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A PLEA FOR CONSCIENCE: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2016 at 11:49 am

The ad opened with ominous music–and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.

“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.”

The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force–and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.

It was a video produced by the 2016 Presidential campaign for John Kasich, the governor of Ohio. He had been peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.

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John Kasich

But he remained far behind in the polls. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was backed by increasingly large numbers of Republican primary voters.

So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves.

“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe. 

“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.

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Donald Trump

“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.

“And you might not care of Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.

“But think about this:

“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”

The above is indeed a paraphrase of a famous quote by Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984), a prominent Protestant pastor. Although he had been a U-boat commander during World War 1, he became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.

A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union. But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom.

Martin Niemöller (1952).jpg

Martin Niemoeller

For his opposition to the Third Reich, Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps. With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed–and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947.

During the 1960s, he was a president of the World Council of Churches.

He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.

And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kassich video. But it infuriated Trump, who threatened to sue Kasich if he found anything “not truthful” in the ad.

The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–Republican or Democrat.  And it raises a disturbing question:

If Donald Trump is America’s Adolf Hitler, who will be its Claus von Stauffenberg?

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).

While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943 when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg

Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.

His reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.

Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans–even members of the Wehrmacht–were criminals.

Stauffenberg wanted Hitler dead. A live Fuehrer might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues. 

But–how to do it?

Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.  

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Adolf Hitler

Several attempts had already been made on Hitler’s life–all of them with time-bombs. But one of the bombs–smuggled onto Hitler’s plane–hadn’t exploded. Another bomb had–45 minutes after Hitler left the beer hall where he had been making a speech.  

Stauffenberg decided to carry his bomb–hidden in a briefcase–into a “Hitler conference” packed with military officers.

But Stauffenberg didn’t intend to be a suicide bomber. He intended to direct the government that would replace that of the Nazis. He would plant his time-bomb in the conference room–and find an excuse to leave.

Then, the coup–“Operation Valkyrie”–would be on.

Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. 

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DROP THAT CAMERA AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on May 4, 2016 at 4:09 pm

For decades, Americans have been told by police at local and Federal levels: If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t worry about giving up your privacy.

The FBI, for example, has lobbied Congress for an electronic “key” that would allow it to enter a cyber “back door” to eavesdrop on even those emails protected by encryption systems.

Of course, the FBI has long found ways to circumvent the efforts of criminals to remain anonymous.

Decades ago, Mafiosi learned to assume their phones were being wiretapped and their rooms bugged with hidden microphones by agents of the FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

And law-abiding Americans have grown used to being under camera surveillance every time they enter a bank, a State or Federal agency, a drugstore or supermarket. Or even walking down a street.

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So it must seem ironic–if not downright hypocritical–to such people when police complain that their privacy is being invaded.

And this “invasion” isn’t happening with taps placed on cops’ phones or bugs planted in their police stations or private homes.

No, this “invasion” is happening openly in public–with video cameras and cellphones equipped with cameras.

And it’s happening in direct response to a series of controversial incidents involving the use of deadly force by police.

The most famous of these was the shooting, in August, 2014, of strong-arm grocery store robber Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.  Ironically, this was not captured on video.

But a number of other incidents were. Among them:

  • The shooting of Walter Scott, a black motorist, on April 4, 2015. Scott was stopped for a non-working third tail light.  When North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager returned to his patrol car, Scott exited his car and fled.  Slager gave chase, firing first a Taser and then his pistol.  He hit Scott five times–all from behind. Slager later claimed he had “felt threatened.” Unluckily for him, the shooting was caught on a citizen’s cellphone camera. On June 6, a grand jury indicted Slager on a charge or murder.
  • On April 9, 2015, San Bernaradino sheriff’s deputies, after an exhaustive chase, kicked Francis Pusok twice–including a kick to the groin–as he lay facedown on the ground with his hands behind his back.  About five minutes after Pusok was handcuffed, hobbled and rolled onto his side, another deputy also kicked him. Three deputies have been charged with felony assault. The footage of this came from an NBC News helicopter.
  • In February, 2015, Orlando police officer William Escobar was fired after cell phone footage emerged of him punching and kicking a handcuffed man.

