowing businesses the opportunity to expand, hire, and increase wages, our all-knowing DC politicos have drowned the economy in regulation and crony-capitalist pet projects.
The Chevy Volt, new CAFE Standards, and treadmill powered public transit (that might not actually be a thing) aren’t the answer. For starters, some semblance of coherent foreign policy would be a more effective hedge against outrageous oil prices. More domestic production would also go a long way. But, most importantly, increases in pump-prices could be weathered a whole lot easier if Americans had seen their wealth growing over the last few years. Ya know, if incomes were climbing, jobs were being created, and consumers weren’t quite so strapped for cash, we might be able to shell out a few more bucks to fill our gas tanks without it taking a sizeable bite out of an already anemic “recovery”.
It wasn’t too long ago that CNBC pundits, NYT editors, and CNN anchors were willing to blame the White House for any (and every) increase in oil prices… But I guess things changed once “W” returned to his ranch in Texas. Apparently Obamanomics’ profoundly negative impact on household income, and our Nobel Laureate’s childish foreign policy, have no impact on the coming spike in oil prices… Right?
So, let’s recap: Millions of Americans out of work, potentially outrageous oil prices, mass chaos in the Middle East, increased inflation (assuming the Fed has their way), and stagnating wages… Hope and Change apparently looks an awful lot like 1979.
It must be nice being an economist for a living. Much like meteorologists, university professors, and the Clintons, getting almost everything wrong doesn’t seem to impact job security. Remember when economists were forecasting 3 percent GDP growth for 2014? Well, that is pretty much already debunked, after the first quarter contracted; but the rest of the year might have its own distinct setbacks. The biggest “headwind” we can expect in the second half of 2014 can be summed up in two words: Oil prices.
David Williams, with Williams Edge, expects the price of crude to increase by “biblical” proportions in the near term. And while his technical analysis is sound, it is further buoyed by the events unfolding throughout the Middle East. Some experts have even predicted oil climbing above $125 a barrel. Let’s face it, $125 oil isn’t exactly going to help an economy that is clawing and scratching for the most modest of gains.
Hooray! Higher gas prices! And this hike in prices, of course, will conveniently coincide with increased inflation, stagnating wages, record joblessness, and anemic economic growth. (Haven’t we seen this movie before?)
As prices start to climb, those evil speculators and oil companies will quickly earn the wrath of liberal pundits and clueless CNBC analysts. And, really, the message is bound to stick. I mean, it’s pretty easy for people to hold a little grudge against big businesses when they’re watching those numbers roll over at their local gas station. But, the truth is much simpler than some convoluted conspiracy between “speculators” and oil giants… After all, contrary to the rants of anti-business liberals, oil companies actually prefer slightly lower prices. Unreasonably high prices tend to curb consumption; and let’s face it: You can charge anything you want for a gallon of gasoline, but if people aren’t buying it you won’t make much of a profit.
The bigger news (yes… there are more important things than the profit statement for Exxon Mobile) is what such prices will do to our already fragile economy. And the blame can be put squarely on the shoulders of our almighty central planners in DC.
Our Campaigner in Chief has done his best to avoid creating an environment that encourages job creation and economic growth. And, while the hike in oil prices might not have been completely avoidable, a more robust economy would certainly temper the impact of climbing crude prices. Instead of allowing businesses the opportunity to expand, hire, and increase wages, our all-knowing DC politicos have drowned the economy in regulation and crony-capitalist pet projects.
The Chevy Volt, new CAFE Standards, and treadmill powered public transit (that might not actually be a thing) aren’t the answer. For starters, some semblance of coherent foreign policy would be a more effective hedge against outrageous oil prices. More domestic production would also go a long way. But, most importantly, increases in pump-prices could be weathered a whole lot easier if Americans had seen their wealth growing over the last few years. Ya know, if incomes were climbing, jobs were being created, and consumers weren’t quite so strapped for cash, we might be able to shell out a few more bucks to fill our gas tanks without it taking a sizeable bite out of an already anemic “recovery”.
It wasn’t too long ago that CNBC pundits, NYT editors, and CNN anchors were willing to blame the White House for any (and every) increase in oil prices… But I guess things changed once “W” returned to his ranch in Texas. Apparently Obamanomics’ profoundly negative impact on household income, and our Nobel Laureate’s childish foreign policy, have no impact on the coming spike in oil prices… Right?
So, let’s recap: Millions of Americans out of work, potentially outrageous oil prices, mass chaos in the Middle East, increased inflation (assuming the Fed has their way), and stagnating wages… Hope and Change apparently looks an awful lot like 1979.
CONVERSATIONS WITH REAGAN
Donald Lambro
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama was named the worst president since World War II, according to a survey of the American people who were asked to rate the nation's chief executives over the past 69 years.
The Quinnipiac University Poll released last week found that one third of its respondents picked Obama as the all-time worst, ahead of George W. Bush in its disapproval.
Obama's unpopularity will come as no surprise to those who've been closely following his big spending presidency. But the really big news was the man who topped the best presidency list: Ronald Reagan.
Reagan championed entrepreneurial capitalism, cut taxes, expanded free trade agreements and U.S. exports, promoted energy development, fought wasteful federal spending, beefed up our defense, began development of the anti-missile shield, ended a recession in two years, accelerated economic growth, fueled job creation and new business formation.
And he restored America's can-do spirit of optimism about the future.
Obama has devoted his presidency to raising taxes, beating up big business, playing class warfare, growing the government, stalling trade deals, cutting defense, and prolonging a recession that remains stuck in a slow growth recovery and a declining labor force.
Over all of the presidencies I have covered in the past 40 years, I got to know Ronald Reagan best on a personal and professional level, from the campaign trail to the Oval Office.
We first met several times in Washington at his room in the Madison Hotel where we talked about politics, budgets and a wide assortment of other issues for an hour or so.
Reagan had completed two successful terms as the governor of the largest state in the union and had his eyes on the White House. Vice President Gerald Ford had just become president, after Richard Nixon resigned, and had began plotting his 1976 campaign for election in his own right.
Reagan, who started campaigning across the country, was planning to challenge Ford for the nomination. And in that first interview, he began calling for a more aggressive approach to dealing with the nation's problems.
This was no time for "pale pastels," Reagan said. This was a time for bold policies that called for cutting spending and going after wasteful or needless programs. Now was the time to unleash the power of the American economy that was being held back by job killing taxation and costly government regulations.
At this time, Reagan was being all but ignored by the national news media. I was Washington correspondent for United Press International, looking for a story and beating my competitors, and I always asked if he had any other interviews on his schedule while he was in town. No, he'd reply. "Just you."
The Washington Post, by the way, was across the street from the Madison. But their reporters dismissed the former governor as just kooky, right wing politician who had little chance of defeating Ford for the nomination or becoming president.
One of the political rules Reagan had long embraced was to "never speak ill of a fellow Republican." And during his campaign for the nomination, he refused to criticize Ford.
But that vow ended in an interview I had with him as we were flying into Los Angeles after a week of campaigning. Ford was running blistering TV attack ads against Reagan, charging he would get the country into a war.
At first, Reagan was very reluctant to get into a tit-for-tat with Ford, until I read the full ad copy to him. And that's when his Irish temper exploded.
Calling Ford "a crybaby," Reagan accused him of using "divisive" and "arm-twisting tactics." His "spirit of unity" was strained, he said, and he warned Ford that he was "playing with fire" that threatened to destroy their party.
"And those phony war ads.This angered me," he said, adding, "Sometimes I think he'd rather win a convention than win the election."
Reagan came within an eyelash of the nomination. But on the long flight back to California, he shrugged off his loss and told his dispirited top aides to prepare for the next campaign.
Reagan decisively defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980, with the support of "Reagan Democrats", and then went on to stun the Washington establishment and the national news media with one policy-making success after another.
He got his tax cuts through Congress with Democratic support, and much of the rest of his agenda, too. In foreign policy, he didn't mince words about the dire Soviet threat, making it clear that the Kremlin's Communist bosses faced a determined foe. "They cheat and they lie," he bluntly told a White House news conference.
By 1983, the battered economy soared out of its deep recession and Reagan was at the peak of his popularity. In 1984, he carried 49 states.
I had two lengthy Oval Office interviews with him during his presidency, the first shortly after his recovery from a nearly-fatal assassination attempt that lifted his presidency to heroic proportions.
When I asked how he was doing, he replied "Not bad, considering the alternative." He told me how he had been doing weight exercises to rebuild his chest measurement.
A low point came when budget director David Stockman, in a series of interviews with a Washington reporter, raised doubts about Reagan's budget policies.
But Reagan stuck with his budget chief, telling me that "the real cynicism and the doubts in the plan were written by the author and [were] his interpretation."
Still, getting his proposed budget cuts always remained a tough challenge over the course of his presidency. But it wasn't for lack of trying.
Stockman sought budget cuts across the landscape of the government, but, in a moment of deep frustration, told me he was persistently blocked on Capitol Hill, not only by the Democrats "but by Republicans when it comes down to parochial interests." And he named names.
When one of our interviews was over, Reagan drew me to the side of the Oval Office and confided, "You know, just between us, one of the hardest things in a government this size.... no matter what our people way on top are trying to do... is to know that down there underneath is that permanent structure that is resisting everything you're doing."
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama was named the worst president since World War II, according to a survey of the American people who were asked to rate the nation's chief executives over the past 69 years.
The Quinnipiac University Poll released last week found that one third of its respondents picked Obama as the all-time worst, ahead of George W. Bush in its disapproval.
Obama's unpopularity will come as no surprise to those who've been closely following his big spending presidency. But the really big news was the man who topped the best presidency list: Ronald Reagan.
Reagan championed entrepreneurial capitalism, cut taxes, expanded free trade agreements and U.S. exports, promoted energy development, fought wasteful federal spending, beefed up our defense, began development of the anti-missile shield, ended a recession in two years, accelerated economic growth, fueled job creation and new business formation.
And he restored America's can-do spirit of optimism about the future.
Obama has devoted his presidency to raising taxes, beating up big business, playing class warfare, growing the government, stalling trade deals, cutting defense, and prolonging a recession that remains stuck in a slow growth recovery and a declining labor force.
Over all of the presidencies I have covered in the past 40 years, I got to know Ronald Reagan best on a personal and professional level, from the campaign trail to the Oval Office.
We first met several times in Washington at his room in the Madison Hotel where we talked about politics, budgets and a wide assortment of other issues for an hour or so.
Reagan had completed two successful terms as the governor of the largest state in the union and had his eyes on the White House. Vice President Gerald Ford had just become president, after Richard Nixon resigned, and had began plotting his 1976 campaign for election in his own right.
Reagan, who started campaigning across the country, was planning to challenge Ford for the nomination. And in that first interview, he began calling for a more aggressive approach to dealing with the nation's problems.
This was no time for "pale pastels," Reagan said. This was a time for bold policies that called for cutting spending and going after wasteful or needless programs. Now was the time to unleash the power of the American economy that was being held back by job killing taxation and costly government regulations.
At this time, Reagan was being all but ignored by the national news media. I was Washington correspondent for United Press International, looking for a story and beating my competitors, and I always asked if he had any other interviews on his schedule while he was in town. No, he'd reply. "Just you."
The Washington Post, by the way, was across the street from the Madison. But their reporters dismissed the former governor as just kooky, right wing politician who had little chance of defeating Ford for the nomination or becoming president.
One of the political rules Reagan had long embraced was to "never speak ill of a fellow Republican." And during his campaign for the nomination, he refused to criticize Ford.
But that vow ended in an interview I had with him as we were flying into Los Angeles after a week of campaigning. Ford was running blistering TV attack ads against Reagan, charging he would get the country into a war.
At first, Reagan was very reluctant to get into a tit-for-tat with Ford, until I read the full ad copy to him. And that's when his Irish temper exploded.
Calling Ford "a crybaby," Reagan accused him of using "divisive" and "arm-twisting tactics." His "spirit of unity" was strained, he said, and he warned Ford that he was "playing with fire" that threatened to destroy their party.
"And those phony war ads.This angered me," he said, adding, "Sometimes I think he'd rather win a convention than win the election."
Reagan came within an eyelash of the nomination. But on the long flight back to California, he shrugged off his loss and told his dispirited top aides to prepare for the next campaign.
Reagan decisively defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980, with the support of "Reagan Democrats", and then went on to stun the Washington establishment and the national news media with one policy-making success after another.
He got his tax cuts through Congress with Democratic support, and much of the rest of his agenda, too. In foreign policy, he didn't mince words about the dire Soviet threat, making it clear that the Kremlin's Communist bosses faced a determined foe. "They cheat and they lie," he bluntly told a White House news conference.
By 1983, the battered economy soared out of its deep recession and Reagan was at the peak of his popularity. In 1984, he carried 49 states.
I had two lengthy Oval Office interviews with him during his presidency, the first shortly after his recovery from a nearly-fatal assassination attempt that lifted his presidency to heroic proportions.
When I asked how he was doing, he replied "Not bad, considering the alternative." He told me how he had been doing weight exercises to rebuild his chest measurement.
A low point came when budget director David Stockman, in a series of interviews with a Washington reporter, raised doubts about Reagan's budget policies.
But Reagan stuck with his budget chief, telling me that "the real cynicism and the doubts in the plan were written by the author and [were] his interpretation."
Still, getting his proposed budget cuts always remained a tough challenge over the course of his presidency. But it wasn't for lack of trying.
Stockman sought budget cuts across the landscape of the government, but, in a moment of deep frustration, told me he was persistently blocked on Capitol Hill, not only by the Democrats "but by Republicans when it comes down to parochial interests." And he named names.
When one of our interviews was over, Reagan drew me to the side of the Oval Office and confided, "You know, just between us, one of the hardest things in a government this size.... no matter what our people way on top are trying to do... is to know that down there underneath is that permanent structure that is resisting everything you're doing."
