David Brooks, "We Take Care of Our Own": Nice?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "We Take Care of Our Own," David Brooks concludes:

"Unfortunately, the forces of multiculturalism destroyed that commitment to cultural union. That has led to Trump, who has upended universalistic American nationalism and replaced it with European blood and soil nationalism in a stars and stripes disguise.

The way out of this debate is not to go nationalist or globalist. It’s to return to American nationalism — espoused by people like Walt Whitman — which combines an inclusive definition of who is Our Own with a fervent commitment to assimilate and Take Care of them."

Brooks fails to take into account the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, which left 130 dead and more than 360 wounded, and yesterday's attack in Nice, which left a death toll of 84.

France, once very much a party to "European blood and soil nationalism," attempted a pirouette and sought to assimilate Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East. The consequences are plain to see.

Will France maintain its "fervent commitment" to assimilation? Stay tuned.

More to the point, notwithstanding Paris and Nice, should America reassess whether assimilation in all instances is possible? Assimilation, as also evidenced by the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, can also come with a price tag steeped in blood.

Maureen Dowd, "In Paris With Boris, Donald and Lemon Tarts": Is Washington Burning?

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Maureen Dowd is eating "avocado and yuzu mousse, braised turbot with aniseed fragrance and maritime aster leaf," and "Italian lemon meringue," while writing tripe in Paris.

Bill Clinton is meeting with Loretta Lynch to discuss ... golf on a Phoenix tarmac. Did you happen to read the Times editorial concerning this tryst? Oh, that's right, there wasn't one.

And Hillary is conducting a "voluntary interview" with the FBI in Washington concerning her home server.

Yup, all is right in the world. It couldn't be finer.

Paul Krugman, "Empowering the Ugliness": The Constipation of a Liberal

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Paul Krugman begins his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Empowering the Ugliness" by observing:

"We live in an era of political news that is, all too often, shocking but not surprising. The rise of Donald Trump definitely falls into that category. And so does the electoral earthquake that struck France in Sunday’s regional elections, with the right-wing National Front winning more votes than either of the major mainstream parties.

What do these events have in common? Both involved political figures tapping into the resentments of a bloc of xenophobic and/or racist voters who have been there all along. The good news is that such voters are a minority; the bad news is that it’s a pretty big minority, on both sides of the Atlantic. If you are wondering where the support for Mr. Trump or Marine Le Pen, the head of the National Front, is coming from, you just haven’t been paying attention.

But why are these voters making themselves heard so loudly now?"

"What do these events have in common?" "[W]hy are these voters making themselves heard so loudly now?" Surely you're not serious, Paul! Come on, Krugman, out with it!

Nowhere in Krugman's opinion piece are the words "terror" or "terrorism." Nowhere in Krugman's opinion piece is there mention of the Paris or San Bernardino attacks. Nowhere can you find the word "fear." And certainly there is no reference to "radical Islam."

Truly the constipation of a liberal.

Dana Milbank, "Barack Obama, President Oh-bummer": Why Is There a Need for a Syrian State?

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In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Barack Obama, President Oh-bummer," uber-liberal Dana Milbank, observing the "stylistic gulf" between American President Obama ("discouraging and lawyerly") and French President Hollande ("upbeat and can-do") at a news conference in the White House on Tuesday, concludes (my emphasis in red):

"When Laura Haim of France’s Canal+ TV network asked if there was a deadline for ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, both men had the same policy: no timetable. But what they said after that highlighted their different styles.

Hollande spoke of a new era. “There is a new mind-set now,” Hollande said. “And those who believed that we could wait” now realize “the risk is everywhere . . . . We, therefore, must act.”

Then came President Oh-bummer.

'Syria has broken down,' he said. 'And it is going to be a difficult, long, methodical process to bring back together various factions within Syria to maintain a Syrian state.'

Maybe you can motivate people when you sound so discouraging. But it’s hard."

Query for Obama: Why is there any need whatsoever "to maintain a Syrian state," whose artificial boundaries were fixed in 1916 by France and Britain pursuant the Sykes-Picot Agreement? Isn't it time to recognize a Kurdish state, which would include the northern region of Syria, where its long-oppressed Kurds reside?