Addressing a forum at the University of Chicago Law School on October 23, FBI Director James B. Comey spoke of rising crime rates in America.  And he offered a series of possible reasons for it.

Click here: FBI — Law Enforcement and the Communities We Serve: Bending the Lines Toward Safety and Justice 

“Maybe it’s the return of violent offenders after serving jail terms.  Maybe it’s cheap heroin or synthetic drugs. Maybe after we busted up the large gangs, smaller groups are now fighting for turf.

“Maybe it’s a change in the justice system’s approach to bail or charging or sentencing. Maybe something has changed with respect to the availability of guns….”

Then Comey offered what he thought was the real villain behind the rise in crime: Cellphones aimed at police.

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FBI Director James B. Comey

“But I’ve also heard another explanation, in conversations all over the country. Nobody says it on the record, nobody says it in public, but police and elected officials are quietly saying it to themselves. And they’re saying it to me, and I’m going to say it to you….

“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?

“I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, ‘We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.’

“I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.

“So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country.

“And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.”

Apparently, it’s OK for police to aim cameras–openly or concealed–at citizens, whether law-abiding or law-breaking.

But if citizens aim cameras at cops–even without interfering with their making arrests–police feel threatened, to the point of refusing to carry out their duties.

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CLOSING THE REVOLVING MEXICAN DOOR: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 3, 2016 at 12:08 am

Most of America’s 11 to 20 million illegal aliens come from neighboring Hispanic countries. Which means that as soon as they are deported, most of them cross the Mexican border again.

Case in point: Francisco Sanchez, now accused of shooting a woman on a San Francisco pier. With a history of seven felony convictions, he’s been deported to his native Mexico five times, most recently in 2009.

Click here: Report: Most Illegal Immigrants Come From Mexico – US News

More importantly: The governments of those Central and South American countries use the United States as a dumping ground–of those citizens who might demand reforms in their political and economic institutions.

Among the approaches that could strike a meaningful blow against illegal immigration is one that might well be called “The Zanti Option.”

Viewers of the 1960s sci-fi series,The Outer Limits, will vividly recall its classic 1963 episode, “The Zanti Misfits.”

In this, soldiers at an American Army base in a California ghost town nervously await first-contact with an alien race that has landed a space ship nearby.

The soldiers are warned to steer clear of the ship, and they do.  But then an escaped convict (Bruce Dern, in an early role) happens upon the scene–-and the ship.

The Zantis, enraged, emerge–and soon the soldiers at the military base find themselves under attack.

A “Zanti”  

The soldiers desperately fight back–-with flamethrowers, machineguns or just rifle butts.  Finally the soldiers  win, wiping out the Zantis.

But now the base–-and probably America–-faces a wholesale invasion from the planet Zanti to avenge the deaths of their comrades.

So the soldiers wait anxiously for their next transmission from Zanti–-which soon arrives.

To their surprise–-and relief–-it’s a message of thanks: “We will not retaliate.  We never intended to.  We knew that you could not live with such aliens in your midst.

“It was always our intention that you destroy them…We are incapable of executing our own species, but you are not.  You are practiced executioners.  We thank you.”

A future Republican President could deal with the tsunami of illegal aliens by launching what might be called “Operation Zanti.”

Rather than deport them to nearby countries–from which they would easily sneak back into the United States–-the Federal Government could ship them off to more distant lands.

Like Afghanistan.  Or Iraq.  Or Syria.

It’s unlikely they will sneak back across the American border from the Middle East.

Such a policy change would:

  1. Close the Mexican revolving door, which keeps illegal immigration flowing; and
  2. Send an unmistakably blunt message to other would-be illegals: “The same fate awaits you.” 

Although this might seem a far-fetched proposal, it could be easily carried out by the United States Air Force.

According to this agency’s website: “The C-5 Galaxy is one of the largest aircraft in the world and the largest airlifter in the Air Force inventory.

“The C-5 has a greater capacity than any other airlifter. It [can] carry 36 standard pallets and 81 troops simultaneously.

C-5 transport plane 

“[It can also carry] any of the Army’s air-transportable combat equipment, including such bulky items as the 74-ton mobile scissors bridge.

“It can also carry outsize and oversize cargo over intercontinental ranges and can take off or land in relatively short distances.”

