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HISTORY

How the U.S. Won World War II Without Invading Japan More people died in the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo than at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Warren Kozak

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-u-s-won-world-war-ii-without-invading-japan-11583698141?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

The U.S. entered World War II in 1941. Yet American planes couldn’t dent a roof in Japan until 1945. The 1942 Doolittle raid, with its 16 bombers that took off from carriers, showed great ingenuity and bravery. But it had zero impact on Japan’s ability to make war.

The raid was designed to boost morale after Pearl Harbor. When the U.S. didn’t follow up with more attacks, the Japanese believed their homeland was invulnerable to enemy bombs because of the emperor’s divine presence. That hubris ended 75 years ago Monday with an event that set in motion the eventual U.S. victory.

First, a little more history: The U.S. could reach Japan only after the Marines took the Mariana Islands at great cost in 1944. The largest airports in the world were built within months and filled with new, modern B-29 bombers. The B-29 was a marvel and the greatest expense of the war at $3 billion, compared with $2.4 billion for the Manhattan Project. Each plane was three times the size of the next-largest bomber, the B-17. The B-29 could fly 3,700 miles and cruise at an altitude high enough to elude antiaircraft fire.

Nothing New in the Sick World of Jew Hate Joan Swirsky

https://www.thepostemail.com/2020/03/08/nothing-new-in-the-sick-world-of-jew-hate/

“Though marked by levity, Purim is deadly serious: We are reminded that Haman exists in every generation and that we Jews dare not ignore our own identity.” Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik 

This year, the Jewish holiday of Purim begins on Monday, March 9th and ends on March 10th. It is a significant holiday that has everything to do with Jewish survival, which today is as relevant as it was throughout Jewish history, not only 75 years ago in Nazi Germany when six-million Jews were savagely incinerated in burning ovens while the entire world looked on, but also 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 years ago!

The story of Purim takes place in ancient Persia (now Iran). The Holy Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed more than 50 years earlier and the Jews had become servile subjects in Persia.

The King of Persia, Ahasuerus, who was drunk at the time, became furious with his exquisite wife Vashti when she refused to undress before his court, so he ordered her execution. But after her death, he became lonely and had his servants orchestrate a beauty contest so he could pick another wife. When Esther appeared, he was enchanted with her great beauty and married her, making her the Queen of Persia.

 

The lost congressman: What happened to Jeremiah Haralson?

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/in-depth/news/2020/02/26/jeremiah-haralson-lost-congressman-alabama/2823015001/

The lost congressman

He was a slave at 18.

A state legislator at 24.

A congressman at 28.

And a prisoner at 48.

Jeremiah Haralson lived a remarkable life. Then he vanished.

Jeremiah Haralson listened as the ex-Confederate accused him of forgery. It was Feb. 13, 1877, and Haralson, a congressman from Selma, had testified to a U.S. Senate subcommittee about the violence and fraud that cost him his re-election to Congress from Alabama’s Black Belt.

Malcolm Graham, on hand to represent the state Democratic Party, dismissed Haralson’s descriptions of racial terror with a cynical languor. Local Democratic leaders told him no such intimidation occurred, and these cursory denials satisfied the former Confederate congressman.

So Graham tried to make Haralson the criminal. During questioning, Graham asked Haralson about the testimony of another witness who claimed that Haralson had forged an election ticket to get votes in Lowndes County.

“He said there were 163 votes cast for you there, and that there would not have been one if the voters had not been imposed upon by a counterfeit ticket you had circulated there,” Graham said.

Haralson could recite precinct names and vote totals from memory. Lowndes County was not strong for him. That was true. But people there knew Haralson: The son of a prominent Lowndes County planter once held him in bondage.

“I have a few personal friends in the county, you know, old man,” the former slave told the former defender of slavery. “There are a good many there that know me, and they vote for me on personal grounds.”

Sorry, New York Times, But America Began in 1776 by Wilfred Reilly

https://quillette.com/2020/02/17/sorry-new-york-times-but-america-began-in-1776/

The United States of America began in 1776, not 1619.

