RUTHFULLY YOURS

In this exclusive exit interview with Breaking Defense contributor James Kitfield, the outgoing chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, talks about metastasizing Islamic terrorism, his struggles to reform intelligence-gathering, and the risk of lurching from crisis to crisis in an Internet-accelerated world. – the editors.

“Disruptive.” That’s how Michael Flynn’s enemies reportedly described him during his time as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a tenure that ends tomorrow – a year early – when the three-star general retires after 33 years in the US Army. Was Flynn forced out? The Pentagon said his departure had been “planned for some time” when it made the announcement in April. But Flynn had challenged the Obama administration narrative that al-Qaeda’s brand of nihilistic extremism had died with Osama bin Laden in 2011. He had bruised egos at the DIA trying to transform the 17,000-person bureaucracy into a more agile and forward-deployed intel operation, one shaped by the lessons he had learned as intelligence chief for Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan, working for the ill-fated iconoclast Gen. Stanley McChrystal. As early as 2010, Flynn made waves with a report, Fixing Intel, that said US intelligence could not answer “fundamental questions” in Afghanistan.

James Kitfield: DIA is tracking global crises from Ukraine to the Mideast to North Korea and the Western Pacific. Have you ever seen so many crises occurring simultaneously?

Flynn: No. I come into this office every morning, and other than a short jog to clear my head, I spend two to three hours reading intelligence reports. I will frankly tell you that what I see each day is the most uncertain, chaotic and confused international environment that I’ve witnessed in my entire career. There were probably more dangerous times such as when the Nazis and [Japanese] Imperialists were trying to dominate the world, but we’re in another very dangerous era. We rightfully talk about the last decade being the longest war in American history, for instance, but when we pull combat troops out of Afghanistan at the end of this year, it’s not going to feel like that war is over. To me, it feels like we’ll be facing a familiar threat and heightened uncertainty for a long time yet.

A sensitively written op-ed by Nicholas Kristoff, in Sunday’s New York Times, had the title: Is a hard life inherited? Mr. Kristoff relates the story of a childhood friend who has had a hard life. His mother died after choking on a bit of bacon. His father left home. This all happened when he was five. With his three siblings, he was raised by a grandmother, growing up in a “ramshackle home in a mire of disadvantage.” Despite having a “first-class” mind, he was suspended for truancy in the 8th grade, drifted through life in a haze of alcohol and drugs, while fathering two illegitimate children.

Mr. Kristoff’s point is that events beyond his friend’s control determined the man he became, and that there are steps society can take to help prevent such personal tragedies. He writes that a good teacher or mentor would have made a difference. Mr. Kristoff rues the loss of union jobs that might have created incentives for prudent behavior. He cites a higher minimum wage and a better education as steps that could be taken, but the starting point, he claims, must be empathy.

Empathy is indeed an endearing quality, but I suspect the problem has as much to do with shifting attitudes of behavior. As a society, we have embraced moral relativism. We have become more permissive. We have become hedonistic. Despite the proliferation of birth control and the general acceptance of abortion, the number of children born out of wedlock has soared. In 1965, less than 10% of all births were to women out of wedlock. Today it is 41%, and the numbers continue to rise. In 1965, the percentage of White children and Black children born to unmarried women were, respectively, 3.1% and 24%. Today, those numbers are 18% and 72%. “Shotgun” weddings have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. Granted, about 58% of single-mother births are to cohabitating couples, many of whom will marry. Nevertheless, a moral sense has been lost.

While Mr. Kristoff’s childhood friend may have suffered from problems impossible to readily treat, the issue Mr. Kristoff raises is one of priorities. He suggests empathy as the first line of defense, an important component, but not sufficient, in my opinion, to address the problem. Keep in mind, changes in the way we live have caused us to become disconnected from our community, as Robert Putnam detailed in his book, Bowling Alone. Suburbs are less personal in nature than villages. More women work than ever before – and both men and women work longer hours – leaving less time to volunteer. In cities, fund raising extravaganzas have replaced the more democratic concept of volunteering one’s time. In national political campaigns, raising money via $30,000-a-plate-dinners – afforded only by the few – has replaced grassroots efforts of door-to-door solicitations. We give of our money, but not of our time. The contagion of computers and hand-held devices has distracted us from the time necessary to participate in our children’s schools. We have become more self-absorbed. We have turned over most of the care for the indigent to public officials, blindfolding the rest of us to our communities’ needs.

