RUTHFULLY YOURS

I was advised by a good friend with whom I almost always agree, that I should include more columns criticizing the withdrawal of our troops from Syria. I did below. However, they only hardened my support for troop withdrawal.

First: Jewish “leaders” are opposed? As I recall they were not uniformly opposed to Obama’s disastrous and scurrilous appeasement of the mullahs in the infamous Iran deal.

Second: Israel is “nervous” that the removal of 2000 American soldiers will embolden Iran, Turkey and Syrian jihadists. Now, I am hawkish on Israel- very hawkish on a hawkish Israel with defense forces that do not rely-never- on any foreign guarantees for the security of the nation. Am I to believe that the presence of 2000 United States troops is necessary for Israel’s defense?

Sorry I remain unconvinced. And as for General Mattis- he was opposed to moving the United States embassy to Jerusalem; opposed to quashing the Iran deal; was opposed to the 2017 bombing of Syria in retaliation for Syrian chemical weapons attacks; opposed to leaving the G20 global climate fraud. Since it is a holiday I will say one nice thing about him. General Herbert Raymond McMaster was worse. rskrsk

https://spectator.us/adults-trump-childish/

What Malcolm said of the Thane of Cawdor — ‘nothing in his life/ Became him like the leaving it’ — cannot be said of General James Mattis’s leavetaking his position as Secretary of Defense.

Let me first say that General Mattis has long served his country with distinction, betraying immense care for the Marines and soldiers under his command as well as condign fierceness towards the enemies of civilization. As Secretary of Defense, he obliterated ISIS as a fighting force and has overseen the beginnings of a critical upgrade of America’s military infrastructure, which had been allowed to atrophy under the lead-from-behind posturing of Barack Obama.

Like President Trump, I liked the fact that Mattis’s nickname was ‘Mad Dog,’ though I understand he dislikes the soubriquet. After the America-last, apologize-first foreign policy of Obama, it was nice to have a Secretary of Defense with sufficient backbone to compliment the steeliness of a robust Commender-in-Chief such as Donald Trump.

At the same time, I remember several conservative friends expressing reservations about Mattis when his nomination for the post of SecDef was announced. He was, it was widely rumored, a Hillary supporter and, what’s more, his view of foreign policy was much more in line with the Bush-Obama species of moralism than Trump’s ‘we’ll-do-what’s-in-our-national-interest’ pragmatism.

So it was hardly surprising that rumors of Mattis’s imminent departure have circulated at least since last summer. As the Trump administration matured and the President’s policy of ‘America First’ (which does not, as POTUS perhaps neglects to point out frequently enough, mean ‘America Alone’) came increasingly on line in his foreign policy, it was inevitable that fissures between Mattis and Trump would open up.

Predictably, the neo-con fraternity has its collective knickers in a twist over Mattis’s announced departure. Max Boot, who is always good for a laugh these days, epitomized the angst in some recent tweets. ‘Jim Mattis is gone,’ he said in one. ‘God help America. And the world.’ But then it has been obvious for some time that for Max the criterion of a good decision is that it was not taken by Donald Trump.

It should also be said that that even if the President and his Secretary of Defense were in perfect accord about things, it is hardly surprising that a Secretary of Defense should leave after two years. Indeed, by the time he departs, at the end of February, Jim Mattis will have served longer than the last three Secretaries of Defense: Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ash Carter.

The sad thing about Jim Mattis’s exit is his grandstanding, not to say petulant and immature, mode of departure. The letter announcing his resignation, circulated yesterday, is half bureaucratic boilerplate (‘I have been privileged to serve,’ ‘proud of the progress,’ etc., etc.).

