Sign In

Amid the bloody carnage, Angela Merkel is a beacon of sanity | Anne Perkins | Opinion | The Guardian

Yet out of the bloody carnage of violence and hate of Berlin on the Monday before Christmas comes the enviable impression of a country that is true to the values of liberal Europe.

Saving Europe From Itself—Again - WSJ

Saving Europe From Itself—Again A Russian aggressor could drive through NATO’s weak center or bite off its edges piece by piece. ENLARGE American soldiers en route to NATO exercises in the Baltics, May 27. Photo: Getty Images By Mark Helprin Updated Dec. 14, 2016 11:40 p.m. ET 127 COMMENTS Though Europeans bridle when confronted with the possibility that Americans have something to offer, the Champs Élysées is not called Unter den Linden, and the Thousand-Year Reich and Warsaw Pact are no more, because—intelligently, successfully, and sacrificially—the U.S. came three times to Europe’s aid. But for the past quarter-century the U.S. has had no effective, proactive strategy in regard to the defense of Europe. Should it not awaken to this with strategic clarity and resolve, the price may be beyond calculation. Although the Continent is dangerously weakened by ideological fevers, economic malaise and the importation of bereft masses from war-crazed cultures, keep your eye upon the sparrow—a resurgent, revanchist Russia, which with continued success in recobbling its lost empire will look westward to the rich lands between it and the Atlantic. Rather than arriving late as in the two world wars, the U.S. should take military and diplomatic measures now to deter yet another catastrophe. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was able to keep the Soviets at bay because its nuclear forces and resolution were at least equal to those of the U.S.S.R.; its powerful conventional elements were properly positioned opposite their adversaries; its command structure was unified; and American echelons were deployed in strength. Despite the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the migration of most of its members to NATO, and the U.S.S.R.’s collapse, the European military balance is shifting toward Russia. While the U.S. has reduced the number of its nuclear weapons, failed to modernize them, and pacified its nuclear doctrines, Russia has cut less, steadily modernized, and promiscuously issued nuclear threats. Some examples in regard to conventional forces: In 1987 the U.S. had 354,000 military personnel in Europe and surrounding waters, and 735 combat aircraft. Now it deploys 40,450 and 130, respectively. Between 1987 and 2015, Great Britain’s main battle tanks have dwindled to 227 from 1,200, France’s to 200 from 1,340, and Germany’s to 306 from 4,887. Britain’s combat aircraft have fallen to 194 from 596, France’s to 360 from 520, and Germany’s to 235 from 604. Given the strategic chaos in the Mediterranean, it is astounding that while in 1985 the U.S. Sixth Fleet often comprised two aircraft carriers, six nuclear submarines, and 28 other warships, during most of the Obama administration it had been reduced to one virtually unarmed command ship. Though to save themselves the Europeans must be pressured to increase defense expenditures, threatening publicly and without warning to refrain from U.S. treaty obligations, and eight years of military retreat under President Obama, have emboldened Russia and pushed Europe further into creating a European defense separate from NATO. Herding 28 countries into a coherent military structure is difficult enough without adding another level of command. And even if the possibility of aligning with Russia to balance out China were not met with Russian betrayal, the price would be Western Europe, which is obviously unacceptable. Were Europe merely to meet its minimum spending targets, military outlays would increase by 59%, or $87 billion annually. This close to $1 trillion over a decade would bolster its capacities and also allow for a richer variety of equipment, which—though more costly and unwieldy—would provide different tools for different problems, with multiple types, ranges, and heat and radar signatures vastly complicating an enemy’s planning. But reconstituting NATO’s strategic and conventional forces is not in itself sufficient to counter Russia’s carefully executed incremental strategies. Russia treats firmness as provocation justifying further Russian aggression, and sees fecklessness as an invitation to the same. Adding to the general instability, de facto U.S. abandonment of tactical nuclear weapons while Russia retains them removes NATO’s option of limited escalation, forcing it to rely on either its weakened conventional defenses or all out nuclear brinkmanship. To counter this, NATO needs a new form of flexible military-diplomatic response. To wit, a massive, newly deployed force that can quickly and with precise calibration respond to provocation, and with similar agility ease off in response to accommodation. No such structure now exists, due to NATO’s overall weakness and to the scattered deployment of its components, suitable to the defense of each individual nation more than to defeating an attack upon its center. Germany’s rapid westward conquests in both world wars might not have occurred had British armies not been sitting off to the side in England. This bitter lesson, leading to the success of strong central deployment in the Cold War, has now been forgotten. As NATO’s capabilities have contracted, the accession of new members has expanded its continental defense perimeter by 83%. The product of these two deficiencies is vulnerability similar to that of the interwar years of the 1920s and ’30s. An aggressor can drive through NATO’s weakly defended center or bite off its weakly defended edges piece by piece (starting, perhaps, with the Baltic republics). Concentrating the main NATO force near Russia’s borders would make them simultaneously too provocative and too vulnerable. Massing them in Germany would rob them of the ability to move in response to Russian action except to the Russian periphery. Better to base NATO’s main “column” in Germany and (a major diplomatic challenge) France. In response to Russian provocation, French-stationed forces could then be moved eastward—in a clear and substantive signal—and moved back just as easily. Tripwire forces could be sent to the Baltic and Poland as they are now (though now, with insufficient backing other than general nuclear warfare, Russia need not take them too seriously). Meanwhile, NATO’s center would be massively defended, which is the heart of the matter and the best insurance against Russian adventurism. Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, is the author of “Winter’s Tale,” “A Soldier of the Great War” and the forthcoming novel “Paris in the Present Tense.”

