Celebrating America's Greatness

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862 

We hear far too much about why the United States of America is not perfect, but we do not hear enough about why the United States of America is great. President Abraham Lincoln understood and eloquently articulated the essence of American greatness: the American project is "the last best hope of earth" to ensure that people can be free and can live without fear of oppression.

Boxing promoter Don King used to proclaim, "Only in America!" Even though King was the king of hyperbole, that statement is far from hyperbolic. In the United States, it is possible for a person to rise from humble beginnings to achieve great things. Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin and became perhaps the greatest U.S. President. LeBron James was raised by a poor teenage single mother in Akron, and became the first active NBA player to achieve billionaire status. 

The American Dream is founded on principles of equality, democracy and freedom: all people should have equal rights (which does not necessarily result in equitable outcomes), all people should have the opportunity to participate in the democratic process, and all people should have the freedom to pursue happiness as long as their pursuit of happiness does not interfere with the rights of other people. 

We fought a bitter Civil War to get our house in order, and ensure that all Americans would be free. Later, we defended freedom around the globe as the driving force for Allied victories in World War I and World War II. Without the courage and ingenuity of the United States of America, the world would be a much worse place--and it is important to remember that, particularly when some people focus intently on real or perceived shortcomings of the United States of America without acknowledging how much good the United States of America has done around the world.

Winston Churchill declared, "Democracy is the worst form of government, apart from all the others that have been tried." Democracy is flawed because humans are flawed, but other systems of government are much worse because other systems of government deny equality and freedom to entire classes of people based on religion, race, and/or ethnicity. 

It is chic to criticize capitalism, but an economy based on capitalism is--much like a government based on democracy--the worst form of an economy apart from all the others that have been tried. As I noted almost a year ago, the embrace of socialism by an increasing number of people highlights the difference between being educated and being informed: 

There is a significant difference between being educated and being informed. To become educated, one merely has to fulfill the requirements of a specific degree-granting institution; upon doing so, one receives a doctoral degree--but it is a dangerous fallacy to confuse being educated with being informed, because education far too often involves being indoctrinated with false narratives. In contrast, being informed means thinking with an open mind, consuming information from objective sources while considering information from subjective sources with skepticism, and then synthesizing the acquired information to base opinions on facts and logic.

Our politics, our schools, and our media outlets have far too many educated people and far too few informed people. Educated people often spew ideas that Vladimir Nabokov would correctly dismiss as "poshlost." One such idea is that socialism is good. 

It is most likely that I would not be alive today without the United States. Members from both sides of my family immigrated to the United States more than 100 years ago from areas that Nazi Germany later occupied. During the Holocaust, the Nazis and their enthusiastic collaborators murdered six million of Europe's 9.5 million Jews, including the vast majority of Jews from where my family used to live. My maternal grandmother came to the United States from Kobryn (a small city then located in Russia, and now located in Belarus) in the early 1900s. Kobryn's Jewish population on the eve of World War II was around 6500, and the number of Jews from Kobryn who survived the Holocaust can be counted on one hand. My maternal grandfather and his family fled to the United States from Bialystok, Poland in the early 1900s; one of my relatives was among the 70 Jews killed in the 1906 Bialystok Pogrom. The Nazis murdered most of the 50,000 Jews remaining in Bialystok in the early 1940s.

My father's side of the family trekked from Kosice (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in Slovakia) to Germany and then to the United States in the early 1900s. Not every member of my father's family chose to leave Europe or was able to leave Europe before the ascent of the Nazis, and it is horrifying to think about the fate of family members who stayed in Europe and were in countries occupied by the Nazis. A railway went directly from Kosice to Auschwitz.

Without the United States of America--and without my family's brave decision to start over in a new country--I would not be here to write these words. It would be worse than ungrateful for me to slander the United States of America, or to be silent while others slander the United States of America.

Happy 250th Birthday, United States of America! 

Syllogism Saturday, Iran Edition

Leftists claim to support voting rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and minority rights. They claim to oppose Donald Trump because they assert that he poses a threat to voting rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and minority rights.

In the United States today, we have elections, women's rights are protected de jure and de facto, we have freedom of speech, and minority rights are protected de jure and de facto. In the past 20 years, at various times the Democratic Party has controlled the White House and/or Congress and at other times the Republican Party has controlled the White House and/or Congress. It is evident statistically that approximately 40% of voters vote Democratic in each election, approximately 40% of voters vote Republican in each election, and approximately 20% of voters swing back and forth between the parties. 

In short, the United States has a healthy, thriving democracy; partisans from each side claim that electing the other side to power will mean the end of democracy, but we managed to survive power switching back and forth without losing our freedoms and without the country collapsing.

After the Islamists--supported by Leftists--seized power in Iran in 1979, Iranians have had no voting rights, no women's rights, no freedom of speech, and no minority rights.  

