A First for My Fourth

I always have loved the 4th of July. It is pure Americana. No other nation on earth traditionally has shown such joy in celebrating its creation. I have been to lots and lots of national day celebrations around the world. Most are at best joyless affairs, e.g., lift a glass to the monarch, and many involve a lot of whining, e.g., everything bad is the fault of the colonialists. Ours, however, was always an optimistic, happy event in which we praised the wisdom of our English forefathers--even those of us with no British blood at all--while we celebrated the fact that we had remained more loyal to the principles of English freedom than had the England of 1776.

For the first time, I am having a hard time, very hard time, recapturing that air of optimism. Everywhere one looks, one sees the ravages of the semi-totalitarian ideology that has seized our ever-growing government, stifling the economy, no doubt, but also the very essence of what it means to be an American. We love our Constitution and its Bill of Rights in a way one sees in no other country. We invented and then made our capital, Washington DC, into an architectural monument of praise to our political institutions and leaders, again, in a manner that is unprecedented. We now find, however, that city and those amazing institutions firmly in the grip of a vile bunch of mountebanks, incompetents, historical illiterates, and haters of the very American spirit that built the country from a fledging coastal colony on the edge of a vast wilderness into the freest and greatest economic and military power in history.

Obama and his clowns, unfortunately, form just the tip of the iceberg. Our schools, colleges, and universities, once the greatest on earth, grind out an endless link sausage of brainwashed liberal stooges, most with no discernible useful skills and few with any knowledge of the basic facts of a free economy, the principles of democracy, including the importance of individual rights, or of the history of the men and women who made this country. They are babblers of politically correct, socially sanctioned nonsense--and each little sausage paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the corrupt education industry for the privilege of being stupid. They want and want more and more, and can give back less and less. They have been trained to see life as a series of problems requiring more and more government, and more and more ceding of our rights to the bureaucrats. We have become Europe. George Washington would not approve.

It is hard to be optimistic on July 4, 2013.

WLA

Even a Stopped Watch . . .

Well, dear gang of six readers, looks like we called it on Egypt. My post on July 1 (BTW, a belated Happy Canada Day, and thanks for Nathan Fillion!) noted that,

In a ghastly modern-day simulacrum of the disastrous French revolution, in Egypt we might see the removal of the military emperor/pharaoh, followed by violence, then a mad murderous fundamentalist regime, and, now, with luck, end with a return to the rule of a military emperor/pharaoh.

Kinda looks like that's how it turned out.

Got to hand it to the French and their July 14 Revolution. They certainly set the pattern for revolutions all over the world, to wit, long established regime overthrown, followed by chaos and murder, establishment of an even more murderous fundamentalist regime, and ending with the re-establishment of a version of the original regime.

Our poor July 4 Revolution, on the other hand, rarely (never?) gets copied. We rarely (never?) see an armed revolt demanding freedom and independence that then delivers on both. Guess we are just not in touch with the Big Wide Wonderful World out there.

Just so you know, I told erstwhile colleagues at State my prediction about a year ago. They brushed aside the Diplomad's warnings as the rantings of a "conservative." I guarantee you (next prediction) that nobody's career at State will be harmed by the hash made of Egypt, or of Libya, or of Syria. All involved will get awards, promotions, and great onward assignments. And you can take that to the bank . . . they certainly will.

WLA

Pyramid Scheme

Not long ago I wrote a piece on Obama's Syria policy titled "Ishtar, the Remake."  I noted that Obama sought to repeat his disastrous Libya adventure in even more dangerous and complex Syria. Remember the Benghazi massacre? Wait until you see the jihadi loons who will take over Syria! Now, you might reasonably ask, what about Assad? As was his father, he is a pencil-necked murdering swine. We all agree on that. As did his father, he runs a repressive, minority-ruled, Iranian-backed regime. Whom are we arming to replace him? Even more murderous pencil-necked swine, that's who. As we did in Libya, we want to replace a nasty piece of work who, nevertheless, can act rationally and with whom we can deal, with lunatic AQ-allied, apocalyptic jihadi fanatics who want a Muslim caliphate or death and will slaughter indiscriminately in pursuit of either goal.