THE TRIUMPH OF LAW OVER IDEOLOGY
Ken Connor
It's been almost a week since the Supreme Court issued their ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, and there appears to be no end in sight to the Left's outrage over the outcome. As expected, given the controversial nature of the issue at hand, most of the ire is reflexive and purely visceral. It's unlikely that many are taking the time to actually educate themselves on the Court's reasoning behind the decision. In their eyes, misogyny and religious fanaticism won out over women's rights, period. On the Right, there is a temptation to fall into essentially the same error: ascribing moral significance to what is in reality a legal decision. While its understandable that conscientious Christians are heartened by the outcome of this case, we must understand that the Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case had virtually nothing to do with the Justices' personal beliefs about the morality of abortifacient drugs, and everything to do – as should be the case – with the law.
In the face of the hysterical fallout over this decision, legal scholar Eugene Volokh penned a piece for the Washington Post aiming to explain the reasoning behind the Court's ruling in layman's terms. He distilled the decision into five simple points, which I've paraphrased here:
1. Congress has decided that religious objectors may go to court to demand religious exemptions from federal laws, when the law makes them do things that they view as religiously forbidden.
2) [W]hen a law requires . . . a corporation to do something that its owners believe to be religiously forbidden, it burdens the religious freedom of those real owners, and not just of the fictional corporation itself.
3) It is not the Court's job to judge the rectitude or substantiality of a business owner's sincerely held religious beliefs.
4) If the government can — even by changing the way its programs operate, and at some cost to taxpayers — both adequately serve its compelling interests and provide an exemption to religious objectors, then it must do so.
5. When both the government’s compelling interests and religious objectors’ religious beliefs can be adequately accommodated, Congress said that they should be accommodated.
The references to what Congress has "said" in this case refer to a law passed in 1993 called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, something which also must be understood in its context in order to appreciate why and how the Court ruled the way it did in this case. Ryan T. Anderson, writing for Public Discourse, recently explained the provisions of "RFRA" and how they informed the reasoning of the Court:
"But what is RFRA? Signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, RFRA had broad bipartisan support: it passed with a unanimous voice vote in the House and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate. As Kim Colby explained yesterday here at Public Discourse, 'RFRA implements a sensible balancing test by which a religious claimant first must demonstrate that the government has substantially burdened a sincerely held religious belief. The government then must demonstrate a compelling interest that cannot be achieved by a less restrictive means.'
Yesterday, the Court made it clear that the HHS mandate substantially burdened a sincere religious belief in an unnecessarily restrictive manner. To determine this, the Court first looked to the beliefs of the Hahns and Greens. The Hahns are devout Mennonite Christians, and the Greens are devout Evangelical Christians. Both families believe that they are obligated to run their businesses in accordance with God’s law as they conscientiously understand it. Neither family objects to contraception per se, but both believe that life begins at conception and that it is wrong to kill – or facilitate the killing of – that life. Thus, both families objected to four of the twenty FDA-approved HHS-mandated contraceptives because they have the potential to act post-fertilization and thus can kill a human embryo.
The Court did not second-guess any of these beliefs, nor did the Court judge whether these beliefs are right or wrong, true or false. The Court merely determined that the beliefs were sincere."
This seems straightforward and simple enough. The Court is not saying they agree with the Greens and Hahn's, they are simply saying that the requirement of the HHS mandate to provide coverage for abortifacient drugs constitutes a legitimate burden under the provisions of the RFRA. So what's really at the heart of the outrage over this decision? Quite simply this: Secular Progressives sincerely believe that their worldview is the only permissible one. They believe this so strongly, are so certain of the superiority of their values and convictions, that they think these beliefs should be backed at all times an in all situations by the force of law. In their eyes, there is no longer a place in civilized society for religion, and certainly no situation in which a person's religious conscience deserves protection under the law. According to the worldview of President Obama and his ilk, the position of Hobby Lobby on this issue is simply illegitimate.
This conviction is evident in a piece by The Center for Inquiry's Ronald A. Lindsay, who writing for the Huffington Post poses the "uncomfortable question" of whether or not we should have six Catholics on the Supreme Court. The way he reads the Hobby Lobby decision, it's not a fair reading of the law that led the Justices to side with the plaintiffs in the case, but the influence of insidious Catholic orthodoxy that is responsible for the Court's ruling. He cannot imagine how the HHS mandate could possibly burden anyone's religious conscience:
"As indicated, it's not just that five Catholic justices ruled that the government has to defer to the employers' religious objections. It's the reasoning on which the Court relied that causes concern. In explaining its decision, the majority made two very revealing points, one directly justifying its decision, the other distinguishing other, possible cases that might now cite Hobby Lobby as precedent. Both these points show how closely the majority adheres to Catholic teaching.
One question that many have had about the employers' objections to contraceptive coverage is why are they claiming they are burdened? No one is forcing anyone to take contraception if they do not want to. It's up to the individual employee to decide whether to take advantage of contraceptive coverage. So where is the burden on religious belief?
In Justice Alito's majority opinion, he relies squarely on Catholic teaching about 'complicity' to explain the supposed burden. In doing so, he reiterates the argument that the Catholic Church has made in the dozens of lawsuits it has brought challenging the contraceptive mandate. According to the Church, it violates the moral obligations of a Catholic to do anything - anything - that would 'facilitate' the provision of contraception to an individual. So even if one is not using contraception oneself, if one facilitates access to contraception by others, a grave moral wrong has been committed."
Surely Lindsay's credulity over the complicity argument wouldn't be as strong if, say, the issue at hand was an employer's refusal to provide loaded handguns to all their employees. In that case, the burden imposed by complicity would be clear cut. Guns, according to reigning Progressive orthodoxy, are evil incarnate. Anyone who supports gun ownership or sells guns or promotes the 2nd Amendment is complicit in any and all criminal acts involving guns. If the government were to pass a law requiring corporations to provide handguns and ammunition to all their employees, you can be sure that there would be lawsuits and that the arguments would be very similar to the ones employees by the Hahn's and Greens. People like Ronald Lindsay would write articles bemoaning the barbarism of making employers complicit in gun violence.
But this is because secular progressives like Lindsay and our President see guns as self-evidently evil and abortion as not, thus their insistence that it's illegitimate to claim that financing the termination of nascent human life is a burden to one's conscience. After all, says Lindsay, the business-owner isn't the one taking the pill, so how could it possibly be their problem or any of their business at all? The irony is simply staggering, but then again, ideology is a potent force that can cause otherwise sensible people to do, say, and believe almost anything. The ideology of unrestrained human sexuality has led us to the point where any imposition upon consequence-free sex is viewed as violation of basic human rights.
Thankfully, five members of the Court were able to remove the lenses of ideology from their eyes, as is their job. They were able to evaluate the weight of the claims placed before them in the eyes of the law. Our Congress upheld the promises of the First Amendment with the passage of the RFRA, and the Court honored this by upholding the religious conscience of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties. Thus, for the time being people who love God and the Constitution can take comfort in the fact that fidelity to the latter does not trump obedience to the former.
But again, Christians should not take the Hobby Lobby decision as an indication that the Court will always rule on the side of religious conscience. There are times when the Court will determine that the State has a compelling interest which overrides a person's claim to religious conscience. Again from Eugene Volokh:
"But Congress also said that these decisions must turn on the facts of each exemption request . . . In future cases – for instance, ones involving race discrimination in employment, or insurance coverage for vaccination or blood transfusions – the result might be different. It might not be possible in those cases (as it is in this case) to adequately accommodate both the government interests and the religious objections. If that’s so, then those religious exemptions would not have to be granted. Wisely or not, Congress has required courts to sort through religious exemption requests, granting some and denying others. This is what the Supreme Court has done here."
And this, after all, is why we have courts. It is the job of a judge to make sounds judgments in accordance with reason, the law, and the common good. For the time being, the weight on the bench seems to lean in favor of these virtues. Lord knows, it won't always be this way.
It's been almost a week since the Supreme Court issued their ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, and there appears to be no end in sight to the Left's outrage over the outcome. As expected, given the controversial nature of the issue at hand, most of the ire is reflexive and purely visceral. It's unlikely that many are taking the time to actually educate themselves on the Court's reasoning behind the decision. In their eyes, misogyny and religious fanaticism won out over women's rights, period. On the Right, there is a temptation to fall into essentially the same error: ascribing moral significance to what is in reality a legal decision. While its understandable that conscientious Christians are heartened by the outcome of this case, we must understand that the Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case had virtually nothing to do with the Justices' personal beliefs about the morality of abortifacient drugs, and everything to do – as should be the case – with the law.
In the face of the hysterical fallout over this decision, legal scholar Eugene Volokh penned a piece for the Washington Post aiming to explain the reasoning behind the Court's ruling in layman's terms. He distilled the decision into five simple points, which I've paraphrased here:
1. Congress has decided that religious objectors may go to court to demand religious exemptions from federal laws, when the law makes them do things that they view as religiously forbidden.
2) [W]hen a law requires . . . a corporation to do something that its owners believe to be religiously forbidden, it burdens the religious freedom of those real owners, and not just of the fictional corporation itself.
3) It is not the Court's job to judge the rectitude or substantiality of a business owner's sincerely held religious beliefs.
4) If the government can — even by changing the way its programs operate, and at some cost to taxpayers — both adequately serve its compelling interests and provide an exemption to religious objectors, then it must do so.
5. When both the government’s compelling interests and religious objectors’ religious beliefs can be adequately accommodated, Congress said that they should be accommodated.
The references to what Congress has "said" in this case refer to a law passed in 1993 called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, something which also must be understood in its context in order to appreciate why and how the Court ruled the way it did in this case. Ryan T. Anderson, writing for Public Discourse, recently explained the provisions of "RFRA" and how they informed the reasoning of the Court:
"But what is RFRA? Signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, RFRA had broad bipartisan support: it passed with a unanimous voice vote in the House and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate. As Kim Colby explained yesterday here at Public Discourse, 'RFRA implements a sensible balancing test by which a religious claimant first must demonstrate that the government has substantially burdened a sincerely held religious belief. The government then must demonstrate a compelling interest that cannot be achieved by a less restrictive means.'
Yesterday, the Court made it clear that the HHS mandate substantially burdened a sincere religious belief in an unnecessarily restrictive manner. To determine this, the Court first looked to the beliefs of the Hahns and Greens. The Hahns are devout Mennonite Christians, and the Greens are devout Evangelical Christians. Both families believe that they are obligated to run their businesses in accordance with God’s law as they conscientiously understand it. Neither family objects to contraception per se, but both believe that life begins at conception and that it is wrong to kill – or facilitate the killing of – that life. Thus, both families objected to four of the twenty FDA-approved HHS-mandated contraceptives because they have the potential to act post-fertilization and thus can kill a human embryo.
The Court did not second-guess any of these beliefs, nor did the Court judge whether these beliefs are right or wrong, true or false. The Court merely determined that the beliefs were sincere."
This seems straightforward and simple enough. The Court is not saying they agree with the Greens and Hahn's, they are simply saying that the requirement of the HHS mandate to provide coverage for abortifacient drugs constitutes a legitimate burden under the provisions of the RFRA. So what's really at the heart of the outrage over this decision? Quite simply this: Secular Progressives sincerely believe that their worldview is the only permissible one. They believe this so strongly, are so certain of the superiority of their values and convictions, that they think these beliefs should be backed at all times an in all situations by the force of law. In their eyes, there is no longer a place in civilized society for religion, and certainly no situation in which a person's religious conscience deserves protection under the law. According to the worldview of President Obama and his ilk, the position of Hobby Lobby on this issue is simply illegitimate.
This conviction is evident in a piece by The Center for Inquiry's Ronald A. Lindsay, who writing for the Huffington Post poses the "uncomfortable question" of whether or not we should have six Catholics on the Supreme Court. The way he reads the Hobby Lobby decision, it's not a fair reading of the law that led the Justices to side with the plaintiffs in the case, but the influence of insidious Catholic orthodoxy that is responsible for the Court's ruling. He cannot imagine how the HHS mandate could possibly burden anyone's religious conscience:
"As indicated, it's not just that five Catholic justices ruled that the government has to defer to the employers' religious objections. It's the reasoning on which the Court relied that causes concern. In explaining its decision, the majority made two very revealing points, one directly justifying its decision, the other distinguishing other, possible cases that might now cite Hobby Lobby as precedent. Both these points show how closely the majority adheres to Catholic teaching.
One question that many have had about the employers' objections to contraceptive coverage is why are they claiming they are burdened? No one is forcing anyone to take contraception if they do not want to. It's up to the individual employee to decide whether to take advantage of contraceptive coverage. So where is the burden on religious belief?
In Justice Alito's majority opinion, he relies squarely on Catholic teaching about 'complicity' to explain the supposed burden. In doing so, he reiterates the argument that the Catholic Church has made in the dozens of lawsuits it has brought challenging the contraceptive mandate. According to the Church, it violates the moral obligations of a Catholic to do anything - anything - that would 'facilitate' the provision of contraception to an individual. So even if one is not using contraception oneself, if one facilitates access to contraception by others, a grave moral wrong has been committed."
Surely Lindsay's credulity over the complicity argument wouldn't be as strong if, say, the issue at hand was an employer's refusal to provide loaded handguns to all their employees. In that case, the burden imposed by complicity would be clear cut. Guns, according to reigning Progressive orthodoxy, are evil incarnate. Anyone who supports gun ownership or sells guns or promotes the 2nd Amendment is complicit in any and all criminal acts involving guns. If the government were to pass a law requiring corporations to provide handguns and ammunition to all their employees, you can be sure that there would be lawsuits and that the arguments would be very similar to the ones employees by the Hahn's and Greens. People like Ronald Lindsay would write articles bemoaning the barbarism of making employers complicit in gun violence.
But this is because secular progressives like Lindsay and our President see guns as self-evidently evil and abortion as not, thus their insistence that it's illegitimate to claim that financing the termination of nascent human life is a burden to one's conscience. After all, says Lindsay, the business-owner isn't the one taking the pill, so how could it possibly be their problem or any of their business at all? The irony is simply staggering, but then again, ideology is a potent force that can cause otherwise sensible people to do, say, and believe almost anything. The ideology of unrestrained human sexuality has led us to the point where any imposition upon consequence-free sex is viewed as violation of basic human rights.