Logically, anyone who supports voting rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and minority rights would not support any person, entity or country that threatens voting rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and minority rights--yet, after President Trump took military action against an Iranian regime that has slaughtered thousands of dissidents while opening calling for "Death to America," Leftists who were silent about Iranian repression are now quite vocal about opposing U.S. military action against Iran.

A syllogism demonstrates that Leftists are either lying about supporting human rights or are being hypocritical by being silent about Iran while attacking President Trump: 

1) Leftists claim to support human rights (including voting rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and minority rights).

2) Iran represses human rights (including voting rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and minority rights). 

3) If Leftists truly support human rights then they must oppose Iran's repression of human rights. 

Iran's regime has been trampling human rights for nearly 50 years. President Trump's opponents accuse him of threatening human rights, but the reality is that in the United States today citizens have human rights--including the right to publicly criticize President Trump.

The fact that Leftists are focused on attacking President Trump while ignoring Iran's repression of human rights forces one to conclude that Leftists do not really support human rights, because if Leftists support human rights then they would focus their energies toward confronting an Iranian regime that represses human rights instead of focusing their energies on confronting a President who is providing Iranians with a golden opportunity to overthrow a regime that has oppressed them for nearly 50 years. 

Acknowledging that President Trump is right to confront Iran does not require liking President Trump or agreeing with any of his other policies--but failing to acknowledge that President Trump is right to confront Iran exposes Leftist self-proclaimed human rights activists for being more focused on partisan politics than on protecting human rights. 

Pictures of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Bring Several Thoughts to Mind

Looking at the pictures of the four brave young men who just fell in battle in Gaza to defend Israel, I have many thoughts but three thoughts come to the forefront:

1) If Israel were truly trying to commit genocide then she would not put her soldiers at risk in building to building targeted combat but she would just bomb Gaza to oblivion. 

2) If Israel were truly an "apartheid state" as the modern blood libel insists, then pictures of her soldiers would not look like a United Colors of Benetton ad. The reality is that tiny Israel--just twice the size of L.A. County--is the only nation between Morocco and Pakistan that embraces ethnic diversity while having free elections, free speech, women's rights, and religious freedom. An Arab who publicly questions Israel's right to exist can run for election and serve in Israel's Knesset (Parliament); the equivalent opportunity does not exist in any other country in that region. 

The outside agitators and brainwashed fools who are rampaging across U.S. college campuses chanting hate speech against Jews and Israel probably could not find Gaza on a map, and they have no clue about the historical truth about Israel or Gaza; the propaganda they spout is not only false but it is not even internally consistent: I am waiting for them to decide if (1) Gaza was a thriving area until Israel bombed it or (2) Gaza was an "open air prison." Logically, both cannot be true, but once you decide to chant "From the River to the Sea..." you abandoned logic a long time ago.

3) By pressuring Israel to delay the Rafah operation and then refusing to deliver various weapons to Israel, the United States emboldened Hamas, gave Hamas time to prepare, and thus put Israeli lives at risk. A stronger Israeli leader than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have either sent forces into Rafah weeks ago, or else made the determination that instead of endangering Israeli soldiers in close combat Israel must bomb into submission the entrenched Hamas forces.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq. provided a brilliant analysis of the history of American diplomatic pressure leading to catastrophic results, and he concluded, "The United States can weather its bad policy choices; it is big country protected by two oceans. It rarely pays any price for its diplomatic follies. That price is paid by its erstwhile allies pressured into acting against their own interests." 

In order to survive, Israel must be brave and must act in her own self interest. When Menachem Begin was Prime Minister of Israel and Joe Biden was a U.S. Senator, Begin rebuked Biden by declaring, "Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid." 

Unfortunately, Netanyahu must be an octopus, because it seems that he does not have two trembling knees but eight trembling knees that paralyze his ability to move decisively. He bears great responsibility for weakening Israel by repeatedly caving in to outside pressure for the past two decades, and if he wants to salvage what is left of his good name then he only has two choices: finish the job in Gaza and then resign, or resign now to make room for a true leader who will finish the job in Gaza.

Finishing the job means, at a minimum, the following:

1) Hamas is eliminated as a functioning terrorist, military, and political entity.

2) Hamas' state sponsors--including but perhaps not limited to Iran and Qatar--must pay reparations for the killed, for the injured, and for the destruction of property.

3) All hostages held by Hamas must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Just hours after Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack, I predicted the following:

The broad outline of events for the next few weeks is sadly predictable:

1) For the next 24-48 hours, America and many Western countries will express sympathy for Israel.

2) After 48 hours at most, attention will shift to Israel's allegedly "disproportionate" response, and both sides--but mostly Israel--will be urged to "act with restraint."