Reporting on yesterday's White House press conference, Peter Baker, in a New York Times article entitled "Meeting With François Hollande, Obama Urges Europe to Escalate ISIS Fight," writes:

"Publicly, though, Mr. Obama outlined no concrete new actions that the United States would take, and he suggested that the attacks might finally prompt Europe to approach the threat more seriously. 'We also think, as François said, that there may be new openness on the part of other coalition members to help resource and provide additional assistance, both to the coalition as a whole and to the local forces on the ground,' Mr. Obama said."

"[N]ew openness on the part of other coalition members to help resource and provide additional assistance"?  His 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State includes such big guns as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Panama, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia, and Tunisia. The coalition also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, whose wealthy citizens have been busy funding the Islamic State.

In fact, Obama is disavowing responsibility for the Middle East disaster he engineered and blowing smoke up our collective asses.

Roger Cohen, "Body Bags in Paris": Hypocrite!

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Body Bags in Paris," Roger Cohen, who recently celebrated Obama's unsigned nuclear deal with Khamenei, writes of the attacks in France:

"We may not know who exactly the killers are but we know what they want to destroy. They spit at Montaigne, Voltaire and De Tocqueville. They loathe reason. They detest freedom. They cannot bear the West’s sexual mores. They would enslave the world, particularly its women, to the cruel god of their medievalist reading of Islam."

Hold your horses, Roger! Can't all of the above also be said of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which hangs homosexuals; stones to death women accused of adultery; persecutes Christians, Sunni Muslims, Kurds and Baha'is; imprisons Americans without cause; executes poets accused of being enemies of God; bombed a Jewish community center in distant Buenos Aires; supports the monstrous Assad regime in Syria; arms Hezbollah; and has the highest per capita execution rate in the world?

Perhaps "The West has lost its spine, a spine called America," as Cohen concludes, but Roger is also a hypocrite.

Thomas Friedman, "Cabs, Camels or ISIS": Islands of Decency in the Muslim Middle East?

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"Islands of decency" in the Muslim Middle East?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Cabs, Camels or ISIS," would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman provides us with his thoughts on how to handle the Islamic State in the aftermath of the Paris attacks. Tom Terrific would have us know:

"The context within which Arabs and Muslims live their lives really matters. And in too many places they’ve had only two choices — SISI or ISIS — the iron fist of generals, like Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who is trying to stifle all dissent, or the ISIS madness that says the only way forward is to take the Arab-Muslim world backward.

Fortunately, there is a third way: the autocracies, monarchies and a few frail democracies that have invested in their people and created islands of decency — Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Morocco and the U.A.E. — where more young Arabs and Muslims can realize their full potential and build their dignity by disrupting camels and cabs — not Paris and Beirut."

If I was reading this op-ed on an airplane, right about now I would be reaching for the vomit bag.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an "island of decency"? Some 70 percent of the population of Jordan, which was carved out of the Palestinian Mandate by Britain in 1922, consists of Palestinians who suffer from discrimination. "Honor killings" against women in Jordan? There are far too many, and they are effectively condoned by the government.

Lebanon, which plays host to Hezbollah and which has witnessed unrelenting civil war and savagery among its Shiite, Sunni, Maronite Christian and Druze inhabitants, is an island of decency? Two suicide bombings in Beirut killed 43 people on Thursday.

Kuwait, whose wealthy denizens have been channeling millions of dollars to the Islamic State, is an island of decency? Spare me!

Friedman continues his opinion piece by observing:

"For me, the big strategic question in Iraq and Syria is: What would it take to uproot ISIS and create a Sunni island of decency in its place? For starters, that requires an honest assessment of how big the challenge is.

Sixty years ago Asian dictators told their people in effect, 'I am going to take away your freedom — but give you the best education, export-led economics and infrastructure that money can buy — and in a half-century you’ll build a middle class that will gradually take your freedom back.' In the Arab world, 60 years ago dictators told their people, in effect, 'I am going to take away your freedom and give you the Arab-Israeli conflict, a shiny object to distract you from my corruption and predation.'

That difference, 60 years later, has produced the Asian economic miracle and fueled the Arab civilizational meltdown/disorder in Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq."

