“Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,” Yeats wrote in his famous poem. In Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010”, it is America itself that has come apart and his work chronicles the undoing of a virtue-based national exceptionalism.

“Coming Apart” would not be as shocking if it were not for a political and academic establishment that is unable to speak about the problems of the working class except in terms of class warfare and racial discrimination. Murray boldly upends the formula that social problems arise from economic problems and that these can only be solved with more social welfare programs. Instead of holding the upper classes accountable for not paying enough into the system that subsidizes the welfare state, he instead holds them accountable for disrupting national values, while maintaining them communally.

While the class warfare model links social ills to an economic deprivation practiced by the rich on the poor, Murray looks instead at a values deprivation which has led to statistics such as a marriage rate of 83 percent for the white upper middle-class and only 48 percent for their working class contemporaries. This has created Two Americas divided not by wealth, as defined by John Edwards in the economic realm, but divided socially by the segregation of communities and the stratification of values.

The music video for Billy Joel’s song, “We didn’t start the fire” followed an idealized young couple from their working class beginnings to middle class prosperity and then through the decay of the sixties and the seventies. But while the couple in the video remains together through bra burnings, draft card burnings and drug experimentation, in real life that was where the fire started and the ashes of that fire can be seen in the statistics that Murray lays out for us.

Murray’s model of Fishtown and Belmont, two neighborhoods representing two classes, shows that an economic gap is an insufficient explanation for the social problems of working class communities. In 1960, a working class neighborhood was only 10 percent behind the upper middle class neighborhood in its marriage rate. Fifty years later after the conflagration that undid the nation’s collective value system that gap had more than tripled to 35 percent.

A marriage rate below 50 percent would have been considered a severe social problem in a nation that had not abandoned, what Murray calls, its “Founding Virtues”, but progressive socialists operating in the haze of an economics centered view of social problems would tend to say that the only social problem is insufficient subsidies for single parent families.

The fundamental question that Murray raises is whether we explain social problems in economic terms or economic problems in moral terms and “Coming Apart” is in its own way a moralistic book. Rather than another direct assault on the welfare state, Murray burrows deeper beneath the welfare debate to the conditions that make welfare necessary.

The class warfare centered model requires of the wealthy that they contribute economically to resolving social problems, but Murray instead calls on them to contribute morally to healing a culture gap which began with the disintegration of national values by a counterculture often spearheaded by the children of the wealthy, who after the experimentation was done, were more likely to continue living by the standards of their parents, than their cousins on the other side of the tracks who saw their values undermined without anything positive to replace them.

While spending under Obama has dramatically increased, the only part of the budget that the radical administration appears to be willing to cut is military spending. But cuts to military spending don’t just involve hardware, but also target human beings. The most shameful cuts involve dramatic increases to health care costs for veterans.

Tricare provides medical benefits to active duty personnel and their families, as well as veterans. With military salaries that are below average for Federal workers, those who serve and have served their country depend on it. After ten years of war and fifteen thousand wounded men and women, Tricare is a small payment on the debt that can never be repaid.

Unfortunately the Party of Treason, not satisfied with stabbing soldiers in the back while they were fighting, has refused to cease its campaign against them even after they have come home. The Center for American Progress, the leftist think-tank that has been described as the brains of the Democratic Party, has made Tricare into a target.

Time Magazine has described the Center for American Progress as “Obama’s Idea Factory” and it is clearly the source of the idea that responsible spending involves cutting health care benefits for veterans while pumping another 1.3 billion dollars into a Muslim Brotherhood run Egypt. The Tricare cuts are supposed to save 1.8 billion dollars, which we could just as easily save by eliminating aid to Egypt and Pakistan.

In 2011 the Center for American Progress issued a special paper deceptively titled, “Restoring Tricare” calling for higher premiums to “encourage responsible use” of Tricare benefits by veterans. CAP’s war on veterans was spearheaded by Lawrence Korb. Korb is a senior fellow at CAP and a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information. Both are Soros linked organizations.

Korb has boasted that he has been pushing the kinds of drastic defense cuts since 2003 and indeed many of his proposals are part of the massive budget cuts. But while he had called for scrapping systems, he had not originally been an advocate of Tricare cuts. Instead in 2006, his defense review paper actually called for increasing Tricare costs by 1.8 billion by allowing reservists to join. This is identical to the savings from the current proposed Tricare premium hikes.

Only in the age of Obama did Korb shift from calling for Tricare increases in 2006 and 2007 to warning that rising Tricare costs were a serious problem and suggested that as a consequence of low fees, veterans “tend to use the program more heavily than civilians utilize typical HMOs.” The possibility that veterans had higher health costs because of their service was not mentioned.

But if Tricare was such a drain, then why hadn’t Korb proposed those same cuts earlier, why indeed had he called for bulking up Tricare costs only a year earlier? The shift came with Obama’s victory and it was only then that CAP began beating the drum for Tricare cuts and now it is close to getting its way.

As part of the ax, enrollees will see a 400 percent health care premium increase over the next five years leading to hundreds or thousands more in expenses for veterans who are already facing a bad economy. Veterans on a fixed income with medical problems will face the worst of it at the hands of a government that has made it clear that it doesn’t care what happens to them.

In an interview with WFTV, President Obama suddenly discovered what it is that has troubled Americans about Marxism for well over a century. The crucial exchange occurred when Obama was asked about gas prices. “Well, as long as gas prices are going up, people are going to feel like I’m not doing enough, and I understand that,” Obama observed. “Ultimately, though, there’s no silver bullet.”

Then came the critical question. “Your opponents say they can get gas to the $2.50 range,” said the interviewer. “What do you think Americans should be OK with?” Obama, avoiding the question, shrugged, “First of all, nobody believes that. They know that’s just politics. Anybody who says we can get gas down to two bucks a gallon just isn’t telling the truth.”

But President Obama didn’t answer the question.

The real question is why he couldn’t. After all, this is a president who has stated over and over that prices and wages should be set on the basis of fairness. He tried to claw back Wall Street bonuses because investment bankers were making more than they “deserved” to make; he says the rich should pay their “fair share.”

The problem, of course, is that nobody knows what is fair—for wages, bonuses, or gas prices. Is it really fair for some people to pay a far lower percentage of their income to the federal government than others? Is it fair that some people buy ground chuck and others New York strip?