3) Most media outlets will present false narratives about alleged "legitimate Palestinian grievances" that supposedly justify Hamas' attacks. Few people will have the courage to publicly state the truth: 

There has never been a sovereign country called Palestine, nor is there a distinct Palestinian people. If you don't believe me, then consider the words of Zuheir Mohsen, who was a high-ranking PLO leader in the 1970s. In a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Mohsen declared:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

The word Palestine has nothing to do with Arab or Islamic history, but it dates back to the Latin name that the Romans gave to Judea (the second Jewish Commonwealth) after conquering and subjugating the Jewish people (and the Latin name is derived from a Greek word). After destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Romans renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, and they proudly printed coins bearing the words "Judea Capta." The Roman Empire was long ago consigned to history's dustbin, but the Jewish people are still here and the Jewish people have reestablished their historical state in their historical land. We know when the first Jewish Commonwealth was founded (roughly 3000 years ago), we know its approximate and fluctuating borders, we know that Jerusalem was its political capital and main religious center, we know when that state was conquered by the Babylonians (roughly 2500 years ago), we know when the Maccabees established a second Jewish Commonwealth (roughly 2200 years ago), we know when the second Jewish Commonwealth was conquered by the Roman Empire (roughly 2100 years ago), and we know when the final Jewish revolt against Rome was defeated (less than 2000 years ago). We know that the people in the first and second Jewish Commonwealths spoke Hebrew. 

In contrast, the notion of a distinct Palestinian Arab nation is quite recent, and has no historical basis. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was founded in Cairo, Egypt in 1964, with funding and support provided by the Soviet Union. What exactly was the PLO founded to "liberate"? In 1964, Egypt controlled Gaza, while Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria plus the eastern portion of Jerusalem. If the PLO had been truly interested in creating a Palestinian national state in Gaza plus the West Bank then why was the PLO conducting terrorist attacks against Israel, a nation that had no control over the areas that the PLO supposedly wanted to "liberate"? Of course, the reality is that the Soviet Union helped create the PLO to destabilize Israel and thus increase the Soviet Union's influence and power in the region. This was all about oil and about expanding Communism's reach, and had nothing to do with helping "Palestinians" or creating a "Palestinian" nation. That is why the PLO and other Arab/Islamic terrorist groups are still waging war against Israel decades after Israel gave up control of Gaza and of portions of the so-called West Bank: the goal is not creating a "Palestinian" state but rather destroying the Jewish State. The PLO has not even attempted to create a functioning government in Gaza, because the PLO was not created to govern, does not know how to govern, and has no interest in governing. 

This is a tragedy not only for Israel, but also for the innocent Arabs who are not terrorists and who just want to live in peace; being placed under the control of the PLO was the worst thing that happened to those Arabs, but many media outlets would rather blame Israel than examine and explain historical truths.

Until the nations of the world, the U.N., and major media outlets speak truth to power about both Israel and about the Palestine myth, there will never be Mideast peace.

4) In three to six weeks, Israel will declare victory. That victory will result in some form of limited ceasefire or Israel ending major military operations--but Gaza will still be governed by Hamas, and large portions of Judea and Samaria will still be governed by the terrorist organization that calls itself the Palestinian Authority, even though there is no such country as Palestine and the only "authority" that this terrorist organization exercises is waging war against Israel.

It has taken a bit longer than I expected to reach stage four but--sadly--the broad outline of events that I predicted has unfolded as I expected, which is a tragedy not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for democracy and freedom in general. Victory for Hamas--and this is turning into a victory for Hamas--is defeat for anyone who values democracy, freedom, and human rights.

Words Alone Will not Stop Vladimir Putin

Harsh words do not stop autocratic nationalists from killing their neighbors--harsh actions--specifically, military actions--are necessary. We must confront Vladimir Putin with sufficient force to stop him from conquering Ukraine; every day that we fail to do this increases the risks and the costs, without providing any benefit to us or Ukraine. People like Putin are not deterred by words or by economic sanctions; the lessons of history are clear regarding this. The whole world is watching not just Putin, but us. The United States not only symbolizes democracy, but the United States is the most powerful democracy in the world. Are we willing to fight for freedom, as our brave Founding Fathers did, or will we speak loudly while carrying a hollow stick that we are afraid to swing? 

If U.S. intervention in Ukraine will lead to World War III, then that means that World War III is inevitable, and the only question is whether we prefer to fight that war while Ukraine is independent or after Ukraine has been conquered (or destroyed). If Putin is willing to fight World War III over Ukraine, then nothing we say to him is going to change his mind, which means we can either let him conquer every country he decides to conquer or we can stop him in his tracks right now. Appeasing Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany did not prevent World War II, but appeasement made that war more costly and deadly. It is fair to say if Hitler had been stopped in 1936 then atomic bombs would probably not have been dropped in 1945: the West's fear of a World War will not prevent a dictator from starting a World War, particularly if that dictator believes that his only choice is to conquer or be deposed/killed.

So far, there is no reason to believe that our leaders are capable of rising to this challenge. The defining moment of President Biden's administration is the triumph of the Taliban in the wake of his poorly planned and ill-conceived retreat of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The Biden administration has yet to find its voice or footing on the most important foreign policy issues ranging from Ukraine to China to Iran to Afghanistan. The world is watching us. Other countries could do more, too, but we have the responsibility to lead the charge.

