RUTHFULLY YOURS

Four years ago I predicted that the result of America’s apparently successful effort to contain violence in Iraq through the so-called “surge” would be a devastating and uncontrollable civil war in Iraq. I titled the essay “Gen. Petraeus’ Thirty Years War,” arguing that

Petraeus created a balance of power between Sunnis and Shi’ites by reconstructing the former’s fighting capacity, while persuading pro-Iranian militants to bide their time. To achieve this balance of power, though, he built up Sunni military power to the point that – for the first time in Iraq’s history – Sunnis and Shi’ites are capable of fighting a full-dress civil war with professional armed forces.

Gen. David Petraeus, then the American commander in Iraq, quieted the Sunni opposition to the American-backed Shi’ite majority government by giving them money and weapons. By doing so the U.S. rebuilt the Sunni military capability that it had ruined in 2003 when it destroyed the government of Saddam Hussein. With the fighting capacity of the Sunni minority now on par with the Shi’ite-majority government army, as we saw in the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

I have nothing to add to what I wrote four years ago about the bungling of the Bush administration as compounded by Obama. The present disaster in Iraq is not wholly of our making, but American policy was a key enabler. The “surge” made it inevitable. There will be no resolution now without the exhaustion of the contending forces, in a long war of attrition with dreadful consequences for civilians, starting with the 500,000 who fled Mosul this week.

In a broader sense, American bungling set the stage for Syria’s civil war as well. I had the Ghost of Cardinal Richelieu explain why in a 2012 essay:

Richelieu looked at me with what might have been contempt. “It is a simple exercise in logique. You had two Ba’athist states, one in Iraq and one in Syria. Both were ruled by minorities. The Assad family came from the Alawite minority Syria and oppressed the Sunnis, while Saddam Hussein came from the Sunni minority in Iraq and oppressed the Shi’ites.

In Andrew McCarthy’s excellent new book “Faithless Execution” he lists President Obama’s flouting of the law. While there is enough evidence to lead to impeachment, McCarthy recognizes that there is no public appetite for impeachment but still hopes that Americans and their legislators will insist that the President abide by the law and by the Constitution and by the mandates given to the President of the United States to govern with transparency.

Yesterday to my extremely pleasant surprise I learned of an organization that actually does insist on transparency in government with scrupulous research. Please go to their site and subscribe:

Open The Books founded by Adam Andrzejewski, is a project of American Transparency, a 501(c)3 non-partisan, non-profit organization. Visit us online at www.openthebooks.com.

“Open The Books” has become a national rallying cry for transparency in public spending.

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, sponsor of the 2006 “Google Your Government Act,” recognized our work, “Open the Books is doing the work I envisioned when the Coburn-Obama bill became law. Their innovative app and other tools are putting sunlight through a magnifying glass.”

Please contact us to help “Open The Books” on your state and local units of government. Our goal is to post “Every Dime. Online.” of all government spending. Currently displayed are 1 billion lines of spending from federal, state and local governments across America.

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Read biography: www.openthebooks.com/adam-andrzejewski

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JABOTINSKY IS MY EVERLASTING HERO WHO CONVINCED MY FATHER AND MOTHER TO LEAVE EUROPE IN 1932 AND SETTLE IN BOLIVIA WHERE MY “KID”BROTHER AND I WERE BORN AND THUS RESCUED FROM THE HOLOCAUST. HE WAS AN INTELLECTUAL, A PROPHET, A WRITER AND A GIANT ZIONIST LEADER . I LIKE AND ADMIRE HALKIN’S BOOK BUT FOR THE FULLEST UNDERSTANDING OF JABOTINSKY, SHMUEL KATZ’S BIOGRAPHY “LONE WOLF” IS THE BEST.

When speaking of Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), Menachem Begin habitually referred to him by the traditional rabbinical honorific of rabi v’mori, “my master and mentor.” And yet Begin was in some ways, as Daniel Gordis writes in his recently published biography, “the most Jewish prime minister that Israel has ever had,” while Jabotinsky, in the eyes of many of his contemporaries and not a few historians of our own time, was the “least Jewish” Zionist leader of his age. Did Begin deliberately overlook this in honoring the man whose follower he was as a young Polish Zionist in the 1930s? Did he misunderstand Jabotinsky? Or did he understand him better than others did?