Brown Pundits: Islam is the rock on which the liberal order broke?

the legitimizing ideology that most modern states paid lip service to: things like legal equality, secularism, democracy, human rights, etc; this ideology had weaknesses and lacunae, but no serious competitor, a fact proven by the way even the most illiberal states tried to pay lip service to some or all of these ideals) was marching across the world. Btw, democratic socialism is just a variant of this post-enlightenment meme complex, even Marxist socialism is a variant (Marxist revolutionaries paid lip service (and more) to the same memes of equality and rights, but claimed that mainstream liberal Democracy failed to match its ideals, was a sham, etc etc). The place where this whole meme-complex REALLY hit a solid rock was in the Islamic world. THIS challenge proved most difficult for Western liberalism because large numbers (probably clear majorities) of Muslims simply did not accept the most fundamental assumptions of the post-enlightenment Western worldview. Their resistance exposed and undermined the whole project. And continues to do so. And all the other alternatives (most of them much stronger in "real-life" material terms than any Muslim country or party) like Great Russian Nationalism and its Orthodox Christian backstop, Chinese nationalism with Confucian and fascist characteristics, nascent Japanese nationalism, Hardcore Hindutva in India and so on, all of them have become stronger because Islam had already wedged the door open and continues to do so. In short, here is the thesis question for the day: If  and when modern Liberalism (broadly defined, you know the drill) crashes and burns (who knows, it may not), will future historians look back and say that Islam was the rock on which it first and decisively broke? Was Islam the kid who asked about the emperor's clothes with sufficient naive determination and clarity, and stubborn unwillingness to accept "the facts".. and opened the way to the future? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Right’s Unhealthy Media Mania | commentary

By the time Trump faced a rump rebellion in Cleveland, the threat of a uniform backlash against the Republican National Committee from conservative media outlets was enough to cow the RNC into playing blocking tackle for Trump.

Peter Laslett reviews ‘Communiqué of the State Statistical Bureau of the People’s Republic of China on Major Figures in the 1982 Population Census’, ‘Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China’ by Judith Stacey, ‘Long Lives’ by Deborah Davis-Friedmann and ‘Beyond Sixty-Five’ by Carole Haber · LRB 15 March 1984

That the Chinese must stop their mounting numbers from eating away every hard-won increase in their resources, as has been the case until now, will be granted on every side, except by those in the extremest grip of ideological orthodoxy. But the long-term consequences of interference – ignorant and irresponsible interference, as it seems to some observers – with the population processes of their huge society could be as disastrous as the consequences of their earlier decision that it was doctrinally desirable to let the population rip. For the closer they get to the target of only two hundred million more by the end of the century, and to the one-child family as the norm, the older their population will eventually become, and the quicker the aging process will be. For the next twenty-five to thirty years, not much is likely to happen, and the campaigners have taken comfort from this fact. Thereafter, the proportion of the elderly will begin to grow, as it did in Britain between 1940 and 1980 – slowly at first, but at a gathering pace, which might soon become faster than the most rapid such development known to demographers. By the third or fourth decade of the 2000s, a quarter or even a third of the population would be over sixty. One more unknown and unique demographic situation in the largest population in the world.