In Sympathy Isn't Enough for Ukraine, Victor Pinchuk declares:

We thank you for the food, the money, the sympathy and the painted blue-and-yellow flags. But if you want to save us, Ukraine needs planes, antiaircraft and antitank missiles, armed drones and other weapons of war. So I beg our friends in the West: Please give Ukraine the planes and other weapons it needs—now. Stop buying coal and oil from Russia. Don't think about it; don't evaluate options; don't consider. Just do it. Time is life. I ask the European Union to make Ukraine a candidate for membership. An independent Ukraine belongs in the EU.

I know these actions entail risks. But in a deadly fight, you can't help without taking risks. And there are even greater risks to inaction. What will happen if you let Russia tear up the international system, destroy a sovereign nation, commit mass murder? The aggressor can be stopped only with force. We have to match Russia's brutality with our speed, decisiveness and determination. We can't keep worrying that the aggressor will escalate. We must make him worry that we can also escalate.

I hope that President Biden and Congress rise to the challenge, but I am not optimistic; there is nothing about Biden's life and career suggesting that he has what it takes to lead the the Free World during these momentous times, while the loudest voices in Congress speak more about their perceived self-interests than about our national duties and responsibilities.

Mr. Pinchuk concludes, "You have a chance to stand up to evil. Take a risk. Trust your conscience. Save the values and ideals of the West. In this moment of crisis, Ukrainians don’t say SOS, 'save our souls.' Ukrainians' lives are in danger, but their souls are safe. We say to you: Save your souls."

Hamas' War Crimes Against Israel Provide a Preview of How America's Enemies Will Attack

Israel is often the canary in the international coal mine; that which afflicts Israel may soon afflict others. During the 1990s, suicide bombings and suicide attacks became a widespread tactic in the Arab/Islamic effort to destroy Israel. Arab/Islamic terrorist groups and the countries that sponsored them did not invent suicide bombings and suicide attacks but they demonstrated that such war crimes and crimes against humanity could be an effective tactic to demoralize their enemies while also, bizarrely, engendering sympathy among media members who perversely viewed the suicide bombers as underdogs, not as murderers of innocent men, women, and children. The United States may not have fully understood the barbarism and horror of suicide bombing/suicide attacks until the 9/11 attacks.

Lt. Gen Richard F. Natonski (ret.), former Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command, warns that the tactics used by Hamas recently against Israel may soon visit our shores: "When we look at adversaries like Hezbollah, Hamas, Boko Haram--these are non-state actors, meaning they are not associated with a nation, but they have the sophisticated weapons of a nation-state. As you look at Hezbollah in Lebanon, they have more rockets and missiles than most of NATO does in Europe." Natonski adds, "(T)here are really two audiences that Hamas is appealing to. One is the global audience, and two is the Arab world--mostly, the Palestinians. You can lose all the battles but win the war with a proper campaign of influencing the media."

Natonski notes that Israel does everything possible to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas commits war crimes by doing everything possible to maximize civilian casualties: "These are bombs that hit exactly where they're aiming. This minimizes collateral damage and yet hits the targets you want. We have seen in attacks in Gaza that Hamas or at least civilians were given a warning, with a knock on the roof, which is essentially a submunition dropped on the building that is going to be attacked, that the enemy and civilians in that building should evacuate because shortly thereafter it's going to be hit with a real bomb. Surprisingly, I have seen in the Gaza Strip that telephone calls were made to buildings shortly before they were attacked. Everything is being done in order to minimize those civilian casualties despite the fact that Hamas, in the case of the Gaza Strip, is putting tunnels, putting rocket-launchers, putting mortar facilities and headquarters in buildings that are protected, those being hospitals, schools and mosques."

LTC (ret.) Geoffrey S. Corn, a Professor of National Security Law at South Texas College of Law Houston and a former U.S. Army senior law of war expert adviser, points out the clear distinctions between Israel's lawful tactics and Hamas' war crimes: "One of the ironies of what we've seen here is there is a lot of discussion about how Israel violated the proportionality rule when it was trying to attack legitimate enemy targets, and there's not enough discussion on how the deliberate attack on civilian populations by Hamas was a blatant war crime because the Israelis were fortunate enough to be able to interdict most of those missiles."

Corn mentions two paramount principles of the laws of war regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas: the principles of distinction and proportionality. Corn argues that media coverage of Hamas' attacks on Israel has incorrectly applied those principles. "A state always has the right to act proportionally and reasonably in response to an actual or imminent act of unlawful aggression against it. It's no different than if you're in a bar and someone takes a punch at you. You have a natural right to defend yourself. A state is like a person in international law."