During the Libyan War, Obama declared from Martha’s Vineyard that, “Tonight, the momentum against the Gaddafi regime has reached a tipping point.”

Then he went to play golf and accompanied Valerie Jarrett on a visit to the home of the CEO of Comcast.

It was August and the Libyan War had been going on for months. NATO planes were conducting hundreds of sorties. But their commander was on vacation.

That was only fitting since Obama had begun the Libyan War while hanging out in sunnier climes.

His ponderous announcement, “Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya” may have had an American flag in the background as stage dressing, but it was actually delivered from a Brazilian convention center.

Obama’s war announcement was made on the first day of his Latin American trip as if he had either made the decision to bomb Libya at the very last minute or he didn’t care enough to postpone a foreign trip for a day to be able to make the announcement from the White House.

The Egyptian military seemed to have picked up on Obama’s priorities when it decided crack down on his Muslim Brotherhood allies while the great man was vacationing in August at Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama had headed off on his vacation even though Egypt was burning. As the New York Times put it, “Mr. Obama was briefed on the situation by his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice. But he appeared determined not to allow events in Egypt to interrupt a day that, besides golf, included cocktails at the home of a major political donor, Brian Roberts.”

Brian Roberts is the aforementioned CEO of Comcast. By the time Obama could tear himself away from golf and his Comcast sugar daddy, hundreds were dead and it was all over but the shouting.

This August, Obama at least had the good grace to announce belated air strikes against ISIS from Washington D.C. before flying off to Martha’s Vineyard for yet another vacation.

The Yazidi in Iraq and the Christian Copts in Egypt are not “occupiers” or “settlers;” neither are the Jews in Israel. They are both victims of a common enemy that seems to want a Middle East free of non-Muslims.

The current Palestinian narrative is that all Muslims in Palestine are natives and all Jews are settlers. This narrative is false. There has been a small but almost continuous Jewish presence in Palestine since the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome two thousand years ago, and, as we will see, most of the Muslims living in Palestine when the state of Israel was declared in 1948 were Muslim colonists from other parts of the Ottoman Empire who had been resettled and living in Palestine for fewer than 60 years.

There are two important historical events usually overlooked in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

One is the use that Muslim rulers made of the jizya (a discriminatory tax imposed only on non-Muslims, to “protect” them from being killed or having their property destroyed) to reduce the quantity of Jews living in Palestine before the British Mandate was instituted in 1922. The second were the incentives by the Ottoman government to relocate displaced Muslim populations from other parts of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine.

Until the late 1800s entire ancient Jewish communities had to flee Palestine to escape the brutality of Muslim authorities. As Egyptian historian Bat Ye’or writes in her book, The Dhimmi:

“The Jizya was paid in a humiliating public ceremony in which the non-Muslim while paying was struck in the head. If these taxes were not paid women and children were reduced to slavery, men were imprisoned and tortured until a ransom was paid for them. The Jewish communities in many cities under Muslim Rule was ruined for such demands. This custom of legalized financial abuses and extortion shattered the indigenous pre-Arab populations almost totally eliminating what remained of its peasantry… In 1849 the Jews of Tiberias envisaged exile because of the brutality, exactions, and injustice of the Muslim authorities. In addition to ordinary taxes, an Arab Sheik that ruled Hebron demanded that Jews pay an extra five thousand piastres annually for the protections of their lives and property. The Sheik threatened to attack and expel them from Hebron if it was not paid.”

The Muslim rulers not only kept the number of Jews low through discriminatory taxes, they also increased the Muslim population by providing incentives for Muslim colonists to settle in the area. Incentives included free land, 12 years exemption from taxes and exemption from military service.