Thankfully, five members of the Court were able to remove the lenses of ideology from their eyes, as is their job. They were able to evaluate the weight of the claims placed before them in the eyes of the law. Our Congress upheld the promises of the First Amendment with the passage of the RFRA, and the Court honored this by upholding the religious conscience of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties. Thus, for the time being people who love God and the Constitution can take comfort in the fact that fidelity to the latter does not trump obedience to the former.
But again, Christians should not take the Hobby Lobby decision as an indication that the Court will always rule on the side of religious conscience. There are times when the Court will determine that the State has a compelling interest which overrides a person's claim to religious conscience. Again from Eugene Volokh:
"But Congress also said that these decisions must turn on the facts of each exemption request . . . In future cases – for instance, ones involving race discrimination in employment, or insurance coverage for vaccination or blood transfusions – the result might be different. It might not be possible in those cases (as it is in this case) to adequately accommodate both the government interests and the religious objections. If that’s so, then those religious exemptions would not have to be granted. Wisely or not, Congress has required courts to sort through religious exemption requests, granting some and denying others. This is what the Supreme Court has done here."
And this, after all, is why we have courts. It is the job of a judge to make sounds judgments in accordance with reason, the law, and the common good. For the time being, the weight on the bench seems to lean in favor of these virtues. Lord knows, it won't always be this way.
HAMAS, PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT AND ISRAEL
Afghanistan: Today the election commission announced the preliminary results from the run-off election on 14 June. The officials said 8 million people voted, from a pool of 13.5 million registered voters.
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai obtained 4,485,888 votes, which represents 56.4% of the votes.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah obtained 3,461,639 votes which represents 43.6% of the ballots cast.
The head of the election commission, Nuristani, cautioned that the results are preliminary and do not signify that a party is the winner. He advised against celebrations and warned that the result could change.
He also confirmed that vote rigging occurred. He said, "We cannot ignore the technical problems and fraud during the election process. Some governors and government officials were involved in fraud."
He promised a more extensive investigation before the final results are announced. Final results are scheduled to be announced on 22 July.
Abdullah's reaction. A spokesman for Dr. Abdullah's National Coalition said the Coalition rejected the preliminary results because they include ballots that the commission knows are fraudulent. Abdullah has filed complaints about fraud occurring at 7,000 of the 23,000 polling places. His spokesman called the results a coup against the voters of Afghanistan.
Comment: The results do not look credible for multiple reasons. The election commission admitted it was surprised by the number of ballots cast in the run-off because the turnout was higher than the commission estimated. In fact, 2 million more votes were cast in the run-off than in the first round. That is a counter-intuitive result that signifies voter fraud.
Ashraf Ghani is the candidate of the Pashtuns and Uzbeks. His vice presidential candidate is the famous Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. In the first election he obtained just over 2 million votes which represented 31.5 % of the ballots. He carried 9 of the 34 provinces, based on Pashtun and Uzbek participation. In some of those nine provinces in the south, fewer than 11,000 people voted. Pashtun voter turnout was low, which is normal for Pashtuns.
Abdullah is the candidate of the north, including Tajiks, Hazaras, Panjshiris and smaller tribes. He polled 2.9 million votes, or 45% of the total ballots. He carried 15 provinces, most by a wide margin over Ghani.
For the preliminary results to be accurate, a sea change had to occur, not just in voter attitudes, but in the tribal composition of Afghanistan and in its political culture between April and June. Ghani more than doubled his vote in the run-off, but Abdullah increased by only 17%.
The percentage of votes for Abdullah actually declined. That implies that large numbers of non-Pashtuns switched to vote for a Pashtun or that Pashtuns in unprecedented numbers voted in the run-off but not in the primary election.
Tribal politics do not work that way in Afghanistan for two reasons. Non-Pashtuns disdain Pashtuns for having supported the Taliban, most of whose leaders are Pashtuns. Non-Pashtuns form the majority of the population and they don't vote for Pashtuns. President Karzai has beenan exception because he was the US' man.
Secondly, Pashtuns don't vote. In the primary election, about 750,000 votes were cast in the 13 predominately Pashtun provinces. That is a little over ten percent of the votes cast, but Pashtuns constitute between 40% and 45% of the total population.
To achieve the results announced today, a half million more people voted for Abdullah, but nearly 2.5 million more voted for Ghani. The numbers for Ghani make no sense without ballot box stuffing.
Abdullah apparently knew the election was being stolen, which is why he started decrying voter fraud almost immediately in mid-June. The danger is that this could lead eventually to a renewal of civil war.
One of the Taliban victory scenarios is to take control of Afghanistan through democratic elections. Pashtuns have almost always governed in Kabul and they intend to do so again. Violence seems unavoidable.
Iraq: Iraqi Deputies again have delayed tomorrow's session in which they were supposed to elect a new leadership. That session has been postponed for a month.
Comment: The Deputies have ignored appeals by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for unity in quickly forming the government. One interpretation is that they judge the Sunni threat not so urgent as to require hasty decisions that the deputies might regret later.
On the other hand, the foot dragging in parliament means that they have agreed that al-Maliki and his team should continue to handle and be responsible for the security situation. That does not mean he will get his coveted third term as prime minister, necessarily. It means he gets more time to fix the mess he helped create.
Israel: Yesterday the armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for firing a barrage of at least 100 rockets at 12 towns in southern and west-central Israel. They threatened to fire longer range rockets into Israel unless the Israeli air attacks stop.
Israeli newspapers online carry maps showing the towns that were hit. Rocket sirens sounded in the Jerusalem areas of Mevasseret, Beit Shemesh and Abu Ghosh, and in the central Israeli cities of Rehovot, Nes Tziona and Yavne for the first time since the rocket attacks resumed. Sirens also went off Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malakhi, Netivot and Ofakim. All received rocket fire, but only one person was injured, according to official sources.
Israel issued orders to call up 1,500 reserve soldiers to be sent to the Gaza Strip border. Israeli air strikes continued against targets in the Gaza Strip. Violent demonstrations continued for the sixth day.
Comment: The government and the Palestinian leaders are under pressure to escalate the crisis. Hamas has challenged the Palestinian Authority to join the fight.
Late on 7 July, the Israeli security cabinet approved escalation of "Operation Protective Edge." The government also declared a state of emergency in towns in southenr Israel.
Kenya: Update. The Somali terrorist group al-Shaba'ab claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kenya on Saturday night. Nevertheless, the government of President Kenyatta continues to blame tribal politics for the murders, as he did for those last month.
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai obtained 4,485,888 votes, which represents 56.4% of the votes.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah obtained 3,461,639 votes which represents 43.6% of the ballots cast.
The head of the election commission, Nuristani, cautioned that the results are preliminary and do not signify that a party is the winner. He advised against celebrations and warned that the result could change.
He also confirmed that vote rigging occurred. He said, "We cannot ignore the technical problems and fraud during the election process. Some governors and government officials were involved in fraud."
He promised a more extensive investigation before the final results are announced. Final results are scheduled to be announced on 22 July.
Abdullah's reaction. A spokesman for Dr. Abdullah's National Coalition said the Coalition rejected the preliminary results because they include ballots that the commission knows are fraudulent. Abdullah has filed complaints about fraud occurring at 7,000 of the 23,000 polling places. His spokesman called the results a coup against the voters of Afghanistan.
Comment: The results do not look credible for multiple reasons. The election commission admitted it was surprised by the number of ballots cast in the run-off because the turnout was higher than the commission estimated. In fact, 2 million more votes were cast in the run-off than in the first round. That is a counter-intuitive result that signifies voter fraud.
Ashraf Ghani is the candidate of the Pashtuns and Uzbeks. His vice presidential candidate is the famous Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. In the first election he obtained just over 2 million votes which represented 31.5 % of the ballots. He carried 9 of the 34 provinces, based on Pashtun and Uzbek participation. In some of those nine provinces in the south, fewer than 11,000 people voted. Pashtun voter turnout was low, which is normal for Pashtuns.
Abdullah is the candidate of the north, including Tajiks, Hazaras, Panjshiris and smaller tribes. He polled 2.9 million votes, or 45% of the total ballots. He carried 15 provinces, most by a wide margin over Ghani.
For the preliminary results to be accurate, a sea change had to occur, not just in voter attitudes, but in the tribal composition of Afghanistan and in its political culture between April and June. Ghani more than doubled his vote in the run-off, but Abdullah increased by only 17%.
The percentage of votes for Abdullah actually declined. That implies that large numbers of non-Pashtuns switched to vote for a Pashtun or that Pashtuns in unprecedented numbers voted in the run-off but not in the primary election.
Tribal politics do not work that way in Afghanistan for two reasons. Non-Pashtuns disdain Pashtuns for having supported the Taliban, most of whose leaders are Pashtuns. Non-Pashtuns form the majority of the population and they don't vote for Pashtuns. President Karzai has beenan exception because he was the US' man.
Secondly, Pashtuns don't vote. In the primary election, about 750,000 votes were cast in the 13 predominately Pashtun provinces. That is a little over ten percent of the votes cast, but Pashtuns constitute between 40% and 45% of the total population.
To achieve the results announced today, a half million more people voted for Abdullah, but nearly 2.5 million more voted for Ghani. The numbers for Ghani make no sense without ballot box stuffing.
Abdullah apparently knew the election was being stolen, which is why he started decrying voter fraud almost immediately in mid-June. The danger is that this could lead eventually to a renewal of civil war.
One of the Taliban victory scenarios is to take control of Afghanistan through democratic elections. Pashtuns have almost always governed in Kabul and they intend to do so again. Violence seems unavoidable.
Iraq: Iraqi Deputies again have delayed tomorrow's session in which they were supposed to elect a new leadership. That session has been postponed for a month.
Comment: The Deputies have ignored appeals by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for unity in quickly forming the government. One interpretation is that they judge the Sunni threat not so urgent as to require hasty decisions that the deputies might regret later.
On the other hand, the foot dragging in parliament means that they have agreed that al-Maliki and his team should continue to handle and be responsible for the security situation. That does not mean he will get his coveted third term as prime minister, necessarily. It means he gets more time to fix the mess he helped create.
Israel: Yesterday the armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for firing a barrage of at least 100 rockets at 12 towns in southern and west-central Israel. They threatened to fire longer range rockets into Israel unless the Israeli air attacks stop.
Israeli newspapers online carry maps showing the towns that were hit. Rocket sirens sounded in the Jerusalem areas of Mevasseret, Beit Shemesh and Abu Ghosh, and in the central Israeli cities of Rehovot, Nes Tziona and Yavne for the first time since the rocket attacks resumed. Sirens also went off Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malakhi, Netivot and Ofakim. All received rocket fire, but only one person was injured, according to official sources.
Israel issued orders to call up 1,500 reserve soldiers to be sent to the Gaza Strip border. Israeli air strikes continued against targets in the Gaza Strip. Violent demonstrations continued for the sixth day.
Comment: The government and the Palestinian leaders are under pressure to escalate the crisis. Hamas has challenged the Palestinian Authority to join the fight.
Late on 7 July, the Israeli security cabinet approved escalation of "Operation Protective Edge." The government also declared a state of emergency in towns in southenr Israel.
Kenya: Update. The Somali terrorist group al-Shaba'ab claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kenya on Saturday night. Nevertheless, the government of President Kenyatta continues to blame tribal politics for the murders, as he did for those last month.
8 Jul 2014
SPENDING AND MORALITY
Walter E. Williams
During last year's budget negotiation meetings, President Barack Obama told House Speaker John Boehner, "We don't have a spending problem." When Boehner responded with "But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem," Obama replied, "I'm getting tired of hearing you say that." In one sense, the president is right. What's being called a spending problem is really a symptom of an unappreciated deep-seated national moral rot. Let's examine it with a few questions.
Is it moral for Congress to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another? I believe that most Americans would pretend that to do so is offensive. Think about it this way. Suppose I saw a homeless, hungry elderly woman huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. To help the woman, I ask somebody for a $200 donation to help her out. If the person refuses, I then use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the person's money. I then purchase food and shelter for the needy woman. My question to you: Have I committed a crime? I hope that most people would answer yes. It's theft to take the property of one person to give to another.
Now comes the hard part. Would it be theft if I managed to get three people to agree that I should take the person's money to help the woman? What if I got 100, 1 million or 300 million people to agree to take the person's $200? Would it be theft then? What if instead of personally taking the person's $200, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take the person's $200? The bottom-line question is: Does an act that's clearly immoral when done privately become moral when it is done collectively and under the color of law? Put another way, does legality establish morality?
For most of our history, Congress did a far better job of limiting its activities to what was both moral and constitutional. As a result, federal spending was only 3 to 5 percent of the gross domestic product from our founding until the 1920s, in contrast with today's 25 percent. Close to three-quarters of today's federal spending can be described as Congress taking the earnings of one American to give to another through thousands of handout programs, such as farm subsidies, business bailouts and welfare.
During earlier times, such spending was deemed unconstitutional and immoral. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, said, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Madison stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to object, saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." Today's Americans would crucify a politician expressing similar statements.
There may be nitwits out there who'd assert, "That James Madison guy forgot about the Constitution's general welfare clause." Madison had that covered, explaining in a letter, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one." Thomas Jefferson agreed, writing: Members of Congress "are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare. ... It would reduce the (Constitution) to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
The bottom line is that spending is not our basic problem. We've become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of that larger problem.
During last year's budget negotiation meetings, President Barack Obama told House Speaker John Boehner, "We don't have a spending problem." When Boehner responded with "But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem," Obama replied, "I'm getting tired of hearing you say that." In one sense, the president is right. What's being called a spending problem is really a symptom of an unappreciated deep-seated national moral rot. Let's examine it with a few questions.
Is it moral for Congress to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another? I believe that most Americans would pretend that to do so is offensive. Think about it this way. Suppose I saw a homeless, hungry elderly woman huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. To help the woman, I ask somebody for a $200 donation to help her out. If the person refuses, I then use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the person's money. I then purchase food and shelter for the needy woman. My question to you: Have I committed a crime? I hope that most people would answer yes. It's theft to take the property of one person to give to another.