That he struggled to say  how much Americans should have to pay for gas should not have surprised the president. Economists have struggled for centuries to determine what people deserve to pay for precious commodities. . Invariably, they insist on more control of the economy, stating that the blind hand of the market simply cannot produce a fair and just system. That’s why Thomas Edison wrote, “What is wanted is some person familiar with the selling and buying, the technical as well as the financial end of all industries, to devise some generic scheme that business can work on.”

Top-down technocrats fail to understand how an undirected system can work so well. That’s because they don’t understand freedom. How can hundreds of millions of people, all pursuing their self-interest, create more wealth than hundreds of millions of people all directed toward a single end? How can fairness by achieved by seeming randomness rather than by hierarchical control of the right-minded?

What does a Koran cost? You can get a full color one for the Kindle for only 99 cents, just don’t expect it to feature any pictures of old Mo. If you want to go deluxe, you can get a hardcover edition that runs three different translations side by side for around 40 bucks. But if you want to be more practical about it, the price of a Koran is the lives of six American soldiers.

That butcher’s bill doesn’t count the soldiers who burned the Korans, who despite following procedure will be penalized on orders of the White House which thinks that punishing American soldiers will somehow satisfy the Koran fueled bloodlust of men who aren’t satisfied with their corpses.

The nature of the marketplace of human affairs is that a thing is worth what we will pay for it. Once upon a time Americans decided to pay any price for freedom. The price was high, but they got what they paid for… at least for a season or two. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were works of freedom written in blood. They made a free nation possible because that nation was willing to pay the price for them.

Muslims are equally willing to pay the price in blood for slavery, their own slavery and ours, for a book of slavery, written by an owner and abuser of slaves, who created a religion of slaves, where the optimal position was to stand on as many people as possible while reaching for heaven.

The men who fought to make us free placed value on their lives. The men who fight to enslave us place little value on their own. Whatever material pleasures they enjoy in this life, little girls, hashish and wealth, will be vastly improved upon in the afterlife. And they buy their way into that afterlife by killing us, as they have been doing for over a thousand years.

Each of their murders imposes their religion on us. They impose their notion of what is important and what isn’t important. Twenty years ago no one would have cared a fig for a burned Koran or a cartoon of Mo. Today either one earns you an accusation of endangering the lives of American soldiers and inciting violence. Dress up as Zombie Mohammed and Judge Mark Martin will tell you that in a Muslim country you would get the death penalty. That’s not the way it works here. Yet.

What’s the price of a Koran? Whatever Muslims see fit to charge us for it and whatever our leaders are willing to pay. Not just in lives or ranks of men who were risking their lives in the way that B. Hussein could not even begin to imagine, but in the big picture appeasement.

At the store of international and domestic affairs in Washington DC, Muslims haul up a bunch of corpses and in return we pay them with all sorts of concessions, both tangible and intangible. Cartoons stop appearing in newspapers. Books don’t get printed. Presidents attend Iftar dinners. Muslims get appointed to high positions. NASA gets retooled into a Muslim empowerment agency. And all of that isn’t enough because the blood price never gets paid.

The essence of the vendetta is that it is eternal. It can only be resolved by marriage, by mingling two bloods into a single clan. If we agree to become Muslims, we can be part of their clan. Without that we are forever the targets of their rage, inferior in their minds, yet materially superior, despised in the Koran, but somewhat triumphant in land and wealth. A religious paradox that can only be resolved by subjugating us or by converting us.

The crisis in the Middle East continues to intensify, and there is a growing probability of armed conflict with Iran in the near future. With its growing international isolation and continued drive toward nuclear weapon capability, the likelihood of Iran initiating hostilities is also a very real possibility.

A fulcrum of confrontation between Iran and the West is the Strait of Hormuz. On January 9, 2012, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s defense minister, stated that Iran has the ability to block the Strait if it deemed it necessary. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, Defense Intelligence Agency director, stated that “Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz.” Recent Iranian military exercises have emphasized sea denial of the waterway. In response, U.S., British and French warships have transited the Strait to and from the Persian Gulf to assert freedom of navigation. In January, the U.S. Navy reported four cases of harassment of its warships by Iranian naval vessels in the Gulf. Two U.S. carrier strike groups are deployed in the region, and a buildup of U.S. forces is underway.

The importance of Hormuz to global stability is paramount. According to a report from GlobalSecurity.org, almost 25 percent of the world’s oil supply transits the Strait daily–some 16.5-17 million barrels according to 2006 estimates–approximately 40 percent of all seaborne traded oil. Over 75 percent of Japan’s oil is carried through this waterway. By 2020, it is estimated that daily traffic will increase to some 30-34 million barrels.

Another thing about the Strait: it’s narrow, between 34-40 miles wide. Furthermore, there are just two 2-mile wide channels, one each for inbound and outbound traffic. Also, this traffic consists mostly of supertankers carrying over two million barrels each, meaning that fewer ships with more oil are carrying this supply.

If Hormuz were closed, as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply would be lost (assuming maximum output through pipelines from Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea, Turkey (through Iraq). and, possibly, Lebanon.) For the United States alone, this would have severe effects. According to a GAO report of October 5, 2006, such an occurrence could cause oil prices to increase $175 per barrel. Globally, the effects in such regions as Western Europe and East Asia would be even worse.

If Iran decided to move to close the Strait, it would have a variety of forces at its disposal. Its navy has three Russian-built Kilo-class submarines along with several midget submarines capable of laying mines, ideal for use in the Strait. Its surface forces include four guided-missile frigates and some 150 coastal combatants (another 50 are manned by the Revolutionary Guard Corps.) About 25-30 of these small vessels are equipped with the Chinese-made C-802 anti-ship missile, with a range of 60 kilometers. In addition to ships, there are some 60 C-802s deployed on Qeshm Island, covering the Strait, along                     with large numbers of other anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles there and on other small islands just to the west. Iran also has some 3,000 mines, including around 100 EM53′s, which are rocket-propelled and only strike when activated. There is also Iran’s air force, which fields about 50 F-14 Tomcat and MiG-29 fighters and 24 Su-24 strike aircraft, with some 200 other attack jets. Among the weapons they carry are C-801K anti-ship missiles, similar in capability to the C-802.