When all you seek is calm, while your adversary is committed to your total annihilation, what is a reasonable compromise? That he only annihilate half of you?

Two people wearing Israeli flags are told to leave by a protest organizer during a pro-Palestinian demonstration against Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip Photo: REUTERS
Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
– Ancient proverb, misattributed to Euripides

Q: What is the difference between the State of Israel and a lunatic asylum?
A: In a lunatic asylum, the management is supposed to be sane.
– Popular joke

Any alien visitor from outer space, dispassionately observing events in the country, could well be excused for concluding – completely erroneously, of course – that successive governments, and particularly the current one, are not really concerned with the long-term survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Indeed, it would be entirely understandable if our extraterrestrial traveler reached a seemingly far more plausible – but, of course, equally erroneous – conclusion that instead, they are far more focused on delaying its collapse long enough so that they do not have to bear the blame for that collapse.

‘Like a rudderless ship…’

As mistaken as our naive alien might be as to the true motivations of our esteemed elected leadership, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile their actions, decisions and particularly their proposals for policy with prudent, provident regard for the future of the nation.

In past columns, I issued two severe indictments of this government’s policy.

In “The ruinous results of restraint” (July 10), I warned: “By adhering to a policy of avoiding confrontations which Israel can win, the government risks leading it into one in which it might lose”; and urged: “It is time for a bold new offensive – before we are overtaken by events.”

In “Like a rudderless ship in a stormy sea” (July 17), I remarked reproachfully that just as Hamas willfully exposes its citizens to deadly dangers in order to defend it against Israeli military attacks, so the Israeli government knowingly exposes its citizens to severe danger in order to prevent diplomatic attacks from the international community.”

Both these grim prognoses are being fulfilled with alarming accuracy and alacrity.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece of August 6 about “the surge of poisonous anti-Semitism around the world, particularly in Europe,” Andrew Nagorski had the temerity to note that “the president [Obama] has not prominently addressed the subject of rising anti-Semitism in Europe, much less its pervasiveness in the Muslim world.” This is, of course, an understatement.

Let us have a history lesson. President Obama’s first presidential grand tour of Europe took place in spring of 2009, shortly after Muslims had been expressing outrage over Israeli actions (in Gaza in January) by staging violent pro-Hamas demonstrations throughout the continent. Mobs of Brotherhood members and their leftist sympathizers had intimidated policemen in London and Malmo, smashed up the Place de’Opera in Paris, burned Israeli and American flags.

Nowhere in Europe was this more blatant than in Turkey, chosen by Obama for the culmination of his European tour, in part because Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was his “favorite European politician,” to whom he is reportedly “closer” than to any other world leader. In the months prior to that April 6-7 visit five years ago, Turkey had been the scene of the fiercest anti-Semitic agitation in Europe, extending from streets to schools, newspapers, and TV–for the very good reason that it was encouraged by Obama’s friend Erdogan, who declared that “Israelis know very well how to kill” and that “Jews control the media.” But nary a word of this unpleasantness crept into Obama’s speeches to Turkish parliamentarians and students. Rather they were full of his usual calls for “respect” for Islam and assurances that America is not and “never will be” at war with Islam. (How quaint, dangerously so, this now sounds when leaders of the ISIS/ Islamic State juggernaut declare several times a day that “We will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”)

The resurgence of anti-Semitism, “particularly in Europe,” is hardly a new subject. In fact, If we extend our history lesson by six more years to 2003, we find that another American president, named George W. Bush, directly addressed it in a speech at London’s Whitehall Palace on November 19 of that year. He not only warned of the return of anti-Semitism; he scolded European leaders for averting their eyes from it. “Leaders in Europe should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause. And Europe’s leaders — and all leaders — should strongly oppose anti-Semitism, which poisons public debates over the future of the Middle East.” (When I had the opportunity, at a White House reception, to thank Mr. Bush in person for these remarks, he replied that “it’s much worse there than you can imagine.”)