Now comes the hard part. Would it be theft if I managed to get three people to agree that I should take the person's money to help the woman? What if I got 100, 1 million or 300 million people to agree to take the person's $200? Would it be theft then? What if instead of personally taking the person's $200, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take the person's $200? The bottom-line question is: Does an act that's clearly immoral when done privately become moral when it is done collectively and under the color of law? Put another way, does legality establish morality?
For most of our history, Congress did a far better job of limiting its activities to what was both moral and constitutional. As a result, federal spending was only 3 to 5 percent of the gross domestic product from our founding until the 1920s, in contrast with today's 25 percent. Close to three-quarters of today's federal spending can be described as Congress taking the earnings of one American to give to another through thousands of handout programs, such as farm subsidies, business bailouts and welfare.
During earlier times, such spending was deemed unconstitutional and immoral. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, said, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Madison stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to object, saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." Today's Americans would crucify a politician expressing similar statements.
There may be nitwits out there who'd assert, "That James Madison guy forgot about the Constitution's general welfare clause." Madison had that covered, explaining in a letter, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one." Thomas Jefferson agreed, writing: Members of Congress "are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare. ... It would reduce the (Constitution) to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
The bottom line is that spending is not our basic problem. We've become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of that larger problem.
FAKE PATRIOTISM
Armstrong Williams
This past weekend, Americans located all over the country step out onto their patios, decks, and backyards, to partake in a delicious barbeque with family, friends, and loved ones. A drink or two was sure certainly spilled and chances are, kids fought over who gets to eat the biggest burger.
By the time the evening rolled around, families set up their chairs and picnic blankets as anticipation of the night’s display of fireworks continued to grow. Once the first cracks were heard, all eyes were fixed into the night sky until the anchor was complete.
Throughout the day you would have overheard talk of patriotism and what a sacrifice our veterans have made, but chances are you were too stuffed with food to listen or you were already taking an afternoon nap.
For most Americans, Independence Day is a lot like the beginning of a baseball game. A famous artist sings the National Anthem and everyone in the stadium stands and places their hand upon their heart. Some people sing along or at least mouth the words, but most put on a fake look of sincerity thinking, “I can’t wait till the song ends so the game can begin.”
Americans are very good at looking and sounding patriotic, but it’s fake. We put on face paint and wear ridiculous costumes for the world cup, but we fail to ponder the sacrifice made by past and present American military heroes.
We get more excited at the beginning of a sports game than when a soldier safely returns home to his wife and kids or when soldiers on a helicopter crash narrowly escape the jaws of death. We are more proud when the American soccer team scores a goal in overtime than when American soldiers successfully bring freedom to millions of people across the Atlantic.
Disagree with the last few years of American foreign policy all you want, but at the end of the day the individuals who put their lives on the line for our freedom deserve the upmost respect. We are quick to politicize American military operations, but slow to pray for our troops and support their dedication no matter what the circumstance.
The ongoing scandal at the Veterans Affairs office is disgraceful. The fact that thousands of American veterans are not receiving care or have waited over 90 days to receive care is shameful. Whatever political party you identify with doesn’t matter. All Americans should be outraged over the corruption and scandal and disrespect shown to those soldiers we owe our lives to.
Two years ago, Army Sgt. Brendan Marrocco successfully underwent double arm transplant surgery. He lost both of his arms back in 2009 from a bomb explosion in Iraq. Marrocco’sability to even squeeze and throw a tennis ball is a miracle. He deserves our thanks and praise.
In 2010, Lance Cpl. William "Kyle" Carpenter heroically saved a fellow soldier after the two of them came under heavy fire on a rooftop in Afghanistan. Kyle dove on a live grenade losing his eye and sustaining serious injuries, but saving the life of hisfriend. This is what true love and courage look like.
Our troops demonstrate their willingness to lay down their lives for a friend each and every day they’re on the battlefield.
Think about the courage of the American soldiers who knowingly crawled up a French beach filled with bullets on June 6, 1944 to save a continent from tyranny. Or those outnumbered American soldiers in South Vietnam who fended off attack after attack from the enemy for over three days in the valley of IaDrang.
One trip to the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia will open your eyes to the costly sacrifices made to secure our freedom. Watching the tears fall from the eyes of one broken family is enough to break your heart.
In an interview after receiving the Medal of Honor, Kyle said, “I receive it with a heavy heart. It’s a huge honor and I’m very appreciative and I'm very humbled by it, but at the same time there is - not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but previous wars since this country was founded - there have been those who didn’t make it back and those who did make it back and had worse injuries than mine. Courageous things happen on the battlefield every day and all of us raise our right hand in the exact same way to serve our country.”
The heroism of Marrocco and Kyle and so many others shouldfill us with a sense of deep gratitude. This weekend say a prayer for our troops. Care for those veterans who live in your community and care for those broken families who have given everything to secure your freedom.
If you see a veteran in the local grocery store don’t let him pass by. Stop for a moment and say thank you. It’s not enough to sing a song before a baseball game. True patriotism is lived out in daily life. It’s time all Americans start living it out.
This past weekend, Americans located all over the country step out onto their patios, decks, and backyards, to partake in a delicious barbeque with family, friends, and loved ones. A drink or two was sure certainly spilled and chances are, kids fought over who gets to eat the biggest burger.
By the time the evening rolled around, families set up their chairs and picnic blankets as anticipation of the night’s display of fireworks continued to grow. Once the first cracks were heard, all eyes were fixed into the night sky until the anchor was complete.
Throughout the day you would have overheard talk of patriotism and what a sacrifice our veterans have made, but chances are you were too stuffed with food to listen or you were already taking an afternoon nap.
For most Americans, Independence Day is a lot like the beginning of a baseball game. A famous artist sings the National Anthem and everyone in the stadium stands and places their hand upon their heart. Some people sing along or at least mouth the words, but most put on a fake look of sincerity thinking, “I can’t wait till the song ends so the game can begin.”
Americans are very good at looking and sounding patriotic, but it’s fake. We put on face paint and wear ridiculous costumes for the world cup, but we fail to ponder the sacrifice made by past and present American military heroes.
We get more excited at the beginning of a sports game than when a soldier safely returns home to his wife and kids or when soldiers on a helicopter crash narrowly escape the jaws of death. We are more proud when the American soccer team scores a goal in overtime than when American soldiers successfully bring freedom to millions of people across the Atlantic.
Disagree with the last few years of American foreign policy all you want, but at the end of the day the individuals who put their lives on the line for our freedom deserve the upmost respect. We are quick to politicize American military operations, but slow to pray for our troops and support their dedication no matter what the circumstance.
The ongoing scandal at the Veterans Affairs office is disgraceful. The fact that thousands of American veterans are not receiving care or have waited over 90 days to receive care is shameful. Whatever political party you identify with doesn’t matter. All Americans should be outraged over the corruption and scandal and disrespect shown to those soldiers we owe our lives to.
Two years ago, Army Sgt. Brendan Marrocco successfully underwent double arm transplant surgery. He lost both of his arms back in 2009 from a bomb explosion in Iraq. Marrocco’sability to even squeeze and throw a tennis ball is a miracle. He deserves our thanks and praise.
In 2010, Lance Cpl. William "Kyle" Carpenter heroically saved a fellow soldier after the two of them came under heavy fire on a rooftop in Afghanistan. Kyle dove on a live grenade losing his eye and sustaining serious injuries, but saving the life of hisfriend. This is what true love and courage look like.
Our troops demonstrate their willingness to lay down their lives for a friend each and every day they’re on the battlefield.
Think about the courage of the American soldiers who knowingly crawled up a French beach filled with bullets on June 6, 1944 to save a continent from tyranny. Or those outnumbered American soldiers in South Vietnam who fended off attack after attack from the enemy for over three days in the valley of IaDrang.
One trip to the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia will open your eyes to the costly sacrifices made to secure our freedom. Watching the tears fall from the eyes of one broken family is enough to break your heart.
In an interview after receiving the Medal of Honor, Kyle said, “I receive it with a heavy heart. It’s a huge honor and I’m very appreciative and I'm very humbled by it, but at the same time there is - not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but previous wars since this country was founded - there have been those who didn’t make it back and those who did make it back and had worse injuries than mine. Courageous things happen on the battlefield every day and all of us raise our right hand in the exact same way to serve our country.”
The heroism of Marrocco and Kyle and so many others shouldfill us with a sense of deep gratitude. This weekend say a prayer for our troops. Care for those veterans who live in your community and care for those broken families who have given everything to secure your freedom.
If you see a veteran in the local grocery store don’t let him pass by. Stop for a moment and say thank you. It’s not enough to sing a song before a baseball game. True patriotism is lived out in daily life. It’s time all Americans start living it out.
AMERICA - IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT HER
David Limbaugh
Do we conservatives really mean it when we say that we need to promote our ideas in the popular culture through books, movies and other media? If so, we need to support people like Dinesh D'Souza and his latest movie and book, "America: Imagine the World Without Her." I saw the movie, and I loved it.
Dinesh is a passionate patriot who "chose this country" and loves it with every fiber of his being. Like many of the rest of us, he recognizes that America is under assault, and he is doing all he can to save it.
In the movie, Dinesh describes how the political left has infiltrated our culture and educational institutions and presented a damning moral indictment of this nation and free market capitalism.
In the eyes of the left, America is intrinsically evil -- a predatory colonial power that acquired its wealth by conquest. Avowed leftist Howard Zinn advanced these noxious themes in "A People's History of the United States," which has been a staple American history book in our universities and high schools.
According to the leftist "shame narrative," which is driven more by ideology than a commitment to historical accuracy, America conquered, exploited, enslaved and stole its way to wealth and power. Our forefathers committed genocide against the Native Americans while stealing their land; we gobbled up the southwestern part of the country from Mexico as warmongering imperialists; we built our businesses and industries on the backs of African-American slaves; and through our system of free market capitalism and foreign policy imperialism, we have stolen the lion's share of the world's wealth. Also, under our system, the "haves" in the United States continue to extort resources from the "have-nots," robbing the common man of his fair share.
Dinesh answers this bill of particulars against the United States, admitting our transgressions, when warranted, and setting the record straight with the other side of history, which has been purposely hidden from us.
Don't assume that you are fully aware of the other side. Dinesh presents evidence that you probably haven't heard or read before -- but it's vitally important evidence that tells an entirely different story from what recent generations of Americans have been led (and brainwashed) to believe. The institution of slavery, for example, has been present in almost every culture in world history; America is the only nation that endured a bloody civil war to eradicate the inhuman practice.
As a political commentator and American patriot, I am troubled constantly by our cultural amnesia about what is so great about America. I find too many people, including on the conservative side, forever apologizing for their beliefs and defensive about traditional values, capitalism and even the American idea. It's as if the leftist "shame narrative" has done a number on us -- as if much of our side is now comfortable with a gargantuan welfare state and doesn't dare promote capitalism from a moral perspective.
What has always attracted me most to Dinesh's approach is his unapologetic championing of America -- its founding principles and its historical record. He takes a back seat to no one in proclaiming America's foundational and historical greatness. America has been a force for good like no other in the history of mankind.
In fact, America didn't steal its wealth; it created it, because its free market system, undergirded by Christian values, gave rise to an explosion of entrepreneurship, growth and unprecedented prosperity. Moreover, but for America, world history would remain a story of wealth by conquest.
Dinesh rightly points out, however, that the leftist narrative continues virtually unabated: America stole its resources, so it must pay for this monumental injustice. It is our duty to return these "stolen goods" to the rest of the world, those it exploited historically and the "have-nots" in our society.
The left has trained generations of Americans, in our schools and in our media, that we need to atone for our alleged sins. Barack Obama is a product of this training -- as is Hillary Clinton. Yesterday's radicals are today's leading government officials, and they are doing their very best to fundamentally change America from the inside. At this point, they're succeeding. "We are witnessing economic redistribution at a level never before imagined," Dinesh says.
Dinesh also points out that Obama did not create the radical left's comprehensive assault on America; it created him, but he has accelerated the pace of our decline to an alarming degree.
You would have to be blind or oblivious not to recognize that America is at a crossroads. A dire challenge confronts us. The clock is ticking, and those hellbent on permanently transforming this nation into a utopian paradise (read: atheist, socialist state) are working overtime and relentlessly.
We may not have a Washington, Lincoln or Reagan right now, cautions Dinesh, but we have ourselves.
Will we stand up to this challenge? Will we rise up to save America and preserve its unique greatness? Or will we abandon its future and that of our children to the designs of those who are presently transforming it into something unrecognizable, a place where robust political freedom is but a distant memory?
Do we conservatives really mean it when we say that we need to promote our ideas in the popular culture through books, movies and other media? If so, we need to support people like Dinesh D'Souza and his latest movie and book, "America: Imagine the World Without Her." I saw the movie, and I loved it.
Dinesh is a passionate patriot who "chose this country" and loves it with every fiber of his being. Like many of the rest of us, he recognizes that America is under assault, and he is doing all he can to save it.
In the movie, Dinesh describes how the political left has infiltrated our culture and educational institutions and presented a damning moral indictment of this nation and free market capitalism.
In the eyes of the left, America is intrinsically evil -- a predatory colonial power that acquired its wealth by conquest. Avowed leftist Howard Zinn advanced these noxious themes in "A People's History of the United States," which has been a staple American history book in our universities and high schools.
According to the leftist "shame narrative," which is driven more by ideology than a commitment to historical accuracy, America conquered, exploited, enslaved and stole its way to wealth and power. Our forefathers committed genocide against the Native Americans while stealing their land; we gobbled up the southwestern part of the country from Mexico as warmongering imperialists; we built our businesses and industries on the backs of African-American slaves; and through our system of free market capitalism and foreign policy imperialism, we have stolen the lion's share of the world's wealth. Also, under our system, the "haves" in the United States continue to extort resources from the "have-nots," robbing the common man of his fair share.
Dinesh answers this bill of particulars against the United States, admitting our transgressions, when warranted, and setting the record straight with the other side of history, which has been purposely hidden from us.
Don't assume that you are fully aware of the other side. Dinesh presents evidence that you probably haven't heard or read before -- but it's vitally important evidence that tells an entirely different story from what recent generations of Americans have been led (and brainwashed) to believe. The institution of slavery, for example, has been present in almost every culture in world history; America is the only nation that endured a bloody civil war to eradicate the inhuman practice.
