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February 2017

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Decoding the Zimmermann Telegram, 100 Years Later Trump should learn from Woodrow Wilson: Staying aloof from world affairs can’t keep America safe. By Arthur Herman

By on February 24th, 2017

One hundred years ago, on Feb. 26, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson learned about the telegram that would pull the U.S. into World War I. The Zimmermann Telegram—a secret offer by Germany to help Mexico reconquer the American Southwest—not only compelled Washington to end a tradition of neutrality, but transformed the balance of world power for the next century. It’s a historical episode with important lessons as President Trump contemplates how to conduct international politics in the 21st century.

In 1914 Germany had launched its U-boat campaign, using submarines to sink ships without warning, including those from neutral nations. In May 1915 a German sub torpedoed a British civilian liner, the Lusitania, killing 128 Americans. Wilson threatened military action if it happened again, which forced Germany to impose restrictions on its U-boats.

As the war ground on, however, Germany began to view submarine warfare as its route to victory. By 1917 the German high command believed it could bring Britain and France to their knees in six months by sinking neutral ships and depriving the Allies of food and supplies. Yet the Germans knew this would arouse the ire of Wilson, who had won re-election only months earlier, running on the slogan “he kept us out of war.”

How to counter America’s potential response? On Jan. 19, 1917, Germany’s foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a coded telegram to his ambassador in Mexico. The ambassador was instructed to offer the Mexican president, Venustiano Carranza, an alliance: If America entered the war, Germany proposed that Mexico open a second front against the U.S. The Germans would then help “regain by conquest her lost territory in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.”

In some ways, it was a clever move. Carranza was still smarting from President Wilson’s decision three years earlier to send an American force to occupy Veracruz, as well as Gen. John J. Pershing’s 1916 expedition against the bandit Pancho Villa. If there was a country in the Western Hemisphere ready to ally with Germany against the U.S., it was Mexico.

But if anything was set to turn American public opinion against neutrality, it was a secret plan to invade the U.S. The British, who had intercepted the diplomatic cable, knew this. So once they had fully decoded the Zimmermann Telegram, they made sure it landed on Wilson’s desk. They gave it to the U.S. ambassador in London on Feb. 24.

When Wilson released it to the public, the telegram rallied patriotic sentiment like nothing since the burning of the White House during the War of 1812. Yet the president remained hesitant. He still believed American neutrality was the best way to promote peace. Even after Zimmermann confirmed the authenticity of the message on March 3, Wilson waited nearly a month before asking for a declaration of war.

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Fellow Democrats, Your Effort to Destroy the President Is Abnormal ‘How Can We Get Rid of Trump?’ asks one headline. You can’t—except by defeating him in 2020. By Ted Van Dyk

By on February 24th, 2017

ABSTRACT

My own political involvement dates to 1948, when I canvassed door to door for President Truman. I subsequently was active in civil-rights, anti-Vietnam War and antipoverty causes and served in two Democratic administrations. In all that time I have never seen such a concerted effort to discredit and destroy a new administration.

Before 2017 not only the opposition party but media gave the incoming president leeway. Nearly every modern president has had to withdraw one or more cabinet nominations. Nearly all have had cabinet or White House staff shake-ups. Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama all made embarrassing early stumbles, which were forgiven. The media overlooked “R-rated” personal conduct by Kennedy and Mr. Clinton and properly focused instead on their public duties.

You need not be a Trump supporter to conclude that the present anti-Trump media tirades are something new and disturbing. Free and independent media are vital to our democracy. But freedom must be accompanied by responsibility. President Trump came to office with the complicity of now-critical media, and riding a populist wave that also carried Mr. Sanders far into the Democratic nominating process.

Mr. Trump is demonstrating in office what was apparent from the day he announced his candidacy: He lacks experience, knowledge and governing temperament. But he deserves the same chance to govern that his predecessors were afforded. The manufactured rage in the media and political opposition is taking us to even angrier polarization in the country, and it will last longer than four years.