In the years following the close of the Revolutionary War, the United States and Great Britain found little agreement on issues of national importance. There were ongoing disputes over trade, attacks on commercial shipping on the high seas… in which captured American seamen were forced to serve in the Royal Navy… as well as the provocation of American Indian tribes. As a result, the U.S. Congress approved a declaration of war against Great Britain in June 1812.

On August 24, 1814, British troops occupied Washington, DC, setting fire to the White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, and a number of other government buildings, and in September 1814 British forces in Canada invaded and occupied eastern Maine, along with portions of Michigan and Wisconsin.

With the exception of the shelling of an Ellwood, California oilfield by a Japanese submarine on February 23, 1942, the War of 1812 was the only instance in American history when forces of a foreign nation brought armed conflict to American soil… that is, until now.

Now, in the summer of 2014, in response to the open borders policies of Barack Obama, and in the face of the most horrific genocide taking place in Iraq… the kind of genocide we have not seen on this Earth since the Nazi holocaust of the 1930s and ‘40s, if then… we have no choice but to finally face reality.

The American people find their country invaded by hordes of minor children, drug dealers, and gang members from Mexico and Central America, and a host of troublemakers from Africa and the Middle East. Instead of importing the best and the brightest from the rest of the world, American leftists find it politically expedient to import the poorest and the most uneducated who will come to understand, as they enjoy the generosity of the American taxpayer, that liberals and Democrats are their principal benefactors. It is the most shameless and the most cynical political stratagem imaginable.

When all those impoverished indigents become registered voters, whether legally or illegally, and Arizona and Texas join the ranks of the blue states, Democrats will control 315 electoral votes, 45 more votes than are necessary to elect a president and a vice president. In that event, the United States of America, as we’ve known it, will cease to exist. No longer will we be the beacon of hope for all freedom-loving people; the “shining city on a hill” will be no more.

Demonstrate sovereignty, not solidarity
Until Thursday evening’s rally at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, the last time I participated in a demonstration was in 2005. And though the two events could not have been more different, the connection between them was direct.

Back then, the Knesset was on the verge of approving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for the “unilateral disengagement from Gaza” — a less brutal name for the forcible evacuation of every last Jew from Gush Katif, and the eradication of four Jewish communities in northern Samaria.

Suicide bombers had been blowing themselves up daily on buses and in malls, and Israelis were desperate for the government to take action. Disengagement was Sharon’s answer.

In spite of countrywide protests — and a lost referendum within Sharon’s Likud party, which caused its leader to pull a stunt and form Kadima overnight — the entire media and much of the public was game to get out of Gaza.

The rest of us considered the plan to be disastrous from every standpoint. We argued that Gaza would become one large terror base. We also thought Sharon was betraying the very people he had encouraged to settle there. The purpose of the protest I attended, which took place in front of the Knesset, was to demand that a national referendum be held, so that a genuine poll on this monumental move could be taken among the populace, not just the politicians ostensibly representing our wishes. (The Knesset subsequently voted against the proposed referendum.)

More than 150,000 people turned up at that demonstration, and I felt proud to be there. I was heartbroken, however, that I was one of only a handful of secular Israelis in the huge crowd. What it indicated was that Sharon had been successful in his purposeful division of society, so as to garner support for the removal of fellow Jews from their homes.

Spurred by the comment of someone I encountered on the way to the demonstration, who told me that I “don’t look like one of them,” I published a piece contesting the wedge between Gush Katif and the rest of the country.

“This is a state with two peoples,” I wrote in the Jerusalem Post. “‘Them’ and ‘Us.’ Lest the perplexed outsider imagine that the two peoples in question are Jews and Arabs, let him be re-educated: In post-modern, post-Zionist Hebrew, ‘them’ is a term used to define all the Jews who, after 1967, set up households on land the Israeli government begged them to populate and develop. Such people are known as ‘settlers’ — when they aren’t referred to as their synonym, ‘occupiers.’

Outside the US, throughout the Western world, anti-Semitism is becoming a powerful social and political force. And its power is beginning to have a significant impact on Israel’s relations with other democracies.