That one sentence is the thesis statement of “1776”—a non-partisan black-led response to the New York Times’s “1619 Project” initiative, which launched last week at D.C.’s National Press Club. I am pleased and proud to be a part of 1776, along with founder Bob Woodson, Glenn Loury, Coleman Hughes, Jason Hill, Carol Swain, John Wood, Taleeb Starkes, Robert Cherry, and many others. From my perspective as a member, 1776 has three core goals: (1) rebutting some outright historical inaccuracies in the 1619 Project; (2) discussing tragedies like slavery and segregation honestly while clarifying that these were not the most important historical foundations of the United States; and (3) presenting an alternative inspirational view of the lessons of our nation’s history to Americans of all races.

The first of these points is perhaps the least important, but still a weighty task. Many of the claims made by the 1619 Project, which attempts to link everything from non-socialized medicine to American sugar consumption to historical slavery, are simply not true. Gordon Wood, one of the USA’s leading historians of the Revolutionary War, has been sharply critical of 1619’s best known essay (“America Wasn’t a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One,” by Nikole Hannah-Jones), dismissing Hannah-Jones’s claim that the USA seceded from Britain primarily to protect the institution of slavery as factually inaccurate.

Wood points out that attributing American secession to a desire to protect slavery—rather than (say) taxation without representation, conflicts over French and Indian war debt, or tense armed exchanges like the “Boston Massacre”—“makes the Revolution out to be like the Civil War,” which is “wrong in so many ways.” The eminent historian seems bemused and angered by the decision of the Times to support an arguably questionable scholarly project, saying: “I was surprised by the scope of this thing, [since] it’s going to become the basis for high school education, and has the weight of the New York Times behind it.” Given that the generally reputable Pulitzer Center is already offering a “1619 Project Curriculum” targeted at “all grades,” Dr. Wood’s words of warning ring true.

History: 1776 vs. 1619 There’s now an alternative to the New York Times’s revisionist, race-baiting project. Lewis Morris

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68650-history-1776-vs-1619-2020-02-18

A wide-ranging group of writers from ideologically diverse backgrounds has come together to challenge leftist assertions in the New York Times’s 1619 Project that the United States was built on slavery. In response, the educational series 1776 was recently launched by the Woodson Center under the guidance of longtime activist and scholar Robert Woodson.

The Woodson Center was founded in 1981 to raise awareness and funding for neighborhoods seeking to solve critical community problems through innovative initiatives. Robert Woodson began 1776 as a direct response to the misguided and harmful history put forth by the Times.

Woodson described the 1619 Project as a “lethal” narrative that perpetuates a culture of victimhood in the African American community by claiming that life for blacks in America has been predetermined by slavery and Jim Crow.

“This garbage that is coming down from the scholars and writers from 1619 is most hypocritical because they don’t live in communities [that are] suffering,” said Woodson. “They are advocating something they don’t have to pay the penalty for.”

Glenn Loury, economics professor at Brown University and 1776 contributor, added, “The idea that the specter of slavery still determines the character of life among African Americans is an affront to me. I believe in America, and I believe in black people. Something tells me … the 1619 Project authors don’t. They don’t believe in America … and I’m sorry to have to report, I get the impression they don’t believe in black people.”

George Washington’s Birthday and the Battle for History Rangers giving tours go off script about the American Revolution. Time to rein in the Park Service. By Michael Pillsbury

https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-washingtons-birthday-and-the-battle-for-history-11581718686?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

George Washington’s birthday is celebrated on Monday, so consider this thought experiment: It is 2026 and Washington and close military advisers like Alexander Hamilton return for a 250th-anniversary ride on the eight decisive battlefields where American independence was won.

At first, they might be pleasantly surprised to see the battlefields still intact. But suppose the visiting heroes lean down from their saddles to listen to the park rangers leading tours in green-and-gray uniforms. Expecting to hear a recounting of battles that formed the republic, they instead hear stories about identity politics and climate change. Hamilton, upon returning to his only home, in New York—a site that attracts thousands of visitors annually—would be taken aback to hear, as I did on a visit, park rangers editorialize that he stashed his wife there so he could carry on with his mistress in his Wall Street home.