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Mattis’s Pyrrhic Personnel War The defense secretary clashes with the White House about staffing the Pentagon. By Kimberley A. Strassel

By on February 24th, 2017

Every military tactician fears the Pyrrhic victory—winning a battle but losing the war. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis might want to brush up on his Plutarch, as he continues to fight a one-man personnel skirmish.

President Trump promised to rebuild our hollowed-out military, a cause as urgent as any domestic priority. Years of Obama budget cuts and neglect slashed force sizes and provoked a readiness crisis. Over half the Navy’s aircraft are grounded. Of 58 Army brigade combat teams, only three are ready to immediately join a fight. The Air Force is short pilots and aircraft maintenance workers.

Mr. Trump chose a man singularly gifted to take on such a huge challenge. “Mad Dog” Mattis is a highly intelligent and revered Marine, whose time on the battlefield has made him intimately familiar with the needs of a fighting force. He’s a steely-eyed warrior who’ll fight for the rebuild mission, and who is willing to speak truth to his boss and Congress about what it will require. That is, if he will stand down long enough to get the project started.
Because right now, Mr. Mattis is fighting alone in the Pentagon, a situation of his own design. He was confirmed on Inauguration Day, yet as March approaches the White House hasn’t nominated a single subcabinet position in the Defense Department. No deputy secretary. No undersecretaries. No assistant secretaries. This is because Mr. Mattis is battling with the White House over who gets the jobs.

A soldier first—a politician only by presidential request—Mr. Mattis hews to the honest belief that defense should always be a bipartisan cause. He wants to choose his own team based on the strength of their views, political affiliations be damned. He wanted, for instance, former Obama undersecretary Michèle Flournoy for a top post. He’s looked to recruit from Ms. Flournoy’s liberal-hawk think tank, the Center for New American Security. And he’s pushed for some names who hail from Never Trump backgrounds, including Mary Beth Long, an official in George W. Bush’s Pentagon.

Perhaps only to make a point, Mr. Mattis is blocking some rock-star conservative talent. One is Mira Ricardel, a former Boeing executive and Bush Pentagon alum who helped with the Trump transition. Mr. Mattis continues to nix a long list of names offered by the White House team.

This defense secretary has one of the biggest jobs in the administration, and he’s right to want to be consulted and to have a team he trusts. There’s also nothing wrong with looking outside the partisan box.

At the same time, Mr. Mattis surely understands the chain of command. This isn’t just a question of choosing random “staff.” These are presidential appointments for consequential positions, with authority over budgets, personnel and operations. The Trump White House has a right to want people it trusts as much as it trusts Mr. Mattis. The former Marine is accorded influence. The president is accorded the call. CONTINUE AT SITE

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SWEDEN: ARAB MEN LIVE STREAM SEXUAL ASSAULT ON FACEBOOK. AGAIN BY DAVID FRANKENHUIS

By on February 24th, 2017

Live streamed footage of a young woman being sexually harassed in the Swedish capital of Stockholm has become part of an abhorrent ‘PR campaign’ that was launched on a closed Facebook group run by Tunisian men. The perpetrators appear to be showing the video in order to encourage other Tunisians living in Europe to pay a visit to the city.

Adam, a Tunisian man who saw parts of the attack taking place online, informed libertarian-conservative magazine Fria Tider on the existence of the Facebook group. The page has some 60,000 members and specifically aims at enlisting “Tunisians living in Europe,” according to a statement made by the website administrators.

On the night of January 26, the live broadcast of the group started as Adam was logged into Facebook. The footage shows two Tunisian men leaving a kebab restaurant in central Stockholm, at the end of a night out. When the Arabs fail in getting the attention of a cab they decide on stealing a bike instead.