Consider South Africa. Following a lopsided vote by the University of Cape Town’s Student Union to boycott Israel, Jewish students fear that their own student union will be barred from operating on campus. Carla Frumer from the South African Jewish Student Union told The Times of Israel, “If they prove we are a Zionist organization and support Israel, they can have us banned and seek to de-register us.”

In Sydney, Australia, Jewish families received a triple blow last week when Jewish children on a chartered school bus were assaulted by eight anti-Semitic drunken teenagers.

The first shock was that their children, some as young as five, were terrorized on their school bus.

The second shock was that the bus driver made an unscheduled stop to allow the anti-Semites to board the bus and harass the children.

The third shock was that after catching six of the eight assailants, the police let them out of jail the same evening.

Taken together, the incident revealed an obscene comfort level among Australian authorities with the terrorization of Jewish children. Jewish families cannot assume that their children will be protected by non-Jews, whether they are school bus drivers or the police.

Unfortunately, these stories do not begin to scratch the surface of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the developed world. From Paris to San Paulo, from Berlin to Boston the public space Jews can enjoy without fear is becoming more and more limited.

The same is the case in leftist political circles.

More than 5,000 Olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel) are expected to arrive from France during 2014, and more than 1,000 Olim arrived from the US, France and other countries during the 30 day war in Gaza. As impressive as this is, the potential of Aliyah is much more dramatic.

The current wave of European anti-Semitism – fueled by centuries old anti-Jewish European culture and an unprecedented wave of Islamic immigration to Europe – behooves Israel to pro-actively generate (and not just absorb) a game-changing wave of Aliyah.

A pro-active Aliyah policy aims at triggering a massive scale Aliyah – not just a few tens of thousands Olim per year – as was initiated and implemented by Prime Ministers Ben Gurion, Eshkol and Shamir, who valued Aliyah as a top priority, in defiance of Israeli and international opposition and skepticism. This must be set on a fast track mode, and not planned as a medium or long-term policy.

A pro-active Aliyah policy constitutes an appropriate follow up to the war in Gaza, demonstrating and feeding Israel’s gumption/resourcefulness, reflecting defiance of threats and challenges, and reaffirming confidence in the long-term viability of the Jewish State.

The window of opportunity for the arrival of 500,000 Olim, during the next five years, is wide open – temporarily – in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, England, Belgium, Holland, Hungary, Argentina and other countries. It is wide open due to the intensification of anti-Semitism; non-democratic trends and instability in Russia and Ukraine; the expansion of aggressive (and soon terrorist) Islam in Europe; Israel’s relative economic edge; and the impressive Jewish/Zionist education infrastructure in the aforementioned countries, which have cultivated pro-Aliyah sentiments. Additional tailwind to Aliyah from Russia and Ukraine would be provided by a formal conversion of the 300,000 Olim from the USSR, whose children serve in Israel’s Defense Forces, who are targeted by Palestinian terrorism, contribute immensely to Israel’s well-being, consider themselves Jews and are recognized as Jews by Israel’s Law of Return, but not by Israel’s Rabbinate. The temporary nature of this window of opportunity requires immediate action, lest it would be forfeited.

In order to raise the substantial required funds– which grow scarce due to the cost of the war in Gaza – Israel’s Prime Minister should convene an emergency session of leading Jewish businessmen from the USA, Canada and Australia (which are also a source of substantial Aliyah), Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Panama, Brazil and Argentina, reclaiming Aliyah as a permanent, top moral and strategic priority of the Jewish people and the Jewish State, irrespective of circumstances. The Prime Minister should present a pro-active Aliyah policy, which responds to the growing predicament of Jewish communities, while inducing a game-changing enhancement of Israel’s infrastructures of economy, transportation, telecommunications, education, medicine, science, technology and national security, catapulting Israel’s posture of deterrence to unprecedented heights. Moreover, Israel Development Corporation is able to significantly expand the sale of the highly competitive Israel Bonds to local and state governments, unions, financial institutions and individuals, raising billions of dollars for an historical, job-creating, research and development-enhancing, export-increasing and national security-upgrading initiative.