RUTHFULLY YOURS

Revitalizing the nation’s seapower should be a top priority for any president.

In 1987, the United States Navy numbered 594 ships. On, above, and below the ocean, the Navy reigned supreme, granting the commander-in-chief a flexible tool to secure the world’s economic maritime highways and project power ashore from the sea at the time and place of the nation’s choosing.

More than a quarter century later, the Navy has shrunk to just 288 ships and sits poised to shrink still further in the coming years. The naval buildup of the 1980s was so large and so enduring that it allowed the U.S. Navy to thrive for the next three decades. But succeeding presidents and Congresses have failed to sustain the fleet that President Reagan built. As this fleet retires in the decade ahead, the Navy will begin experiencing serious shortfalls in the minimum number of attack submarines, amphibious ships, and large surface vessels required to execute its mission.

The Navy’s relative decline cannot be measured simply by numbers of ships. The last 20 years have been a hiatus in the development of key capabilities and the maintenance of important skills. Areas like anti-submarine warfare, long a specialty of the U.S. Navy, have been neglected. Anti-mine warfare, which is critical in waters like the Strait of Hormuz, has been similarly ignored. And today the rapidly modernizing Chinese navy has developed anti-ship missiles that can “out-stick” our own missiles.

With 90 percent of global trade carried by sea, and the vast majority of international financial transactions conducted via undersea cables, the U.S. Navy is the backstop for securing a stable global financial system for the U.S. economy to operate in. In addition, the Navy is a highly versatile force that can generate sovereign, forward-deployed military power to do anything from strategic nuclear deterrence to humanitarian assistance. Whether it is launching air strikes against Islamist militants in Iraq or evacuating civilians from conflict zones, this flexibility makes naval power uniquely suited to an international security environment that requires scalpels in some instances and axes in others.

Past buildups of our naval power during periods of relative international peace, from the late 19th century to the 1930s to the Reagan era, can teach us much about the process of revitalizing American seapower today. In each of these cases, a far-sighted president, aided by like-minded members of Congress, was able to undertake the investments needed to rebuild U.S. naval power, often in difficult economic times. Yet a future effort to reinvigorate the Navy, while still requiring presidential vision and congressional leadership, must also be uniquely suited to the circumstances of our time.

OH PULEEZ! NOT THAT AGAIN….DIPLOMACY AND PARTNERSHIP WITH BARBARIANS IS A DELUSION…ONLY OVERWHELMING AMERICAN STRENGTH WORKS

International politics are shaped by two colliding realities: the perceived reality and the physical reality.

Take Libya. This weekend, social media were flooded with videos and photos of a U.S. Embassy residential annex in Tripoli. Islamist militiamen were shown partying in the pool and exploring the compound.

The perceived reality is that terrorists have conquered another American facility in Libya and that, two years after the Benghazi attack, American diplomats remain deeply vulnerable.

However, the physical reality is that U.S. diplomats were evacuated from Libya more than a month ago. In fact, the annex had been left to a Libyan government security force — who then abandoned it. While the Benghazi attackers in 2012 were from the Libyan Ansar al-Sharia, the annex is now “secured” by the Libyan Dawn Movement. Libyan Dawn embraces an Islamist-populist revolutionary ideology, whereas Ansar al-Sharia is defined by Salafi-jihadist fervor. And perhaps for that reason, the annex remains in reasonable condition.

Unfortunately, in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), perception drives reality. That makes this seizure a wake-up call for America. For those who hate America, the images of jihadists swimming in the compound’s pool will induce great joy. Driven by their zeal, jihadists see this kind of footage as proof that God supports them. It’s because jihadists believe in an omnipotent God who supports and justifies their every action that they are so intolerant of criticism and so gleeful about death. It’s likely that this incident in Tripoli will inspire them to new endeavors.

And that’s a major problem. After all, in Libya, the Islamist rebel alliance holds the initiative. Rampaging through Tripoli and degrading the already-paper-thin institutions of the Libyan state, the Islamists are leaving a failed state in their wake. Where Qaddafi retained authority by co-opting Libya’s diverse ethnic and tribal groups into his authoritarian rule, his downfall has led to a resurgence of tribal allegiances. It’s now, indisputably, a utopia for fanatics. And unless the United States restrains this madness, we can expect another disaster in the style of the Islamic State.