Regarding proportionality, Corn explains that--contrary to what "progressives" assert and too many media members repeat, "It's not a tit-for-tat concept of proportionality where if Hamas fires one missile, you’re allowed to fire one missile back...the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces were legally authorized to do what was necessary to restore the status quo of safety for the people of Israel."

The principle of distinction requires that all combatants only attack legitimate military objectives. Corn adds, "Now, a civilian building can become a military objective by the way the enemy uses or intends to use it. So it doesn't mean just a military target. It means something in the definition of the law if it gives an enemy an advantage and you an advantage if you attack it." 

Corn added that because Hamas' rocket attacks against Israel were "deliberately attacking civilians, it is a war crime and a violation of the law per se."

American politicians, media members, and public figures who lack the intelligence and/or moral fiber to distinguish between Hamas' war crimes and Israel's legitimate acts of self-defense are inviting disaster to the United States; the Hamas tactics that they fail to condemn--or even praise--will be adopted by the United States' enemies. This is not a matter of if, but when, and it will be interesting to see if "progressives" develop greater intelligence and/or moral fiber when war crimes are committed against the United States of America. 

Is America Heading for Violent Revolution?

"Intelligentsia" is a nice-sounding word with a sinister undertone. Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian literature at Northwestern University, explains in a Wall Street Journal interview that in the classic period in Russia (approximately 1860-1905) "the word did not mean everybody who was educated. It meant educated people who identified with one or another of the radical movements. 'Intelligents' believed in atheism, revolution and either socialism or anarchism."

Professor Morson is concerned about the extent and nature of the riots that took place in America after George Floyd's brutal death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Professor Morson declares, "To me it's astonishingly like late 19th-, early 20th-century Russia, when basically the entire educated class felt you simply had to be against the regime or some sort of revolutionary." He adds that we have reached a dangerous point in which, as writer Barton Swaim paraphrases Morson's analysis, "well-intentioned liberal people often can't bring themselves to say that lawless violence is wrong." The intelligentsia sparked a revolution that led to decades of socialist oppression not just in the Soviet Union but also in every country that had the misfortune of being behind the Iron Curtain. Professor Morson is concerned that America is heading toward a similarly violent revolution.

How often have we heard public figures say that mass violence/rioting is understandable, and that it does not matter because insurance will pay for the damage? Such reckless statements are the recipe for the unraveling of societal order. At least as worrisome as the casual condoning of violence is the current climate in which it has become unacceptable--if not impossible--to have an intelligent and meaningful dialogue about complex issues; all we have now are competing, angry monologues. Morson states, "You get into a revolutionary situation because people can't hear. Can there be a dialogue on important questions, or is there only one thing to say about every question? Are people afraid to say, 'Well, yes, but it's not quite as simple as that'?...When you can't do that, you're heading to a one-party state or a dictatorship of some sort. If one party is always wrong and another always right, why not just have the right one?" (emphasis added).

We appear to be at a crucial and historic juncture. Will America's two party system collapse? Will either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party wipe out the other? Will America have just one "right" party, with no dissent permitted? There used to be a sense that the two main U.S. political parties agreed in a large sense about the goals for America, but disagreed about how to best obtain those goals. Now, the parties barely speak to each other in any meaningful or productive way. Partisans for each side don't just disagree with their opponents; they demonize them.

Professor Morson calls this "ideological segregation." He explains, "It was very easy for white people to believe evil things about black people when they never met any. But when you live with somebody, you realize that they're no worse than you are...We've increasingly had ideological segregation on both sides. Each side has caricature views of the other."

Meanwhile--perhaps due at least in part to understandable frustration with both parties--it has become fashionable for many young people to play around with socialism or anarchism, much like a small child who does not know better (and is not properly supervised) might play around with matches until he or she starts a big fire. If you are young and/or misinformed then you have neither the life experience nor the educational background to know about how Stalin murdered tens of millions of people in the name of socialism, or about the killing fields of Southeast Asia, or about how anarchism has proven capable only of destroying but not of building anything of lasting value.

Professor Morson somberly concludes, "we have a major depression, we have terrible fear from the illness, and now we have mass riots in the street, which our leaders do not seem to know how to handle. That's a very rapid slide from only a year ago. And there's no reason to think it will slow down. The slide could well continue."

I share Professor Morson's concern about America's future. Perhaps the one saving grace for America is that this country, however flawed and divided, was founded as a liberal democracy, while Russia has a history of authoritarianism and totalitarianism that dates back many centuries; socialism and tyranny found fertile soil in Russia, while here the soil may not be as well-suited for socialism and tyranny--but anyone who cares about this country's future cannot be satisfied with the hope/expectation that socialism and tyranny could never take hold here: we must fight to preserve what is great about America, while also striving to improve our country where improvements are needed.

There is no doubt that America needs to improve in some areas, but those who assert that America is somehow founded in sin and/or is irredeemably evil should well consider the lessons of world history. A country based on liberal democracy with a capitalist economic system is far from perfect--but it is infinitely better than a country built on the illusions of socialism or the disarray of anarchy. We must work together to save what deserves saving, fix what is broken, and develop creative solutions to both old and new challenges.