Jabotinsky, as I observe in my own newly published biography, was not the product of the assimilated or even semi-assimilated Jewish home that he is commonly thought to have been. His widowed mother (his father died when he was a small boy) kept a kosher kitchen, regularly lit Sabbath candles, spoke Yiddish far better than Russian, and saw to it that her son studied Hebrew and had bar-mitzvah lessons. This is not what is generally thought of as assimilation, even if Jabotinsky rarely attended synagogue as a boy and had little familiarity with the world of Jewish religious ritual that Begin was thoroughly at home in.

Nor would anyone have thought of it as assimilation had Jabotinsky grown up in Central or Western Europe, where real assimilation was widespread, rather than in the Czarist empire, where it was not. Yet the Eastern Europe he grew up in was that of cosmopolitan, sophisticated Odessa, the least East-European-like city ruled by the Czar, and, Jewishly speaking, the distance between him and Begin might be said to have been no greater, if also no less, than the distance between late-19th- and early-20th-century Odessa and Begin’s native town of Brest-Litovsk, the Jewish Brisk, in the 1920s and ’30s.

In fact, this has been said, and the first time it was said, as far as I know, was as long ago as 1950. To understand the context it was said in, moreover, we need go back still further, to September 1938. It was then that the third world convention of Betar, the Zionist youth movement founded by Jabotinsky and affiliated with his Revisionist party, was held in Warsaw.

The House of Representatives of the United States will very likely swear in this fall a former Randolph-Macon College (R-MC) economics professor, Dr. David Alan Brat — or Dave Brat, as he prefers to be called.

In a stunning upset whose shock waves have yet to be fully felt or understood, Brat handily defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Evidently taken aback by this unexpected and unprecedented outcome, Cantor failed to include the obvious in his concession speech: “I congratulate my opponent and promise to work to elect him in the fall.” Let’s hope Mr. Cantor does that soon. Americans don’t like sore losers.

According to the home page of R-MC’s Economics/Business Department, which Dr. Brat joined in 1996, he taught the following courses:

Intermediate Microeconomic Theory.
Public Finance.
International Economic Development.
Economic Justice.

The last of these is especially telling. Here is the course description:

An historical examination of the major conceptions of economic justice primarily in the Western world. Major ethical schools of thought include the Socratic/Platonic/Aristotelian, the Judeo-Christian, and the Enlightenment school of Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Marx. Finally, contemporary moral theorists such as John Rawls and Robert Nozick will be used to compare/contrast this legacy of ethical thought with the orthodox models of economic thought, as represented in the writings of economists such as Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman.

Cantor became the national symbol of a Republican Party unwilling to represent our people in our need to stop a corrupt and dictatorial President and his party.

Tuesday night, David Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, right outside Richmond, accomplished something stunning: defeating the House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, something never done before in American history.

Some are trying to pigeonhole Mr. Brat as a Tea Party candidate, but the truth is that, while he appeals to the Tea Party constituency, he is what a bread-and-butter Republican is supposed to be: a believer in free markets, limited government, strong defense, and a morality based in our Judeo-Christian ethos.

I first met Mr. Brat years back when he invited me to speak at Randolph-Macon College on the topic of “The Morality of Capitalism” based on an article I had published in the Wall Street Journal. He is well grounded in the fundamentals of American political philosophy.

The issue of immigration played heavily in the last two weeks of the campaign: specifically, the unacceptable daily phenomenon of illegals walking across the border and almost immediately becoming wards of the state by taxing hardworking American citizens and too-quickly finding loopholes for them to vote and determine America’s destiny. Americans are afraid they are losing their country and are being made powerless to stop it.

Mr. Cantor, as House Majority Leader together with Speaker Boehner, did not seem to share the alarm that many of us do. In effect, an invasion is happening to America and the weapons are not bullets but the ballot box: Democrat leaders are orchestrating an influx of illegals to use the ballot box to install socialism and permanently maintain the power of the Democrat Party. Their eligibility to vote is often suspect, but legitimate challenges are shot down by invoking the tried-and-tested accusation of racism.