Click here: C-5 A/B/C Galaxy and C-5M Super Galaxy > U.S. Air Force > Fact Sheet Display

Instead of stuffing these planes with cargo, they could be stuffed wall-to-wall with illegal aliens.

The United States Air Force has a proud history of successfully providing America’s soldiers–-and allies–-with the supplies they need.

From June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949, only the Berlin Airlift stood between German citizens and starvation.

The Soviet Union had blocked the railway, road, and canal access to the Berlin sectors under allied control. Their goal: Force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to supply Berlin with food, fuel, and aid.

This would have given the Soviets control over the entire city.

Air forces from the United States, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa flew over 200,000 flights in one year, dropping more than 4,700 tons of necessities daily to the besiged Berliners.

The success of the Berlin Airlift raised American prestige and embarrassed the Soviets, who lifted the blockade.

The Berlin Airlift

A similar triumph came during the Yom Kippur War after Egypt and Syria attacked Israel without warning on October 6, 1973.

A Watergate-embattled President Richard Nixon ordered “Operation Nickel Grass” to deliver urgently-needed weapons and supplies to Israel.

For 32 days, the Air Force shipped 22,325 tons of ammunition, artillery, tanks and other supplies.  These proved invaluable in saving Israel from destruction.

So the mass deportation of millions of illegal aliens lies within America’s technological capability. Whether any American President would be willing to give that order is another matter.

 

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH ISN’T FREE

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2016 at 12:08 am

WARNING: Believing that the First Amendment gives you the legal right to express your opinion may be hazardous to your career.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The First Amendment

Of course, that refers only to Congress.

It says nothing about employers–and and especially those self-appointed pseudo-gods who set themselves up as judges of virtue and infallibility.

If you doubt it, just ask Scott Lees, who until March had worked for four years as boys head lacrosse coach at Fryeburg Academy.

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Scott Lees

His crime?  Posting to his personal Facebook page an open letter to President Barack Obama that one of his friends had emailed him.

Lees posted the letter on March 17. Two days later, he was ordered to resign from his four-year position as the academy’s lacrosse coach.

The letter had been written in response to a speech Obama gave in Cairo in 2009. In this, Obama said, “I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s history.”

Among the issues the letter raised:

“Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed?  Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians.”

“Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians.

“Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence? Bill of Rights? Didn’t think so.

“Did Muslims fight for this country’s freedom from England?  No.  Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves of America.  No, they did not, in fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery.

“Your own half-brother, a devout Muslim, still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as ‘pug nosed slaves.’ Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family’s “rich Islamic heritage,” doesn’t it Mr. Obama?

“Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country?  No present. There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking side by side with Martin Luther King, Jr., or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights.”

(The most prominent Muslim group in America at the time of the civil rights movement was the Nation of Islam. Its onetime spokesman, Malcom X, preached a gospel of separation of the races–and condemned whites as “blue-eyed devils.”)

“Where were Muslims during this country’s Woman’s Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture.

“So much so, that often they are beaten for not wearing the ‘hajib’ or for talking to a man who is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women’s rights, aren’t they?

Click here: Women’s Rights Under Sharia 

“Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazis in killing Jews.”

Click here: Amazon.com: Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam (9781400066537): David G. Dalin, John F. Ro

“Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren’t flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East….

“And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the ‘rich heritage’ Muslims have here in America….”

Interviewed by Top Right News, Lees, 48, said he had never before been fired and had been coaching since 1992.

Fryeburg Academy is a private school in Fryeburg, Maine.

Fryeburg Academy

Lees said that he was supposed to meet with Head of Schools Erin Mayo and Dean Charlie Tryder on March 19.  But Athletic Director Sue Thurston told him a decision to fire him had already been made.

Mayo told Top Right News that “Scott Lees did post a message on Facebook regarding Muslim people last week that was negative and, of course, public in nature.”

Mayo was right on two counts about the Facebook post: It was negative and public.

What she didn’t say was: It was also entirely historically accurate. It did not urge its readers to violate the law. It did not defame anyone (unless telling the truth about a group’s documented activities counts as defamation).

This is similar to the policies–and atmosphere–of the Joseph McCarthy “smear and fear” era of the 1950s. You didn’t have to actually be proven an actual Communist, or even a Communist sympathizer.