Worried about aggravating Iran, the United States has announced that it is postponing missile-defense drills with Israel. Dubbed “Austere Challenge 12,” the exercises had been planned for months and were intended to send a clear message that the United States and Israel were prepared to protect themselves from Iran’s mushrooming missile threat. In fact, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last month pointed to the exercises as evidence of America’s “unshakable” commitment to Israel. Now that the exercises have been delayed, the mullahs are getting a very different message.

A U.S. European Command official assures us that “It is not unusual for such exercises to be postponed,” which is true. But timing is everything when dealing with aggressors. Washington’s intentions are good—to avert an accidental war—but the perception in Tehran is that Washington blinked. That means the mullahs won this round. And as with all aggressors, that emboldens them and encourages them to push harder, to take more risks and to make dangerous miscalculations that invite the very thing Washington is trying to avoid.

One recalls how the Carter administration reacted to Moammar Qaddafi’s unilateral claim over the Gulf of Sidra, a huge chunk of the Mediterranean Sea universally considered as international waters. Anyone who crossed Qaddafi’s so-called “line of death” in the Gulf of Sidra would face military attack. President Carter canceled annual freedom-of-navigation naval exercises in and around the Gulf of Sidra to avoid confrontation and to keep things calm in the region.

But the message Qaddafi heard was that America was weak, and so he pushed and miscalculated. U.S. intelligence soon unearthed evidence that Libyan agents were planning to hit Marine One with a heat-seeking missile; Libya was caught red-handed sending tons of military hardware to communist forces in Nicaragua; and Qaddafi’s army of terrorists was at work all around the globe.

Vowing to enforce the principle of freedom of the seas, President Reagan ordered the U.S. Sixth Fleet to resume its exercises. When the exercises began in the autumn of 1981, Qaddafi lived up to his word and sent several warplanes into international airspace to enforce his line of death. Authorized, in Reagan’s words, to pursue attacking Libyan warplanes “all the way into the hangar,” U.S. F-14s responded with deadly force and made it clear to Qaddafi that there would be no payoff for recklessly disregarding international norms—only costs. “We sent a message to Qaddafi,” Reagan said. “We weren’t going to allow him to declare squatter’s rights over a huge area of the Mediterranean in defiance of international law.”

The moral of the story is that in international relations, every action and non-action sends a message. The postponement of Austere Challenge 12 sends the wrong message. Just when the pressure was building on the mullahs—on the economic front, in the Strait of Hormuz, vis-à-vis European energy imports, at the IAEA—Washington put Austere Challenge 12 on hold and relieved the pressure.

It’s important to note that these U.S.-Israel exercises were wholly defensive. As The Washington Post reports, they were “designed to test multiple Israeli and U.S. air defense systems against incoming missiles and rockets.”

Think about that. These weren’t provocative naval maneuvers off Iran’s coast or massive air exercises feigning attacks across the skies of the Middle East. These were missile-defense exercises designed to test U.S.-Israeli forces in deflecting inbound missile threats.

Defense is the operative word here. To cut through all the relativistic confusion, consider this everyday example: Which one of the following would you call provocative—a cop strapping on a bullet-proof vest or a gunman loading his weapon?

Iranian leaders are threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz to international traffic, and on Wednesday the parliament passed a law “forbidding” foreign warships to enter the Persian Gulf.

These moves came as the United States and Europe consider moves that will dramatically increase the economic and diplomatic pressure on Tehran – moves that already have caused the Iranian currency to lose more than half of its value, plunging from 10,500 rials to the U.S. dollar last month to around 18,000 rials on Monday, before recovering to around 15,500 on Wednesday.

On Dec. 31, President Obama signed a Defense Authorization bill that includes comprehensive new sanctions against Bank Markazi, Iran’s Central Bank. Existing sanctions against Iranian commercial banks have forced Iran over the past two years to increasingly take payment for its oil exports – the overwhelming hard currency income for the regime – through Bank Markazi.

While loopholes in the legislation exist that Obama has pledged to exploit, the National Iranian American Council – a group that consistently reflects the concerns and policy goals of the Iranian regime – lobbied hard against it.

Most significant among NIAC (and Tehran’s) worries is the potential that “Tehran could find itself unable to execute oil sales,” a NIAC briefing paper warned.

But that is precisely the reason Congress finally took the step of imposing a worldwide ban on Iran’s Central Bank after years of hand-wringing that such a move would drive up oil prices and impinge upon the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy.

“Without immediate and serious action, the Islamic Republic of Iran will have a nuclear weapons capability in the near future,” Senator Mark Kirk said when he filed the amendment in November. “As the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, it’s quite likely that the Iranian regime would transfer its nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And we can be sure that an Iranian bomb will set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East – from Saudi Arabia to Egypt. We must act now or face the consequences of a nuclear Iran.”

So what will Iran really do if push comes to shove? And how will the increased tensions affect the price of oil?

Scenario 1: Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian navy could attempt to use its Russian-made Kilo-class diesel-electric subs and smaller home-made Ghadir-class boats to torpedo ships entering the narrow sea lanes of the Strait, or try a repeat of its 1988 effort to mine the Strait.

Iranian leaders have made many threats recently that this is what they will do, boasting like drunken sailors that closing the Strait is a simple matter they could undertake with no preparation that would devastate world oil markets and exacerbate the international economic downturn.

But most analysts believe such a move would provide an acceptable excuse for the U.S. Navy to unleash its overwhelming firepower against Iran, sinking the majority of Iran’s major surface ships, knocking out its coastal artillery and anti-shipping missile batteries, and perhaps sinking offshore oil platforms, as during Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988.

“If the Islamic Republic wants to commit suicide, then by all means, close the Strait of Hormuz right away,” the Washington Times editorial page remarked recently.

Consequence: oil prices increase sharply for several days, then drop like a rock. Iran loses.

Scenario 2: Iran uses “swarming” attacks against U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.

When the USS John C. Stennis or another U.S. carrier attempts to re-enter the Persian Gulf (which the U.S. Navy sometimes refers to as the “Arabian” Gulf), Iran could carry out its threat to attack – not using large surface ships or missile boats, but with swarms of small “go-fast” boats armed with Revolutionary Guards troops and shoulder-launched weapons.

Such attacks could have dramatic success. U.S. planners have been worried about this since at least 2002, when they had to halt a war -gaming exercise after Iranian go-fast boats sank the majority of the U.S. fleet.