As a political commentator and American patriot, I am troubled constantly by our cultural amnesia about what is so great about America. I find too many people, including on the conservative side, forever apologizing for their beliefs and defensive about traditional values, capitalism and even the American idea. It's as if the leftist "shame narrative" has done a number on us -- as if much of our side is now comfortable with a gargantuan welfare state and doesn't dare promote capitalism from a moral perspective.
What has always attracted me most to Dinesh's approach is his unapologetic championing of America -- its founding principles and its historical record. He takes a back seat to no one in proclaiming America's foundational and historical greatness. America has been a force for good like no other in the history of mankind.
In fact, America didn't steal its wealth; it created it, because its free market system, undergirded by Christian values, gave rise to an explosion of entrepreneurship, growth and unprecedented prosperity. Moreover, but for America, world history would remain a story of wealth by conquest.
Dinesh rightly points out, however, that the leftist narrative continues virtually unabated: America stole its resources, so it must pay for this monumental injustice. It is our duty to return these "stolen goods" to the rest of the world, those it exploited historically and the "have-nots" in our society.
The left has trained generations of Americans, in our schools and in our media, that we need to atone for our alleged sins. Barack Obama is a product of this training -- as is Hillary Clinton. Yesterday's radicals are today's leading government officials, and they are doing their very best to fundamentally change America from the inside. At this point, they're succeeding. "We are witnessing economic redistribution at a level never before imagined," Dinesh says.
Dinesh also points out that Obama did not create the radical left's comprehensive assault on America; it created him, but he has accelerated the pace of our decline to an alarming degree.
You would have to be blind or oblivious not to recognize that America is at a crossroads. A dire challenge confronts us. The clock is ticking, and those hellbent on permanently transforming this nation into a utopian paradise (read: atheist, socialist state) are working overtime and relentlessly.
We may not have a Washington, Lincoln or Reagan right now, cautions Dinesh, but we have ourselves.
Will we stand up to this challenge? Will we rise up to save America and preserve its unique greatness? Or will we abandon its future and that of our children to the designs of those who are presently transforming it into something unrecognizable, a place where robust political freedom is but a distant memory?
A PRIMER ON RACE
Thomas Sowell
Back in the heyday of the British Empire, a man from one of the colonies addressed a London audience.
"Please do not do any more good in my country," he said. "We have suffered too much already from all the good that you have done."
That is essentially the message of an outstanding new book by Jason Riley about blacks in America. Its title is "Please Stop Helping Us." Its theme is that many policies designed to help blacks are in fact harmful, sometimes devastatingly so. These counterproductive policies range from minimum wage laws to "affirmative action" quotas.
This book untangles the controversies, the confusions, and the irresponsible rhetoric in which issues involving minimum wage laws are usually discussed. As someone who has followed minimum wage controversies for decades, I must say that I have never seen the subject explained more clearly or more convincingly.
Black teenage unemployment rates ranging from 20 to 50 percent have been so common over the past 60 years that many people are unaware that this was not true before there were minimum wage laws, or even during years when inflation rendered minimum wage laws ineffective, as in the late 1940s.
Pricing young people out of work deprives them not only of income but also of work experience, which can be even more valuable. Pricing young people out of legal work, when illegal work is always available, is just asking for trouble. So is having large numbers of idle young males hanging out together on the streets.
When it comes to affirmative action, Jason Riley asks the key question: "Do racial preferences work? What is the track record?" Like many other well-meaning and nice-sounding policies, affirmative action cannot survive factual scrutiny.
Some individuals may get jobs they would not get otherwise but many black students who are quite capable of getting a good college education are admitted, under racial quotas, to institutions whose pace alone is enough to make it unlikely that they will graduate.
Studies that show how many artificial failures are created by affirmative action admissions policies are summarized in "Please Stop Helping Us," in language much easier to understand than in the original studies.
There are many ponderous academic studies of blacks, if you have a few months in which to read them, but there is nothing to match Jason Riley's book as a primer that will quickly bring you up to speed on the complicated subject of race in a week, or perhaps over a weekend.
As an experienced journalist, rather than an academic, Riley knows how to use plain English to get to the point. He also has the integrity to give it to you straight, instead of in the jargon and euphemisms too often found in discussions of race. The result is a book that provides more knowledge and insight in a couple of hundred pages than are usually found in books twice that length.
Unlike academics who just tell facts, Riley knows which facts are telling.
For example, in response to claims that blacks don't do well academically because the schools use an approach geared to white students, he points out that blacks from foreign, non-English-speaking countries do better in American schools than black, English-speaking American students.
Asian students do better than whites in schools supposedly geared to whites. In New York City's three academically elite public high schools -- Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech -- there are more than twice as many Asian students as white students in all three institutions.
So much for the theory that non-whites can't do well in schools supposedly geared to whites.
On issue after issue, "Please Stop Helping Us" cites facts to destroy propaganda and puncture inflated rhetoric. It is impossible to do justice to the wide range of racial issues -- from crime to family disintegration -- explored in this book. Pick up a copy and open pages at random to see how the author annihilates nonsense.
His brief comments pack a lot of punch. For example, "having a black man in the Oval Office is less important than having one in the home."
Back in the heyday of the British Empire, a man from one of the colonies addressed a London audience.
"Please do not do any more good in my country," he said. "We have suffered too much already from all the good that you have done."
That is essentially the message of an outstanding new book by Jason Riley about blacks in America. Its title is "Please Stop Helping Us." Its theme is that many policies designed to help blacks are in fact harmful, sometimes devastatingly so. These counterproductive policies range from minimum wage laws to "affirmative action" quotas.
This book untangles the controversies, the confusions, and the irresponsible rhetoric in which issues involving minimum wage laws are usually discussed. As someone who has followed minimum wage controversies for decades, I must say that I have never seen the subject explained more clearly or more convincingly.
Black teenage unemployment rates ranging from 20 to 50 percent have been so common over the past 60 years that many people are unaware that this was not true before there were minimum wage laws, or even during years when inflation rendered minimum wage laws ineffective, as in the late 1940s.
Pricing young people out of work deprives them not only of income but also of work experience, which can be even more valuable. Pricing young people out of legal work, when illegal work is always available, is just asking for trouble. So is having large numbers of idle young males hanging out together on the streets.
When it comes to affirmative action, Jason Riley asks the key question: "Do racial preferences work? What is the track record?" Like many other well-meaning and nice-sounding policies, affirmative action cannot survive factual scrutiny.
Some individuals may get jobs they would not get otherwise but many black students who are quite capable of getting a good college education are admitted, under racial quotas, to institutions whose pace alone is enough to make it unlikely that they will graduate.
Studies that show how many artificial failures are created by affirmative action admissions policies are summarized in "Please Stop Helping Us," in language much easier to understand than in the original studies.
There are many ponderous academic studies of blacks, if you have a few months in which to read them, but there is nothing to match Jason Riley's book as a primer that will quickly bring you up to speed on the complicated subject of race in a week, or perhaps over a weekend.
As an experienced journalist, rather than an academic, Riley knows how to use plain English to get to the point. He also has the integrity to give it to you straight, instead of in the jargon and euphemisms too often found in discussions of race. The result is a book that provides more knowledge and insight in a couple of hundred pages than are usually found in books twice that length.
Unlike academics who just tell facts, Riley knows which facts are telling.
For example, in response to claims that blacks don't do well academically because the schools use an approach geared to white students, he points out that blacks from foreign, non-English-speaking countries do better in American schools than black, English-speaking American students.
Asian students do better than whites in schools supposedly geared to whites. In New York City's three academically elite public high schools -- Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech -- there are more than twice as many Asian students as white students in all three institutions.
So much for the theory that non-whites can't do well in schools supposedly geared to whites.
On issue after issue, "Please Stop Helping Us" cites facts to destroy propaganda and puncture inflated rhetoric. It is impossible to do justice to the wide range of racial issues -- from crime to family disintegration -- explored in this book. Pick up a copy and open pages at random to see how the author annihilates nonsense.
His brief comments pack a lot of punch. For example, "having a black man in the Oval Office is less important than having one in the home."
MULLAH FAZLULLAH: CHALLENGES TO THE " ELIMINATE OR EXTRADITE " APPROACH
D Suba Chandra
Hundreds of militants have been killed ever since the military in Pakistan launched an offensive against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in June 2014. There have also been numerous reports that ever since the military operations began, there has been an exodus of militants and civilians from the FATA into Afghanistan cutting across the Durand Line.
As a headline in one of the leading news papers read, Pakistan today wants Afghanistan to either “extradite” Mullah Fazlullah, the leader of the TTP, or “eliminate” him. Will such an approach with Afghanistan succeed, given the large-scale differences between Kabul and Islamabad?
After innumerable deliberations within Pakistan and the chimera of a dialogue with the TTP, the military operations have begun only now. But the harsh reality for Pakistan is: there are no similar operations from the other side of the Durand Line, or even a basic security template in Afghanistan to deal with those who are currently crossing the border between the two.
General Asim Saleem Bajwa, in one of his Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) briefings in early July commented that “the leader of the TTP Mullah Fazlullah is sitting across the border in Kunar or Nuristan and Afghanistan needs to do something about it.” Perhaps he is, and perhaps Afghanistan should do something about it.
Is Fazlullah a priority for Kabul?
Despite complaints from Pakistan, the Afghan government could not deal with Pakistani militants who have been hiding in Paktia, Paktika, Kunar and Nuristan provinces adjoining the Durand Line. Perhaps, they were not the priority for the present Afghan government that is facing the exit of the US troops, national and provincial elections, and more importantly, its own security threats from the Afghan Taliban and its affiliates including the Haqqani Network.
Though a section within Pakistan believes that Kabul in fact colludes with Fazlullah (along with India and the US of course), it is a farfetched proposition. Fazlullah may not be a priority for Afghanistan, as Hafiz Saeed and Mullah Omar are not for Pakistan.
The politics of “trump cards” and “not our problem” approach have been played so far and will continue to play a crucial role in the role neighbours’ perceptions and subsequent actions against militancy and terrorism.
Across the Durand: Trust Deficit and Militancy
Second, there has been a huge trust deficit between Pakistan and Afghanistan in terms of providing support to militancy. Kabul has repeatedly complained that the roots and bases of Taliban militancy in Afghanistan are inside Pakistan; in particular, the Pakistani military’s reluctance to go after Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network was viewed that way not only by the Afghan government, but also the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) leadership.
Similarly, a section within Pakistan even believes that the Afghan government secretly supports the TTP. Inherent tensions over the Durand Line between the two countries and the recent border clashes have created a huge gap between the Islamabad and Kabul. An added disadvantage for Pakistan is – many in Afghanistan do not trust Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), even if they find the political leadership sincere; and since the days of jihad against the Soviets, the Afghans believe that the ISI abused the relationship and would like to control Afghanistan rather than cooperating with them.
Neutralising the TTP: Is Pakistan Serious Now?
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, have, until recently, been reluctant to go after even the Pakistani Taliban. Islamabad (under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif now, and President Asif Ali Zardari earlier) had been attempting to initiate a dialogue with the TTP, as has been pointed out by the former Director General of the ISPR in a recent interview to the BBC, and Rawalpindi was hesitant to engage the militants through military operations. According to Maj Gen Athar Abbas, “it had been decided in principle that preparations for the operation would take place between 2010 and 2011, and that it would be launched in 2011 to rid North Waziristan of extremists once and for all... He (Gen Kayani) was very reluctant when it came to the North Waziristan operation. Kayani thought the decision to launch the operation would reflect on his personality and people would take it as his personal decision, which is why he kept delaying the operation.”
Given the reluctance within the political and military leadership in Pakistan to go against even the TTP, it would be a Herculean task to convince them to neutralise the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network.
Will Afghanistan prevent the movement of the TTP within its soil without a quid pro quo? Even if it wants to pursue the TTP in its border provinces, does Kabul have enough firepower to undertake a parallel operation across the Durand Line? No doubt, the militants belonging to the Afghan Taliban, or the TTP or the al Qaeda – are a threat to the entire region. But until now, despite the pressure from its own public, the leadership in Pakistan has not realised it.
This will pose a huge challenge for Pakistan to achieve any substantial success in Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
Hundreds of militants have been killed ever since the military in Pakistan launched an offensive against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in June 2014. There have also been numerous reports that ever since the military operations began, there has been an exodus of militants and civilians from the FATA into Afghanistan cutting across the Durand Line.
As a headline in one of the leading news papers read, Pakistan today wants Afghanistan to either “extradite” Mullah Fazlullah, the leader of the TTP, or “eliminate” him. Will such an approach with Afghanistan succeed, given the large-scale differences between Kabul and Islamabad?
After innumerable deliberations within Pakistan and the chimera of a dialogue with the TTP, the military operations have begun only now. But the harsh reality for Pakistan is: there are no similar operations from the other side of the Durand Line, or even a basic security template in Afghanistan to deal with those who are currently crossing the border between the two.
General Asim Saleem Bajwa, in one of his Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) briefings in early July commented that “the leader of the TTP Mullah Fazlullah is sitting across the border in Kunar or Nuristan and Afghanistan needs to do something about it.” Perhaps he is, and perhaps Afghanistan should do something about it.
Is Fazlullah a priority for Kabul?
Despite complaints from Pakistan, the Afghan government could not deal with Pakistani militants who have been hiding in Paktia, Paktika, Kunar and Nuristan provinces adjoining the Durand Line. Perhaps, they were not the priority for the present Afghan government that is facing the exit of the US troops, national and provincial elections, and more importantly, its own security threats from the Afghan Taliban and its affiliates including the Haqqani Network.
Though a section within Pakistan believes that Kabul in fact colludes with Fazlullah (along with India and the US of course), it is a farfetched proposition. Fazlullah may not be a priority for Afghanistan, as Hafiz Saeed and Mullah Omar are not for Pakistan.
The politics of “trump cards” and “not our problem” approach have been played so far and will continue to play a crucial role in the role neighbours’ perceptions and subsequent actions against militancy and terrorism.