Hold on, Tom! China's citizenry is taking its freedom back? How the hell do you ignore the country's three million slaves who manufacture cheap consumer goods for the West? And although Iran leads the world in per capita executions, China executes more people per year than all other countries combined. Mention by Friedman of China's brutal occupation of Tibet? Not a chance.

Or stated otherwise, Friedman's comparison of China with the Muslim Middle East is moronic, but when has that ever stopped him from writing drivel?

Friedman's erudite conclusion:

"To sustainably defeat bad ISIS Sunnis you need good non-ISIS Sunnis to create an island of decency in their place."

Ah yes, replace the bad Sunnis with the good Sunnis. Holy cow, Tom cracked the case! Unless, of course, you prefer one of the competing bullshit narratives proffered by Brooks and Ignatius . . .

David Brooks, "Finding Peace Within the Holy Texts": All You Need Is Love . . . and Justice?

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At yesterday's press conference in Antalya Turkey, Obama, frustrated and confused in the wake of the Paris attacks, abnegated American leadership in the war against terror. In response to a question from ABC News White House Correspondent Jim Avila, the president declared (my emphasis in red):

"We'll do what’s required to keep the American people safe. And I think it's entirely appropriate in a democracy to have a serious debate about these issues. If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan. If they think that somehow their advisors are better than the Chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them. And we can have that debate. But what I'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning, or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people, and to protect people in the region who are getting killed, and to protect our allies and people like France [sic]. I'm too busy for that."

American "leadership" and "winning" won't help protect the American people? Fascinating. So what will help, according to the president? Stick to the Obama game plan . . . whatever that might be. But not to worry: In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Finding Peace Within the Holy Texts," David Brooks offers alternative advice for a more tranquil world. Brooks writes:

"The great religions are based on love, and they satisfy the human need for community. But love is problematic. Love is preferential and particular. Love excludes and can create rivalries. Love of one scripture can make it hard to enter sympathetically into the minds of those who embrace another.

. . . .

Alongside the ethic of love there is a command to embrace an ethic of justice. Love is particular, but justice is universal. Love is passionate, justice is dispassionate.

Justice demands respect of the other.

. . . .

The reconciliation between love and justice is not simple, but for believers the texts, read properly, point the way."

All the great religions are based on love, yet love can run amok? And all the great religions embrace a common notion of justice, extending to others with different sets of spiritual values, thus setting love back on track and providing a path for peace in our time?

Hurry, David, and set a meeting with Obama. You've hit upon it! Love and justice! The case cracker! That, or the West finally gets its act together - with a little help from the Kurds - and kicks some Islamic State butt.

Why do I prefer the latter idea?

[For more stupidity of a different variety, have a look at David Ignatius's Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The fight against the Islamic State should unite Muslims and the West" ("These tragedies should unite Westerners and Muslims, and create a common solidarity against the terrorists of the Islamic State"). Ignatius, who not too long ago claimed that we had heard the last of "Death to America!" from Iran, still doesn't get it.]

Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin, "Could Paris Happen Here?": Sorry, Boys, It's Coming

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In a guest New York Times op-ed entitled "Could Paris Happen Here?," Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin, authors of "The Age of Sacred Terror" (I've read it, and it's on a shelf in front of my computer as I type this blog entry), would have us know that American anxiety over terror attacks similar to those in Paris are "unwarranted" and "no one should panic." Simon and Benjamin contend:

"The slaughter in France depended on four things: easy access to Paris, European citizens happy to massacre their compatriots, a Euro-jihadist infrastructure to supply weapons and security agencies that lacked resources to monitor the individuals involved. These are problems the United States does not have — at least not nearly to the degree that Europe does, undermining its ability to defend itself.

. . . .

It appears the Paris attacks involved both Middle Eastern operatives and Muslims from France and Belgium. But some high-profile exceptions aside, American Muslims are much less attracted to the Islamic State and its ideology than European Muslims seem to be. Americans have traveled to ISIS-controlled territories at a rate of roughly a third that of their European Union coreligionists.

Yes, some of the worst attacks of recent years here at home have been by deeply alienated Muslims, including Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and the Tsarnaev brothers, perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing. But the incidence of such malcontents is lower than in Europe, whose larger Muslim communities, social science data shows, are markedly less integrated.