It may seem extraordinary, but Hamas used to be seen as gentle and enlightened by many in the Arab world. But as the reality of its brutal rule in Gaza is revealed, minds are changing, as this personal testimony illustrates

As an Arab, when I heard about the Fatah-Hamas unity government, I was happy and saw this as positive. In fact, like many in the Arab world, I had always thought that Hamas was a force for good and represents a majority of the Palestinian people.

However, my eyes were opened via a chance meeting I had recently with a Palestinian from Khan Yonis who related some horrible stories that disclosed to me a dark side of Hamas that had not been visible to me. Before telling any of these stories, I should say that the young man at first asked me not to write anything about our meeting.

“Please don’t write about what I told you; please don’t write anything; Hamas reads everything in the news, and has a very strong intelligence body; they even spy on us; it is not difficult at all for them to know what they want to know; if they know me, they will kill not only me but also my whole family; they’re real criminals.”

After a long series of attempts, I convinced him that I would keep his identity anonymous and that everything wouldl be okay.

The young man was genuinely frightened. He said that Hamas had killed four people (a physician, a judge, an engineer, and a lawyer) from his family, who were semi-opponents of the group. “Hamas broke into our houses using heavy weapons; Hamas militants invaded us like tartars and we were like orphans with no power at all to resist; they killed many of us,” he stated.

Old habits die hard. On April 29, Itar-Tass, the state-owned Russian news agency, issued a press release. Following talks between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, Russia is keen to invest in Cuba.

The two countries want to resolve tensions arising from a legacy of debt that has long plagued relations between them. In the 30 years before its break-up, the Soviet Union supplied Cuba with oil at beneath the world market price, and did not always demand full and immediate payment.

Cuba sent the bulk of its sugar production to the Comecon countries in return, but the value of the sugar exported was much less than that of the oil imported. Over the years Cuba incurred a debt of about $35 billion.

Russia’s rulers, lonely in European diplomatic circles after their annexation of Crimea, have decided they need friends in the world. Cuba is being embraced as if the Cold War had never ended. So the recent talks have resulted in Russia writing off 90 percent of the $35 billion owed by Cuba.

This may sound drastic, but all is not lost. The two governments, no doubt with assorted cronies and hangers-on, can work together to profit from the remaining $3.5 billion. The Itar-Tass press release quotes Lavrov as saying that the $3.5 billion will be transformed into “investments” and, in his words, “we’re interested in making these investments productive to the maximum.”

In the geopolitical struggles between capitalism and Communism in the 20th century, Cuba had an importance out of all proportion to its size. When Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959, many outsiders expected his government to be quickly replaced by one more friendly to American interests. But Cuba adopted a communist model devised by Che Guevara, the theoretician of the revolution, and received such massive help from the Soviet Union that the new regime became entrenched.

THIS BLIP ON THE RADAR OF THE 2014 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS IS CAUSING HIVES AMONG STATUS QUO REPUBLICANS….CANTOR LOST AND BRAT WON FAIR AND SQUARE. YOU CAN’T BE A CROSS DRESSING REPUBLICAN WHO VOTES FOR AND SUPPORTS POLICIES INIMICAL TO CONSERVATIVES. THERE ARE PLENTY OF BRILLIANT, ENERGETIC, PRINCIPLED GOP INCUMBENTS WHO CAN FILL CANTOR’S SLIPPERS AND DO BETTER…RSK

The best candidates for GOP leader are Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling.

The rout of Majority Leader Eric Cantor means a period of turmoil for House Republicans, but also a chance for some new and invigorating leadership. Mr. Cantor announced Wednesday he’ll resign as leader by the end of July, and various Members are considering a run to replace him. This is a chance to fix what has too often been a dysfunctional majority.

One place to start is not by panicking into a false conclusion about the reasons for defeat. David Brat, the economics professor who beat Mr. Cantor 56% to 45%, rode a wave of popular frustration with Washington and an incumbent who had lost touch with his district. Considering the unpopularity of Congress, the surprise this year is that we haven’t seen more such upsets.