On December 17, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il died. The state press announced that his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, is the “great successor.” There’s a clear pattern where each step towards succession is accompanied with a provocation, reflecting the regime’s belief that its ills can be cured through conflict. At only 27 or 28 years old, Kim Jong-Un is out to prove himself, and the short-range missile test that followed his official takeover isn’t going to cut it.

Kim Jong-Un is largely a mystery. He wasn’t even formally mentioned in North Korea’s state press until October 2010. His age, mother and marital status aren’t even known. It is reported that British intelligence assess that he has an “explosive temper” and suffers from severe hypertension, giving little hope that his mental state is any better than his father’s.

In October 2010, he was given the rank of a four-star general, even though he has no military experience whatsoever. His young age, lack of experience and the decreasing support of the North Korean army and population make it difficult for Kim Jong-Un to ensure the stability of the regime. A cable published by Wikileaks reveals that the top national security advisor to the South Korean president believes the regime will collapse within 2 to 3 years after Kim Jong-Il’s death.

Kim Jong-Il believes that confrontation with outside powers is necessary for a successful transition. In 1987, he was the designated successor. He ordered the bombing of a South Korean airliner and took part in a plot to assassinate South Korea’s president in Burma. This is the same type of preparatory steps his son undertook before his own ascent.

On May 25, 2009, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test. About one week later, Kim Jong-Il had his top officials pledge their loyalty to Kim Jong-Un. It is now known that Kim Jong-Un ordered the March 26, 2010 sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, killing 46. Five South Korean properties at the jointly-operated Mt. Kumgang resort were seized almost immediately after, and two North Korean agents were arrested in South Korea as they planned to kill a high-level defector there. Not long after that, the North launched cyber attacks on South Korean websites.

Over the summer of 2010, Kim Jong-Un oversaw a huge purge of political officials in order to solidify power. Older leaders were replaced with younger loyalists. It is said that 1,000 were arrested and 20-30 were executed. In September, new party leadership was chosen. Not long after, North Korea revealed an advanced uranium enrichment facility with 2,000 centrifuges and began erecting a lightwater reactor at Yongbyon.

Reprinted from IsraPundit.com.

Before forming the present government PM Netanyahu stood for the following:

– no two state solution
- no Shalit trade as was then being negotiated
- no construction freeze and
- no presentation of an Israeli plan for its borders

Since taking office he violated all these supposed red lines. He gave a speech in which he accepted “two states for two peoples”. He made the Shalit trade he previously had opposed. He imposed a 10 month freeze for nothing in return and in many ways imposed a de facto freeze.

And now, it appears he has agreed to present, “comprehensive proposals” for resolving key aspects of conflict within three months.

By agreeing to this and not rejecting the peace process, Israel is accepting negotiations which aim to bridge the gap. Netanyahu has thus crossed another red line.

Netanyahu inherited the Shalit negotiations and once complained that he was dealt a lousy hand as though he couldn’t have started all over again. Similarly, he is not prepared to start all over again on peace negotiations and is prepared to play with the hand he was dealt. It too is a lousy hand.

By Netanyahu formally agreeing to present such proposals, he confirms that he is following Olmert and Barak. This is something Bibi has repeatedly said he would not do just as he has always said he is against the Shalit deal.

This goes way beyond playing rope-a-dope to buy time. This shows a seriousness about negotiations and an intention to really negotiate along the dictates of Obama and his proxy, the Quartet.

Netanyahu has to ask for more than he expects to get, yet on the other hand, if he asks for too much the Quartet will say he is not serious and penalize him/Israel for it. Not for a moment, do I believe that this was his idea or that he willingly went along.

The article Knesset visitor blasts Obama and Netanyahu advises that MK Eldad accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of buckling under intense pressure from President Barack Obama, who wants to prevent any Israeli retaliation against the Palestinian Authority in its bid to win recognition as a state from the United Nations.

He (Eldad) charged that Obama was holding Netanyahu “at gunpoint” – the gun being the U.S. threat to go back on its promise to veto the Palestinian statehood bid in the UN Security Council.Specifically, Obama has demanded that Netanyahu and Israel’s supporters in the United States pressure Congress to abort two pending resolutions to penalize the Palestinian Authority (PA) if it pursues its bid, Eldad claimed.One would shut off U.S. aid funds to the Palestinians and a second would support Israel’s right to annex the West Bank. The legal justification for such actions, cited by many Israeli officials, would be that the unilateral statehood request would be a direct violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The inescapable conclusion is that Bibi felt he had no choice but to agree with the Quartet’s new Plan in which they proposed that the parties meet for a month and then prepare proposals within the following three months. To my mind the Quartet would not have come out with their plan, at that time, had not Bibi agreed to it.

The Palestinian request for recognition is still with the UNSC and will not be voted on or vetoed until Bibi presents his plan. So Eldad was 100 % correct.

Diplomacy being what it is, the Quartet will do its utmost to get Bibi to better Olmert’s offer. Abbas had offered to allow Israel to keep much less land. Abbas wanted to keep Ariel and much of east Jerusalem including Maaleh Adumin. When Netanyahu formed his government he made it clear that in no way would he match Olmert’s offer. I don’t see how he can avoid it.

As demonstrated in the present writer’s two previous articles (here and here) regarding US aid to Israel, the USA, in return for its aid and political support, receives from Israel very profitable financial and political reciprocity and significant benefits in the areas of military intelligence, ordnance and operations.  On the other hand, America’s aid to Israel’s enemies actually supports America’s enemies, underwrites in part their terrorist actions against our soldiers and civilians, funds the very countries that openly seek our destruction, and pays the salaries of Arab terrorist mass murderers.

Why then do some scholars, journalists and political commentators devote so much time and energy to arguing that American aid to Israel is excessive, a waste of the American taxpayers’ money, and a political liability to the USA?

Take for example, one among many, the Washington D.C. economist Thomas Stauffer who warned us in 2002 that Israel is bankrupting America, having received more than $1.6 trillion in foreign aid since 1973.  Stauffer upped the ante a year later with the assertion in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) that the cost to the US taxpayer of our government’s support of Israel is actually $3 trillion!

