RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/blog/revisiting-the-diana-west-controversy/

The controversy currently raging among conservative luminaries over the substantive nature and scholarly status of Diana West’s new book, American Betrayal, need not be rehearsed in detail here; its features are by now reasonably familiar to most readers of the political sites. But it will do no harm to offer a schematic overview of the broad contours of the “debate”—to give it the politest of tags.

It began when David Horowitz at FrontPage Magazine scrubbed Mark Tapson’s favorable account of the book and replaced it with Ron Radosh’s intemperate and distressingly ad hominem demolition masking as a “review.” Indeed, Radosh’s logomachic intervention read more like a personal vendetta than a scrupulous assessment. As a seasoned writer and veteran debater, Radosh should have known better. From that point on, a war of words was launched and the psychodrama shows no signs of tapering off. West published her Rebuttal and was heatedly defended by the notable historian Andrew Bostom and by many of the talkbackers to Horowitz’s own site. Meanwhile Horowitz and Radosh, and even the orotund Conrad Black, continued to pummel both book and author.

I do not wish to enter into the vortex of the dispute. I readily admit that I am no expert on the subject West’s volume addresses. Was Harry Hopkins the infamous KGB agent 19 or was it Laurence Duggan? Was American WWII policy subtly shaped and surreptitiously directed by Soviet espionage and penetration of the inner circles of the White House—and if so, to what degree? Was Eastern Europe lost to “Uncle Joe” Stalin owing to American ineptitude or to Communist infiltration of the decision-making process? I am in no position to weigh in on the matter. These issues may—or may not—be satisfactorily settled in the future, provided an honest, impartial, and intellectual debate is permitted to flourish without rancor and personal vituperation.

I can only say that Diana West’s thesis is surely deserving of scholarly consideration, whether pro or con. Whether one agrees with her conclusions or not, one must recognize that her argument is meticulously researched and abundantly footnoted. It seems to me that David Horowitz was wrong to remove a review that he had originally vetted and, furthermore, to substitute a largely personal imprecation in its stead rather than, say, to post a countervailing review and let the reader decide. Whatever his motive, the decision leaves an editorial stench that is not easily dissipated.

This is unfortunate, for Horowitz is one of the great conservative writers of our time who has done yeoman service in defending the principles of liberal democracy, in both the political and educational domains. No less unfortunate, there has been far too much name-calling on either side of the embroilment. But it needs to be candidly said that the unseemly fracas began with Radosh’s and Horowitz’s ill-advised, adversarial tactics.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/09/15/obama-then-and-now-the-rashomon-effect-first-in-a-series/?print=1 Sometimes it is worth stepping back from the fray to gain a little perspective. A shipped tossed about in a mighty gale looks one way to the passengers aboard, quite another way (as Lucretius pointed out [1] in his great poem) to the lucky person watching from the comfortable safety of the hilltop overlooking […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ari-lieberman/palestinians-deserving-of-a-state/ On November 20, 2012 six Palestinian civilians, accused of collaborating with Israel, were dragged from their homes in Gaza City by Palestinian gunmen. The butchery that followed represented depravity in the extreme, even by Palestinian standards. The six were summarily executed before an approving crowd that included children and at least one was dragged […]

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/156181

Only when we recognize the fundamental role Islam plays in the region can we begin to craft sensible policies that put U.S. interests first.

The revolutions against dictators in the Middle East dubbed the Arab Spring have degenerated into a complex, bloody mélange of coups and counter-coups, as have happened in Egypt; vicious civil wars, like the current conflict in Syria; a resurgence of jihadists gaining footholds in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Sinai; and a shifting and fracturing of alliances and enmities of the sort throwing Lebanon and Jordan into turmoil. Meanwhile, American foreign policy has been confused, incompetent, and feckless in insuring that the security and interests of the United States and its allies are protected.

A major reason for our foreign policy failures in the region is our inability to take into account the intricate diversity of ideological, political, and especially theological motives driving events. Just within the Islamist outfits, Sunni and Shia groups are at odds—and this isn’t to mention the many bitter divisions within Sunni and Shia groups. Add the other players in the Middle East––military dictators, secular democrats, leftover communists, and nationalists of various stripes––and the whole region seems embroiled in endlessly complex divisions and issues.