But those nuggets are set in a jelly of snarky recrimination about how he, Jim Mattis, has always believed that our strength as a nation is ‘inextricably linked’ to our system of ‘alliance and partnerships.’ Further, he says we must treat our allies ‘with respect’ while remaining ‘resolute and unambiguous’ about ‘those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,’ e.g., Russia and China.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-not-steel-will-win-the-next-war-11545598669

The Trump administration this year imposed tariffs on steel, claiming that imports “threaten to impair the national security of the United States.” But the age is long past when steel was the most important input in a nation’s military arsenal. The modern military depends more on digital technology—semiconductor chips, sensors and software—than it does on steel.

The U.S. pioneered the technology that made today’s advanced weapon systems possible. But America’s competitive advantage in the digital economy is eroding at an alarming pace, along with its domestic high-tech manufacturing capacity. The majority of electronic systems first invented in the U.S. now are designed and made overseas, mainly in Asia. With few and dwindling exceptions, the U.S. no longer makes things like flat-panel displays, memory devices, light-emitting devices, lasers, imaging chips for digital cameras, and computer system packaging software.

As the manufacture of these component technologies has migrated offshore, so have many key systems suppliers. Intel is the only remaining U.S. company capable of fabricating high-density, high-performance computer chips in America. International Business Strategies estimates that investors are pouring $50 billion a year into advanced chip production facilities in Asia, more than 10 times the level of domestic spending. A state-of-the-art chip-fabrication plant can cost $20 billion to build and must be continuously upgraded.

The national-security implications of this industrial migration are dire. Without a domestic capability in critical electronic technologies, the U.S. may find itself unable to translate innovation into effective weaponry. Overseas supply chains are inherently insecure. Unless the manufacture of critical technology remains under domestic control, American systems are vulnerable to espionage and sabotage.

https://quillette.com/2018/12/18/confessions-of-a-soulless

I became friends with Jamie when I was 13, a few years after my family fled the Soviet Union and settled in what was then one of the most diverse neighborhoods of south Brooklyn. When we first met, Jamie (not his real name) told me that he was a genius—that his Catholic school teachers said so after he wrote a poem about vaginas and read it aloud in front of the whole class. He told me he wanted to be “an author.” In the 1990s, our street was a spontaneous symphony of the working poor, a place where kids bonded by trading ethnic insults in a dozen languages. I had mastered this crude local vernacular. Jamie’s ability to step outside of our street language, speak freely and dream about something larger was transfixing.

Unlike Jamie, I churned through the city’s public schools without attracting much notice. My teachers did not seek genius. In high school, they were too busy keeping us from killing each other. I learned nothing and barely graduated. After Jamie went off to a university in Manhattan, we lost touch. I attended a local public college and came out with degrees in Business and Philosophy, graduating shortly after the 9/11 attacks. The business major was a concession to my immigrant parents. But Wall Street was in ruins. And philosophy obviously wasn’t much help. I worked a string of odd jobs, ultimately landing a writing gig for a consumer magazine that paid less than what I’d earned parking cars.

In 2009, I joined Facebook and looked up Jamie online. He had graduated from a prestigious Master of Fine Arts program in fiction. He also was awarded a coveted fellowship that came with a brief mention in one of the country’s finest literary magazines. He was married, and had a toddler son. Though surprised at first, he seemed happy to hear from me.

I was eager to catch up. We hadn’t spoken or seen each other in more than a decade. But the conversation invariably steered itself toward our young new president, Barack Obama. I’d voted for him and felt a swell of emotion when he spoke at his 2008 inauguration. Like Jamie, Obama was bi-racial, raised by his white mother, with a penchant for rhetorical flight.

Jamie and I would speak on the phone, discussing how refreshing it was to finally have a man of eloquence and grace in the White House. We railed against obstructionist Republicans who undermined Obama—like Joe Wilson, who shouted “you lie!” during the 2009 State of the Union address. We were living in momentous times. At last, the nation had elected its first black president, and Jamie and I were friends again.

The big news from their respective sides of the Atlantic was the sentencing of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the confidence vote in UK PM Theresa May. Neither party merited the final score.