The real numbers are actually rather easy to ascertain.  The Congressional Research Service provides annual reports for Congress on a wide variety of issues, among them the total cost of American aid to Israel.  Their analysts do not seem to be especially pro- or anti-Israel. The most recent report, for 2010, indicates that the total US aid to Israel for military, economic and immigrant resettlement costs from 1949 to 2010 was $109 billion dollars or, on average, less than $2 billion per year.  As is apparent from the 2010 report, US aid to Israel was zero or negligible until 1967 (after the 6-Day War), and did not reach the current annual sums of $2.5 billion to $3 billion or more until 1997 (following the Oslo Accords).  $3 billion per year is not chump change; but it is hardy an amount that would “bankrupt” the USA, and it is not much more than America’s annual aid to Egypt.

Moreover, as explained in the present writer’s two previous articles, American support for Israel is a very profitable investment for the USA rather than a gift to Israel.

Compare $109 billion to Stauffer’s $3 trillion! Recall that a million million, or one thousand billion, equals one trillion.  Stauffer has inflated his numbers by a factor of 30!

How does he come up with his trillions? –  by throwing in the proverbial “kitchen sink.”

Stauffer reaches his enormous sums by adding to the bona fide aid his utterly irrational but self-serving assertion that Israel is to blame for post-1973 rises in oil prices and thus bears the onus of culpability for America’s energy costs after the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the 1974 Arab oil embargo.  He never mentions that this embargo was imposed by our so-called ally Saudi Arabia, nor does he venture to suggest what Israel should have done when Egypt and Syria invaded — not defend itself?  In which case there would have been a very short Yom Kippur war and no oil embargo, but also no Israel?

He throws in as well the cost of American trade restrictions on Libya, Iraq and Iran; but never explains how these restrictions, a function of decisions made by our President and Congress, are Israel’s fault.  He even decries American Jews’ charitable gifts to Israel and to pro-Israel charities in the USA – after all, if that money did not go to Israel it would instead benefit the US economy.  One cannot but wonder whether he has ever expressed similar animus toward American citizens of the Catholic faith contributing to the Vatican.

Perhaps most confusing, he even lumps into his astronomic estimate the aid that the USA has given to Egypt (c. $117 billion) and to Jordan (c. $22 billion) in return for peace treaties with Israel.  Aside from the obvious fact that this USA money went to Egypt and Jordan but not to Israel, it is also quite rational to suggest that our government wisely saw these treaties as foundation blocks of peace in the Middle East, and therefore well worth the investment.  In short, Stauffer pulls into his calculus anything and everything that he can possibly think of to inflate the numbers.  Contrary to the popular adage, he does not throw in everything but the kitchen sink, he tosses that in too.

Essays of a similar ilk, by Stephen Zunes,  Scott McConnel, and various writers for the transparently anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), have employed similar mendacious and misleading tactics to exponentially inflate the cost of American support for Israel and condemn the US-Israel special relationship as a liability for the USA.

“In the process of fighting for freedom, I lost my own freedom,” Dutch politician Geert Wilders explained.

Our weekly Canadian program, “On the Front Line,” was one of the media outlets carefully selected to interview Wilders during his first visit to Canada last week. For several years, public and private discourse has centered around the sensationalism of Wilders’ epic battle against the Islamization of the West. But this interview (still to be aired) revealed some of Wilders’ less publicized views on moderate Islam and the personal cost of his quest.

Wilders, who remains under explicit death threats from Muslims, is dismissed by leftists as a scary, anti-Muslim radical.  While one may disagree with his views and methodologies, his struggle against radicalism is nothing short of a Western obligation. The principal point of contention on Wilder’s approach is that he does not readily make a distinction between moderate and radical Islam.   He referred to the famous Belgian Professor of Islamic Studies—Urbain Vermeulen—describing Islam as 95 percent ideology and 5 percent religion.  Islam, like communism and fascism, is totalitarian and seeks to rule every aspect of individual and state life.

Wilders pointed out that “there are more mosques than windmills in Holland today.”  His answer is to stop building new mosques and madrassas that teach violence and hate, and to stop immigration from Muslim countries to stem the Islamization of the West. He does not advocate deporting Muslims, except those that have crossed the “red line” which refers to any Muslim acting according to Shariah and against our values (for example, practicing FGM and honour killings). Such Muslims, says Wilders, should be stripped of their western nationality and sent back to their countries of origin.

Yet on further probing about the moderate Muslims who face death threats fighting for the same anti-Islamist cause, Wilders did recognize the existence of moderates and makes a key distinction between the Muslim individual and the ideologies of Islam. The more moderates the better, he said, and we should support them in any way possible.  He also made the point that the Koran regards such Muslims as apostates worthy of death, yet if they see themselves as Muslims, we must support them.

The final question we posed to Wilders concerned  the personal toll on his life, even before the release of his short film “Fitna.” His neutral look gave way to his humanity with a brief sadness as he replied:

The most significant outcome of the Mavi Marmara incident is that there can no longer be any doubt that Turkey has joined the anti-Western bloc that includes Hamas, Iran and Syria. The Muslim country was once devotedly secular, an ally of Israel, and remains a member of NATO, but under the direction of Prime Minister Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (often referred to as the AKP), Turkey has gone in the completely opposite direction with enormous strategic consequences.

“Unfortunately, the AKP government of Mr. Erdogan and the oil-rich regime of Qatar joined the regional bloc opposing the more traditional governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco,” Dr. Walid Phares told FrontPage.

Erdogan’s turn to the other side is not the result of a single incident such as Operation Cast Lead or the Israeli raid on the flotilla, but is the culmination of an agenda long held by Erdogan and the AKP.

“In fact, it is not secular Turkey that we see moving against the U.S., West, Israel and Arab moderates. It is the AKP Islamist cabinet which is uncovering its long-term ideological agenda. The West should have projected this since 2002,” Dr. Phares said, referring to the year in which Erdogan’s party won a majority in the Turkish parliament.

Erdogan was imprisoned in 1998 for his involvement with the banned Welfare Party, which the Turkish government considered Islamist. Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy describes the Welfare Party as the “motherboard of Turkish Islamists since the 1980s,” saying it was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan was specifically punished for reading a poem at one speech with the lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.”

In 2001, he founded the AKP, which took a more moderate line, portraying itself as committed to separation of mosque and state but “faithful governance,” as Dr. Essam El-Erian, the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political bureau, described the AKP’s “moderate Islamist” ideology. There was no anti-Western rhetoric and the party strongly supported membership in the European Union. The group won a large victory in the 2002 elections, resulting in Erdogan taking the post of Prime Minister.