Although European governments have been working to ameliorate grievances, European Muslims remain poorer, more ghettoized and more discriminated against than American Muslims, whose levels of education and income mirror those of the entire American population."

Or stated otherwise, American homeland security has improved markedly since 9/11, American Muslims are more integrated than their European co-religionists, and there is significantly less reason to worry. I disagree. Sure, Simon has degrees from Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, and Benjamin has degrees from Harvard and Oxford, but in my opinion (I worked a "bit" in counter-terrorism, and the West should be focused on choking off the flow of funding to the Islamic State via Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait), they're ignoring key factors weighing against their conclusion.

First, these Islamic State f*ckers (a term of art used widely in academia) are as shrewd as they are vicious. For example, they can beat US airport security and American passport checks. (Compare American airport security staffing with the highly motivated students doing the job in Israel.)

Second, American Muslims are not as "passive" as Simon and Benjamin would have us believe. As reported by the Pew Research Center in an August 30, 2011 article entitled "Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism," eight percent of US Muslims believe that suicide bombing can "often/sometimes" be justified. Now that's a relief! If you randomly place 100 American adult Muslims in a room, only eight of them think that it's "often/sometimes" justified to blow you to kingdom come.

But why rely only on Pew? In a June 2015 poll of 600 Muslim-Americans, The Polling Company determined:

• If shariah conflicts with the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, 33 percent answered that shariah "should be considered supreme."
• 36 percent declared that Muslims in the US should be free to choose courts or tribunals in the US that apply shariah law, whereas 15 percent opined that Muslims in the US should be subject only to shariah courts.
• 29 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that "violence against those that insult the prophet Mohammad, the Qur'an, or Islamic faith is sometimes acceptable."
• 25 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that "Violence against Americans here in the United States can be justified as part of the global jihad."
• 19 percent believed that "the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country."
• Nine percent believed that the beliefs of the Islamic State are "correct and consistent with shariah."
• Eight percent believed that the beliefs of al-Qaeda are "correct and consistent with shariah."

Having perused these numbers, are you feeling better? I'm not.

Sorry to disagree, boys, but it's coming.

Mitt Romney, "Obama must wage war on the Islamic State, not merely harass it": Is He Running?

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In a short guest Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama must wage war on the Islamic State, not merely harass it," Mitt Romney hammers Obama for failing to wage war on the Islamic State. Observing how Obama told the American people just hours before the attack on Paris that "we have contained" the Islamic State, Romney goes on to say:

"After Paris, it’s clear: Doing the minimum won’t make us safe. It’s time the president stopped hedging and took meaningful steps to defend us and our allies.

The president was right when he called the Islamic State a 'cancer,' but it is a cancer that metastasized on his watch. Paris is proof. So are Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa. What we saw Friday we will see here if we continue on the present course. It’s time to change that course, secure the safety of our homeland and preserve our democratic values. Now is the time, not merely to contain the Islamic State, but to eradicate it once and for all."

Note how Romney calls for the "eradication" of the Islamic State, where as Hillary and the other would-be Democratic presidential contenders are unwilling to use the term "radical Islam."

And so, with Trump, notwithstanding his Iowa meltdown, still leading the Republican pack (Are Republicans truly dumb enough to shoot themselves in the foot?), is Mitt giving second thoughts to tossing his hat in the ring? Stay tuned.

Liz Alderman and Jim Yardley, "Paris Terror Attacks Leave Awful Realization: Another Massacre": Were the "Militants" Muslims?

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Liz Alderman and Jim Yardley write in a New York Times article entitled "Paris Terror Attacks Leave Awful Realization: Another Massacre" (my emphasis in red):

"The attackers’ names, or whether they are linked to radical Islamist groups, are not yet known. But some witnesses described militants shouting 'God is great' in Arabic before opening fire."

Yup, the terrorists - or in keeping with progressive norms, should I also use the word "militants"? - shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), but we don't know if they were "radical" Muslims. After all, even with 127 people dead in Paris, we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Alderman and Yardley continue:

"The French authorities, sharply criticized for failing to monitor the homegrown jihadists who had been known to security officials, vowed to tighten scrutiny of suspected terror cells and protect the country. Ms. Bagot said the attacks seemed to occur after French security was lowered months after the Charlie Hebdo attacks."