All that was needed to condemn you to permanent unemployment was to become “controversial.” That way, the employer didn’t have to actually prove the employee’s unfitness.

An employee’s right to out-of-work speech should be fully protected unless it crosses the legal line–such as committing libel or urging others to violate the law.

And employers who fire him for embracing his First Amendment right should be criminally prosecuted.

Until this happens, the workplace will continue to resemble George Orwell’s vision of 1984–a world where anyone can become a “non-person” for the most trivial of reasons.

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WHY FASCISTS WIN AND LIBERALS LOSE

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2016 at 12:01 am

Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”

Not so.  

The United States–and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union–won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause.  These included:

  • Nazi Germany–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler–made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
  • The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
  • The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.

On this last point:

  • From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
  • When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers.  After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.

German soldiers at Stalingrad

  • During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender.  He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear–barbarians, they used gangster methods….”

In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.

This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party.

Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.

It also explains why President Barack Obama has found most of his legislative agenda stymied by Right-wing Republicans.

Consider this example: In 2014, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) warned then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he would place a hold on one of President Obama’s appellate court nominees.

Rand Paul

David Barron had been nominated to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.  And Paul objected to this because Barron authored memos justifying the killing of an American citizen by a drone in Yemen.

The September 30, 2011 drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric notorious on the Internet for encouraging Muslims to attack the United States.

So President Obama authorized a Predator drone stroke against him, thus removing that danger. Paul demanded that the Justice Department release the memos Barron crafted justifying the drone policy.

Anwar al-Awlaki

Imagine how Republicans would depict Paul–or a Democratic Senator–if he behaved in a similar manner with a Republican President: “Rand Paul: A traitor who supports terrorists.  he sides with America’s sworn enemies against its own lawfully elected President.”

On May 22, 2014, the Senate voted 53–45 to confirm Barron to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

To Republicans, “lawfully elected” applies only to Republican Presidents. A Democrat who runs against a Republican  is automatically considered a traitor.

And a Democrat who defeats a Republican is automatically considered a usurper, and thus deserves to be slandered and obstructed, if not impeached.

Unable to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried in 1998 to impeach him for getting oral sex in the White House.

Similarly, 2012 Presidential candidate Herman Cain, asked in a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach President Obama, replied:

“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action.”

In Renegade: The Making of a President, Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s successful 2008 bid for the White House. Among his revelations:

Obama, a believer in rationality and decency, felt more comfortable in responding to attacks on his character than in making them on the character of his enemies.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.

But for all this, he failed–from the onset of his Presidency–to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.

In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. 

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….

And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.

On Facebook and Twitter, liberals are already celebrating the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2016.

They forget that, in 1968, 1980, 1988 and 2000, liberals couldn’t believe America would elect, respectively, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Patton to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.

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KNOWING THE ENEMY, BUT REFUSING TO NAME IT: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 27, 2016 at 1:25 am

Since October, 2015, local, State and Federal law enforcement agencies had been planning security for the 2016 Boston Marathon.

With the event scheduled for April 18, authorities wanted to assure the public that the Marathon would be as safe as more than 5,000 law enforcement officers could make it.

Yet, many of the articles written about security for this upcoming event refused to identify the enemy responsible for spending millions of dollars and stationing thousands of local, State and Federal law enforcement officers to protect 30,800 runners and one million spectators.

That enemy: Islamic terrorism.

On April 18, Massive.com carried a story on “Boston Marathon: 2016 security: A look inside the MEMA bunker in Framingham.”

The article noted that on the day of the Marathon–April 18–more than 200 members of 60 Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies gathered at the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA)

Among the agencies represented: The State police, the FBI, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Their task: “Keeping 30,800 runners and one million spectators safe.”

But–safe from what?  Or who?