David Who? - WSJ

Mrs. Clinton, in other words, has given the Americans she deplores a new identity that they can be proud of. This column is going to start capitalizing Deplorable when used as a noun, and we’d like to suggest a broader definition, one that likely includes many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters as well: Have you ever been wrongfully accused of being “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it”? If so, you are a Deplorable. Have you ever stopped yourself from expressing an opinion because you worried that you might be wrongfully accused of being “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it”? If so, you are a Deplorable. Have you ever felt bad for somebody who was wrongfully accused of being “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it,” but said nothing because you were afraid offering a defense would stigmatize you? If so, you are a Deplorable. Mike Pence was right. David Duke is not a Deplorable; he is a racist. Thanks to the maladroit Mrs. Clinton, we now have the language to make that distinction.

The Voices of 9/11 You Need to Hear | PJ Media

…Hillary was shaped by liberation theology…radical feminism, and the outer reaches of the political Left.  In 1972, she interned for former Communist Party lawyer Robert Truehaft, husband of prominent communist writer Jessica Mitford.  Both were Stalinists and rigidly pro-Soviet… Hillary Clinton has never repudiated her involvement with these extremists or explained her opinion of their beliefs.  She hasn’t had to.

Islamism and the Left | Dissent Magazine

So the Islamic revival is a kind of testing moment for the left: can we recognize and resist “the possibility of tyranny?” Some of us are trying to meet the test; many of us are actively failing it. One reason for this failure is the terrible fear of being called “Islamophobic.” Anti-Americanism and a radical version of cultural relativism also play an important part, but these are older pathologies. Here is something new: many leftists are so irrationally afraid of an irrational fear of Islam that they haven’t been able to consider the very good reasons for fearing Islamist zealots—and so they have difficulty explaining what’s going on in the world.

Lee Smith: Obama’s Syria Policy Isn’t a ‘Mistake.’ It’s Deliberate. – Tablet Magazine

Roger Cohen, who has written several rightly outraged columns the last few years about the administration’s Syria policy, advocated for the Iran deal and criticized those who didn’t as warmongers lined up behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It’s no service to Jews or Israel or Middle Eastern peace, for major Jewish organizations,” wrote Cohen, “to give airtime to Netanyahu on Iran rather than Obama. The alternative to this deal, as Obama said, is war.” For Cohen, it seems the opposite of conflict is cultural exchange and commerce, which is perhaps why he serves as one of the featured tour guides in the Times’ Travels to Persia business. The JCPOA reopened Iran for investment, as Cohen explained, when the deal was implemented in January. “For Iran, the arrival of ‘implementation day’ means the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions and access to about $100 billion in frozen assets. A big nation is open for business again, back in the global financial system and world oil market.” Here, Cohen has unintentionally put his finger on why those who supported the Iran deal and criticize Obama’s Syria policy see no connection between the two. It is because business is frequently not the opposite of war. In fact, the reality is that giving money to a state at war means funding that state’s wars. The reason that so many journalists and opinion-makers of good conscience cannot make the connection between the Iran deal and the Syrian war is because the truth is too awful. The president’s policy is not simply a matter of a lack of vision or political will. The money Iran received through the JCPOA, as well as the $1.7 billion paid in ransom for American hostages, has helped fund Iran’s war in Syria—which the president proclaimed to be Iran’s business and not ours

Our Blindness - WSJ

God help the army that must fight for an idea rather than an objective. After somehow failing to argue competently on behalf of a patently justifiable invasion, and as its more specious arguments were collapsing, the Bush administration then pivoted with breathtaking enthusiasm to nation building, something so Clinton-tinged that it had previously been held in contempt. The more that nation building in Iraq is in doubt, the more the mission creeps into a doubling of bets in hope of covering those that are lost. Now the goal is to reforge the politics, and perforce the culture, not merely of Iraq but of the billion-strong Islamic world from Morocco to the South Seas. That--evangelical democracy writ overwhelmingly large--is the manic idea for which the army must fight. But no law of nature says a democracy is incapable of supporting terrorism, so even if every Islamic capital were to become a kind of Westminster with curlicues, the objective of suppressing terrorism might still find its death in the inadequacy of the premise.