If you want a clue on dealing with Arab states, don't look to the State Department or the NSC--especially under Susan "It's YouTube's fault" Rice. Look to the Israelis. For them it is literally a matter of life or death who runs the corrupt Arab regimes in the neighborhood. The Israelis detest the Assad regime and have fought a continuous war with it since 1970. They also detested Arafat, and any number of other Arab dictators. They, however, were and are very cautious about promoting regime change. Despite numerous opportunities, for example, they never killed Arafat; they dropped people all around him, but never him. Who would replace him? Nobody knew, so better stick with the disgusting but inept known devil than risk getting someone or something much worse. The Israeli military and intel services, likewise, repeatedly have demonstrated an ability to strike deep into Syria and successfully take out major targets. They, however, have not targeted Assad, father or son. The assumption being that the Assad clan knows where to draw the line and not cross it for fear of engendering a regime-killing Israeli response. The Arab dictators know of Israel's restraint, and fear more their Arab "brothers" than they do Israeli "plots." Do not forget, for example, that Israeli intel info saved Sadat's life, and led him to make peace with Israel--Sadat, of course, was later killed in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalist Egyptian soldiers likely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Israelis have remained remarkably quiet re the unrest in Syria. They have acted when the desperate Asad regime, for example, brought in destabilizing weapon systems from Iran. These Israel destroyed almost as soon as Iran delivered them, showing that the Israelis could take out Asad and his regime. As noted above, however, they have not. They, instead, watch uneasy as the Four Stooges of the Apocalypse (Obama, Kerry, Hagel, and McCain) urge the Western world into backing head-cutting savages, trying to portray them as the equivalent of our Minutemen or some other brave resistance movement. One would have thought that the disaster of regime change in Iran in 1979, and the many examples since, would have cured Westerners of a belief in Muslim democracy and in "leading from behind." Guess not.

The lunacy of Obama's Mideast policy is also evident in Egypt. I have written before (here and here, for example) about White House and State Department support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. I wrote in my July 22, 2012 post that,

The Obama-Clinton foreign policy vis-a-vis Egypt and the removal of Mubarak has proven an unmitigated disaster. It is only comparable to Carter's mishandling of the Shah in Iran, and in the long run, might have equally dire consequences. My erstwhile colleagues at State, who so gleefully embraced the "Arab Spring," rooted for the protestors in Tahir Square, and promoted the distancing of the United States from our one true ally in the region, Israel, are now scrambling to "fix things." The best way to "fix" a problem is to deny that it exists; to define the issue in a way that is not at all a problem, but an opportunity! The removal of Hosni Mubarak has led to what anyone with two-cents worth of brains knew would happen: the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the best organized and hardest working group in Egypt has filled the vacuum. It is perfectly willing to use the instruments of liberal democracy to take power and turn Egypt into another mad Muslim theocracy. For now, the MB must limit itself to the instruments and quasi-language of "liberal democracy" because it fears the Egyptian military, which is not fooled by the MB. The military know that today's MB is just a craftier and even more dangerous version of the old MB. 

The folks at State, meanwhile, are busy defining away the problem. The MB's rise to prominence is not a problem! They have shown themselves willing to participate in the electoral process, haven't they? The head of the MB speaks English and has studied in the US! We can razzle-dazzle him with a visit by our celebrity SecState! The only problem in Egypt is that the conservative military officers are bound and determined to limit the scope of democratic change. We can promote democracy AND get in good with the MB! And you, Madame Secretary, who can resist your charm, your political skills? Those stuffy ol' military officers will just melt with your impeccable pro-democracy logic (and threats), and the MB will realize that we are their friends! It's a win-win!

It seems that this account written almost a year ago remains valid. As stated then, the Egyptian military knows what Morsi and the MB are about. I am surprised that they have waited this long to begin to make their move against the regime. I am sure that right now, this very minute, people at NEA in State are drafting talking points and strategy papers for the Secretary and the White House to pressure the Egyptian military into not moving against Morsi. Now that a regime change in Egypt would favor our interests and those of Israel, we will oppose it. I guarantee it. Quite possibly, however, Egypt's military sees the Obama administration as so weak, inept, confused, or just malevolent that it will ignore anything that comes out of Washington.

In a ghastly modern-day simulacrum of the disastrous French revolution, in Egypt we might see the removal of the military emperor/pharaoh, followed by violence, then a mad murderous fundamentalist regime, and, now, with luck, end with a return to the rule of a military emperor/pharaoh.

It was all worth it . . .

WLA

Feathers

Yes, feathers. Not the figurative kind that fill leftoid heads, but the real kind that cover birds. We are going light today. Our topic is feathers and how they nearly produced a civil war in the Diplomad clan, and how echoes of that strife apparently will reverberate on the 4th of July.

As the six regular readers of this blog are painfully aware, during the Reagan years I served for a time at the UN in New York. We loved New York City, even with all its inconveniences especially with two rambunctious boys. Schooling was a problem as the local PS was, well, pretty bad. When two of the vastly overpaid teachers at the school told us that they would never send their own kids there, we decided to yank our boys out and send them--at considerable cost to the Diplomad bottom line--to private schools. One went to a school run by Irish Catholic nuns, who wanted no parental involvement, "Thank you very much, but we know how to do this." The older son went to one run by strangely liberal, yet oddly conservative Jews who wanted lots of parental involvement in the school as long as the parents did what the school wanted. Hey, it's New York. Live with it.