The article noted that, owing to the 2013 attack:

  • More ambulances and wheelchairs were positioned near the finish line.
  • Medical tents were also positioned closer to the finish line.
  • Communications were improved with trauma centers and operating rooms.
  • Each community had safe havens where runners could take shelter in an emergency–and could be picked up by buses.
So there could be no doubt that a huge effort–and expense–had been undertaken to protect tens of thousands of people attending this event.
Yet there was absolutely no mention as to what enemy could justify going to such huge expense in effort and money.
Could it be…Islamic terrorists?
During the Cold War, the Government had never hesitated to name the Soviet Union as America’s foremost enemy.
The United States has been the target of Islamic attacks since the 1970s.
In his groundbreaking work, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote in 1996:
“During the 15 years between 1980 and 1995…the United States engaged in 17 military operations in the Middle East, all of them directed against Muslims.  No comparable pattern of U.S. military operations occurred against the people of any other civilization.

Samuel P. Huntington (2004 World Economic Forum).jpg

Samuel P. Huntington

On September 11, 2001, Islamics turned four passenger jetliners into flying bombs and slaughtered 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
Since 9/11, the United States has been actively engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
The war that Huntington warned was coming has erupted into fullscale conflict, with no end in sight.

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Yet the most important officials in Washington, D.C. refuse to name the enemy they are spending billions of dollars to fight–and protect American citizens against.

As a result, those officials who dare to name that enemy stand out as beacons of honesty and courage.

One of these is Arthur M. Cummings, the FBI’s executive assistant director for national security.

Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” in referring to terrorism.  Nor does he shrink from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”

“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly.

“I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here [Washington, D.C.].  And he said ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’

“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom are seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings.  “It’s not the Irish.  It’s not the French.  It’s not the Catholics.  It’s not the Protestants.  It’s the Muslims.”

In May, 2014, Steven Emerson, a nationally recognized expert on terrorism, posted an ad in The New York Times, warning about the dangers of PC-imposed censorship:

“Or nation’s security and its cherished value of free speech has been endangered by the bullying campaigns of radical Islamic groups, masquerading as ‘civil rights’ organizations, to remove any reference to the Islamist motivation behind Islamic terrorist acts.

“These groups have pressured or otherwise colluded with Hollywood, the news media, museums, book publishers, law enforcement and the Obama Administration in censoring the words ‘Islamist,’ ‘Islamic terrorism,’ ‘radical Islam’ and ‘jihad’ in discussing or referencing the threat and danger of Islamic terrorism.

“This is the new form of the jihadist threat we face.  It’s an attack on one of our most sacred freedoms–free speech–and it endangers our very national identity.

“How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”

Emerson has a point–of utmost relevance.

Imagine the United States fighting World War II–and President Franklin D. Roosevelt banning the use of “Fascist” in referring to Nazi Germany or “Imperialist” in describing Imperial Japan.

Imagine CNN-like coverage of the Nazi extermination camps, with their piles of rotting corpses and smoking gas ovens, while a commentator reminds us that “Nazism is an ideology of peace.”

Then try to imagine how the United States could have won that life-and-death struggle under such unrealistic and self-defeating restrictions.

It couldn’t have done so then.  And it can’t do so now.

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KNOWING THE ENEMY, REFUSING TO NAME IT: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 26, 2016 at 12:05 am

The 2016 Boston Marathon was scheduled for April 18.

And local, State and Federal law enforcement authorities had been planning security for the event since October, 2015.

So it was only natural that these agencies wanted the public to know the Marathon would be as safe as more than 5,000 law enforcement officers could make it.  

The Boston Marathon 

“‘Leave the worrying to us’: Security Ramped Up for Boston Marathon,” read the headline of the April 16 issue of USA Today.

And it gave the reason for this: Three years earlier, on April 15, 2013, two bombers had wreaked havoc at the finish line of the race.

It also named the bombers–brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev–whose terrorist act killed three people and injured about 264 others.  

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

It further noted that Tamerlan had died in a shootout with police three days after the marathon–and police had captured Dzhohkar several hours later.  (He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to death.)

The story said nothing, however, about their citing Islam as the reason for their murderous rampage.

Click here: ‘Leave the worrying to us’: Security ramped up for Boston Marathon

The April 16 edition of The Boston Patch carried this headline: “Boston Marathon 2016: Security Changes You Can’t See All Around You.”

The article stated that most of these precautions couldn’t be revealed.  Then it added that even though law enforcement officials hadn’t identified a credible threat to this year’s Boston Marathon, “recent events make the world feel less safe today than in 2013.”