Dr. El-Erian praised Erdogan’s victory, saying that it was the result of the “exposing of the failure of the secular trend.” El-Erian confirmed that the Muslim Brotherhood had close ties to the AKP, but the West treated Turkey as if nothing had changed. It wasn’t until Turkey steadfastly refused to allow U.S. soldiers to transit their territory to overthrow Saddam Hussein that the West began questioning the allegiance of Erdogan’s government.

The Erdogan government soon began a concerted effort to fuel anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment, knowing that such feelings help the AKP politically and hurt its opponents in the secular military that have long ties to the West. The Turkish media consistently reported alleged U.S. atrocities, fanning the already massive anti-war sentiment. The outrageous claims can only be compared to the anti-Israeli propaganda seen in the Arab world and Iran, echoing similar themes such as the use of chemical weapons against civilians and the harvesting of organs from killed Iraqis.

The AKP won an even larger share of the vote in the July 2007 election and had even more dominance over the government. Since then, the ideology of Erdogan has become more apparent as Turkish opinion has become less hostile to anti-Western Islamism.  Shortly after the victory, Turkey’s moves towards Iran and other enemies of the West became more visible and aggressive.

Turkey began entertaining the prospect of Iran’s natural gas being delivered to European markets through its territory, and the two countries launched joint military attacks against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. The Party of Free Life for Kurdistan, or PJAK, claimed it actually saw Turkish officers working alongside the Iranian military. Newsmax.com reported that eight Turkish officers were in Iran coordinating the attacks with the Revolutionary Guards.

In the spring of 2009, Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian-backed militia leader whose followers killed dozens of American soldiers in Iraq, met with Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul for “political consultations.” Most recently, Turkey has opposed sanctions on Iran and helped put together a deal with Brazil meant to delay any United Nations measures despite Iran’s lack of cooperation on the nuclear issue.

Erdogan’s government simultaneously became more anti-Israeli, particularly once the Israeli military offensive into Gaza began in response to the rocket attacks of Hamas. Erdogan went so far as to predict that Israel’s actions “would bring it to self-destruction,” saying “Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents.” He accused Jewish-controlled media outlets of “finding unfounded excuses to justify targeting of schools, mosques and hospitals.”

On January 29, 2009, Erdogan publicly confronted Israeli President Peres at the World Economic Forum over the Israeli offensive. When he was denied extra time to continue his criticism of Israel, he stormed out. Erdogan was a hero overnight in the Muslim world.

Soon after, an exhibit opened in a major state-controlled metro in Istanbul that included many viciously anti-Israeli and anti-American cartoons, portraying Israeli soldiers as massacring innocent people with American weapons. The AKP won the March 29 local elections, further cementing their hold and convincing Erdogan that he was politically safe to follow the agenda he held from the beginning. Later that year, Israel had to confront Turkey over anti-Israeli propaganda on prime-time state-controlled television.

In October, Turkey refused to allow Israel to participate in annual military exercises also involving Italy and the U.S. Instead, Turkey and Syria announced that they would hold their own joint exercises. The Turkish-Syrian alliance began shortly after Erdogan came to power, with Syrian President Bashar Assad visiting Turkey and a free trade agreement being signed.

Turkey has also moved closer to Sudan, refusing to describe the situation in Darfur as a genocide. Erdogan’s government also opposes the International Criminal Court’s indictment of President Omar al-Bashir for human rights violations. His defense of Bashir is that “no Muslim could perpetrate a genocide.”

Now, Turkey is taking center stage in the wake of the Mavi Marmara incident. Turkey is openly considering cutting off all diplomatic ties with Israel and is saying that its warships will escort future convoys to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. There are reports that Erdogan himself may actually join a convoy. Erdogan now openly says, “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization…They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land.”

He was among the first to accept Hamas after it was elected in Gaza, and he is calling their rule a “democracy” based on elections alone. Democracy is much more than elections, but Erdogan, like the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, want to equate democracy with elections so as to give themselves legitimacy as they move against the other pillars of democracy. Professor Barry Rubin says that as the AKP won election victories, the Erdogan government “repressed opposition and arrested hundreds of critics, bought up 40 percent of the media, and installed its people in the bureaucracy.”

Today, the government has begun the country’s “largest-ever crackdown” on the military, prosecuting 33 current and former military officers for allegedly planning a coup to overthrow the AKP government in 2003 including the former head of the special forces. Those arrested have been accused of planning to carry out acts of terrorism including the bombing of mosques, which they deny. Given the military’s pride in acting as the guardian of Turkey’s secularism, it isn’t surprising that elements of the military would desire to see the AKP overthrown. However, this could be an Islamist attempt to weaken the military and paint them as dangerous and anti-Muslim.

Erdogan’s defense of the vessel owned by the IHH, a Turkish Islamist group tied to Hamas and other terrorist activity, is particularly insightful. Any true opponent of terrorism and radical Islamism would ban the group or at least officially investigate them. In 1997, the Turkish authorities raided the IHH’s office in Istanbul and made numerous arrests. IHH operatives were found with weapons-related materials and the French counterterrorism magistrate said that they were planning on supporting jihadists in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

“The essential goal of this Association was to illegally arm its membership for overthrowing democratic, secular, and constitutional order present in Turkey and replacing it with an Islamic state founded on the Shariah,” the French magistrate’s report said.

If the goal of the IHH is to establish Sharia Law in Turkey, and Erdogan’s government is describing them as a “charity,” what does that say about Erdogan’s plans? The Washington Post has raised alarm over this connection, noting the IHH leadership’s praise for Erdogan.

The West’s loss of Turkey has frightening strategic consequences. They are so frightening that the West refused to acknowledge the trend until it became undeniable in recent weeks. Professor Juan Cole, who already was a strident critic of Israel, bluntly states, “Strategically, if the U.S. had to choose between Turkey and Israel, it would have to choose Turkey.” The pressure on the U.S. to restrain Israel so as to court the stronger bloc has now become greater than ever.

The situation is even more precarious for other countries in the region previously bonding together to oppose Iran. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa that are hostile to Iran’s ambitions now face an even more threatening bloc that has been enlarged by the defection of Turkey. The temptation for them to surrender the mantle of leadership to the Iranian-Syrian-Turkish bloc in order to save themselves will now reach unprecedented levels, regardless of whether Iran obtains nuclear weapons or not.