Well, as it does every year, the Thanksgiving holiday rolled around. You must understand we had spent most of our lives overseas. The boys had been born in Spain, and hardly had been in the US. Educated abroad, they--God help me--had grown to love soccer football soccer with both of them becoming (and remaining to this day) rabid fans of Spain's La Furia Roja. Their grip on Americana was a bit weak. Please remember that as this saga proceeds.

Another piece of background which you will need. My Spanish wife hates, detests, abhors, loathes, etc, feathers and any creature which sports them. She has a special wrath for chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. She cannot stand the thought of fowl on the meal plate. I have seen her blanche and break out into a cold sweat at fancy diplo dinners when served quail, duck or some other feather-bearing beast. It is not funny; better said, she has no sense of humor about this matter. My efforts to convince her that chicken tastes just like iguana have had no positive effect. Whenever we go to a restaurant, regardless of what she orders, she insists on, ahem, grilling the waiter on whether any foul fowl was involved in the making of her pending meal, "Uh, no ma'am, our salmon is, uh, salmon. It's a fish, not a bird." "Yes, yes, but the rice and the vegetables, were they cooked with chicken?" I am used to it by now.

Thanksgiving Day in New York, 1985. My older son, then about six was in a bad mood. I asked what was wrong, "You have no school today. Mom is making a nice Thanksgiving meal. What's wrong?" He glared at me, "The Pilgrims did not eat paella! They ate turkey!"

Explanation. Given the Diplowife's aversion to feathery creatures, our overseas Thanksgiving Day meals consisted of seafood paella. My wife had, ahem, implied in some way . . . oh, heck, she flat out told the kids that the Pilgrims ate paella with the Indians. Maybe she was thinking about Cortez and Pizarro, I don't know, but anyhow the kids had gotten into their heads that paella was the meal on Thanksgiving. Now in NY, the older boy had been asked the previous day to make a presentation at school on Thanksgiving. He, of course, reported that the English Pilgrims sat down and shared paella with the Native Americans. This caused a bit of a commotion and, I guess, led to some considerable ridicule, or what the politically correct nanny-staters now would label "bullying."

He was furious with us. He was refusing to eat paella and demanded a turkey. Even my wife was shocked into submission by the uncompromising fury coming from the tyke. It was Thanksgiving Day. I had to find a turkey in Manhattan. I dashed out of our building on the upper east side. All of the supermarkets were closed. A turkey! My kingdom for a turkey! I wandered the cold, darkening desolate concrete canyons, my despair growing, and threatening to overwhelm me. I had let down my kids! The wages of sin, the consequences of falsehoods, God give me a sign that You will allow me to redeem myself . . . wait! A deli! Still open but about to close! I ran in! Turkey sandwiches! They must have a turkey somewhere! A bizarre negotiation followed in which I finally convinced the suspicious Pakistani owner of the "Jewish" deli to sell me a whole kosher turkey at the price per pound of the sliced sandwich meat. I paid him a fortune--in cash--for a small bird about the size of a Chihuahua and ran like the Grinch with my turkey under my arm.

My kids had turkey that day, and every other Thanksgiving since then has featured a big bird on the table. My wife refuses to sit anywhere near it, and has her own separate fish-based meal.

This will be an issue on the Fourth of July. The Thanksgiving paella got moved to Independence Day. The kids, now grown, of course, alas, are starting to make noises of impending rebellion against paella and in favor of hot dogs and other beast meat. The Diplowife mistrusts hotdogs, even the kosher all-beef ones, as stealth chicken missiles. She does not want anything with the potential of bearing fowl touching our BBQ grill or being anywhere near anything else that might be cooking. It appears that we might have a split Fourth meal. One side of the family eating chicken wings and hotdogs, and the other with the paella. Now that I think about it, this seems an appropriate metaphor for what is happening to our country.

WLA

Fake History for a Fake President

I notice that there are some press reports questioning the validity of the site chosen by the President to give an anti-slavery speech in Senegal. This is not a new issue. The role of the "Slave House" on Goree Island in Senegal is a source of perennial debate. It seems almost certain that the "Door of No Return" where Obama has several pictures taken was not as advertised. It was not the doorway through which millions of Africans boarded waiting slave ships on their horrid one-way trip to the Americas.