But the article said nothing about those “recent events,” such as:

  • In 2013, two Muslims butchered and beheaded a British soldier on a busy London street.
  • In 2014, an axe-wielding Muslim slashed two New York police officers, before being shot by other cops.
  • In 2015, Muslims slaughtered 12 people at a Paris satirical magazine for publishing cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed.
  • In 2015, more than 100 people were murdered in ISIS attacks across Paris.
  • In 2016, a series of Islamic terrorist bombing attacks in Brussels killed 31 and injured more than 300.

Nor did the story say that all of these “recent events” were carried out by followers of the Islamic religion.

Click here: Brussels attacks add urgency to Boston Marathon security | US News

On April 6, The Boston Globe announced: “Tight security planned for upcoming Boston Marathon.”

The story noted that, in drawing up their security arrangements, “authorities analyzed terrorist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Calif., and Brussels in recent months.”

The San Bernardino attack had occurred on December 2, 2015. 

The story said that Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, had slaughtered 14 people and wounded 22 at a Department of Public Health training event and birthday party.  

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Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook

But the article did not inform readers that Farook and Malik were Muslims acting in the name of Islam.

The story quoted Harold Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Field Office, as saying: “San Bernardino taught us something very significant. They [the killers] were not on the radar.”

But the article omitted “something very significant”: Farook and Malik had melded perfectly into American society before their outrage.  Thus, the only factor that could have put them “on the radar” as potential terrorists was their being Muslims.

And in an America driven by Political Correctness, noting that would have been verboten.

Click here: Tight security planned for upcoming Boston Marathon – The Boston Globe

NBC News carried a story on “How the Boston Marathon is Using Security Technology.”  

The story then described how police used a high-tech partner, Esri, to track, in real-time, the progress of the morning’s race.  

“When you look [at] security, there’s three legs to the stool: People, process and technology,” said Arnette Heintze, CEO and co-founder of Hillard Heintze, an investigation and security risk management company. 

Click here: How the Boston Marathon is Using Security Technology – NBC News

Yet for all the gushing kudos leveled at the new uses of sophisticated technology for keeping people safe, one thing was conspicuously ignored.

The opening paragraph, “Three years after a deadly bombing at the Boston Marathon….” left unnamed those had made the use of this technology necessary–Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.  

Nor did it mention that Dzhokhar had laid out, in a note, his reason for attacking innocent men and women: “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.  

“Well at least that’s how Muhammed wanted it to be forever. The ummah [Islamic community] is beginning to rise.  

“Know you are righting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, how how can you compete with that. We are promised victory and will surely get it.”

Click here: Text from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s note left in Watertown boat – The Boston Globe

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TWO FUEHRERS–GERMANY’S AND AMERICA’S: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 20, 2016 at 12:05 am

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.

On March 25, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about Donald Trump. 

Eerily, their conclusions echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.  

Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.  

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Heinz Guderian

As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.

He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.

Moderator Judy Woodruff noted that “polls show Trump’s standing with women voters has worsened in recent months.”

A Washington Post/ABC News poll reveals that 64% of women say they have a strongly unfavorable reaction to Trump. That’s 18 points higher than it was in August, 2015.

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Judy Woddruff

This led David Brooks to declare that Trump has shown “a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat. It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.”  

Judy Woodruff noted that Fox News Correspondent Megyn Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.

MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.

“But there is something really creepy about this that’s beyond locker room. It’s almost like a stalker, and I just–I thought this was–it actually did the impossible. It made Ted Cruz look like an honorable, tough guy on the right side of an issue.”  

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Donald Trump

HEINZ GUDERIAN: Once in power, Hitler quickly–and violently–eliminated his opposition. 

He make no attempt to disguise this aspect of his character, because the opposition was weak and divided and soon collapsed after the first violent attack. 

This allowed Hitler to pass laws which destroyed the safeguards enacted by the Weimar Republic against the the dangers of dictatorship. 

MARK SHIELDS: “And I don’t know at what point it becomes…politically, he’s still leading.  And I would have to say he’s the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.”  

HEINZ GUDERIAN:  Hitler promised to “make Germany great again” both domestically and internationally. And this won him many followers. In time he controlled the largest party in the land and this allowed him, by democratic procedure, to assume power.  

