RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/371707/print

Over the last several weeks, reading news of disorder and upheaval from Venezuela to the Levant to Ukraine to Iraq to Afghanistan, I have thought often of a poem written almost a century ago. Thomas Hardy composed “The Convergence of the Twain” in memory of the sinking of the Titanic. It was published in 1915, three years after the great ship made contact with the deadly iceberg, but reading it today one cannot help experiencing its timelessness, cannot help sharing in its tragic sense of fate.

Hardy’s theme is the vanity and fragility of progress, of technological achievement, of wealth and human power when compared with the immensity and amorality of nature. When I read the poem today however I am drawn to its final stanzas, where Hardy writes of the limits of human foresight, of sudden and unexpected changes in fortune, of the horrible things that can result from the collision of disparate elements. What seems disconnected, separate, foreign, distant, estranged can suddenly cohere in terrible and revelatory events: a Titanic, a Pearl Harbor, a 9/11, a Boston Marathon bombing. I worry that one of those events approaches us now.

Hardy’s poem begins with the image of the Titanic “in a solitude of the sea / Deep from human vanity.” It is a ruin. Frigid waters flow through the “steel chambers” of the engine room, “late the pyres / Of her salamandrine fires.” Beasts of the sea — “grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent” — crawl “Over the mirrors meant / To glass the opulent.” The ornamentation of the cruise liner is dimmed, “bleared and black and blind.” Where human beings once walked, “Dim moon-eyed” fish swim instead. Hardy anthropomorphizes them, has the fish ask, “What does this vaingloriousness down here?” What caused the wreckage?

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303945704579391492993958448?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303945704579391492993958448.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Never mind the Fed’s taper, it’s the U.S. geopolitical taper that is stirring world anxiety. From Ukraine to Syria to the Pacific, a hands-off foreign policy invites more trouble.

Since former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke uttered the word “taper” in June 2013, emerging-market stocks and currencies have taken a beating. It is not clear why talk of (thus far) modest reductions in the Fed’s large-scale asset-purchase program should have had such big repercussions outside the United States. The best economic explanation is that capital has been flowing out of emerging markets in anticipation of future rises in U.S. interest rates, of which the taper is a harbinger. While plausible, that cannot be the whole story.

For it is not only U.S. monetary policy that is being tapered. Even more significant is the “geopolitical taper.” By this I mean the fundamental shift we are witnessing in the national-security strategy of the U.S.—and like the Fed’s tapering, this one also means big repercussions for the world. To see the geopolitical taper at work, consider President Obama’s comment Wednesday on the horrific killings of protesters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The president said: “There will be consequences if people step over the line.”

No one took that warning seriously—Ukrainian government snipers kept on killing people in Independence Square regardless. The world remembers the red line that Mr. Obama once drew over the use of chemical weapons in Syria . . . and then ignored once the line had been crossed. The compromise deal reached on Friday in Ukraine calling for early elections and a coalition government may or may not spell the end of the crisis. In any case, the negotiations were conducted without concern for Mr. Obama.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/371716/print

TED CRUZ IS RIGHT…AND REPUBLICANS WHO BASH HIM ARE COWERING IN THEIR SHOES…..RSK

‘It’s a sad day in the history of the Senate,” Mitch McConnell bitterly announced. The minority leader wanted Americans to know, or at least to believe, that Republicans were outraged by what he called the Democratic majority’s “power grab” — detonation of the so-called nuclear option, exploding the minority’s ability to block presidential nominees.

In truth, the GOP had not done much of anything to oppose Obama picks. Eric Holder, to take just one example, was confirmed by a whopping 75–21 margin — with 19 Republican yeas — despite the Mark Rich scandal, the FALN terrorist pardons, and a history of misleading Congress. The GOP similarly rolled over for one after another of the radical lefties now serving as ministers of Obama’s imperial presidency on the bench and throughout the bureaucracy.

Indeed, in positing their case to preserve the filibuster, Republicans argued that they had approved fully 99 percent of the president’s judicial nominees. How telling that they should see this as a point in their favor. The filibuster was crucial, they inveighed, because it acts as a brake against radical transformation by a slim but zealous majority. Its 60-vote supermajority hurdle enables the minority to force the majority to act responsibly, to push only nominees and policies that enjoy consensus public support. And here, the GOP said, is the clincher: 99 percent of the time, Obama could rest assured that Republicans would not use it.

Leading Republicans were not alone in bemoaning the evisceration of minority rights. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board ripped Majority Leader Harry Reid’s legion of “young liberals in a hurry” who have “grown up in the Saul Alinsky tradition.” Without the 60-vote hurdle, the editors warned, President Obama would have “a freer hand to pursue his agenda.”