Soon after, viewers could witness the men sexually assaulting a woman in an empty street. During the ordeal, the victim shouts “Stop filming,” while the migrants grope her, pull her hair, and tear off her clothes. One of the men also tries raping the woman, who is about 25 years of age, when the cell phone footage ends.

Adam was shocked by the video but nevertheless managed to film parts of it on his own phone as evidence, even posting 8 seconds of the ordeal on his Facebook page after blurring the victim. “I will submit the rest of the video to police,” he says.

After studying many of the online comments accompanying the attack, Adam paints a grim picture of the Muslim Arab mentality. He says that many of them think it is perfectly fine to harass girls and women. “Some viewers even thought it was awesome,” he discovered. After posting parts of the footage on his Facebook page, Adam received online death threats from other Tunisians.

“The attackers want to show that they live in Stockholm and that life is cool here. Many Tunisians are defending these rapists and it looks like as if I hate Tunisians because I expose them. I consider their actions a serious crime, but they see it as something normal.”

One of the men in the clip has previously been convicted of other violent assaults, Fria Tider could independently verify, while the second is an illegal immigrant who has been hiding from the Swedish authorities since 2014. “He’s trying to meet women here and convince them to marry him so that he can stay in Sweden,” says Adam.

Adam claims to have informed Stockholm authorities on the attack, but a police spokesman denied having any knowledge of the incident.

It’s the second time in one month migrants in Sweden live stream a sexual assault to Facebook. And probably not the last.

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Extremist Muslims’ One-Way Street by Burak Bekdil

By on February 24th, 2017

Extremist Muslims’ understanding of freedom is a one-way street: Freedoms, such as religious rights, are “good” and must be defended if they are intended for Muslims — often where Muslims are in minority. But they can simply be ignored if they are intended for non-Muslims — often in lands where Muslims make up the majority.

Many Muslim countries, apparently, already have travel bans against other Muslims, in addition to banning Israelis.

Look at Saudi Arabia. Deportation and a lifetime ban is the minimum penalty for non-Muslims trying to enter the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Given the state of non-Muslim religious and human rights, and the sheer lack of religious pluralism in most Muslim countries, why do Muslim nations suddenly become human rights champions in the face of a ban on travel to the U.S.?

Meanwhile, Muslims will keep on loving the “infidels” who support Muslim rights in non-Muslim lands, while keeping up intimidation of the same “infidels” in their own lands.

President Donald Trump’s executive order of January 27, 2017, temporarily limiting entry from seven majority-Muslim countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for 90 days, until vetting procedures can be put in place — has caused international controversy, sparking protests both in the Western and Islamic worlds, including in increasingly Islamist Turkey.

This article does not intend to discuss whether Trump’s ban is a racist, illegal order, or a perfectly justified action in light of threatened American interests. The ban, right or wrong, has once again unveiled the hypocrisy of extremist Muslims on civil liberties and on what is and what is NOT racist. Extremist Muslims’ understanding of freedom is a one-way street: Freedoms, such as religious rights, are “good” and must be defended if they are intended for Muslims — often where Muslims are in minority. But they can simply be ignored if they are intended for non-Muslims — often in lands where Muslims make up the majority.

Muslims have been in a rage across the world. Iran’s swift and sharp answer came in a Tweet from Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who said that the ban was “a great gift to extremists.” A government statement in Tehran said that the U.S. travel restrictions were an insult to the Muslim world, and threatened U.S. citizens with “reciprocal measures.” Many Muslim countries, apparently, already have travel bans against other Muslims, in addition to banning Israelis.

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Lights Dim on Reality in the Cinema: Part I

By on February 24th, 2017

A friend sent me a book about movies published in 2005, Movies and the Meaning of Life, edited by Kimberly A. Blessing and Paul Tudico (302 pp., including the Index). After discharging myriad other writing chores, I finally made time to read it, taking a break from my “Islamophobia, with a tentative eye to reviewing it. It is a collection of essays by college professors on the “meaning of life” as they interpret some nineteen recent – that is, modern – movies. All of the movies were produced and released in the 1990’s or later.