Across the Durand: Trust Deficit and Militancy
Second, there has been a huge trust deficit between Pakistan and Afghanistan in terms of providing support to militancy. Kabul has repeatedly complained that the roots and bases of Taliban militancy in Afghanistan are inside Pakistan; in particular, the Pakistani military’s reluctance to go after Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network was viewed that way not only by the Afghan government, but also the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) leadership.
Similarly, a section within Pakistan even believes that the Afghan government secretly supports the TTP. Inherent tensions over the Durand Line between the two countries and the recent border clashes have created a huge gap between the Islamabad and Kabul. An added disadvantage for Pakistan is – many in Afghanistan do not trust Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), even if they find the political leadership sincere; and since the days of jihad against the Soviets, the Afghans believe that the ISI abused the relationship and would like to control Afghanistan rather than cooperating with them.
Neutralising the TTP: Is Pakistan Serious Now?
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, have, until recently, been reluctant to go after even the Pakistani Taliban. Islamabad (under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif now, and President Asif Ali Zardari earlier) had been attempting to initiate a dialogue with the TTP, as has been pointed out by the former Director General of the ISPR in a recent interview to the BBC, and Rawalpindi was hesitant to engage the militants through military operations. According to Maj Gen Athar Abbas, “it had been decided in principle that preparations for the operation would take place between 2010 and 2011, and that it would be launched in 2011 to rid North Waziristan of extremists once and for all... He (Gen Kayani) was very reluctant when it came to the North Waziristan operation. Kayani thought the decision to launch the operation would reflect on his personality and people would take it as his personal decision, which is why he kept delaying the operation.”
Given the reluctance within the political and military leadership in Pakistan to go against even the TTP, it would be a Herculean task to convince them to neutralise the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network.
Will Afghanistan prevent the movement of the TTP within its soil without a quid pro quo? Even if it wants to pursue the TTP in its border provinces, does Kabul have enough firepower to undertake a parallel operation across the Durand Line? No doubt, the militants belonging to the Afghan Taliban, or the TTP or the al Qaeda – are a threat to the entire region. But until now, despite the pressure from its own public, the leadership in Pakistan has not realised it.
This will pose a huge challenge for Pakistan to achieve any substantial success in Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
SRI LANKA: A NEW MELODY FOR NATION BUILDING
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
The month of June marked the first International Seminar on South Asia Development organised by the Xinhua news agency in Hong Kong, where this author was invited to speak on the topic of Sri Lanka at the centre of the Maritime Silk Road (MSR). On the same day of the seminar, Pakistan suffered a terrorist attack on Karachi Airport. Sri Lanka’s international airport was attacked in 2001 by LTTE terrorists in a similar manner. After three decades of combat with one of the world’s worst terrorist organisations, Sri Lanka can share its experience in fighting terrorism. The importance of fighting terrorism together with the nations of the Maritime Silk Road cannot be ignored.
In the current context of a very uncertain global stage, many parts of the world are being targeted by organised terrorist groups. In Tikrit and Mosul for example, thousands have been massacred by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s militants from the Islam State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). More than 150 children have been kidnapped, many others have been recruited as child soldiers, and the ISIS has appointed its own administration. The rise of the non-state actor is clear. The national security threat is spreading to many regional nations due to militant groups such as the ISIS. States should work together to combat such threats rather than evade the situation.
In the south of Sri Lanka, Buddhists and Muslims have clashed due to extremism within the society. While the majority of the society focuses on building a harmonious community with space for ethnic and religious reconciliation, this incident has created a negative image of Sri Lanka on a local and global scale. With all positive economic indicators and a record growth in the tourism industry, a negative image globally could have adverse consequences on the country. As reconciliation is essential to the progress and development of Sri Lanka, other non-violent ways to address societal issues must be found. Terrorism cannot be answered by terrorism. Instead, the government must work towards curbing extremist elements that give prominence to nationalistic ideas, which disturb the county’s social fabric. Nationalism is used to guard and protect one’s own identity.
Sri Lanka should use the influence of nationalism to address serious issues such as the decline in the use of Sinhala and Tamil languages in younger and future generations. With approximately 40,000 students enrolled, 90 per cent of whom are Sri Lankans, the international schools in the country have become a popular choice for schooling. Sinhala or Tamil, however, are only offered as an optional language taught once a week and not calculated into the grade point average. Without proper incentives to learn the language, the outcome is that most children from these schools are unable to read or write in their own dialect: Sinhala or Tamil. Language has the power to provide a connection to a culture and loyalty to a nation. Without it, people are not as tied to the country, and are not afraid to leave for work. The lack of knowledge of one’s own language is a directly related to the growth of the brain drain. This should be looked at as a serious issue. Nationalism should focus on cultural aspects such as protection of the language instead of concentrating on creating disharmony among different groups within society.
While the government faces many internal challenges such as the southern riots, it also faces external issues from the UNHRC. The high level committee was appointed and will advise the team set up to conduct a comprehensive investigation of alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka. The question is, will the government cooperate and allow the team to enter the country to proceed with the investigation? After the announcement of the experts by UNHRC, the Finnish President was talked about on the front page of a local newspaper as “Bribe-taker Ahtisaari to probe SL.” This is not a positive note. The next Presidential election marks the third round of President Rajapaksa. The news that Rajapaksa will be the first Executive President to contest for the third time was also discussed in the political columns.
In order to assist the reconciliation process, the government of Sri Lanka has invited Special Envoy Cyril Ramaposha from South Africa. Some groups inside the government coalition, however, are against outside assistance. It is seen in a negative light by some in the government and public. Furthermore, the USAID program for Citizen Education on voting was stopped by the government as it was seen as a threat to the sovereignty of the nation. The tension is high with the accumulation of internal and external pressure. Amidst this tension, President Rajapaksa invited President Xi Jinping to visit the country as a move towards strengthening bilateral relations with China.
As Rabindranath Tagore says “When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.” Sri Lanka could find a better and new melody in the post war era, which will create a better society.
The month of June marked the first International Seminar on South Asia Development organised by the Xinhua news agency in Hong Kong, where this author was invited to speak on the topic of Sri Lanka at the centre of the Maritime Silk Road (MSR). On the same day of the seminar, Pakistan suffered a terrorist attack on Karachi Airport. Sri Lanka’s international airport was attacked in 2001 by LTTE terrorists in a similar manner. After three decades of combat with one of the world’s worst terrorist organisations, Sri Lanka can share its experience in fighting terrorism. The importance of fighting terrorism together with the nations of the Maritime Silk Road cannot be ignored.
In the current context of a very uncertain global stage, many parts of the world are being targeted by organised terrorist groups. In Tikrit and Mosul for example, thousands have been massacred by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s militants from the Islam State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). More than 150 children have been kidnapped, many others have been recruited as child soldiers, and the ISIS has appointed its own administration. The rise of the non-state actor is clear. The national security threat is spreading to many regional nations due to militant groups such as the ISIS. States should work together to combat such threats rather than evade the situation.
In the south of Sri Lanka, Buddhists and Muslims have clashed due to extremism within the society. While the majority of the society focuses on building a harmonious community with space for ethnic and religious reconciliation, this incident has created a negative image of Sri Lanka on a local and global scale. With all positive economic indicators and a record growth in the tourism industry, a negative image globally could have adverse consequences on the country. As reconciliation is essential to the progress and development of Sri Lanka, other non-violent ways to address societal issues must be found. Terrorism cannot be answered by terrorism. Instead, the government must work towards curbing extremist elements that give prominence to nationalistic ideas, which disturb the county’s social fabric. Nationalism is used to guard and protect one’s own identity.
Sri Lanka should use the influence of nationalism to address serious issues such as the decline in the use of Sinhala and Tamil languages in younger and future generations. With approximately 40,000 students enrolled, 90 per cent of whom are Sri Lankans, the international schools in the country have become a popular choice for schooling. Sinhala or Tamil, however, are only offered as an optional language taught once a week and not calculated into the grade point average. Without proper incentives to learn the language, the outcome is that most children from these schools are unable to read or write in their own dialect: Sinhala or Tamil. Language has the power to provide a connection to a culture and loyalty to a nation. Without it, people are not as tied to the country, and are not afraid to leave for work. The lack of knowledge of one’s own language is a directly related to the growth of the brain drain. This should be looked at as a serious issue. Nationalism should focus on cultural aspects such as protection of the language instead of concentrating on creating disharmony among different groups within society.
While the government faces many internal challenges such as the southern riots, it also faces external issues from the UNHRC. The high level committee was appointed and will advise the team set up to conduct a comprehensive investigation of alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka. The question is, will the government cooperate and allow the team to enter the country to proceed with the investigation? After the announcement of the experts by UNHRC, the Finnish President was talked about on the front page of a local newspaper as “Bribe-taker Ahtisaari to probe SL.” This is not a positive note. The next Presidential election marks the third round of President Rajapaksa. The news that Rajapaksa will be the first Executive President to contest for the third time was also discussed in the political columns.
In order to assist the reconciliation process, the government of Sri Lanka has invited Special Envoy Cyril Ramaposha from South Africa. Some groups inside the government coalition, however, are against outside assistance. It is seen in a negative light by some in the government and public. Furthermore, the USAID program for Citizen Education on voting was stopped by the government as it was seen as a threat to the sovereignty of the nation. The tension is high with the accumulation of internal and external pressure. Amidst this tension, President Rajapaksa invited President Xi Jinping to visit the country as a move towards strengthening bilateral relations with China.
As Rabindranath Tagore says “When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.” Sri Lanka could find a better and new melody in the post war era, which will create a better society.
7 Jul 2014
RENOUNCING JEWISH JIHAD
Michael Brown
There have been and will continue to be Jewish terrorists who use their religion to justify murder, but the difference between Jewish jihad and Islamic jihad is that only in Islam is jihad a legitimate expression of the faith.
It is true that there have been religious Jews like Baruch Goldstein, who gunned down 29 Muslim worshipers and wounded more than 125 others before being beaten to death in 1994. And it is true that his epitaph reads, “He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land.”
And it is true that in 2009, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi wrote a book in Hebrew entitled “The King’s Torah,” in which he made outrageous statements like, “Hurting small children makes sense if it's clear that they'll grow up to harm us, and in such a situation – the injury will be directed at them of all people.” And he did this in the name of Jewish law.
And it is true that Jewish extremists in Israel have chanted “Death to the Arabs,” especially in the aftermath of atrocities committed against their own people – especially children – by Muslim terrorists.
And it is true that Yitkhak Ginzburg, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbi, responded to the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers with calls for revenge, stating, “Revenge is a natural, spontaneous reaction, and it is led by a feeling that until I find the power to hurt whoever has hurt me I will not experience revival.”
The difference, however, between orthodox expressions of Judaism and orthodox expressions of Islam is that these murderous sentiments and actions represent the rarest exception in Judaism while they represent a common theme in Islam, both in ideology and in practice.
How many organizations are found in Judaism that parallel substantial Muslim groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, or ISIS?
How many religious Jews studying in yeshivas are trained in the art of blowing themselves up with bombs?
How many rabbinic texts (in comparison with Koranic texts) can legitimately be used to justify the murder of innocent people in the name of holy war?
And if Jews are indeed guilty of the kidnapping and horrific murder of a Palestinian teen in revenge for the murder of the Israeli teens, there will be national horror, not jubilation.
As noted by Ben-Dror Yemini, “Here an absolute majority opposes the murder. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas is the government. We have no cries of joy. They have celebrations of joy, and the murderers’ families hand out candy. Here, the state stopped funding the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva [led by the aforementioned Rabbi Ginzburg]. There, the murderers continue to receive regular monthly funding from the Palestinian Authority.”
Again, this is not to say that the people of Israel – my people – are incapable of committing atrocities. And it is not to say that, in coming days, there will not be more and more violent Jewish extremists.
It is simply to say that to do so requires a fundamental violation of many of the tenets of Judaism, while in Islam, such violence can be easily justified.
All that being said, at volatile times like this in the Middle East, we would do well to remember the classic words of Golda Meir spoken to Anwar Sadat: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children [meaning, in war]. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
The power of hate, which goes far beyond the call to justice, shows no favoritism and, if not checked, will destroy not only Muslims but also Jews.
Let us then, without reserve or qualification, utterly renounce “Jewish jihad.”
There have been and will continue to be Jewish terrorists who use their religion to justify murder, but the difference between Jewish jihad and Islamic jihad is that only in Islam is jihad a legitimate expression of the faith.
It is true that there have been religious Jews like Baruch Goldstein, who gunned down 29 Muslim worshipers and wounded more than 125 others before being beaten to death in 1994. And it is true that his epitaph reads, “He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land.”
And it is true that in 2009, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi wrote a book in Hebrew entitled “The King’s Torah,” in which he made outrageous statements like, “Hurting small children makes sense if it's clear that they'll grow up to harm us, and in such a situation – the injury will be directed at them of all people.” And he did this in the name of Jewish law.
And it is true that Jewish extremists in Israel have chanted “Death to the Arabs,” especially in the aftermath of atrocities committed against their own people – especially children – by Muslim terrorists.
And it is true that Yitkhak Ginzburg, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbi, responded to the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers with calls for revenge, stating, “Revenge is a natural, spontaneous reaction, and it is led by a feeling that until I find the power to hurt whoever has hurt me I will not experience revival.”
The difference, however, between orthodox expressions of Judaism and orthodox expressions of Islam is that these murderous sentiments and actions represent the rarest exception in Judaism while they represent a common theme in Islam, both in ideology and in practice.
How many organizations are found in Judaism that parallel substantial Muslim groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, or ISIS?
How many religious Jews studying in yeshivas are trained in the art of blowing themselves up with bombs?
How many rabbinic texts (in comparison with Koranic texts) can legitimately be used to justify the murder of innocent people in the name of holy war?
And if Jews are indeed guilty of the kidnapping and horrific murder of a Palestinian teen in revenge for the murder of the Israeli teens, there will be national horror, not jubilation.
As noted by Ben-Dror Yemini, “Here an absolute majority opposes the murder. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas is the government. We have no cries of joy. They have celebrations of joy, and the murderers’ families hand out candy. Here, the state stopped funding the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva [led by the aforementioned Rabbi Ginzburg]. There, the murderers continue to receive regular monthly funding from the Palestinian Authority.”