I would find the standard operating procedure of US federal justice – squeeze till you squeal – utterly repugnant even if it were not so selectively applied. Me on October 19th 2016:

Comey’s FBI is hopelessly corrupted – and certainly more corrupt than J Edgar Hoover’s FBI…

That was months, and in some cases years, before the revelations about Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page et al. Michael Cohen is a sleazy shyster even by the standards of his grim trade, but the issue is the ability of the feds to get you on something once they decide it’s in their interest to do so. Which is not the hallmark of any real justice system.

~In that respect, the more interesting federal prosecution in the news yesterday was an under-reported story out of New Jersey. Per The North Jersey Record:

Feds: NJ woman forced Sri Lankan woman to marry her, enslaved her for 9 years

On a dreadful rainy night this past Thursday, I trudged to Carnegie Hall to hear the magnificent “Messiah” composed by George Friedrich Handel in 1741 performed by “The Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra.” Since I was in high school I have never missed a holiday season performance even if I had to sit on uncomfortable wooden pews in churches or in 1969 when I was nine months pregnant and stood during an entire 137 minute performance.

In William Congreve’s play “The Mourning Bride” (1697) the first line states ” Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

Truer word were never spoken. I went home in driving rain humming “And He shall reign forever and ever.”rsk

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272319/pull-out-syria-and-afghanistan-use-money-build-daniel-greenfield

When President Trump first dispatched the first 2,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, there was a loud outcry. And now that he’s pulling 2,000 troops out of Syria, there’s more outrage.

But where do 2,000 soldiers belong more, in Syria or on our own border? When it comes to deploying troops on the border, the media is quick to rush out and inform us that it will cost $182 million. But no calculators are in sight when 2,000 troops are deployed in enemy territory thousands of miles away.

Are we spending $600 billion on national defense to protect Syria or to defend the United States? Are young men and women volunteering to risk their lives to defend their country or someone else’s?

The government faces a shutdown over Trump’s call for $5 billion for a wall. Meanwhile the $8.6 billion we’ve spent on “humanitarian assistance” in Syria has never been challenged. Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq was budgeted at $15.3 billion for FY2019. But that $5 billion can’t be found.

$2.2 billion was diverted from counterterrorism to arm and train Syrian Jihadis, some of whom were Muslim Brotherhood while others joined up with Al Qaeda. Some of the Jihadis we funded in Syria even ended up fighting each other. Still others turned our weapons over to ISIS. And many ran away.

We had $500 million to spend on training Syrian Jihadis in 2018, but nobody can find $5 billion to build a wall and keep Jihadis out of our country.

There was outrage when the Trump administration diverted $200 million for cross-border stabilization efforts… in Syria. That’s more than the $182 million the first 2,000 troops sent to the border cost. If Congress really can’t find $5 billion in an accounting error somewhere to build the wall, then it can find the money by withdrawing from Syria and using the cash we were going to spend on an RPG for Abdul.

T’WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE
THE GOP LAME DUCKS DID NOTHING BUT GROUSE
THEY ANALYZED AND GROANED AND COMPLAINED PLENTY
WITH VISIONS OF BIGGER LOSSES IN TWENTY TWENTY.

I TOSSED AND I TURNED WITH INTERRUPTED SLEEP
WITH NIGHTMARES OF DEMS WITH AGENDAS TO KEEP.
WHEN OUT ON THE LAWN THERE AROSE SUCH A CLATTER
I SPRANG FROM MY BED TO SEE WHAT WAS THE MATTER.

AN ANTI TRUMP RODEO WAS FORMING A LINE
NADLER, SCHUMER AND COMEY RODE IN ON SWINE
MUELLER WAS GALLOPING ON A HORNED STEER
HOLDING A RAT AT THE END OF HIS SPEAR.

BERNIE, BIDEN AND CORY TROTTED ON ASSES PAINTED BLUE
BETO, KAMALA AND GILLIBRAND SAYING #ME TOO!
A HUMAN CARAVAN HOISTING FLAGS OF DISPARATE NATIONS
SHOUTED AND FLAUNTED THEIR VOTER REGISTRATIONS.