Yet a greater impediment to understanding accurately this bloody and complex region is our preconceived biases. Too often we rely on explanations that gratify our own ideological preferences and prejudices, but that function like mental stencils: they are a priori patterns we superimpose on events to create the picture we want to see, but only by concealing other events that do not fit the pattern. We indulge the most serious error of foreign policy: assuming that other peoples think like us and desire the same goods as we do, like political freedom and prosperity, at the expense of others, like religious obedience and honor.

One persistent narrative attributes the region’s disorder to Western colonialism and imperialism. The intrusion of European colonial powers into the region, the story goes, disrupted the native social and political institutions, imposing in their place racist norms and alien values that demeaned Muslims as the “other” and denigrated their culture to justify the exploitation of resources and markets. This process culminated after World War I in the dismantling of the caliphate, and the creation of Western-style nation-states that ignored the traditional ethnic and sectarian identities of the region. As a result, resentment and anger at colonial occupation and exploitation erupted in Islamist jihadism against the oppressor.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-egyptian-pyramid-scheme/print/ Deserts are funny things. A big wide open space in which nothing moves can play tricks on the mind. Spend enough time looking at a desert and you will see things moving in it because your mind needs to believe that there is life in it. Look hard enough and you will see democracy, […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/obama_nods_to_putin.html The pundits have expressed shock, dismay, disgust, and embarrassment concerning Obama’s apparent hapless handling of the Syrian situation.  There appears to be widespread astonishment that an American president would permit a Russian ex-KGB leader to take charge of the volatile situation in the Middle East.  George Will has stated that “[r]egarding institutional derangements, [Obama] […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323392204579071631070452274.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

Father figure? More like Imam and new convert. John Muhammad converted to Islam in 1987. Malvo wrote rants about Jihad and Allah while in prison. Several exhibits produced in the trial disclosed pictures of Bin Laden, a White House in cross hairs, Quotes from the Koran and the words Jihad….I wonder if this movie will mention those uncomfortable truths…..rsk

The Beltway sniper attacks in 2002 claimed 10 lives in the Washington, D.C., area, but “Blue Caprice,” a movie based on those events that opened Friday, avoids a blood-spattered retelling.

Instead, director Alexandre Moors chose to explore an elemental aspect of the case: the quasi-paternal relationship between John A. Muhammad, who was executed for the shootings, and the younger Lee Boyd Malvo, now serving a life sentence.

“I was attracted to the father-son dynamic at its core,” said Mr. Moors, who is 41 years old and lives in Fort Greene. “Once you knew that, it was obvious to focus on this.”

The movie, which stars Isaiah Washington as Muhammad and Tequan Richmond as Malvo, treats its subject matter in bleak fashion, shaped by a visual style that the first-time filmmaker honed while producing videos for Kanye West and Jennifer Lopez.

In “Blue Caprice” (the title riffs on the car used in the attacks), Mr. Washington, consumed with rage and paranoia, teaches the boy how to be a killer, manipulating his need for a father figure. As Malvo, Mr. Richmond masters his sharpshooting skills under a regime of physical and emotional abuse mixed with parental approval.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324576304579075202045519252.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond A U.S. Reward for Misrule in El Salvador The FMLN has made the country poorer and less free. Yet $227 million in American aid is coming. In 2001, while Americans were reeling from the deadly terrorist attacks that took the lives of thousands of innocent civilians in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, former Salvadoran […]

Obama Discovers American Exceptionalism Among the welter of ironies concerning President Vladimir Putin’s op/ed for The New York Times on the zigzaggingSyria crisis is that “Ras’s” ghostwriter has–however haphazardly–touched on the fundamental issue. Given the arguments and syntax, I suspect the ghost’s first language was American English, not Russian, something I will leave to future political exegesis. […]

Home On September 12, two days before the announcement on the agreement between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on a plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons–an agreement that has yet to be approved by Bashar Assad–Pravda reported that Vladimir Putin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Sergei […]