As it happens, the Reid “power grab” only ends the filibuster for presidential nominees, not other varieties of legislative action to advance Obama’s aggressive statism and fiscal recklessness. So surely Republicans, with the Journal cheering them on, will make muscular use of that 60-vote hammer where they still have it, right?

Not exactly. Witness the Journal’s hatchet job against Senator Ted Cruz for forcing a vote on the debt-ceiling hike.

http://carolineglick.com/rousing-the-americans-from-their-slumber/
In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times Wednesday, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned his countrymen of the disaster that awaits them if President Barack Obama does not change the course of US Middle East policy.

Bolton warned that Obama’s three-pronged policy, based on three negotiation tracks with Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians and Israel, will almost certainly fail in its entirety.

In his words, “Iran will emerge more powerful, verging on deliverable nuclear weapons, while still financing and arming terrorists worldwide. [Syrian President Bashar] Assad seems likely to survive, which is bad enough by itself, but it will be compounded by the affirmation it affords Iranian and Russian strength. Israel will trust Wash – ington even less than now, and ironically, Palestinians will be even more anti-American, because Obama will not be able to deliver to them the Israeli concessions he predicted.”

Bolton concluded mournfully, “[T]he increasing danger is that only another 9/11, another disaster, will produce the necessary awakening. There is tragedy ahead for our country if we continue on this course.”

Writing for Strafor the same day, strategic analyst George Friedman explained why Bolton’s warning will be ignored by the public.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7439

On Thursday evening, Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan conducted a fawning interview with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about the chances for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This was followed by a panel discussion, led by Dayan, with radical leftist commentator Amnon Abramovich and chief Israeli negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.

Naturally, everyone discussed the question of whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would “do an about-face” on his life-long beliefs, for the sake of peace.

Kerry was evasive, saying that this was up to the parties in the negotiations.

Abramovich was openly disdainful and pessimistic. Livni kept repeating that she was working closely with Netanyahu to make sure that certain clauses would be included in Kerry’s “framework” proposal.

But basically, the message from all was that, whatever happens, Netanyahu will be responsible. It was as predictable as it was nauseating. PA President Mahmoud Abbas must have enjoyed watching it on TV in his hotel in Paris, where he had just completed two rounds of one-on-one “in-depth” discussions with Kerry about the “core issues.”

Too bad Kerry was with Abbas in France on Wednesday, and not in Jerusalem, where he could have been treated to an eye-opening presentation at a special session of the Knesset, organized by Coalition Vice Chairman MK Robert Ilatov

http://bit.ly/1da0GGY

At a time when the White House is pressuring Israel to make dramatic concessions, the Jewish State enjoys an all-time high popularity among Americans, and therefore among their representatives in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.

According to a February 18, 2014 Gallup Poll, Israel is the MVP (most favorite player) in the Middle East – 72% very/mostly favorable – leading all other Middle East countries by a dramatic margin: Egypt – 45%, Saudi Arabia – 35%, etc.

Israel’s popularity is at the highest since 1991, when Gallup first polled Americans on foreign countries, compared to 2009 (63%), 2010 (67%), 2011 (68%), 2012 (71%) and 2013 (66%).

Israel is more popular than most Western democracies, while the Palestinian Authority is ranked among the least favorable (19% favorability), along with North Korea (11%), Iran (12%), Syria (13%) and Iraq (16%). Thus, when President Obama delivered the 2014 State of the Union Address, he was greeted with indifference when stating: “American diplomacy [aims] to achieve dignity and an independent state for Palestinians.” However, the president triggered resounding applause when continuing: “…and lasting peace and security for the state of Israel – a Jewish state that has known that America will always be at their side.”

http://politicalmavens.com/

Based on a true story about an Indian soldier admitted to the Meninger Clinic after World War 11 for treatment of symptoms which we now call PTSD, ”Jimmy P” is an absorbing blend of psychotherapy and cultural anthropology. Jimmy’s malady has stumped the staff and an unusual man named George Devereux has been summoned from New York to treat him. The French actor Matthieu Amalric plays the expatriated European doctor with the same panache older viewers will associate with Paul Henreid; he is charming, innovative and though well versed in Freudian precepts, equally familiar with Indian tribal lore and customs. Through a relationship that borders as much on friendship as doctor/patient status, Devereux encourages Jimmy, persuasively embodied by Benicio del Toro, to strip away the layers of time and denial in order to confront his primal fears and learn to successfully manage them. Devereux is a brilliant and insightful man, reluctant to rely on pat categories and always ready to apply his knowledge of Indian culture to understand this specific patient and his background influences.