To make matters worse, Erdogan’s prestige as the preeminent challenger of Israel will lead to competition with Iran, sparking an escalation where each side tries to establish superior anti-Israeli and anti-Western credentials. Israel is now in its most isolated and dangerous situation since its birth in 1948.

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) tries to organize American religious opinion against Israel with relatively measured tones.  Its participants predictably include officials from the left-dominated Mainline Protestant denominations, liberal Catholic orders, and the Greek Archdiocese of North America, as well as the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the U.S.  Its official “friends” include more overtly anti-Israel diehards like Friends of Sabeel – North America, which essentially wants to dissolve Jewish Israel in favor of a multi-ethnic “Palestine.”   Various advocates of anti-Israel divestment, an otherwise largely defeated cause, are also “friends” to CEMP, including the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and the Methodist Federation for Social Action.

The star of CMEP’s annual “advocacy” conference in Washington, D.C. starting June 13 will be Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.  Comfortably liberal Episcopal refinement is exactly the sort of tone that CMEP often prefers to mask its more provocative agenda.  Bishop Schori is enmeshed in the melt-down of her own denomination, including lawsuits against departing local congregations, and its schism with the more theologically orthodox global Anglican Communion.  But denouncing Israel still merits her attention.

Last week, she wrote President Obama a relatively long, substantive and, by Religious left standards, temperate denunciation of Israel’s interception of the Gaza-bound flotilla. But the bias and preoccupation with Israeli sins, perceived or real, are still obvious, even if cloaked in Episcopalian politesse.  Admitting all the details of the flotilla event are still unclear, she still insisted:   “It is clear, however, that the deaths of civilians working to deliver humanitarian aid could not have happened absent the counterproductive Israeli blockade of Gaza.”  Ostensibly there are “far better ways to protect Israel’s security and promote moderate political leadership in Gaza than a blockade that intensifies human suffering and perpetuates regional insecurity.”

What are the alternatives to counteracting Hamas rule in Gaza short of a partial blockade against it?  Like most Israel critics, Bishop Schori does not say.  And as with other professions of supposed concern about Israel’s “security,” Bishop Schori and other clerics who publicly pontificate about the Middle East almost never offer substitute proposals for whatever Israeli defenses they reject.  The security wall is supposedly an outrage, but what else will impede suicide bombers?  Israel’s continued security oversight of the West Bank is purportedly oppresses the Palestinians.  But since most Palestinians still seem to reject a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside a Jewish Israel, what are the other options?  Religious and secular complainants insist that removal of Jewish settlements from the West Bank is prerequisite for peace.  But the abrupt closure of all Jewish settlements in Gaza hardly generated good will and instead seemed only to stimulate appetite for more Israeli concessions.  Browbeating Israel into endless accommodations that only feed an inexhaustible expectation by Palestinians for further Israeli retreat and eventual Arab/Islamist triumph seems to be the Religious Left’s main strategy for Middle East “peace.”

“Instead of enhancing Israel’s security, the blockade has harmed its international standing and imposed an inexcusable humanitarian toll on the people of Gaza,” Bishop Schori insisted in her letter to Obama.  ”While Israel has allowed a very limited amount of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, the restriction on basic goods for agriculture, fishing, and infrastructure construction has caused poverty and joblessness to soar.”  This may be true, but why is Israel exclusively at fault for Gaza’s suffering?  How was Gaza faring before to the blockade, and under the rule of the Palestinian Authority?  What evidence is there for Palestinian leadership genuinely interested in responsible governance rather than indefinite conflict?

Bishop Schori provided details about the number of trucks with supplies entering Gaza per day. The concern is partly admirable, if sincere.  But why is a U.S. Episcopal Bishop obsessed with living standards for Gaza, or the Palestinians, when hundreds of millions globally live in far greater poverty?  Would Palestinian GNP, in Gaza or the West Bank, interest liberal U.S. bishops at all, absent Israel as the targeted culprit?  How many anti-Western dictators have blockaded or literally starved hostile populations much larger than Gaza, without a murmur from Bishop Schori or the Religious Left?

Rather than tacitly backing an ill-advised blockade, the U.S. should work with its ally, Israel, to promote constructive new policies toward Gaza that serve the aims of peace and security,” Bishop Schori lectured.  The former oceanographer and teacher wants “continued efforts to halt violence, and credible long-term strategies to support Palestinian leaders who are actively working for peace,” while also drawing “support and legitimacy from across Palestinian society.”  She suggests “political reconciliation so that a future Palestinian government can draw strength both from its internal support and from its external actions on behalf of peace.”  How does the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop, unable to reconcile the divisions within her own denomination of tea sippers and Volvo drivers, propose to reconcile Hamas with other Palestinians, much less Israel?

For Schori, the goals for the Middle East are simple.  The Episcopal Church has “repeatedly” supported a “secure Israel with defined borders, whose right to exist is universally recognized; a sovereign, independent and secure state for the Palestinian people; and shared custody and protection of the holy sites in Jerusalem held sacred by the three great Abrahamic faiths.”  This rhetoric appeals to Episcopalians snugly secure in their New England hamlets.  But how many Palestinians, even outside Hamas, share this vision?

Schori instructed Obama to shift our nation’s posture” towards “lifting the blockade,” while also “robustly” encouraging “long-term peace.”  She also expects “direct negotiation between the parties,” i.e. apparent recognition for Hamas.  How will abandoning the Gaza blockade and recognizing Hamas, which would surely inflate that Islamist group’s prestige and ambitions, advance peace?   In the rarified and often beautiful world of Episcopal liturgy, noblesse oblige, gothic spires, and ancient endowments, simply demanding “long-term peace’ may seem quite attainable over a lunch at the country club.  In the real world of guns, power, and even more ancient hatreds, appeasement often only breeds greater conflict.

Bishop Schori’s pleas to appease Hamas were relatively more thoughtful than other Religious Left voices.  United Methodist lobbyist Jim Winkler histrionically bewailed Israel’s “high-seas piracy” against the “Freedom Flotilla.”  But her appeal to Obama, and her likely commentary to Churches for Middle East Peace later this week, are just as feckless, and, if heeded, just as dangerous.