Far from being a radical, Mr. Brat sounded traditional free-market themes and assailed the House GOP for getting too close to big business. He ran against Fannie Mae FNMA Freddie Mac, , as well as the farm and flood insurance bills that Mr. Cantor guided through the House this year. To the extent his victory warns the GOP to disavow crony capitalism, Mr. Brat has done a public service. Let’s hope he joins the GOP’s growth wing, and maybe now the Export-Import Bank will finally be allowed to expire.

Mr. Cantor also suffered from having to govern in a polarized Washington. That fault lies more with President Obama and the Republican kamikazes who hurt the GOP image by shutting down the government, but many grass-roots activists wanted someone to pay for that political failure. Mr. Cantor’s national travels also took him away from his district and he rarely engaged with grass-roots activists.

In the June 5 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Bill McKibben declares his desire to “set the world on a fundamentally new course.” He’s inviting fellow climate-change activists to participate in a “People’s Climate March” in New York City on Sept. 20—which he hopes will be the “largest demonstration yet of human resolve in the face of climate change.”

Mr. McKibben is among the world’s most famous environmentalists. He’s written or edited 15 books and been awarded honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. He is also the founder of 350.org, whose goal is to reduce atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels to 350 parts per million from the current level of about 400 parts per million. To achieve that goal, he’s written that “we need to cut our fossil fuel use by a factor of twenty over the next few decades.”

But what are the actual implications of cutting fossil fuels 20-fold? Let’s “do the math,” as Mr. McKibben is fond of saying.

Global hydrocarbon consumption is now about 218 million barrels of oil equivalent energy a day, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which includes 83 million barrels of oil as well as about 75 million barrels of oil equivalent from coal and about 60 million barrels of oil equivalent from natural gas. Reducing that by a factor of 20 would cut global hydrocarbon use to the energy equivalent of 11 million barrels of oil a day, roughly the amount of energy now consumed by India, where 400 million people lack access to electricity.

In 2012, the average resident of planet Earth consumed about 1.3 gallons of oil-equivalent energy a day from hydrocarbons. If Mr. McKibben’s plan were enacted—and we shared those available hydrocarbons equally—-each of us would be allotted about eight fluid ounces of oil-equivalent energy from hydrocarbons a day. Today, the average resident of Bangladesh uses about half a liter of oil equivalent—slightly less than 17 ounces—a day. Under Mr. McKibben’s prescription, the average Bangladeshi would be required to cut his hydrocarbon use by about half.

The fall of Mosul, Iraq, to al Qaeda terrorists this week is as big in its implications as Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But from the Obama presidency, barely a peep.

Barack Obama is fiddling while the world burns. Iraq, Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria, Kenya, Syria. These foreign wildfires, with more surely to come, will burn unabated for two years until the United States has a new president. The one we’ve got can barely notice or doesn’t care.

Last month this is what Barack Obama said to the 1,064 graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy: “Four and a half years later, as you graduate, the landscape has changed. We have removed our troops from Iraq. We are winding down our war in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda’s leadership on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated.”

That let-the-sunshine-in line must have come back to the cadets, when news came Sunday that the Pakistani Taliban, who operate in that border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, had carried out a deadly assault on the main airport in Karachi, population 9.4 million. To clarify, the five Taliban Mr. Obama exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl are Afghan Taliban who operate on the other side of the border.

Within 24 hours of the Taliban attack in Pakistan, Boko Haram’s terrorists in Nigeria kidnapped 20 more girls, adding to the 270 still-missing—”our girls,” as they were once known.

Then Mosul fell. The al Qaeda affiliate known as ISIS stormed and occupied the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, population 1.8 million and not far from Turkey, Syria and Iran. It took control of the airport, government buildings, and reportedly looted some $430 million from Mosul’s banks. ISIS owns Mosul.

Iraq’s army in tatters, ISIS rolled south Wednesday and took the city of Tikrit. It is plausible that this Islamic wave will next take Samarra and then move on to Baghdad, about 125 miles south of Tikrit. They will surely stop outside Baghdad, but that would be enough. Iraq will be lost.