In the words of Winston Churchill, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

In the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must work together not to destroy America but rather to build America up to the point that this country fully lives up to the ideals upon which she was founded.

Jonathan Pollard is Finally Granted Parole

Much has been written and said about the Jonathan Pollard case over the past three decades but here is the real story in a one paragraph nutshell:

The United States of America promised to keep Israel informed if Israel's neighbors obtained weapons that endangered Israel's survival, an agreement that was formalized in a 1983 Memorandum of Understanding. The United States of America broke that promise. U.S. navy analyst Jonathan Pollard became aware of that broken promise and he learned that the U.S. government failed to relay to Israel as much as three fourths of the information that was supposed to be shared under the provisions of the 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel. This information pertained to the nuclear, chemical and biological warfare capabilities of Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria--countries at war with Israel--and also to terrorist attacks being planned against Israeli civilians. Pollard then conveyed to Israel the information that the U.S. had illegally withheld from Israel. Pollard committed espionage on behalf of a U.S. ally, a crime that normally results in a two to four year sentence--but Pollard was sentenced to life in prison and he has already spent nearly 30 years in prison, often in solitary confinement. Pollard expressed remorse for his crime and only asked that he be treated the same way that others who have committed similar crimes have been treated, which is the expectation that the U.S. has when she is caught spying against her allies.

Now, there is a new chapter in Pollard's story, as Pollard's long odyssey through the U.S. criminal justice system is almost over; the U.S. Parole Commission has granted parole to Pollard, who is scheduled to be released on November 21, 2015--30 years to the day after he was initially imprisoned. Pollard's enemies have long alleged that Pollard gave away or sold secrets to America's enemies but those accusations have been proven false. In 2012, the CIA publicly released a previously classified 1987 damage assessment that refuted the outlandish claims some people used to justify Pollard's incarceration. That document, along with the 1987 Victim Impact Statement drafted by the Department of Justice, made it clear that Pollard did not betray U.S. secrets to U.S. enemies but rather he provided information to Israel, a U.S. ally. The Victim Impact Statement--written to place Pollard in the most unfavorable light possible--summarized the results of Pollard's actions:

Mr. Pollard's unauthorized disclosures have threatened the US [sic] relations with numerous Middle East Arab allies, many of whom question the extent to which Mr. Pollard's disclosures of classified information have skewed the balance of power in the Middle East. Moreover, because Mr. Pollard provided the Israelis virtually any classified document requested by Mr. Pollard's co-conspirators, the US has been deprived of the quid pro quo routinely received during authorized and official intelligence exchanges with Israel, and Israel has received information classified at a level far in excess of that ever contemplated by the National Security Council. The obvious result of Mr. Pollard's largesse is that US bargaining leverage with the Israeli government in any further intelligence exchanges has been undermined. In short, Mr. Pollard's activities have adversely affected US relations with both its Middle East Arab allies and the Government of Israel.

In other words, Pollard's actions irritated Israel's Arab enemies, many of which are also enemies of the United States (even if those nations are U.S. "allies" in theory, in practice their actions are often antithetical to U.S. interests). In the official court documents, there is no formal allegation, evidence or proof that Pollard's actions endangered the U.S. or U.S. personnel in any way. Pollard used illegal means to convey to Israel information that the U.S. had promised to convey to Israel through official channels.

Pollard received a harsh sentence in no small part because of a very damaging letter written by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who asserted that Pollard had betrayed U.S. "sources and methods," resulting in the deaths of U.S. agents. Weinberger's letter contained false, unsubstantiated accusations and was motivated by his deep seated hostility toward Israel. John Loftus explained all of this and more in the June 2003 issue of Moment:

But it was all untrue. Every bit of it. Pollard wasn't the serial killer. The Jew didn't do it. It was one of their own WASPs--Aldrich Ames, a drunken senior CIA official who sold the names of America's agents to the Russians for cash. Pollard was framed for Ames's crime, while Ames kept on drinking and spying for the Soviets for several more years. In fact, Israeli intelligence later suspected that Ames played a direct role in framing Pollard. But no one in America then knew the truth. 

Ames was arrested in February 1994, and confessed to selling out American agents in the Soviet Union, but not all of them. It was only logical to assume that Pollard had betrayed the rest of them, as one former CIA official admitted shortly after Ames's arrest. Even one life lost was too many. So Pollard continued to rot in jail. No one dreamed that yet another high-level Washington insider had sold us out to Soviet intelligence. Years passed, and eventually a Russian defector told the truth. A senior FBI official--Special Agent Robert Hanssen--had betrayed the rest of our agents. Hanssen was arrested in February 2001, and soon confessed in order to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Would the Americans now admit that they had been conned into blaming Pollard? Beltway bureaucrats do not readily admit to mistakes of this magnitude. Instead, they convinced themselves that Pollard might still be at least partly to blame for the worst debacle in U.S. intelligence history. One desperate analyst from the National Security Council, looking for something to pin on Pollard, had his own theory. Maybe the Russians didn't initially believe that their own spies (Ames and Hanssen) had procured all the names of U.S. agents in the Soviet Union. Maybe Pollard's list tipped the scales. 