THE CHAOTIC SCENE ALMOST MADE ME SCREAM
WHEN I AWOKE FROM THE TERRIBLE DREAM.
TOO LATE FOR SLUMBER I SAT UP AND REFLECTED
ON THE MANY GOOD POLICIES THAT TRUMP EFFECTED.

FAKE NEWS, CLIMATE FRAUD AND OBAMACARE TANKED
MORE JOBS, FEWER TAXES AND MORE INCOME BANKED.
IN TRADE WITH CANADA AND CHINA TRUMP HELD THE FORT
AND KAVANAUGH AND GORSUCH JOINED THE COURT.

ON NATIONAL SPEECH HE BECAME A DEFENDER
OF HE AND SHE AND REAL PRONOUNS OF GENDER
WHILE MERKEL, MACRON AND TERESA FACE DOOM
OPTIMISM AND PRIDE GREET OUR ENERGY BOOM.

WITH SINCERE HOPE THAT ONLY GOOD DREAMS COME TRUE
I WISH YOU A HAPPY NOEL AND A GREAT NEW YEAR TOO.
RUTH KING

Two thousand troops? Only two thousand troops can stabilize, bring peace, destroy Isis, defend the Kurds, and inhibit Iran and Turkey in a sea of tribal and religious wars? I think Trump is right.

We have a volunteer national army. Why risk the life of a single soldier for no real gain? If war is declared against Isis then let full military power destroy them. Remove the ridiculous and politically correct “Rules of Engagement” that endanger our troops and punish those who flout them in self defense.

And finally, stop pussyfooting and name the enemy. They are not “militants” or “combatants”- they are faith driven Jihadist barbarians who hate Western values and are committed to murder the infidels and establish Sharia laws wherever they alight and gain strength. rsk

https://quillette.com/2018/12/20/feminisms

Reading the news stories about #MeToo and sexual harassment, and the barrage of social media posts that accompanied these headlines, I became saddened but also increasingly frustrated. It wasn’t the reports of men behaving badly that angered me, but the despair that seemed to be the expected response to these stories, and the helplessness that my female friends appeared to attach to femininity itself that I found troubling.

The unintended and painful irony of recent feminism’s preoccupation with overcoming male oppression has been to place men at the centre of female identity. This makes the feminine experience something like an echo; women’s voices seem to be little more than a response, or a rebuttal, to men’s voices, which are taken to be primarily an instrument of patriarchal oppression. But, in my own experience, men aren’t interested in maintaining power and control over women—they simply don’t see women as a group that they are oppressing, or that they would like to oppress.

We hear a lot about “male privilege” but historically it has been the “privilege” of men to make their way in the hard world in order to first win a woman’s affections, and then support the family structure financially. We might call this “patriarchy,” but this term isn’t the synonym for misogyny that contemporary progressive political culture seems to think it is. (One has to appreciate the misplaced sincerity of many of my university students who roundly condemn The Patriarchy, while driving their father’s Toyota to campus every day, and using his savings to pay for their tuition. Not infrequently it occurs to me that the people who are most vocal against The Patriarchy are those who have benefited from it the most.)

A further concern I have with the message and tone of contemporary feminism is that women have evidently forgotten that we have power over men as a result of the fact that we’re women—men adore us, and almost all their efforts at work or at home or in social settings, are made to win our approval, if not our admiration. In short, I am bewildered by the fact that in a culture in which The Patriarchy has never had less power over women, women seem to want to attribute to it a greater power than men in fact have, thereby confining women to a position of victimhood and powerlessness.

Victim status holds its own form of power, of course, but this nurtures resentment which is always utterly joyless. Curiously, mainstream feminism seems designed to perpetuate the story of male power and oppression: feminists seem to need it as an antagonist against which to define themselves.