This casual, official reinterpretation of history has alarmed many modern historians and Americans, including those like me with relatives who served at Valley Forge. In 2016, a park ranger reportedly telling tourists at Independence Hall in Philadelphia that “the Founders knew that when they left this room, what they had written wouldn’t matter very much” resulted in news articles and calls for her resignation. Rangers, however, aren’t required to stick to any script when interpreting the Revolution. Washington and Hamilton might ride on to privately owned Mount Vernon for a more authentic experience.

Traditionally, great powers trust their military forces with protecting and interpreting the sacred battlefields of their founding fathers. After the Revolutionary War, the U.S. military protected the battlefields, conducted “staff rides” to review decisions and scenarios, and encouraged private donors such as the Ladies of Mount Vernon to restore other historical places tied to Washington.

A Short History of Palestinian Rejectionism By Dr. Edy Cohen

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/palestinian-rejectionism/

The consistent and enduring Palestinian rejection of any and all peace initiatives with Israel, most recently the “Deal of the Century,” calls into question the commitment of the Palestinian leadership not only to peace but to the very welfare and safety of the Palestinian people.

Taking into account all the peace initiatives proposed to end the conflict between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs over the last 83 years, we must consider the possibility that the Palestinians—or at least their leaders—do not want to establish their own state.

Their sight is currently set on the big prize—the entire state of Israel—and they are playing for time. In the meantime, they plan to continue to subsist on monies donated by the Arabs and the Europeans. Many of the Arab states have grown disenchanted with this enterprise, and their assistance, particularly from the Saudis, has been discontinued in recent years.

President Trump has also reduced the flow of US support. Only the Europeans remain committed to the implacable Palestinian narrative.

“Abrahamism” Abets Genocidal Christian Persecution, and Israel’s Destruction Andrew Bostom

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2020/02/abrahamism-abets-genocidal-christian-per

The embrace of “Abrahamism” as an overarching paradigm for interfaith dialogue, epitomized by the U.S. Department of State-supported Abrahamic Faiths Initiative, is fraught with existential dangers for Christians and Jews.

At its core, Abrahamism is unabashed theological Islamic supremacism—rooted in Koran 3:64 to 3:68, especially 3:67—and the classical-cum-modern authoritative Koranic exegeses on these verses.

Late Al-Azhar University Grand Imam, and seminal modern Koranic commentator, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (d. 2010), illustrates these enduring trends, till now, including their association with canonical Islamic Antisemitism. Tantawi’s authoritative gloss on Koran 3:67 from his magnum opus Koranic commentary, The broad interpretation of the holy Koran,  re-affirms the supremacy of the claim of Islam, and Muslims, to Abraham, and ends with a statement of conspiratorial Islamic Jew-hatred:

“This noble verse [Koran 3:67] mentions Abraham and exposes those unbelievers from the People of the Book [Scripture] who claimed the Abraham was a Jew or a Christian as it shows that, unlike Abraham, it was they who were polytheists…There is an insinuation here concerning the Islamic nation (Umma) and an acknowledgment that the followers of Muhammad are more worthy of being affiliated with Abraham than the People of the Book because the believers sought the truth and believed in it. Conversely, the People of the Book sought worldly and material things in place of things heavenly and spiritual. They forsook the truth and went after their lusts and desires…After these repeated appeals to the People of the Book, and after all the brilliant arguments and proofs presented to vouch for the validity and truthfulness of this religion [Islam], and after all the reprimands and admonitions hurled at them for turning away from the truth and turning others from it as well, the Koran recounted some of the malicious paths that the Jews embarked upon to deceive and deal with Islam and Muslims with craftiness and cunningness.”

What Americans Can Learn from F. W. de Klerk’s Great Betrayal of South Africa Ilana Mercer

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/09/what-americans-can-learn-from-f-w-de-klerks-great-betrayal-of-south-africa/

Universal suffrage is not to be conflated with freedom. As Iraqis learned after their “liberation,” ink-stained fingers don’t inoculate against bloodstains—or rivers of blood.