Modern movies that purport to dramatize the “meaning of life” – unless it’s a comedy (such as Monty Python and the Meaning of Life) — whether or not the directors or casts have a conscious, fixed idée about it, leave me cold. Many of the movies featured in Blessing’s collection I have seen. Others I have not because their subject matter repelled me or produced body-shaking yawns. Some of them I’d never heard of until now.

The nineteen movies are arranged under such topics as:

What is reality and how can I know it? (Contact,The Truman Show, Waking Life)

How can I find my true identity? (Boys Don’t Cry, Being John Mallkovich, Fight Club,Memento)

What’s the significance of my interactions with others? (Chasing Amy, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Shadowlands)

What’s the point of my life? (American Beauty,Kill Bill, Life is Beautiful, The Shawshank Redemption)

How ought I to live my life? (Groundhog Day, Minority Report, Pleasantville, Pulp Fiction, Spider-Man 1 & 2)

In large part, the essays are written from a Critical Theory standpoint, or as Post-Deconstructionist textual jigsaw puzzles. These terms have “traditionally” been applied to examining the printed word in fiction and nonfiction, but branched out into “film theory,” and their presence in these essays demonstrates that they can be applied to cinema, as well. Critical Theory, notes Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School…. Critical Theory when capitalized refers only to the Frankfurt School….

From Encyclopedia Britannica:

Deconstruction, form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from work begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,” in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts. In the 1970s the term was applied to work by Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and Barbara Johnson, among other scholars. In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range of radical theoretical enterprises in diverse areas of the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law, psychoanalysis, architecture, anthropology, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, political theory, historiography, and film theory. In polemical discussions about intellectual trends of the late 20th-century,deconstruction was sometimes used pejoratively to suggest nihilism and frivolousskepticism. In popular usage the term has come to mean a critical dismantling of tradition and traditional modes of thought.

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Lights Dim on Reality in the Cinema: Part II: Edward Cline

By on February 24th, 2017

This is Part II of “Lights Dim on Reality in the Cinema ” from February 22, about the reviews of several movies in Movies and the Meaning of Life, edited by Kimberly A. Blessing and Paul Tudico (302 pp., including the Index). I chose not to create a longish column about all 19 essays by the university professors about these films. In this column I will cite just a handful of those movies and touch on their contents and what the writers said about them.

To iterate, all the essays (written by college professors) are written from a Marxist, Critical Theory or Deconstructionist standpoint. As I noted in Part I, these essays, if they are Marxist – and Marxist interpretations of any realm of art, in the printed word, in the visual arts or sculpture, or in film are written from a “sociological” point of view, as opposed to an objective, rational one – they’re automatically suspect because they are root, branch, and twig divorced from an objective, rational perspective. In short, reality is a creation of the mind, and reality can be anything one wishes to make of it, governed by one’s own personal experiences and subjective prejudices. Critical Theory and Deconstruction both work to unplug one’s mind from reality, and lure one into a critic’s universe via the hypnotic appeal of a degree holder’s “authority.”

The essays in Movies attempt to answer the questions:

What is reality and how can I know it? (Contact, The Truman Show, Waking Life)

How can I find my true identity? (Boys Don’t Cry, Being John Mallkovich, Fight Club,Memento)

What’s the significance of my interactions with others? (Chasing Amy, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Shadowlands)

What’s the point of my life? (American Beauty, Kill Bill, Life is Beautiful, The Shawshank Redemption)

How ought I to live my life? (Groundhog Day, Minority Report, Pleasantville, Pulp Fiction, Spider-Man 1 & 2)

I say attempt to answer the questions, but instead they crash into rational epistemology and metaphysics, or rather create the disastrous centrifugal force of the out-of-control the merry-go-roundat the end of “Strangers on a Train.”