DAVID BROOKS: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it.  You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.”

HEINZ GUDERIAN: [Hitler] was isolated as a human being. He had no real friend. There was nobody who was really close to him.

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Adolf Hitler

There was nobody he could talk to freely and openly.  And just as he never found a true friend, he was denied the ability to deeply love a woman.  

DAVID BROOKS: “And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.”  

HEINZ GUDERIAN: Everything on this earth that casts a glow of warmth over our life as mortals–friendship with fine men, the pure love for a wife, affection for one’s own children–all this was and forever remained unknown to him.

DAVID BROOKS:  “And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude towards women.”  

HEINZ GUDERIAN: He lived alone, cherishing his loneliness, with only his gigantic plans for company.  

His relationship with Eva Braun may seem to contradict what I have written. But it is obvious that she could not have had any influence over him. And this is unfortunate, for it could only have been a softening one.  

* * * * *

In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator: 

“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content.”  

There is a very real danger that millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans will catapult Donald Trump–a man with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”–into the Presidency.

And that this man–“who received no love, can give no love”–will assume all the awesome power that goes with that office.  

If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.

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TWO FUEHRERS–GERMANY’S AND AMERICA’S: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 19, 2016 at 12:11 am

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.

On March 25, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.  

As the business magnate moves ever closer to winning the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appear increasingly dismayed.  

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David Brooks and Mark Shields

Eerily, their conclusions about Trump’s character echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.  

As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.

He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.  

Heinz Guderian

Moderator Judy Woodruff opened the discussion by alluding to the blood feud raging between Trump and his fellow Republican, Texas U.S. Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.

Both are seeking their party’s Presidential nomination–and both are ruthlessly determined to attain it.  

Cruz accused Trump of behind a recent National Enquirer story charging him with having a series of extramarital affairs.  

An anti-Trump Super PAC posted on Facebook a photo of a scantily-clad Melania Trump–his wife. The photo had been taken 16 years ago when, as a model, she posed for “British GQ.

Its publication came just ahead of the primary caucuses in sexually conservative Utah, which Cruz won.  

Trump quickly responded on Twitter, accusing the Cruz campaign of leaking the photo, warning Cruz: “Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.” 

Cruz struck back, defending his wife, Heidi, and calling Trump a coward. The next day, Trump retweeted an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz.

This “war of the wives” has cost Trump dearly in his standing with American women. In March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 64% of women felt highly unfavorably disposed toward him.  

DAVID BROOKS: “The Trump comparison of the looks of the wives, he does have, over the course of his life, a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat.

“It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.  

Donald Trump

“And so we have seen a bit of that show up again. But if you go back over his past, calling into radio shows bragging about his affairs, talking about his sex life in public, he is childish in his immaturity. And his–even his misogyny is a childish misogyny….

“He’s of a different order than your normal candidate. And this whole week is just another reminder of that.”  

HEINZ GUDERIAN: As Hitler’s self-confidence grew, and as his power became more firmly established both inside and outside Germany, he became overbearing and arrogant.  Everyone appeared to him unimportant compared to himself.  

Previously, Hitler had been open to practical considerations, and willing to discuss matters with others. But now he became increasingly autocratic.

Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields if the uproar over Donald Trump’s disdain for women could really hurt his candidacy.

MARK SHIELDS: The ad featuring a scantily-clad Melania Trump “elicited from Donald Trump the worst of his personality, the bullying, the misogyny, as David has said, brought it out.

“But I think it’s more than childish and juvenile and adolescent. There is something creepy about this, his attitude toward women.

“Take Megyn Kelly of FOX News, who he just has an absolute obsession about, and he’s constantly writing about, you know, how awful she is and no talent and this and that.  

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Megyn Kelly

“And I don’t know if he’s just never had women–strong, independent women in his life who have spoken to him. It doesn’t seem that way….”

HEINZ GUDERIAN:  Hitler’s most outstanding quality was his will power.  It was by this that he compelled men to follow him.

When Hitler spoke to a small group he closely observed each person to determine how his words were affecting each man present.  

If he noticed that some member of the group was not being swayed by his speech, he spoke directly to that person until he believed he had won him over.  