Western leaders failed to recognize the similarities between the Islamic State and Hamas.
The summer of 2014 is probably the most appropriate moment to remember a 19th century maverick genius: Jan Gotlib Bloch, otherwise known as Jan Bogomil Bloch, Johan von Bloch, Ivan Stanislavovich Bloch or even, among his French readers and admirers, as Ivan de Bloch.

Born in Radom, then a city in Russian Poland, in 1836, educated in Berlin, Bloch made a fortune in the construction of railways in the Russian Empire. While he converted to Calvinism, clearly for social rather than spiritual reasons, he remained close to his former Jewish brethren, fought anti-Semitism, funded investigations on the Jewish contribution to Russian economic development, and supported nascent Zionism.

His greatest achievement was a six-volume book published in Paris – and in French – in 1898, some four years before his death: La Guerre de l’Avenir (“Future War,” translated into English as “Is War Now Impossible?”).

Drawing from the best available information on military and strategic affairs, and in particular on the rapid and global improvement of military technologies, Bloch warned that a major war between industrial countries in Europe would result in a stalemate on the ground, the entrenchment of large armies, enormous casualties, financial bankruptcy, the break up of social organization and finally revolution.

In other terms, he accurately predicted what was to take place from the chain reaction of August 1914 to the overthrow of the Russian, Austrian and German monarchies in 1917 and 1918, and the rise of Communism.

Bloch may thus be praised as one of the real founding fathers of geopolitics as we understand it today, the study of power relations between states, nations and other human groups. Much more so, one would venture to say, than Harold Mackinder, whose major concepts, “Heartland” and “World Island,” have always been as questionable as fashionable, or Karl Haushofer, who, for all his talent and insight, never took off from pan-Germanic fantasies about organically growing states and lebensraum.

The cease fire agreement ending hostilities in the Fifty Day War between Israel and Hamas marks yet another milestone attesting to the failure of Jews and Arabs peacefully to resolve their claims to sovereignty and self-determination in the territory once called “Palestine”.

Amazingly, the continuing inability of the parties – and the international community – to reach consensus on identifying when this long running conflict actually commenced, ensures it will continue to remain unresolved.
Emeritus Professor Richard Falk – formerly United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights in the West Bank – still claims in his latest article that the conflict started in 1947.

“Israel was born in 1948. Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly [dated 29 November 1947 – Ed] is widely regarded as the most convincing legal basis for founding the State of Israel.”

Falk gave the following reasons for his viewpoint on 1 August 2012:

“I regard the Balfour Declaration and the mandatory system as classic colonial moves that have lost whatever legitimacy that they possessed at the time of their utterance, and prefer to view the competing claims to land and rights on the basis either of the 1948 partition proposal or the 1967 boundaries, although if there was diplomatic parity, I would respect whatever accommodation the parties reached, but without such parity, it seems necessary to invoke the allocation of rights as per settled international law.”

Falk’s opinion mirrors Article 20 of the Palestine Liberation Organization Charter:

“The Balfour Declaration [1917], the Mandate for Palestine [1922], and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

Falk’s opinion is not sha

The EU’s new, Italian foreign policy supremo
People will like the look of EU foreign policy with the appointment of Federica Mogherini as the new Brussel’s supremo. But if Vladimir Putin may swoon, will you once you know how she got the job?

Federica Mogherini has a broad and rather engaging smile, and people are going to be seeing a fair bit of it in the coming days. She has just been chosen as the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, otherwise Foreign Minister of the EU.

Mogherini is 41, which is considered young for the job, although she is older than her current boss, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. She is Roman, and after leaving Rome’s La Sapienza University went straight into politics. She specialised in Foreign Affairs, in particular the politics of the Middle East, and became one of the Democratic Party’s spokesmen.

Renzi appointed her Italian Foreign Minister and she has been less than six months in the job.

Mogherini’s predecessor Catherine Ashton had been a Commissioner (albeit only for a year) and had steered the Lisbon Treaty through the House of Lords, and there were complaints that no one had heard of her. Mogherini is less well known. Incidentally, since Ashton was the first High Representative this job will only ever have been done by a woman. Expect demands for male only shortlists next time: you heard it here first.

So how did Mogherini get the job? It is by the European Procedure which still, after more than forty years of membership sounds strange to British ears. For one of these big jobs, the candidate has to emerge through some sort of murky, secret consensus.