In what should serve as a lesson for Americans today, recall that 30 years ago on February 2, 1990, F. W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last white president, turned the screws on his constituents, betraying the confidence we had placed in him.

I say “we,” because, prior to becoming president in 1989, De Klerk was my representative, in the greater Vereeniging region of Southern Transvaal, where I lived. (Our family subsequently moved to Cape Town.)

A constellation of circumstances had aligned to catapult De Klerk to a position of great power. A severe stroke forced the “The Crocodile,” President P. W. Botha, from power in 1989. Nothing in the background of his successor, De Klerk, indicated the revolutionary policies he would pursue.

In response to a 1992 referendum asking white voters if they favored De Klerk’s proposed reforms, we returned a resounding “yes.” Sixty-eight percent of respondents said “yes” to the proposed reforms of a man who sold his constituents out for a chance to frolic on the world stage with Nelson Mandela.

For it was in surrendering South Africa to the African National Congress that De Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela.

Why was De Klerk trusted to negotiate on behalf of a vulnerable racial minority? For good reason: he had made his views abundantly clear to constituents. “Negotiations would only be about power-sharing,” he promised. At the time, referendum respondents generally trusted De Klerk, who had specifically condemned crude majority rule. Such elections, in Africa, traditionally have amounted to “one man, one vote, one time.” Typically, such elections across Africa have followed a familiar pattern: Radical black nationalist movements take power everywhere, then elections cease. Or, if they take place, they’re rigged.

Among much else, De Klerk’s loyal constituents agreed to his scrapping of the ban on the Communist-sympathizing ANC. Freeing Nelson Mandela from incarceration was also viewed as long overdue as was acceding to Namibia’s independence, and junking nuclear weapons. Botha, before de Klerk, had by and large already dismantled the most egregious aspects of apartheid.

My Double Life as a KGB Agent Raised in East Germany, Jack Barsky abandoned his mother, brother, wife and son to spy for the KGB. In America, he started a second family. And then it all came crashing down.Shaun Walker

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/i-thought-i-was-smarter-than-almost-everybody-my-double-life-as-a-kgb-agent?utm_source=pocket-newtab

On a chilly morning in December 1988, computer analyst Jack Barsky embarked on his usual morning commute to his office on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, leaving his wife and baby daughter at home in Queens. As he entered the subway, he caught sight of something startling: a daub of red paint on a metal beam. Barsky had looked for it every morning for years; it meant he had a life-changing decision to make, and fast.

Barsky knew the drill. The red paint was a warning that he was in immediate danger, that he should hurry to collect cash and emergency documents from a prearranged drop site. From there, he would cross the border into Canada and contact the Soviet consulate in Toronto. Arrangements would be made for him to leave the country. He would cease to be Jack Barsky. The American identity he had inhabited for a decade would evaporate and he would return to his former life: that of Albrecht Dittrich, a chemist and KGB agent, with a wife and seven-year-old son waiting patiently for him in East Germany.

Barsky thought of his American daughter, Chelsea: could he really leave her? And, if he didn’t, how long could he evade both the KGB and US counterintelligence?

***

On an unseasonably warm afternoon in January 2017, Barsky strides into my hotel in Atlanta, Georgia and gives me a firm handshake. At 67, he has lived a more or less ordinary life for the past three decades. But the years spent undercover were hard on him and the people close to him. Only recently has he been able to come clean about his past. His late coming out has provided an overwhelming sense of release, Barsky says. “All those years, I had a little man up here,” he says, pointing to the sandy hair swept across his scalp in a side parting. “He would constantly watch what I was saying, and stop me from going into certain territory. And then the little man got killed off, and it was like an explosion.” These days, he is a garrulous conversationalist who requires little prodding.

Barsky’s story is a timely reminder of the immense resources the Russians were willing to expend during the cold war in their bid to embed agents in enemy territory. Hacking was not an option, and casual travel between Moscow and the west was much harder. “As I’m talking about this stuff, it feels unreal,” he says of his convoluted journey from East Germany to the US. “It feels as if it wasn’t me. But it was.”