RUTHFULLY YOURS

As my weekend column indicates, I am not as down as Patrick, Eliana, and some of my other colleagues on the hypothetical Iraq question the media is pressing on GOP presidential candidates —​ viz., Was it a mistake to invade, knowing what we now know? It’s a very fair point that the question should not be asked solely of Republicans – Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who supported the war should be grilled, too.

Maybe I come out differently on this because I don’t accept the narrowing of the question to a matter of whether Saddam had a WMD program and stockpiles to the degree foretold by intelligence we now know was faulty. If that were all there was to it, I’d concur that there is nothing to be gained about this line of inquiry —​ as Patrick says, if President Bush was right to think Iraq had the WMDs but “almost certainly could not have known” it did not, then it is pointless to try to corner Republicans into admitting Bush made a mistake.

But I don’t think, and never have, that the WMD were the most significant part of the equation. That’s why I argued repeatedly that too much emphasis was placed on them.

According to Official Documents Government documents reveal the U.S. administration lied to the American people about Benghazi and believed ISIS would evolve into a caliphate.

Confidential documents obtained from the U.S. government appear to confirm that the American public was lied to repeatedly by this U.S. administration regarding the September 11, 2012 attack on an American government compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Documents obtained through legal channels by the watchdog organization Judicial Watch and discussed on Fox News revealed several significant facts about what government officials knew and when they knew it.

One fact revealed by the legally-obtained documents is that within days of its occurrence, the U.S. intelligence agencies knew that the attack in Benghazi was planned to coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on U.S. soil. This information was contained in a September 16 memo which was sent to the National Security Council, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.

There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science and which threaten the economy.

Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor cost jobs. “Clean Power” is the name given to the EPA policy to reduce overall U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It is requiring each state to cut its emissions by varying amounts using a baseline established by the EPA.

Simply said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions. Carbon dioxide is not “a pollutant” as the EPA claims. It is, along with oxygen for all living creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation. The more CO2 the better crops yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns. From a purely scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.

For a number of years, China’s military has increased its military spending by higher annual percentages than either the USA or the USSR at the height of the Cold War. It now must be considered a military and economic superpower with aggressive tendencies that threaten not only its neighbors but the interests of peace throughout the globe.

Beijing’s forces have nearly twice the manpower of the U.S. (2,285,000 vs. 1,429,995). It will have more ships than the U.S. navy by 2020 (351 vs. 250) and more tanks than the U.S. (9,000 vs. 8,725.) The U.S. has a two to one lead in aircraft. However, that lead in quality and quantity may shrink rapidly as budget cuts in the U.S. and continued double digit increases in the PLA budget come to fruition.

When one of our governments – state or federal — takes a life it does so pursuant to the Constitution as filtered by its statutory authority. But the debate on whether the death penalty is a remedy society should ever impose will never end.

Everyone in the media seem to assume that our federal government knows what it’s doing and applies its authorities exactly as they’re supposed to be applied, but that’s not at all clear. When the media consider – and too infrequently condemn — other nations’ decisions on the death penalty, they seem to forget our standards entirely and judge those actions on grounds that are entirely political. Consider the cases of ISIS commander Abu Sayyaf, Boston Marathon bomber Dzokar Tsarnaev and former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin met recently in what they euphemistically described as a kumbaya moment. Presumably there was a pledge to work together to resolve crises in Syria and the Ukraine, Secretary Kerry said neither side was seeking a “major breakthrough,” but instead they seek to keep “communications open,” this is “diplospeak” for resolution isn’t in the cards.

Before meeting with Kerry, Putin called for a continued buildup of Russian forces. He also contends that Russia should “retool its military industry to replace foreign suppliers…” If there was concession on Putin’s part, it is “continued talks.” Of course, there was consensus on one issue: unity on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Concluding the Camp David Gulf Cooperation summit, President Obama promised to help secure the Gulf States from cyber attacks by Iran and ISIS. He announced that a working group will be formed to “consider methods to better secure their military and critical infrastructure networks “against potential terrorist-launched cyberattacks” The U.S. would also help setting the Gulf States to up to creating “national policy workshops, and improve information-sharing.”

Earlier this year, in his closing remarks of the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, President Obama acknowledged al Qaeda’s and ISIS expert-use of the Internet to recruit “young people online, in cyberspace.”

“For the history of our race, and each individual’s experience,are sown thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told is immortal.”Mark Twain“Advice to Youth,” 1882

An old joke goes: “How can you tell when a politician is lying?” The answer: “When his lips are moving.” While that may not be universally true, lying and deceit have infested our culture to an extent we no longer expect the truth. Lying is not new, but it has become pervasive.

White lies have always been around; they have always been acceptable and, in fact, are critical to a smoothly-functioning society. What characterizes such lies is that they are told to make someone else feel good, with little or no harm inflicted. For example, when my wife shows off a new outfit it is in my interest to express admiration. In turn, she will say things to inflate my ego, while (I am sure) crossing her fingers behind her back. Lying begins early. I recall occasions when, as a child, lying was preferable to the spanking I would get for a broken window or letting goats into the garden. The 2009 film “The Invention of Lying” depicted what the world would be like without lying – intentionally blunt and cruel, with no religion and no fiction.

In recent years, whenever I have had an opportunity to speak to an American audience concerned about anti-Israel activism and rising anti-Semitism, I point out that in these matters the U.S. is only a few years behind Britain and Europe. Look what is happening on the old continent, I say, and you can see your future. Reading Ruth Wisse’s important essay, “Anti-Semitism Goes to School,” is a reminder that the years change faster than my speeches—so much faster that I feel I can finally say, “Commiserations, America: you have caught up with us.”

It is fascinating how closely our situations resemble each other. Throughout my adult life I have spoken repeatedly on British campuses, and the patterns described by Wisse, though still shocking, are deeply familiar. I have been ushered out of back doors, had things thrown at me, and on one occasion—during an Israeli engagement in Gaza—asked not to come to a London campus because certain students were threatening violence against any visitor known to be pro-Israel.

American society is solidly free of the Israel-centered anti-Semitism that dominates its universities. Can that last?

At the end of her sweeping probe into the normalization of anti-Semitism on American campuses, Ruth Wisse lays down a double challenge. Can the United States, the world’s pre-eminent liberal democracy and the one most exceptionally hospitable to its Jewish minority, retain that exceptional status “by recognizing the threat [posed by contemporary anti-Semitism] and fighting it off?” For their part, can American Jews, by gathering their mettle, help this country’s universities “heal themselves of this most deadly pathology?”

In fact, the challenge is not just national but global. What happens in America will determine whether the Jewish people can maintain a center of power and influence in the Diaspora as well as in the sovereign state of Israel. At this critical juncture, as Wisse acknowledges, American Jewish political power, if it is to be effective, needs to be not just nursed but projected. The turmoil of recent years has been bruising: alongside the campus crisis and BDS, we have seen America’s bilateral relations with Israel collapse, in tandem with an assault of unprecedented scale against the “Israel Lobby,” a hydra-headed creature whose efforts to derail American foreign policy were menacingly portrayed in a 2007 book of that name by the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.