Again, this is not to say that the people of Israel – my people – are incapable of committing atrocities. And it is not to say that, in coming days, there will not be more and more violent Jewish extremists.
It is simply to say that to do so requires a fundamental violation of many of the tenets of Judaism, while in Islam, such violence can be easily justified.
All that being said, at volatile times like this in the Middle East, we would do well to remember the classic words of Golda Meir spoken to Anwar Sadat: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children [meaning, in war]. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
The power of hate, which goes far beyond the call to justice, shows no favoritism and, if not checked, will destroy not only Muslims but also Jews.
Let us then, without reserve or qualification, utterly renounce “Jewish jihad.”
INDIA-EU: EXPLORING MARITIME CONVERGENCES
Vijay Sakhuja
The much awaited European Union Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS) was approved last month by the General Affairs Council of the European Union (EU). The document builds on the European Commission’s Joint Communication, titled ‘for an open and secure global maritime domain: elements for a European Union maritime security strategy’, and is a link between the Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) and the European Security Strategy (ESS). This paves the way for the 28 nations of the EU to identify and undertake concrete actions and projects to enhance the EU’s maritime security.
To implement the strategy, a rolling action plan is expected to be in place by the end of 2014 – that will focus on pan-Europe maritime domain awareness, exchange of information among the EU member states, navies, civil and marine authorities; addresses issues of technology development, common training; and multinational research programmes.
In its geographic scope, the EUMSS covers the European sea basins (the Mediterranean, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, North Sea, Arctic waters, the Atlantic Ocean) and as far beyond as Asia, Africa and the Americas – thus giving it both an internal and external dimensions. The strategy aims to address a number of asymmetric threats and challenges, at home and overseas, that impact the freedom of navigation at sea. These include piracy and armed robbery, maritime terrorism, trans-national organised crimes such as drug smuggling, gun-running, human trafficking, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, security of maritime infrastructure, cyber warfare and environmental risks.
The EUMSS action plan will also have to address the issue of material and humans resources. This is likely to pose a major challenge for the EU since some member states have scaled down their defence spending resulting in significant reduction in inventories of the respective naval and maritime forces. Although France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the UK are major naval powers, possess significant capabilities, and are forward-deployed across the globe, there are others who can barely manage to protect their national waters.
One of the significant aspects of the EUMSS is maritime multilateralism. The strategy acknowledges that modern day maritime threats and challenges are complex and some of these may require ‘international response’ that would necessitate engagements with international partners and participation in regional and global forums. In that context, EU’s engagement in the Indian Ocean through the EU Naval Force in Operation Atlanta in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia to counter piracy is significant. EU naval and air assets work closely with the US-led Task Force 150, NATO, and other Asian navies to fight piracy.
The EUMSS also notes that sea lanes between Asia and Europe are of critical importance to the EU. A huge proportion of EU commercial traffic passes through Asian waters and according to an assessment, the volume of trade is expected to increase by 121 per cent between 2006 and 2016. Therefore, the Indian Ocean is strategically important to the EU’s economic vitality.
The much awaited European Union Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS) was approved last month by the General Affairs Council of the European Union (EU). The document builds on the European Commission’s Joint Communication, titled ‘for an open and secure global maritime domain: elements for a European Union maritime security strategy’, and is a link between the Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) and the European Security Strategy (ESS). This paves the way for the 28 nations of the EU to identify and undertake concrete actions and projects to enhance the EU’s maritime security.
To implement the strategy, a rolling action plan is expected to be in place by the end of 2014 – that will focus on pan-Europe maritime domain awareness, exchange of information among the EU member states, navies, civil and marine authorities; addresses issues of technology development, common training; and multinational research programmes.
In its geographic scope, the EUMSS covers the European sea basins (the Mediterranean, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, North Sea, Arctic waters, the Atlantic Ocean) and as far beyond as Asia, Africa and the Americas – thus giving it both an internal and external dimensions. The strategy aims to address a number of asymmetric threats and challenges, at home and overseas, that impact the freedom of navigation at sea. These include piracy and armed robbery, maritime terrorism, trans-national organised crimes such as drug smuggling, gun-running, human trafficking, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, security of maritime infrastructure, cyber warfare and environmental risks.
The EUMSS action plan will also have to address the issue of material and humans resources. This is likely to pose a major challenge for the EU since some member states have scaled down their defence spending resulting in significant reduction in inventories of the respective naval and maritime forces. Although France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the UK are major naval powers, possess significant capabilities, and are forward-deployed across the globe, there are others who can barely manage to protect their national waters.
One of the significant aspects of the EUMSS is maritime multilateralism. The strategy acknowledges that modern day maritime threats and challenges are complex and some of these may require ‘international response’ that would necessitate engagements with international partners and participation in regional and global forums. In that context, EU’s engagement in the Indian Ocean through the EU Naval Force in Operation Atlanta in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia to counter piracy is significant. EU naval and air assets work closely with the US-led Task Force 150, NATO, and other Asian navies to fight piracy.
The EUMSS also notes that sea lanes between Asia and Europe are of critical importance to the EU. A huge proportion of EU commercial traffic passes through Asian waters and according to an assessment, the volume of trade is expected to increase by 121 per cent between 2006 and 2016. Therefore, the Indian Ocean is strategically important to the EU’s economic vitality.
INDIA IN IRAQ: NEED FOR BETTER FOCUS
Ranjit Gupta
Though Iraq has been a particularly good and politically supportive friend and had episodically been the top oil supplier to India in the past, relations perforce started losing momentum in the wake of the US policies after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait; finally, India lost interest in Iraq after the US invaded it in 2003 – so much so that there was no Indian ambassador in Baghdad from 2005-2011.
Iraq has suddenly dominated Indian public attention for the past month with India’s 24x7 TV news channels orchestrating a shrill campaign highlighting the woes of the families of 40 Indian construction workers abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) after they took control of Mosul and of 46 Indian nurses posted in a hospital in Tikrit; and pillorying the government’s alleged "failure" to protect and/or rescue its nationals.
The Indian public needs to be made aware of ground realities because of which these things happen.
The 39 construction workers are in a war zone and their exact whereabouts are not known. Since neither the territory, nor the captors, nor the evolution of developments are under Indian control or influence, the government is inevitably completely dependent on others – governments of friendly countries who may have local influence; central and regional governments in Iraq; national and international humanitarian and relief agencies; tribal leaders; militants themselves or other individuals or entities who have influence with the militants etc for their safety and return to India. Efforts have been continuing on a 24 hour basis with such entities – that is the best that any government can do. That is how the rescue of the nurses was secured. India and Indians have always enjoyed enormous goodwill in the Gulf region in particular and in the Arab world in general. This is one of the reasons why Indian nurses were not ill-treated and released. If, despite all efforts, the workers are harmed the government should not be blamed.
Not a single country, even those with extremely competent intelligence agencies and foreign ministries, and those that intensively interact with Iraq on a daily basis, had anticipated the blitzkrieg of the ISIL in taking over the Sunni provinces of Iraq. The consul general of Turkey in Mosul and 23 other consulate personnel were abducted and are yet to be rescued. 100 Kurdish school children have been missing for weeks. Numerous others of many nationalities are missing. Therefore, there was nothing that the Indian government or the embassy could have done to prevent the abduction of the Indian workers.
Suggestions that they could have been evacuated in anticipation of events made in hindsight completely ignore how the real world functions. They themselves would not have wanted to leave having made large payments to recruitment and travel agents in India. Suggestions that the commando operations can be mounted to rescue them are completely irresponsible.
Exactly 10 years ago something similar had happened. Three Indian truck drivers were kidnapped in Iraq in July 2004 while working for a Kuwaiti company that ferried supplies to the US military in Iraq. An Indian diplomatic team was sent to Baghdad and successfully negotiated their release – they had been captive for 41 days. While negotiations were underway, India witnessed similar frenetic TV coverage as now. However, within a few months of their release, the drivers were back in Kuwait. When interviewed on TV, the same family members who had earlier complained about and criticised the government aggressively said that the men had to earn a living for their family members!
This team had learnt to its great surprise that as many as 20,000 Indians were working in Iraq, many of them in various US military camps, the attraction obviously being the high salaries being paid for duty in war zones. In the context of the kidnapping of the drivers, the government banned the movement of Indians to Iraq for employment, which continued till May 2010. This was lifted after a public demand and hence the trouble now.
All this highlights the sad fact and national shame that 67 years after independence, millions of Indians have to go abroad to work in conditions that are conducive to their easy exploitation. In the short term, it is difficult to see how this can be prevented. However, one domestic issue needs to be addressed proactively with a sense of priority which unfortunately no government in the past has done: the nexus between the recruiting and travel agents in India and employment agents in the Gulf countries – the main reason for the exploitation of Indian workers. This unsavoury nexus must be broken and stricter regulations must be stringently enforced.
Last week the ISIL announced the establishment of an Islamic Emirate, which in due course, they hope, would include India. However, there is no reason for major concern because the ISIL is going to be extremely busy in Syria and Iraq to stave off defeat ultimately. However, the Caliphate could be an ideological beacon for misguided or unemployed Indian Muslim youth; however, ultimately causes and remedies thereof lie with the Indian government and civil society, not outside India.
Though Iraq has been a particularly good and politically supportive friend and had episodically been the top oil supplier to India in the past, relations perforce started losing momentum in the wake of the US policies after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait; finally, India lost interest in Iraq after the US invaded it in 2003 – so much so that there was no Indian ambassador in Baghdad from 2005-2011.
Iraq has suddenly dominated Indian public attention for the past month with India’s 24x7 TV news channels orchestrating a shrill campaign highlighting the woes of the families of 40 Indian construction workers abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) after they took control of Mosul and of 46 Indian nurses posted in a hospital in Tikrit; and pillorying the government’s alleged "failure" to protect and/or rescue its nationals.
The Indian public needs to be made aware of ground realities because of which these things happen.
The 39 construction workers are in a war zone and their exact whereabouts are not known. Since neither the territory, nor the captors, nor the evolution of developments are under Indian control or influence, the government is inevitably completely dependent on others – governments of friendly countries who may have local influence; central and regional governments in Iraq; national and international humanitarian and relief agencies; tribal leaders; militants themselves or other individuals or entities who have influence with the militants etc for their safety and return to India. Efforts have been continuing on a 24 hour basis with such entities – that is the best that any government can do. That is how the rescue of the nurses was secured. India and Indians have always enjoyed enormous goodwill in the Gulf region in particular and in the Arab world in general. This is one of the reasons why Indian nurses were not ill-treated and released. If, despite all efforts, the workers are harmed the government should not be blamed.
Not a single country, even those with extremely competent intelligence agencies and foreign ministries, and those that intensively interact with Iraq on a daily basis, had anticipated the blitzkrieg of the ISIL in taking over the Sunni provinces of Iraq. The consul general of Turkey in Mosul and 23 other consulate personnel were abducted and are yet to be rescued. 100 Kurdish school children have been missing for weeks. Numerous others of many nationalities are missing. Therefore, there was nothing that the Indian government or the embassy could have done to prevent the abduction of the Indian workers.
Suggestions that they could have been evacuated in anticipation of events made in hindsight completely ignore how the real world functions. They themselves would not have wanted to leave having made large payments to recruitment and travel agents in India. Suggestions that the commando operations can be mounted to rescue them are completely irresponsible.
Exactly 10 years ago something similar had happened. Three Indian truck drivers were kidnapped in Iraq in July 2004 while working for a Kuwaiti company that ferried supplies to the US military in Iraq. An Indian diplomatic team was sent to Baghdad and successfully negotiated their release – they had been captive for 41 days. While negotiations were underway, India witnessed similar frenetic TV coverage as now. However, within a few months of their release, the drivers were back in Kuwait. When interviewed on TV, the same family members who had earlier complained about and criticised the government aggressively said that the men had to earn a living for their family members!
This team had learnt to its great surprise that as many as 20,000 Indians were working in Iraq, many of them in various US military camps, the attraction obviously being the high salaries being paid for duty in war zones. In the context of the kidnapping of the drivers, the government banned the movement of Indians to Iraq for employment, which continued till May 2010. This was lifted after a public demand and hence the trouble now.
All this highlights the sad fact and national shame that 67 years after independence, millions of Indians have to go abroad to work in conditions that are conducive to their easy exploitation. In the short term, it is difficult to see how this can be prevented. However, one domestic issue needs to be addressed proactively with a sense of priority which unfortunately no government in the past has done: the nexus between the recruiting and travel agents in India and employment agents in the Gulf countries – the main reason for the exploitation of Indian workers. This unsavoury nexus must be broken and stricter regulations must be stringently enforced.
Last week the ISIL announced the establishment of an Islamic Emirate, which in due course, they hope, would include India. However, there is no reason for major concern because the ISIL is going to be extremely busy in Syria and Iraq to stave off defeat ultimately. However, the Caliphate could be an ideological beacon for misguided or unemployed Indian Muslim youth; however, ultimately causes and remedies thereof lie with the Indian government and civil society, not outside India.
CHINA-SOUTH KOREA: CHANGING DYNAMICS OF REGIONAL POLITICS
Sandip Kumar Mishra
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to South Korea on 3-4 July 2014 is symbolic of a nascent but important change in East Asian political equations. For the first time, a Chinese President visited South Korea before meeting with the North Korean leader. Many observers feel that this is an important shift in Chinese policy towards the Korean peninsula. The growing Chinese exchanges with South Korea in economic and other spheres are not new, but Beijing has always maintained that this does not mean a dilution of its relations with Pyongyang, which has until now been characterised as ‘a special relation’. However, it seems that the recent North Korea behaviour has annoyed China decisively.
North Korea of late appears to not be listening to Chinese suggestions and seems to be creating problems for Chinese interests in regional politics. The third nuclear test, execution of Chang Seong-thaek and several missile tests might be seen as an embarrassing situation for China; China has thus been moving closer to South Korean position. Beijing stressed a “nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula” during the summit meet with the South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Beijing in 2013. However, he was more direct during the recent visit to Seoul and expressed that China would not like “any development of nuclear weapons on the peninsula.” It is an important achievement for South Korea, which wanted China to be more direct in opposing the North Korean nuclear programme.