What is strangely missing from a movie dwelling so intensely on the significance of the past, is any examination of Devereux’ own cataclysmic experiences in the holocaust. We get many clues to his identity but they are elliptical: the camera focuses on a forearm scar where a tattooed concentration camp number would have been surgically excised; we learn from his French lover that his real name was Gyorgy Dobo and that he was Rumanian, still lying about that. Though all of this is understandable and even familiar as the reactions of some survivors, it is completely antithetical to George’s dedication to the search for psychological truth. This cognitive dissonance is actually the most fascinating aspect of this complicated character and leaves us feeling that the story of these two men is incomplete.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2774/Have-You-Hugged-Your-Warlord-Today.aspx

“The Grinning Generals” by Rob Crllly is a recent London Telegraph story all about the above photo of two generals, one Afghan, one American. Noting the identity of the pair — Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the new ISAF commander, and Maj. Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief of Kandahar “accused of corruption, drug running and, most extraordinarily of all, mass murder,” Crilly is incredulous that this unseemly embrace was not secretly snapped and smuggled to news media. On the contrary, it is an official US government handout.

Pictures are snapped not by an outraged junior officer with an anonymous Facebook account, nor are they leaked surreptitiously to the media. The photographs are in fact distributed by the US military’s own media outfit.

If ever there were an illustration of the way the US and its allies have turned a blind eye to alleged human rights abuses in their rush for the exit, then this photograph of two beaming generals is it.

But … that’s only part of it.

The US mission to “nation-build” the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan while simultaneously fighting a “counterinsurgency” against Islamic extremists was doomed from the start — doomed by a strategy conceived in ignorance and denial of the fundamental differences between Islam and the West, as codified in sharia, which both the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamic extremists are influenced and even governed by.

Let’s review. From the Afghanistan Constitution

Article One: Afghanistan shall be an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article Two: The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Free within the bounds of what “law”? Islamic law. See Article Three:

Article Three: No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

For a decade, US and other Western troops have safeguarded that constitution. I call that making the world safe for sharia.

http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-fbi-between-rock-and-hard-place-of.html

A few years ago, when I was researching one of my period detective novels, The Chameleon, I had occasion to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation for some details about the status and concerns of the FBI in 1929-1930. While the FBI history site gave me some information, it wasn’t quite enough. Because the story was about the discovery of an embryonic Nazi Bund near San Francisco, the questions I needed answers to were:
Was the Bureau of Investigation (or the BOI, as the FBI was known then) actively monitoring Nazi activities or Weimar Germany’s intelligence gathering in the U.S.? (Yes, to a limited extent.) Was the Department of Justice, under which the BOI operated, concerned about Nazi or German espionage or activism in the country? (Yes, to a limited extent.) Did it keep tabs on known Nazi sympathizers and organizations or on German intelligence operations in the country? (Yes.) Or was the Bureau more concerned with Communist activities in the country? (Yes, much more so.) For story purposes, because the novel is set in San Francisco in November 1929, where were BOI divisional headquarters? (We don’t know.)
I needed answers to these and other questions to write credibly about the BOI. I was finally able to contact someone with the FBI in Washington D.C. who scheduled a telephone conference for me with two agents: one who would answer my questions, and another who would audit the conversation but not participate. I was given their “field” names (which I no longer have a record of). The call lasted about 15 minutes. Both agents (male) seemed to be on the road during the call. It was a very cordial call, although I could sense that the one participating agent was reticent about some information concerning Communist activism in the country.
The “Yes” answers prompted me to further research, much of which is reflected in the novel.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/russia-s-long-shadow_782757.html?nopager=1

Tallinn
The modern name of Estonia’s capital is thought to come from Tallide-linn, city of stables in the country’s tongue, or Taani-linn, meaning Danish castle-town. The lovely old center, a medieval trading city, is splashed in summer with light and color, I’m told. Cafés bustle. In winter, though, Tallinn is bleak. I’m here in fog, sleet, and rain. The streets are mostly empty by early evening, as everyone seems to be hobbited away with warm fires and ice-cold vodka.

Estonia is a country of glaring contrasts. Try to size it up today and one is reminded of Boris Yeltsin’s assessment of the Russian economy in the 1990s. Asked by a journalist about the state of play, the president answered, “Good.” When pressed for more than a one-word response, Yeltsin replied, “Not good.”

For this tiny country of 1.3 million, things are, from one perspective, excellent indeed. Since independence in 1991, Estonia has welcomed democracy and a market economy, become a member of NATO and the European Union, and adopted the euro. The country exudes modernity, consumerism, and freedom. There’s wireless Internet nearly everywhere—parks, pubs, squares, beaches, forests—and nearly always free. When you walk through Tallinn Airport, you feel like you’re in a trendy version of an Ikea store, with semi-inviting cafés, book alcoves, ready-to-use iPads.