The professors provide brief teasers of concrete actions in each film, and then extrapolate them into their own exercises in creating (not recreating; art being the selective recreation of reality as defined by Ayn Rand; Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. Man’s profound need of art lies in the fact that his cognitive faculty is conceptual, i.e., that he acquires knowledge by means of abstractions, and needs the power to bring his widest metaphysical abstractions into his immediate, perceptual awareness . . .) the reality of each film’s philosophical or moral meaning. The essayists’ exercises in interpreting the “meaning of life” in any of the discussed films typically go beyond any definition of rational observation; we are only presented with their unsupportable assertions.

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The Refugee Rape Gangs of Sweden A European nation becomes a rape capital — due to its immigration policies. Dawn Perlmutter

By on February 23rd, 2017

Sweden is the rape capital of the Western world. The general public is unaware of the epidemic of Swedish rapes because there has been an orchestrated effort by mainstream media and the Swedish government to deliberately mischaracterize offenders and downplay the number of incidents. The significant increase in rapes are the direct result of Sweden’s open door refugee policy and denial of Muslim culture.

Muslim immigrant rapists believe that all non-Muslim and uncovered women can be lawfully taken for sexual use; hence rape and sexual assaults are justified. Appearance, particularly for women, is an important aspect of Sharia Islamic law. Modesty is how women achieve honor and to appear in anything revealing brings shame not only for her but for the entire family. Almost all Muslim governments encourage and even legally obligate women to dress modestly: at a minimum to wear a headscarf, in some countries a veil and in others a full body covering.

Uncovered women are viewed as prostitutes and adulterers and the prevailing attitude is that if an uncovered woman is raped she asked for it. In September 2006 in a Ramadan sermon on adultery, Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric blamed immodestly dressed women who don’t wear hijab for being preyed on by men. Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali alluded to the infamous Sydney gang rapes in 2000, committed by a group of fourteen Lebanese Australian men, and suggested the attackers were not entirely to blame. Sheik Hilali said: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.” That is the psychology of Muslim refugees who have been welcomed into Sweden in extraordinary numbers.

Sweden prides itself on its humanitarianism that has accepted more refugees in proportion to size of population than any other nation in the developed world. Unfortunately, this humanitarianism has been at the expense of Swedish women and eventually Swedish culture. This is evident in the increasing mass sexual assaults and rapes committed by migrants at Swedish festivals. In July 2016 at Bravalla, Sweden’s largest music festival, there were nearly 40 assaults, including five rapes. A week earlier at Putte i Parken (Party in the Park), a free festival in Karlstad, there were 32 similar sexual attacks where the youngest victim was just twelve years old. The number of attacks is much higher as many women do not report them and there were multiple victims in most reports.

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The Real American Majority Clear majority of Americans support President Trump’s policies against sanctuary cities. Joseph Klein

By on February 23rd, 2017

Americans overwhelmingly approve of President Trump’s efforts to clamp down on so-called sanctuary cities, according to the results of a Harvard–Harris poll. The Hillreported the poll’s finding that “80 percent of voters say local authorities should have to comply with the law by reporting to federal agents the illegal immigrants they come into contact with.” One of the key measures that President Trump has directed his Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to explore is cutting off some federal funds to cities which continue to defy federal immigration laws. “The American people are no longer going to have to be forced to subsidize this disregard for our laws,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

There are at least 400 sanctuary cities and counties in the United States, which could lose some federal funding as President Trump’s executive order to withhold some federal funding from sanctuary localities is implemented. The nation’s 10 largest cities alone could lose as much as $2.27 billion in annual federal funds if they choose to remain sanctuary cities, according to a Reuters analysis of federal grants.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is running for re-election this year, is among the bullheaded city leaders around the country who are willing to sacrifice the safety and welfare of their own citizens to protect illegal aliens – even some with criminal records. De Blasio threatened to take the Trump administration to court if the Trump administration follows through with funding cuts. And the mayor declared his intention to set aside $250 million a year in a reserve fund for four years because of the “huge amount of uncertainty” created by President Trump’s follow-through on one of his key campaign promises. This is money that should be used to pay for vital municipal services such as hiring more police, which would certainly come in handy if illegal aliens with criminal records continue to be allowed to roam the streets of the city.