Xi Jinping has seemingly been trying to use the growing gap between the US and South Korea over the aggressive Japanese postures on territorial, history and security issues. The US has not been keen to stop Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s revisionist behaviour. China perceives it an important opportunity to reach out to South Korea, who is an important partner in the US-Japan-South Korea security partnership. The Chinese attempt to use South Korean discontent with the US over conceding to the aggressive Japanese postures would not be easy and immediate but in the long-term it may bring very important changes in the regional political equations. Xi Jinping’s visit to Seoul has challenged US foreign policy-makers to reconsider their generous concessions to Japan.
Xi Jinping’s visit also has to do with the growing assertiveness of Japan. China is aware that South Korea has been equally worried about the Japanese claim over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands, the review of Kano’s statement, insensitive statements on the comfort women issue, and regular visits to Yasukuni shrine by Japanese leaders. One day before Xi Jinping’s visit to Seoul, Japan reinterpreted its constitutional provision and expressed that it has every right to keep defence forces. China is also interested in using South Korean anger against Japan for deciding to conduct a joint investigation with North Korea on the Japanese abductees who were abducted by North Korea in the late 1970s. Japan has relaxed some sanctions on North Korea in the context of this joint investigation.
Xi Jinping has been very subtle in his approach to reach out to South Korea. He has been trying to placate South Korea by indicating to Seoul that the US gives more priority to its alliance with Japan than South Korea. He is also sending a clear signal to South Korea that if Seoul reconsiders its alliance with the US, China is also ready to re-think its relations with North Korea. However, China is aware that South Korean connections with the US and Japan are strong and it would not be easy or straight forward for South Korea to change sides from the US to China. In the immediate future, China would be satisfied if South Korea takes up more autonomous foreign policy-making. Xi Jinping has been working to create a broader plan for an alternate Asian economic and security architecture in which he emphasises the notion of ‘Asia for Asians’, and any change in South Korean policy towards autonomy would be a welcome development for China.
From the South Korean perspective as well, its relationship with China is quite delicate. Economic cooperation between the two countries has been indispensable for Seoul. Furthermore, its most reliable partner (the US) is not doing enough to address its concern vis-à-vis Japan. There is a sense of betrayal in South Korea towards the recent American generosity towards Shinzo Abe. South Korea therefore wants to express its displeasure by dealing more closely with China. Moreover, South Korea sees a golden opportunity to break the close relations between China and North Korea, which would make North Korean survival more problematic. However, Seoul in still not prepared to give up its alliance with the US and the warm welcome to the Chinese President in Seoul is basically a political game to send messages to the US and Japan.
In brief, a chessboard in East Asian politics have been laid out on which both South Korea and China have been moving carefully, with the aware that it would be too early to trust each other at this point of time. However, the future course of East Asian relations would depend on how the US and Japan respond to these moves.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to South Korea on 3-4 July 2014 is symbolic of a nascent but important change in East Asian political equations. For the first time, a Chinese President visited South Korea before meeting with the North Korean leader. Many observers feel that this is an important shift in Chinese policy towards the Korean peninsula. The growing Chinese exchanges with South Korea in economic and other spheres are not new, but Beijing has always maintained that this does not mean a dilution of its relations with Pyongyang, which has until now been characterised as ‘a special relation’. However, it seems that the recent North Korea behaviour has annoyed China decisively.
North Korea of late appears to not be listening to Chinese suggestions and seems to be creating problems for Chinese interests in regional politics. The third nuclear test, execution of Chang Seong-thaek and several missile tests might be seen as an embarrassing situation for China; China has thus been moving closer to South Korean position. Beijing stressed a “nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula” during the summit meet with the South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Beijing in 2013. However, he was more direct during the recent visit to Seoul and expressed that China would not like “any development of nuclear weapons on the peninsula.” It is an important achievement for South Korea, which wanted China to be more direct in opposing the North Korean nuclear programme.
Xi Jinping has seemingly been trying to use the growing gap between the US and South Korea over the aggressive Japanese postures on territorial, history and security issues. The US has not been keen to stop Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s revisionist behaviour. China perceives it an important opportunity to reach out to South Korea, who is an important partner in the US-Japan-South Korea security partnership. The Chinese attempt to use South Korean discontent with the US over conceding to the aggressive Japanese postures would not be easy and immediate but in the long-term it may bring very important changes in the regional political equations. Xi Jinping’s visit to Seoul has challenged US foreign policy-makers to reconsider their generous concessions to Japan.
Xi Jinping’s visit also has to do with the growing assertiveness of Japan. China is aware that South Korea has been equally worried about the Japanese claim over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands, the review of Kano’s statement, insensitive statements on the comfort women issue, and regular visits to Yasukuni shrine by Japanese leaders. One day before Xi Jinping’s visit to Seoul, Japan reinterpreted its constitutional provision and expressed that it has every right to keep defence forces. China is also interested in using South Korean anger against Japan for deciding to conduct a joint investigation with North Korea on the Japanese abductees who were abducted by North Korea in the late 1970s. Japan has relaxed some sanctions on North Korea in the context of this joint investigation.
Xi Jinping has been very subtle in his approach to reach out to South Korea. He has been trying to placate South Korea by indicating to Seoul that the US gives more priority to its alliance with Japan than South Korea. He is also sending a clear signal to South Korea that if Seoul reconsiders its alliance with the US, China is also ready to re-think its relations with North Korea. However, China is aware that South Korean connections with the US and Japan are strong and it would not be easy or straight forward for South Korea to change sides from the US to China. In the immediate future, China would be satisfied if South Korea takes up more autonomous foreign policy-making. Xi Jinping has been working to create a broader plan for an alternate Asian economic and security architecture in which he emphasises the notion of ‘Asia for Asians’, and any change in South Korean policy towards autonomy would be a welcome development for China.
From the South Korean perspective as well, its relationship with China is quite delicate. Economic cooperation between the two countries has been indispensable for Seoul. Furthermore, its most reliable partner (the US) is not doing enough to address its concern vis-à-vis Japan. There is a sense of betrayal in South Korea towards the recent American generosity towards Shinzo Abe. South Korea therefore wants to express its displeasure by dealing more closely with China. Moreover, South Korea sees a golden opportunity to break the close relations between China and North Korea, which would make North Korean survival more problematic. However, Seoul in still not prepared to give up its alliance with the US and the warm welcome to the Chinese President in Seoul is basically a political game to send messages to the US and Japan.
In brief, a chessboard in East Asian politics have been laid out on which both South Korea and China have been moving carefully, with the aware that it would be too early to trust each other at this point of time. However, the future course of East Asian relations would depend on how the US and Japan respond to these moves.
U.S. AND THE WORLD CUP: NATIONALISM WITHOUT FOOTBALL?
Amit Gupta
Once every four years Americans discover football - or as they like to call it, soccer. Yet this temporary attraction to the game has little to do with a real understanding of the global sport but more with the ability to project sporting nationalism. So is soccer catching on in the US? The answer is no and yes and it reflects on the changing demographics and socioeconomic patterns of the US.
In the US, football comes in a distant fourth to the premier sports of American football, basketball, and baseball. These games have been around for over a 100 years and young Americans have been socialised to play and watch these sports. Thus when the US hosted the World Cup in 1994 it did not even have a domestic professional league. Further, there remains a belief that soccer is too foreign, too slow, too low-scoring, and if one is to go by the musings of the conservative commentator Ann Coulter, too socialist in its orientation. In her dismissal of soccer as being un-American, Ms. Coulter stated that in the game there, “are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms." Not one to be pithy, Ms Coulter added that soccer was loved by The New York Times (a politically unsound newspaper to the lunatic faction of America’s right), it was not liked by African-Americans, and not a serious game since men and women played together on the same field - and no serious game from kindergarten onwards was ever co-ed. She ended by stating, “If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.” Such feelings of xenophobia, however, do not explain why 18.2 million viewers saw the US-Portugal game on ESPN.
Ms Coulter is partially correct when she states that most Americans are not interested in soccer but like any other nation they love the nationalistic sentiments and tribal behavior that the game stirs up. American sports are dubbed “world championships” but they only involve one American city playing another. In contrast, the World Cup is America against the world. So Americans want their national team to win even though many have trouble understanding soccer and are particularly troubled by the fact that the game is not full of technological solutions, time-outs (convenient for going to the bathroom), and legalese - the rules of an American sport like football or basketball read like an extensive contract for a corporate merger. The fact is that for the older American who has not played the game, it is as confusing and boring as cricket. Further, sports commentators, team owners in major professional sports, and even some players have an economic interest in denigrating soccer since it could threaten the established sporting hierarchy in the US. But things are not as gloomy as they seem because socioeconomic and demographic changes are making soccer assume a more prominent role in the US.
First, America’s suburban white middle-class has embraced the game because it easy and inexpensive to play, it is injury-free, and consequently the game is mainly played by children from middle class and affluent families. It is this educated, globalised class that is the future of the game in the US particularly since the sport is so participation-friendly for young women. And women, secondly, are slowly bringing about a socioeconomic and educational shift in America. Since 1980 the ratio of women to men going to college has been 3:2, in major metropolitan areas women in their twenties make more than their male counterparts and, according to the Pew Research Center, in nearly 40 per cent of American households, women are either the sole or primary breadwinner - and a lot of these women have played soccer. This is a major difference from the big American sports where women’s participation has been reduced to being cheerleaders and earning minimum wage. In contrast, the US women’s team has won the World Cup and it is a very common sight in urban areas to see twenty and thirty-somethings play co-ed pickup games. Soccer fits into the narrative of the urban, educated, environmentally conscious, globalised, and well to do person. It is these people who man the information technology giants like Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. They are the people who have well-paying jobs in hedge funds, too big to fail banks, Hollywood, and advertising. So soccer may not appeal to the gun-toting, NASCAR watching, rural to semi-rural population of America but it resonates extremely well with those who run the innovative America that is a world power. Thus soccer reflects broader class differences in America where the less educated treat the game, like other changes to American society, with suspicion while the better educated see it part of their lifestyle.
Lastly, as we witness the browning of America we are seeing more and more Latin migrants in the country and their family passions run to soccer. In the World Cup Americans have been cheering two teams: Team USA and the Mexican team, which has a large fan base in the country.
Soccer, therefore, will grow in America since it is now patronised by the educated and dynamic young people of the country - and America will be sucked into the global frenzy of football.
Once every four years Americans discover football - or as they like to call it, soccer. Yet this temporary attraction to the game has little to do with a real understanding of the global sport but more with the ability to project sporting nationalism. So is soccer catching on in the US? The answer is no and yes and it reflects on the changing demographics and socioeconomic patterns of the US.
In the US, football comes in a distant fourth to the premier sports of American football, basketball, and baseball. These games have been around for over a 100 years and young Americans have been socialised to play and watch these sports. Thus when the US hosted the World Cup in 1994 it did not even have a domestic professional league. Further, there remains a belief that soccer is too foreign, too slow, too low-scoring, and if one is to go by the musings of the conservative commentator Ann Coulter, too socialist in its orientation. In her dismissal of soccer as being un-American, Ms. Coulter stated that in the game there, “are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms." Not one to be pithy, Ms Coulter added that soccer was loved by The New York Times (a politically unsound newspaper to the lunatic faction of America’s right), it was not liked by African-Americans, and not a serious game since men and women played together on the same field - and no serious game from kindergarten onwards was ever co-ed. She ended by stating, “If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.” Such feelings of xenophobia, however, do not explain why 18.2 million viewers saw the US-Portugal game on ESPN.
Ms Coulter is partially correct when she states that most Americans are not interested in soccer but like any other nation they love the nationalistic sentiments and tribal behavior that the game stirs up. American sports are dubbed “world championships” but they only involve one American city playing another. In contrast, the World Cup is America against the world. So Americans want their national team to win even though many have trouble understanding soccer and are particularly troubled by the fact that the game is not full of technological solutions, time-outs (convenient for going to the bathroom), and legalese - the rules of an American sport like football or basketball read like an extensive contract for a corporate merger. The fact is that for the older American who has not played the game, it is as confusing and boring as cricket. Further, sports commentators, team owners in major professional sports, and even some players have an economic interest in denigrating soccer since it could threaten the established sporting hierarchy in the US. But things are not as gloomy as they seem because socioeconomic and demographic changes are making soccer assume a more prominent role in the US.
First, America’s suburban white middle-class has embraced the game because it easy and inexpensive to play, it is injury-free, and consequently the game is mainly played by children from middle class and affluent families. It is this educated, globalised class that is the future of the game in the US particularly since the sport is so participation-friendly for young women. And women, secondly, are slowly bringing about a socioeconomic and educational shift in America. Since 1980 the ratio of women to men going to college has been 3:2, in major metropolitan areas women in their twenties make more than their male counterparts and, according to the Pew Research Center, in nearly 40 per cent of American households, women are either the sole or primary breadwinner - and a lot of these women have played soccer. This is a major difference from the big American sports where women’s participation has been reduced to being cheerleaders and earning minimum wage. In contrast, the US women’s team has won the World Cup and it is a very common sight in urban areas to see twenty and thirty-somethings play co-ed pickup games. Soccer fits into the narrative of the urban, educated, environmentally conscious, globalised, and well to do person. It is these people who man the information technology giants like Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. They are the people who have well-paying jobs in hedge funds, too big to fail banks, Hollywood, and advertising. So soccer may not appeal to the gun-toting, NASCAR watching, rural to semi-rural population of America but it resonates extremely well with those who run the innovative America that is a world power. Thus soccer reflects broader class differences in America where the less educated treat the game, like other changes to American society, with suspicion while the better educated see it part of their lifestyle.
Lastly, as we witness the browning of America we are seeing more and more Latin migrants in the country and their family passions run to soccer. In the World Cup Americans have been cheering two teams: Team USA and the Mexican team, which has a large fan base in the country.
Soccer, therefore, will grow in America since it is now patronised by the educated and dynamic young people of the country - and America will be sucked into the global frenzy of football.
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