I recall in July 2008 watching candidate Obama’s sympathetic address [1] to the rocket-battered residents of the town of Sderot in southern Israel, in which he declared “an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security” — and being appalled by his performance. Judging from his body language, something furtive in his gestures, and the smarmy, brackish diction and rhetoric that have since made it impossible for me to listen to an Obama speech without grinding my teeth, it seemed clear that Obama was lying with every ostensibly heartfelt word. My “reading” of Obama’s disingenuousness, however, was plainly not shared by the troupe of Israeli officials earnestly bustling about and an audience filled with respect and enthusiasm for their artfully sincere guest.

How things have changed. The presidential aspirant who swore [2] in Sderot that he would not let his daughters be terrorized by incoming missiles — “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing” — is now “outraged [3]” by Israeli defensive actions jeopardizing Gaza civilians in the current Hamas-initiated conflict, regardless of preliminary warnings of impending strikes to eliminate or reduce civilian casualties. Obama appears oblivious to the terrorists’ recruiting their own citizens as human shields, conducting rocket and mortar launches from residential areas, occupying hospitals as command centers, and using UNRWA schools as missile-storage facilities [4].

He now allows the FAA to suspend flights to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, resulting in the crippling of the Israeli economy; places a limit on arms shipments to the IDF; and instructs his secretary of state, the lamentable John Kerry, to confer with jihadist-loving, anti-Israel regimes like Turkey and Qatar to broker a ceasefire on terms favorable to Hamas.

Obama’s 2008 histrionics were bad enough, but the jubilant acclaim with which his speech was greeted by Israelis, Zionists, American Jews, and liberal voters was no less distressing. I said to a Jewish friend, an academic with strong left-wing proclivities, who was swooning with delight at Obama’s suave assurances, “Don’t trust this man for a second,” and was duly accused of cynicism and conservative bile.

They call themselves the Islamic State. They claim to be the restorers of the caliphate, the ones who have finally fulfilled the most cherished aspiration of jihadists and Islamic supremacists the world over. They declare their intention to govern their domains solely and wholly by Islamic law, acting swiftly and ruthlessly to end any practice that does not conform to that law. They repeatedly proclaim their piety, ascribing all their victories to Allah and submitting themselves in all things to his will.

Yet despite all this, Western leaders, the mainstream media, and much of the public are certain of one thing: the Islamic State has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with Islam. So many people tell us so:
5. Shirley Sotloff

Shirley Sotloff [1] is the mother of Steven J. Sotloff, an American who is being held hostage by the Islamic State. On Wednesday, she released a video appeal to the Islamic State’s “caliph Ibrahim,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Her message to him was extremely respectful. Sotloff began: “I am sending this message to you, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Quraishi al-Hussaini, the caliph of the Islamic State. I am Shirley Sotloff. My son Steven is in your hands.”

Sotloff went on to tell the caliph that Steven had “no control over the actions of the U.S. government. He is an innocent journalist.” In fact, she said he had gone to the Middle East to chronicle the sufferings of Muslims. This was tantamount to signaling to him that Steven Sotloff could be more useful to him alive than dead. She assumes throughout that the U.S. has indeed done wrong to the Islamic State, but argues that her son should not be punished for it.

“Since Steven’s capture,” she added, “I have learned a lot about Islam. I’ve learned that Islam teaches that no individual should be held responsible for the sins of others. As a mother, I ask your justice to be merciful and not punish my son for matters he has no control over.”

It’s odd that Shirley Sotloff, after addressing the caliph so respectfully, would presume to lecture him about Islam, and it’s frankly embarrassing that she does so based on her whitewashed Karen Armstrong/John Esposito understanding of the religion. Only from such peddlers of the Islam-is-a-Religion-of-Peace myth could she have gotten the idea that the caliph’s heart would be melted by an appeal to Islam from a Western non-Muslim woman with head uncovered.

“When women go wrong men go right after them.”
– Mae West

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill wrote this over a century ago.

During my junior year in high school, the nuns asked about our plans for after we graduated. When I said I was going to attend State University, I noticed their disappointment. I asked my favorite nun, “Why?” She answered, “That means you’ll leave four years later a communist and an atheist!”

What a giggle we girls had over that. “How ridiculously unsophisticated these nuns are,” we thought. Then I went to the university and four years later walked out a communist and an atheist, just as my sister Katie had six years before me.