But if the target of his persuasive effort still remained obstinate, Hitler would exclaim: “I haven’t convinced that man!”

His immediate reaction was to get rid of such people. As he grew increasingly successful, he grew increasingly intolerant. 

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A REMEDY FOR BLACKMAIL

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 18, 2016 at 12:06 am

On May 28, 2015, Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives (1999-2007) was indicted for violating Federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.  

He had tried to conceal $3.5 million he had paid since 2010 to a man whom he had molested as a high school student. The student had been on the wrestling team that Hastert had coached.

The relationship had occurred while Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Yorkville, Ill. 

Later, in 1981, Hastert entered Congress. 

On October 28, 2015, Hastert pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.  

Dennis Hastert

“I felt a special bond with our wrestlers,” Hastert wrote in his 2004 memoirs, Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years of Coaching and Politics. “And I think they felt one with me.”

Apparently that “special bond” extended to activities outside the ring.

In the pre-sentence  report, Justice Department prosecutors charged that Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their wrestling coach.  One was only 14 years old.  

Hastert had claimed that a coach should never strip away another person’s dignity.  

But, said federal prosecutors, “that is exactly what defendant did to his victims. He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty, and devoid of dignity.”  

Hastert’s sentencing, delayed because of health problems, is now scheduled for April 27.

Thus, irony: By giving in to blackmail, Hastert:

  • Lost $3.5 million;
  • Unintentionally engineered his arrest and indictment; and
  • Ensured that his darkest secret would be revealed.

There is a lesson to be learned here–one that longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover well understood: Giving in to blackmail only empowers the blackmailer even more.

As William C. Sullivan, the onetime director of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Divison, revealed after Hoover’s death in 1972:

“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator, he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter.

“‘But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”

“Boy, the dirt he [Hoover] has on those Senators!” John F. Kennedy–a former Senator now President–gushed to his journalist-friend, Benjamin C. Bradlee.

Kennedy soon came to know that even Presidents could be targeted for blackmail.

In May, 1962, Hoover privately informed Kennedy that the FBI had learned that Judith Campbell, the mistress of Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, had another bedmate: JFK himself.

John F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy

Hoover had feared being retired by the President’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. It had been RFK who had ordered Hoover to attack the Mafia as he had long attacked the Communist Party USA.

Now, as a result of that anti-Mob effort, the FBI had picked up evidence linking the President with the mistress of a top Mafia boss.

Hoover’s tenure as FBI director was thus assured–until his death on May 2, 1972, of a heart attack.

Narcotics agents have their own methods of blackmail in dealing with informants.

When a drug-abuser and/or dealer is coerced into becoming a “snitch,” the narcotics agent orders him to call another user/dealer he knows.

The agent then tapes the call–and makes sure his new informant knows it.  From that moment, the “snitch” knows there’s no way out except cooperating with his new master.

The only effective way of handling blackmail was demonstrated by Arthur Wellesley, known to history as the Duke of Wellington.

The Duke of Wellington

In 1815, he had defeated Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, ending France’s longstanding threat to England.  With that victory came the honors of a grateful nation.

Then, in December, 1824, Wellington found himself the target of blackmail by Joseph Stockdale, a pornographer and scandal-monger.

“My Lord Duke,” Stockdale write in a letter, “In Harriette Wilson’s memoirs, which I am about to publish, are various anecdotes of Your Grace which it would be most desirable to withhold….

“I have stopped the Press for the moment, but as the publication will take place next week, little delay can necessarily take place.”

Wilson was a famous London courtesan past her prime, then living in exile in Paris.  She was asking Wellington to pay money to be left out of her memoirs.

From Wellington came the now-famous reply: “Publish and be damned!”

Wilson’s memoirs appeared in installments, naming half the British aristocracy and scandalizing London society.

And, true to her threat, she named Wellington as one of her lovers–and a not very satisfying one at that.

Wellington was a national hero, husband and father. Even so, his reputation did not suffer, and he went on to become prime minister.

Click here: Rear Window: When Wellington said publish and be damned: The Field Marshal and the Scarlet Woman – Voices

Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, might now wish he had followed the example of the Duke of Wellington.

His reputation might have been trashed, but he wouldn’t now be facing prosecution.