The Times's Dealings With Julian Assange - NYTimes.com

But while I do not regard Assange as a partner, and I would hesitate to describe what WikiLeaks does as journalism, it is chilling to contemplate the possible government prosecution of WikiLeaks for making secrets public, let alone the passage of new laws to punish the dissemination of classified information, as some have advocated. Taking legal recourse against a government official who violates his trust by divulging secrets he is sworn to protect is one thing. But criminalizing the publication of such secrets by someone who has no official obligation seems to me to run up against the First Amendment and the best traditions of this country. As one of my colleagues asks: If Assange were an understated professorial type rather than a character from a missing Stieg Larsson novel, and if WikiLeaks were not suffused with such glib antipathy toward the United States, would the reaction to the leaks be quite so ferocious? And would more Americans be speaking up against the threat of reprisals?

Keeping Turkey in the U.S. Orbit - WSJ

Not all of Ankara’s lashing out at Washington derives from Mr. Erdogan’s cynicism and ideological hubris. Some of it is in reaction to the same sudden shift in U.S. policy under Mr. Obama that has jolted allies world-wide. Leaders from Kiev to Jerusalem to Tokyo are familiar with Ankara’s discontent. Turkey has felt the jolt most acutely in Syria. Mr. Erdogan took Mr. Obama at his word when the American said in 2011 that Bashar Assad “must go.” He also took seriously Mr. Obama’s red line on chemical weapons. Turkey’s much-maligned early policy in Syria included overt support for moderate rebels and a laissez-faire policy that enabled the movement of more hard-line jihadists into the country. Ankara expected that Washington would favor its traditional allies and disfavor others: namely the Iranian mullahs, Mr. Assad and their various Shiite proxies. Mr. Obama scrambled that friend-enemy pattern. He awkwardly ignored the red line, and the U.S. carried out secret talks that would culminate in a nuclear deal with Tehran and tie America’s hands against Mr. Assad.

Why Putin wants a Trump victory (so much he might even be trying to help him) - The Washington Post

Clinton will never recognize Crimea as part of Russia, seeks to strengthen relations with our allies and speaks out about human rights.

Why Putin wants a Trump victory (so much he might even be trying to help him) - The Washington Post

U.S. electoral experts, not me, must judge whether Russian efforts will sway the elections this fall. From my amateur armchair, the tactics seem crude and counterproductive. Does Sputnik tweeting #CrookedHillary really win over any undecided voters? I hope not, but I don’t know.

Hubert Humphrey - Wikiquote

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

Why the 2nd Amendment – Walter E. Williams

“Certainly, one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. … The right of the citizen to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible.”

Media Playing Right Into Trump's Hands On Russian Hacking

Donald Trump gave a wild press conference, saying outlandish things to highlight Hillary Clinton's inability to protect national security. It worked.

THE EMPIRE AND EGO OF DONALD TRUMP - NYTimes.com

Mr. Trump assiduously cultivates a more conservative public image now, a gentleman of taste in a navy- blue suit with discreetly striped shirts and blue ties, who weekends with his family in Greenwich, Conn. Last spring he forsook the Hamptons, his former habitat, to buy an estate in the conservative community. His pastor, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale of New York, avowed that he is ''kindly and courteous in certain business negotiations and has a profound streak of honest humility.'' But Mr. Trump prides himself on being street smart and boasted that Brooklyn and Queens, where he was raised, are among ''the toughest, smartest places in the world.'' Mr. Trump prefers the vocabulary of war and sports to document his exploits, acknowledging ''I don't like to lose.'' Nor does he like to receive less than full credit for his victories.

Trump and the Unknowable Moment - WSJ

Ted Cruz did himself damage. By the end of his tireless campaign for the nomination he was semi-endearing. Wednesday night he resurrected Snaky Ted. He spoke highly of freedom and went after President Obama. Sometimes he half-laughed after speaking a line, as if to say You know this is showbiz, right? It showed an unbecoming detachment. He told the audience not to stay home in November but vote for the right person, then forgot to say who that person might be. If you can’t endorse, good for you and stay home. That isn’t politics, it’s basic human comportment. If someone you’re certain is awful invites you to a party, you politely decline. You don’t go, walk into the room, and punch your host in the head. Mr. Cruz miscalculated, thinking if he snubbed Trump half the delegates would cheer. Instead almost all booed. He thought the media would laud his courage and integrity. They saw him as wounded and treated him as prey. When his campaign ended in June, I attended a small dinner in his honor. Mr. Cruz was charming, modest and funny. When we said goodnight I told him I felt, in retrospect, that I hadn’t always been just to him and was glad I’d have a chance to be more generous in the future. Apparently I will need still more time. What a jerk.