Such things had happened before. Once again, Washington insiders circled their alphabet agencies to fire back at the critics who dared to suggest that Pollard might have been innocent of the major charge against him.

Meanwhile, deep inside the Navy's intelligence service, a low-level decision was made to re-examine the Pollard case in view of the convictions of Ames and Hanssen. With sickening chagrin, the Navy discovered that the evidence needed to clear Pollard had been under its nose all along.

As my source in Naval intelligence explained, the list of our secret agents inside Russia had been kept in a special safe in a special room with a special "blue stripe" clearance needed for access. When I was a lawyer in the Justice Department and would be sent over to the CIA to do research, I was permitted to use only a blue-striped, CIA-issue legal pad for note-taking. Nothing with a blue stripe could leave the building without being scrutinized by CIA security.

But Jonathan Pollard didn't have "blue stripe" clearance, according to intelligence sources I spoke with. That was the bombshell that would clear him of any possible connection to the deaths of our Russian agents.

Loftus notes that Pollard found something profoundly damaging to Weinberger and other top U.S. government officials, something that became of very high interest after the 9/11 attacks:

After 9/11, though, I began to realize that Pollard's tale was only the beginning of a much bigger story about a major America intelligence scandal, which is the subject of a book I am now working on. Although Jonathan Pollard did not realize it, he had stumbled across the darkest secret in the Reagan administration's closet. It is one of the reasons that I am serving as the intelligence advisor on a trillion-dollar federal lawsuit filed in August 2002 against the Saudis on behalf of the victims of 9/11.

Pollard in fact did steal something that the U.S. government never wishes to talk about. Several friends inside military intelligence have told me that Pollard gave the Israelis a roster that listed the identities of all the Saudi and other Arab intelligence agents we knew about as of 1984. (This has been corroborated by Israeli sources, as well.) At that time, this list, known in intelligence circles as the "blue book," would have been relatively unimportant to the United States--but not to Israel.

Since 9/11, however, Pollard's "blue book" is of profound interest to everyone, including the U.S. These particular agents are now a major embarrassment to the Saudis and to the handful of American spy chiefs who had employed these Saudi intelligence agents on the sly. Some of the names on this list--such as Osama Bin Laden--turned out to be leaders of terrorist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and what we now call Al Qaeda.

In hindsight, we now know that Pollard stole the one book--that, incidentally, was alluded to in Weinberger's secret memorandum--that unquestionably proves that the Americans knew as early as 1984 about the connection between the Saudis and terrorist groups.

No less an authority than former CIA Director James Woolsey has publicly stated that antisemitism at the highest levels of the U.S. government is the primary reason for Pollard's disproportionate prison term. After being captured, Pollard took a plea deal, saving the U.S. government the cost and logistical challenges of a long trial. Pollard fully cooperated with the U.S. government in exchange for not receiving a life sentence but the U.S. government did not keep up its end of the bargain; last year, Seth Lipsky described how the U.S. violated its plea agreement with Pollard. After Pollard appealed his initial life sentence, two members of the three judge panel rejected his appeal. The judge who sided with Pollard, Stephen Williams, called the government's breach of the plea agreement "a fundamental miscarriage of justice." Lipsky summarized Williams' lengthy and passionate dissent:

The government, as Williams reprised it, made three promises. One was to bring to the court's attention Pollard's cooperation and "represent that the information supplied was of 'considerable value'..." Two was to refrain from seeking a life sentence. Third was to limit what it said to "the facts and circumstances." Williams concluded that the government "complied in spirit with none of its promises; with the third, it complied in neither letter nor spirit." 

It took Williams much of an opinion of 5,000 words to sketch the sleaziness, the slyness of the semantic evasions, by which the government broke its promises. To those of us invested in both the American Constitution and the Jewish struggle, it was a heart-breaking picture. The most galling feature--at least to my ear--was the use by the government of a statement from the defense secretary at the time Pollard committed his crime, Caspar Weinberger. 

Weinberger had ginned up a memorandum saying that "the punishment imposed should reflect the perfidy of [Pollard's] actions, the magnitude of the treason committed, and the needs of national security." What was so appalling about that--and pointedly marked by Williams--is the use of the word treason. For the Constitution provides that "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Both the government and Weinberger knew what they were doing. They could have won a severe sentence without that libel. Yet they spoke of the crime as if Israel were an enemy. It was inaccurate. It was wrong. And it was a violation of a written contract. It may be that one dissenting opinion doesn't amount to a verdict. But given that Judges Silberman and Ginsberg boiled down their opinion against Pollard to the timing of his motion, Williams is the most substantive review we have.