French authorities failed to monitor "homegrown jihadists"? Ah yes, vivre et laisser vivre.

Wake up, America! Despite Obama's protestations concerning Islam's contribution to the US ("Islam has always been a part of America's story," "Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding," and "Eid also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy"), it's only a matter of time before these bloodthirsty bastards "militants" attempt similar abominations in Washington and New York.

Yes, as you might have guessed, I'm f*cking pissed off angry as heck this morning.

Thomas Friedman, "We Need Another Giant Protest": Obama Is Too Busy With His Golf Game

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "We Need Another Giant Protest," Thomas Friedman begins by observing:

"President Obama was criticized for failing to attend, or send a proper surrogate to, the giant antiterrorism march in Paris on Sunday. That criticism was right."

Friedman, who almost never criticizes Obama, is at least partially correct. Obama was too busy with his golf game and ESPN to attend. Also, Obama is preoccupied with a nuclear deal with Iran, which has been busy fomenting Shiite terror around the globe for many decades. As was noted by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes regarding a possible nuclear deal with Iran:

"This is probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy. This is healthcare for us, just to put it in context."

Deplore Sunni terrorism in Paris while seeking an accord with a vicious Shiite regime? Quite honestly, this doesn't make much sense.

Friedman continues:

"Saudi Arabia has redoubled its commitment to Wahhabi or Salafist Islam — the most puritanical, anti-pluralistic and anti-women version of that faith. This Saudi right turn — combined with oil revenues used to build Wahhabi-inspired mosques, websites and madrassas across the Muslim world — has tilted the entire Sunni community to the right. Look at a picture of female graduates of Cairo University in 1950. Few are wearing veils. Look at them today. Many are wearing veils. The open, soft, embracing Islam that defined Egypt for centuries — pray five times a day but wash it down with a beer at night — has been hardened by this Wahhabi wind from Arabia."

Only Egypt has "tilted" to the right? Have a look at what has happened in Turkey, ruled by Obama's friend Erdogan, since the AKP came to power in 2002.

Friedman further observes:

"The Saudi government opposes the jihadists. Unfortunately, though, it’s a very short step from Wahhabi Islam to the violent jihadism practiced by the Islamic State, or ISIS."

Horse manure! A "short step"? There is no "step" whatsoever. Funding for ISIS and the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front has been coming from "private donors" from both Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Volunteers for the armies of both of these organizations have been arriving from Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia and Qatar wanted to block the funding and halt the movement of volunteer fighters, it could be accomplished in the blink of an eye.

Pressure from the isolationist Obama administration to halt this assistance to ISIS and al-Nusra has been non-existent.

So why should we have expected Obama to participate in the Paris rally? We shouldn't.

Paris: More Violence Against Jews in the "City of Light"

As reported by Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.604813) yesterday:

"A firebomb was hurled at a synagogue near Paris, part of a string of anti-Semitic incidents in Western Europe coinciding with Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza. The firebomb went off Friday night at the entrance to the synagogue of Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northeastern suburb of the French capital, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA. No one was hurt and the fire resulted in minor damage, Le Monde reported.

. . . .

In Belleville, an eastern suburb of Paris, a demonstration Saturday by a few dozen people against Israel’s attack on Hamas featured calls to 'slaughter the Jews,' according to Alain Azria, a French Jewish photojournalist who covered the event. The crowd also chanted 'death to the Jews,' he said."

As reported by The Times of Israel (http://www.timesofisrael.com/clashes-in-paris-as-thousands-march-against-israel-offensive/) yesterday:

"Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read 'Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People'.

But clashes erupted at the end of the march on Bastille Square, with people throwing projectiles onto a cordon of police who responded with tear gas. The unrest was continuing early Sunday evening.

Media reports said that hundreds of Jews were trapped inside a synagogue in the area and police units were sent to rescue them.

A person in the synagogue told Israel’s Channel 2 news that protesters hurled stones and bricks at the building, 'like it was an intifada.'"

Coverage by The New York Times or CNN? Where?

Jews trapped inside a Paris synagogue? Think about it before you plan your next vacation in France.