Trump’s Mum Supporters - WSJ

So let’s say it: As long as you don’t have to pay a social price for it, a Trump presidency might not be so bad. A Trump victory would be inconceivable without his bringing a GOP Congress along. His business friends would steer him away from wild actions. Mr. Trump himself has said he has no intention of destabilizing the economy. We might get some real reform out of a Paul Ryan-led Congress. This would be Mr. Trump’s easiest path to the victories (“we’re winning again!”) he craves, and the reason some prominent conservatives like Larry Kudlow have risked their good names by lending them to Mr. Trump. The stock market has been straight up since Brexit, and since polls started showing Mr. Trump competitive with Hillary Clinton. Some credit central banks or turn up their hands, but a Trump reflation-with-tax-cuts, if the alternative is a Clinton reflation with a blowout expansion of entitlements, probably sounds OK to many investors.

Healing After Dallas, Without Obama - WSJ

Like others on the political left, Mr. Obama has made a habit of minimizing or ignoring the high black crime rates that obviously underlie tensions between poor minority communities and cops. More than 95% of black shooting deaths don’t involve the police, which would seem to undercut the notion that trigger-happy cops are hunting black men. Sadly, rates of murder, rape, robbery, assault and other violent crimes are 7 to 10 times higher among blacks than among whites, but liberals who don’t want to alienate black voters go to great lengths to explain away this behavior and focus instead on police conduct. Yes, Mr. Obama has denounced what happened in Dallas, but he has also been winking at a Black Lives Matter movement that has spent the past two years holding rallies that call for (and sometimes feature) violence against cops. Like the president, these protesters maintain that the police are motivated by racial prejudice, not by the behavior of suspects. They insist that a biased criminal-justice system explains the black crime rate, not antisocial behavior. By indulging this narrative, Mr. Obama and his fans in the liberal media were playing with fire, and the Dallas carnage was the result.

Dallas police shooting: Suspect told police he 'wanted to kill white people' as 12 officers shot and five dead

Chief David Brown appealed for unity in the wake of the attacks, which left five police dead and nine wounded - seven of them cops - saying, "This must stop - this divisiveness between our police and our citizens."

EU referendum: German and French to unveil European superstate blueprint post-Brexit | Politics | News | Daily Express

The foreign ministers of France and Germany are due to reveal a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states in what is being described as an “ultimatum”.  Under the radical proposals EU countries will lose the right to have their own army, criminal law, taxation system or central bank, with all those powers being transferred to Brussels.  Related articles Fury over plans for European-wide ‘tax harmonisation’ How the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels seized the power Controversially member states would also lose what few controls they have left over their own borders, including the procedure for admitting and relocating refugees.  The plot has sparked fury and panic in Poland - a traditional ally of Britain in the fight against federalism - after being leaked to Polish news channel TVP Info.  GETTY Polish politicians say the plans include loss of control of a number of key policy areas GETTY Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski has blasted the plan The public broadcaster reports that the bombshell proposal will be presented to a meeting of the Visegrad group of countries - made up of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia - by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier later today.

From Great Britain to Little England - The New York Times

Many European countries tolerate far higher levels of immigration. Scotland, with a new community of some 55,000 Poles, actively encourages it. In England, support for Brexit and for the xenophobic U.K. Independence Party is often in inverse proportion to the scale of the problem: The fewer immigrants there are in a town, the louder the outcry against foreigners. In contrast, polling in inner London, where about four out of 10 inhabitants are now foreign-born, shows a clear preference for staying in Europe.

From Great Britain to Little England - The New York Times

In England, support for Brexit and for the xenophobic U.K. Independence Party is often in inverse proportion to the scale of the problem: The fewer immigrants there are in a town, the louder the outcry against foreigners. In contrast, polling in inner London, where about four out of 10 inhabitants are now foreign-born, shows a clear preference for staying in Europe.

Our Iranian Allies | The Weekly Standard

Obama is not a bystander, an impartial observer who just decided to let American allies—or in his words "free riders"—twist in the wind while America turned to its domestic issues. He switched sides. The president has been playing for the opposing team for several years now, and has enlisted the government of the United States, including its armed forces, intelligence community, and diplomatic corps, on the side of Iran.