Sometime later, I was a young divorcee with a small child. At the urging of my sister, I relocated to NYC after spending years married to an American executive stationed in Southeast Asia. The marriage over, I was making a new life for my daughter and me. Katie said, “Come to New York. We’re making revolution! Some of us are starting the National Organization of Women and you can be part of it.”

I hadn’t seen her for years. Although she had tormented me when we were youngsters, those memories were faint after my Asian traumas and the break-up of my marriage. I foolishly mistook her for sanctuary in a storm. With so much time and distance between us, I had forgotten her emotional instability.

And so began my period as an unwitting witness to history. I stayed with Kate and her lovable Japanese husband, Fumio, in a dilapidated loft on The Bowery as she finished her first book, a PhD thesis for Columbia University, “Sexual Politics.”

It was 1969. Kate invited me to join her for a gathering at the home of her friend, Lila Karp. They called the assemblage a “consciousness-raising-group,” a typical communist exercise, something practiced in Maoist China. We gathered at a large table as the chairperson opened the meeting with a back-and-forth recitation, like a Litany, a type of prayer done in Catholic Church. But now it was Marxism, the Church of the Left, mimicking religious practice:

So-called “Islamophobes” such as Bat Ye’or and others have been warning for years against the possible rise of a new Islamic Caliphate. They have been largely ignored and partly ridiculed for doing so.

In the summer of 2014, a new Caliphate was actually declared in the Middle East. A militant organization that had gained control over sections of Iraq and Syria declared itself the Islamic State (IS). It is headed by the ruthless Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who on June 29 2014 declared himself Caliph. ISIS or IS was originally an offshoot of al-Qaida, but broke ties with the mother organization in early 2014.

It is too early to tell whether this self-professed Caliphate or Islamic State will survive. It has many enemies, and has already caused former enemies to unite to combat it. However, it is clearly not a joke. By August 2014, it was in effective control over a substantial territory and ruled over millions of people. It has gained control over several oil fields and refineries and thereby a steady stream of money through the sale of oil on the black market. It has also managed to get hold of relatively sophisticated weaponry. Western analysts warn that ISIS represents a credible fighting force, perhaps capable of striking targets in the West. They already control more money and weapons than al-Qaida ever did through its bases in Afghanistan prior to 2001.

The Islamic State has gained notoriety for its brutal methods, including mass executions and beheadings. This caused several Muslim and non-Muslim commentators to declare that the Islamic state is in fact un-Islamic. But is this true? Do mass executions or beheadings of non-Muslims make them un-Islamic?

According to Islamic historical sources, Muhammed and his companions mass-executed by beheading all adult males of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza from Medina in the year 627 AD. Their women and children were taken as slaves. This forms a part of the Sunna, the personal example of Muhammed and his companions, which is the most important source of Islamic religious law next to the Koran. It is very difficult to argue that mass executions and beheadings of non-Muslims are “un-Islamic” when they were supported by Islam’s founder and alleged prophet Muhammed.

Is Jihad un-Islamic?

I have been searching for moderate Islam since September 11 and just like a lost sock in the dryer, it was in the last place I expected it to be.

There is no moderate Islam in the mosques or in Mecca. You won’t find it in the Koran or the Hadiths. If you want to find moderate Islam, browse the newspaper editorials after a terrorist attack or take a course on Islamic religion taught by a Unitarian Sociologist wearing fake native jewelry.

You can’t find a moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but you can find it in countless network news specials, articles and books about the two homelands of their respective brands of Islam.

You won’t find the fabled land of moderate Muslims in the east. You won’t even find it in the west. Like all myths it exists in the imagination of those who tell the stories. You won’t find a moderate Islam in the Koran, but you will find it in countless Western books about Islam.

Moderate Islam isn’t what most Muslims believe. It’s what most liberals believe that Muslims believe.

The new multicultural theology of the West is moderate Islam. Moderate Islam is the perfect religion for a secular age since it isn’t a religion at all.

Take Islam, turn it inside out and you have moderate Islam. Take a Muslim who hasn’t been inside a mosque in a year, who can name the entire starting lineup of the San Diego Chargers, but can’t name Mohammed’s companions and you have a moderate Muslim. Or more accurately, a secular Muslim.

An early generation of Western leaders sought the affirmation of their national destinies in the divine. This generation of Western leaders seeks the affirmation of their secular liberalism in a moderate Islam.

Even if they have to make it up.