I visited Goree Island in 1987 during the one hundred year celebration of Dakar as a separate city. At the time I was working for Maureen Reagan, and she led the US delegation to the centennial celebrations. It was a fun trip and the Senegalese could not have been more hospitable and kind to the US delegation. Ms. Reagan decided we should visit Goree Island and pay our respects at the Slave House museum. It is a well-kept and interesting place, and highly recommended. She asked a couple of us to do some research on the place for comments she might make. We quickly found, even in pre-internet 1987, that the place was not the transit point for America-bound slaves. By simply standing at the "Door of No Return," one quickly realizes that no ship or boat could pull up anywhere near that door without getting smashed by the waves on the rocks below (you can see those rocks in the Obama pictures).  The slaves were loaded elsewhere on Goree Island and along the coast. At times, however, being a bit PC is the better part of valor when making a speech in a hospitable foreign country, and Maureen decided to go along with the story given by our hosts and not the breathless research done by a couple of her Young Turks.

Mr. Obama, of course, is not a descendent of those miserable slaves, many of whom died horrible deaths in their way across the Middle Passage. His ancestors on both his white mother's side and his Kenyan father's side were apparently slave owners and traders. The great ignored story still remains the complicity of Africans and Arabs in the slave trade.

Britain Surrenders; Invaders Triumphant; Dhimmi Quisling Government in Charge

As many of you likely have heard, our fellow bloggers and human rights activists Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs) and Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch) have been banned from the UK for being prematurely anti-totalitarian.

If you go to either of their excellent blogs, you can see the letter each received from the British Home Office stating that they are banned for expressing views that,

- foment or justify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs,
- seek to provoke others to terrorist acts,
- foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts,
- foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.

This menu selection is then followed by the helpful bureaucratic catchall phrase,

The list is indicative and not exhaustive.

In other words, if we think of something else we don't like about you, we can keep you out and not tell you what it is.

This is weird and wonderful stuff especially in light of the BBC interview of Robert Spencer and a local British Imam (here, well worth hearing) in which Spencer shows up the Imam for the ignorant dolt that he is; the Imam fails to refute any of the points made by Spencer about the intolerant nature of modern day Islam. The Imam cannot explain why Spencer and Geller should be banned except that he doesn't agree with them.

Spencer and Geller were to lay a wreath in honor of the British soldier beheaded on the streets of his capital by a couple of jihadis. That is just too controversial for modern Britain.

So now it is official: Britain is dead. Well, at least the Britain I always admired and respected is dead: The Britain where modern freedom and democracy were born and bred; the land of the Magna Carta; the tiny island that conquered much of the world; and the nation whose ideas are now the basis of modern civilization. That Britain has died. It is official.

I guess we are seeing a slow motion replay of 1066. No, that's silly. This is much worse than that: this time the invaders were welcomed with open arms in the guise of socialized medicine, free housing, free schooling, and generous public assistance cheques. To repay their hosts' generosity, the invaders have driven crime rates to record levels and have made parts of the UK unlivable. Now they have conquered the government.

Warning to Brits who might wish to flee to these shores. First our immigration laws won't allow it--you have to sneak across the southern border to be welcomed--and, furthermore, we are on the same path that your once great nation has blazed.

WLA

A Little Rant on Privacy

Just a little rant. Not a big one.

Privacy. Yes. In theory we all want it, and, of course, we don't want the Feds or the cops snooping on our private lives. Understood, well, I think so, maybe not.

The issue of privacy and security of the person from the Leviathan was, of course, a main concern of the drafters of our amazing Constitution. They wanted limits on the power of the state, and saw the inalienable rights of individuals to assembly, free speech, religion, bearing of arms, and due process as ways to limit that power, and give those individuals a level playing field (well, as close as possible) when having to confront the state. The authorities are not allowed supposed to go on fishing expeditions, poring through your private affairs looking for some violation of the law or material for blackmail.

Understood, well, I think it is understood, or I thought so.

Watching my kids and their friends, however, I have to wonder how deep-seated that desire for privacy remains. We are in the world of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Google, YouTube, etc. We are wrapped up in a narcissistic competition to see who can pump out more personal information into the digital world, a world where information remains forever and ever--or, at least, until the advent of a zombie apocalypse in which the walking dead develop a taste for crunchy electronic components.

Just saying: On the basis of purely anecdotal evidence which might be wrong, the "outrage" over the Feds' snooping seems a generational one. Folks my age, not used to the new ethos of "total transparency," seem the ones most upset by the confirmation that the digital age is not a privacy friendly one. I don't find any great outrage on the part of the young; they seem to have realized and embraced that fact long ago.

End of rant.

Back to my oatmeal, ah, cinnamon and apple, yes . . . .