Going back to the Harvard-Harris poll, its co-director Mark Penn explained, “The public wants honest immigrants treated fairly and those who commit crimes deported and that’s very clear from the data.” De Blasio and his cohorts, however, could not care less.

Illegal immigrants make up approximately 3.5 percent of the U.S.’s total population. A significant number of illegal aliens living in the United States have committed crimes while residing here unlawfully in the first place. Even the immigration friendly Migration Policy Institute estimated in a 2015 report that “about 690,000 (6.3 percent) of resident unauthorized immigrants have previously been convicted of a felony or a serious misdemeanor.” The number is probably considerably higher than that, but even 690,000 criminals remaining here illegally is bad enough. According to data compiled from the U.S. Sentencing Commission for fiscal year 2015, illegal immigrants were responsible for 30.2 percent of convictions for kidnapping/hostage taking, 17.8 percent of convictions for drug trafficking, 11.6 percent of convictions for fraud, 10.4 percent of convictions for money laundering, 6.1 percent of convictions for assault, and 5.5 percent of convictions for murder.

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Intelligence Community Leaking Saboteurs set on bringing down a president. Matthew Vadum

By on February 23rd, 2017

Saboteurs in the U.S. intelligence community posing as patriots have been working hard to drive President Donald Trump from the White House.

Former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and former War College professor John R. Schindler bragged on Twitter last week about the spy-led plot his friends are conducting against the president.

“Now we go nuclear,” he tweeted. “IC [intelligence community] war [is] going to new levels. Just got an [email from] senior IC friend, it began: ‘He will die in jail.’”

“US intelligence is not the problem here,” Schindler added. “The President’s collusion with Russian intelligence is. Many details, but the essence is simple.”

In a column Feb. 12, Schindler cited wild, unproven, conspiratorial theories about Trump’s ties to Russia to justify his comrades’ seditious push to remove Trump from power.

[T]he still-forming Trump administration is already doing serious harm to America’s longstanding global intelligence partnerships. In particular, fears that the White House is too friendly to Moscow are causing close allies to curtail some of their espionage relationships with Washington—a development with grave implications for international security, particularly in the all-important realm of counterterrorism.

People like Schindler think they know what’s best for America in terms of national security and foreign policy. Allowing an outsider like Donald Trump to do the job Americans elected him to do is unthinkable to them. So Trump must go.

People of Schindler’s ilk are using government resources in an effort to overthrow the nation’s duly elected government. While smiling on TV and assuring the public his administration was fully cooperating with the Trump transition team, President Obama gave members of the intelligence community permission to wage war against then-incoming President Trump.

Before leaving office President Obama cleared the way for his confederates in the intel world to ramp up their use of dirty tricks to kick the legs out from under the incoming Trump administration by changing intelligence-sharing rules. The goal is to prevent Trump from rolling back Obama’s poisonous legacy.

The most famous victim so far of what could be called Obama’s shadow government is National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, an anti-Islamofascist hardliner who was forced out of his post Feb. 13 by what appears to be a deep state cabal centered around the sleazy former Obama advisor Ben Rhodes. As Flynn’s replacement, Trump has appointed “warrior-scholar” U.S. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

Rhodes and other former Obama administration officials were part of an intrigue that led to the downfall of Flynn, investigative journalist Adam Kredo reported at the Washington Free Beacon.

Flynn’s resignation was “the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump’s national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, according to multiple sources in and out of the White House who described to the Washington Free Beacon a behind-the-scenes effort by these officials to plant a series of damaging stories about Flynn in the national media.”

Kredo isn’t the only one crying foul.

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