Pollard has dealt with numerous setbacks and betrayals by both the U.S. and Israeli governments. His case is not only a miscarriage of justice but a cautionary tale about America's foreign policy mistakes in the Mideast, mistakes that are continuing to be made and that could have dire consequences.

********************

Further Information:

1) While languishing in prison and suffering from poor health, Pollard spoke truth to power not just about his case but also about larger geopolitical issues; he criticized the reckless and unprecedented concessions Israel has made to her enemies, capitulations that endanger not just Israel but the entire free world.

2) Appeasement of Iraq Made Me a Spy: Pollard accepted culpability for his crime and explained why he acted as he did:  "...I want to state quite categorically that I do not consider myself to be above the law. I fully appreciate the fact that I must be punished for my activities however justified I may have felt them to be. That being said, I do not believe that the draconian sentence that was meted out to me was in any way commensurate with the crime which I committed. Nowhere in my indictment... was I ever described as a 'traitor,' which is hardly a surprise given the fact that the operation with which I was associated actually served to strengthen America's long-term security interests in the Middle East."

3) One Man's Agony After the Fact: Former NSA analyst Bruce Brill described "The U.S. intelligence community's anti-Israel policy."

"The Shah Always Falls" or why Right Makes Might

Fredric Smoler's 2003 American Heritage magazine interview with Ralph Peters titled "The Shah Always Falls" provides an excellent, detailed explanation of the flaws behind so-called "real politik" thinking. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" may superficially sound logical and prudent--until Osama bin Laden decides that defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan is a worthy prelude to taking down the World Trade Center. Peters is right that no matter how powerful he may seem, the Shah (or Saddam Hussein or any other despot) "always falls" and therefore policy decisions should be made based on what is right and what is true to our values as opposed to what seems to be expedient. The whole interview is worth reading but here are some particularly relevant quotes from Peters:

Overvaluing stability is a heritage of the Cold War, over the course of which we rationalized our support of some very cruel regimes and we deposed elected governments we didn't like. You could justify it in terms of the greater struggle. But you can't justify it now.

What I wrote was that the shah always falls in the end, Saddam always turns on you, and the Saudis always betray you. If we support evil, the longterm price is almost always too high. And now we don’t have to. Since 1989, or '91, depending on how you want to date it, we've been the only superpower. We haven't thought about what we've been doing.

*****

In countries where there’s a struggle going on for the soul and future of Islam, the jury's still out. I'm actually increasingly optimistic. But I do believe the last couple of centuries demonstrate that cultures that oppress women, that don't have freedom of information, that don't value secular education, that have one dominant religion that infects the state and has power over the state, and whose basic unit of social organization is a clan, tribe, or extended family are just not going to compete with the West and especially with the United States. So I'm extremely pessimistic about the old Islamic heartland.

I personally feel that we've made a grotesque mistake aligning ourselves with the most oppressive of the Arabs, with the Arab world's Beverly Hillbillies. Other Arabs built Damascus, Córdoba, Baghdad, Cairo. The Saudis never built anything. The fact that they came into their oil wealth was a disaster, not for us but for the Arab world, because it gave these malevolent hicks raw economic power over the populations of poor Islamic states, such as Egypt. The line about Al Qaeda that’s absolutely true is that Saudis supplied the money and Egyptians supplied the brains. So Saudi money, spent to support their grotesquely repressive version of one of the world’s great religions, has been a disaster for the Arab world.

*****

Freedom of information originates in two things, the movable type printing press and the Protestant Reformation. The latter benefits everybody, irrespective of his or her religion, because it breaks down the idea of there being just one path to the truth. The printing press makes the Reformation possible, because suddenly the one true church can no longer contain heretical movements. Information travels faster than it can be suppressed. And the Protestant Reformation is the seminal event in the rise of the West. It opens the door for the last great Western religion, the secular religion of science. Without that fissure, without that breakdown in the one path to the truth, you can't have science.

In Islam the historical symmetry is chilling. Within 10 years of Gutenberg's invention of movable type, a prince, astronomer, mathematician, and poet, Ulûgh Beg of Samarqand, built a great observatory. He was a genius, their Galileo, but the mullahs murdered him, and I take that moment as the point at which it all started calcifying. There are myriad factors in the Islamic decline, but the decline itself has been irreversible. Muslims never turn it around; they never have their reformation that breaks down the one true path. You're either Sunni or Shiah, or perhaps a Sufi offshoot cult. And the reason Indonesia has a chance is that it’s never signed up for one path.

*****

Jealousy is a powerful human emotion. Hatred is a tremendous emotional release. Blame is cathartic. At this time in history, the United States is humane, free, rich, and powerful. The Arab Islamic world is just the opposite. Our success is infuriating to people who value their own culture, who love their traditions even though they no longer work, and who look at our enormous success with inchoate envy.