Fred Branfman, author, blogger and early contributor to the current California economic miracle under Governor Jerry Brown, has written a very long apologetic about Noam Chomsky, or more accurately a standard screed against US imperialism and capitalism using Chomsky as a prop. Presumably he thought that invoking the grand old man’s name would somehow spur the faithful to actually read through this door stopper, but I’m not sure the unearthed memoirs of Lenin could have done that. This is very much a “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” kind of piece and Branfman clearly hopes that if nothing sticks at least his readers will succumb to exhaustion and boredom before realizing it.

He needn’t have gone to so much trouble. The basic theme can be summarized in two sentences (spoiler alert for those of you actually thinking of navigating this tome):

• America is really, really bad.
• Communism will fix it.

In fairness, Branfman’s innovative variation is “I think America is very, very bad and Communism will fix it, and look Chomsky agrees with me!” but the basic approach remains the same. This is a patented two-step and Branfman pays close attention to the painted feet on the floor.

On the first point, demonizing America is reasonably straightforward as long as you remember to cherrypick the facts you don’t actually make up, and frame your questions with careful dishonesty. Branfman appears to have this down. Consider:

Which nation’s leaders since 1945 have murdered, maimed, made homeless, tortured, assassinated and impoverished the largest number of civilians who were not its own citizens?

I have asked this question of Americans in every walk of life since I discovered the bombing of Laos in 1969. It’s a simple matter of fact, not involving judgments of right and wrong, and I remain astonished at how most answer “the Russians,” “the Chinese,” or just have no idea that their leaders have killed more noncitizen civilians than the rest of the world’s leaders combined since 1945.

They have no idea because it isn’t true. Apart from the dearth of evidence to support such a claim the sophistry here is so obvious it’s like watching a third rate magician not quite able to get that red hanky into his sleeve. The qualifier “not its own citizens” conveniently excludes “the Russians” and “the Chinese” (proving conclusively that the Americans he talked to were smarter than he was), to say nothing of Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Jong Il and any other half-dozen dictators you could pull at random from the Communist Who’s Who. Among them, these “agrarian reformers” have killed more people on an off-day than the US would contemplate in a decade, but never mind; it’s just their own citizens.

By thus ignoring the Tiananmen Squares and killing fields of history, Branfman takes the apples and oranges fallacy one step further by denying the existence of the orange altogether.

Not that he understands the apples any better. Words like “murdered”, “maimed” and “tortured” are designed to evoke images of the Sopranos, not the unavoidable, if obviously tragic, consequences of war he is actually talking about. The US has, for all practical purposes, undertaken the defense of the free world since World War II.  It is therefore not surprising that it would inflict more civilian casualties in wars and police actions than, say, France—which like the rest of Europe reserves the right to be self-righteous about US military power while at the same time relying on it for protection.

Rendered of its fat, that’s all he’s got, which among any rational audience should provoke a vigorous “And so …?”

To which Branfman might then reply, “Wait guys, don’t go, you haven’t given me a chance to inflate the numbers yet!”

These would include the huge proportion of civilians among the 3.4 million Vietnamese that Robert McNamara estimated were killed in Vietnam (over 90 percent by U.S. firepower), Laotian and Cambodian civilians felled by the largest per capita and most indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets in history, the 1 million to 1.5 million Iraqis estimated by the U.N.‘s Denis Halliday to have died from Clinton’s sanctions “designed,” in Halliday’s words, “to kill civilians, particularly children,” and the hundreds of thousands killed as a result of the Bush invasion. The total number of civilians killed, wounded, made homeless and impoverished by U.S. leaders or local regimes owing their power to U.S. guns and aid—in not only Indochina and Iraq but Mexico, El Salvador, Israel/Palestine, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Egypt, Iran, South Africa, Chile, East Timor, Haiti, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Jamaica, the Philippines and Indonesia—is in the tens of millions.

Credible estimates put Vietnamese war dead at 3.8 million, over a span of 43 years (which for you history buffs includes the French and other combatants)—2.3 million if you exclude those who died by assassination, forced relocation, labor camps and various civil uprisings in that period. (For an example of someone who’s actually done his homework see R.J. Rummel: Statistics of Democide, Chapter 6.)

So I stand corrected, the French will occasionally shoot somebody if sufficiently provoked.

A greater canard is the Iraq number.

How Branfman’s can present Denis Halliday (anti-Israel flotilla activist and former head of the UN’s wildly successful Oil for Food program) as a credible source, without kicking the dirt and avoiding eye-contact, is a testament to his chutzpa. As Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch points out the sanctions were administered by the UN, not the US, and the civilian numbers were grossly exaggerated. What interest Halliday could possibly have had in ginning up the numbers–beyond providing poster children for his program and an exit strategy when he needed it—is anyone’s guess.

I don’t know about you, but even if we throw in Canada and the Virgin Islands (the only two countries he doesn’t seem to think we’ve decimated) I don’t know how he gets to “tens of millions.” But then again, he’s not expecting  anyone over at TruthDig to check. Just keep nodding and smiling boys.

Branfman then goes on—and on, and on—in this fashion, trying through sheer volume of prose to make the case that America is the source of all evil in the world.

His solution is a shocker.

Chomsky thus argues that human survival requires changing the system, not merely periodically replacing those running it.

[…]

The real choice, Chomsky makes clear, is not free enterprise versus statism, but state capitalism for (A) the few or (B) the many. The latter would include breaking up the banks, a focus on job creation and safety net expansion where needed, single-payer health insurance, higher taxes on the wealthy, far lower military spending, public members on corporate boards, greater employee workplace control and, above all, a new public-private partnership to see America become a leader in a clean energy economic revolution.

Got it. Apologies to Branfman and Chomsky for incorrectly believing they were dragging us down the road to serfdom once again. If it’s got the word “capitalism” in it, it must be good, right? Just like the word “democratic.” Since I know for a fact that Communists have never appropriated words to conceal their true intentions I know I’ll rest easy.

One wonders if Newsweek will soon come out with a “We’re All State Capitalists Now” issue.

The disparity between the perspectives and values of the political elites and their allies and those of the common people grows ever wider. We saw it again tonight on Staten Island, where my SIOA colleague Pamela Geller and I attended a civic meeting that discussed the mysterious sale of a Roman Catholic Convent to the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Brotherhood's chief operating arm in the United States.

The fix was in, as is always the case. The meeting featured three Muslims affiliated with the MAS, who were billed as being there to answer questions and allay the fears of the community. No opponents of the sale were set to speak from the dais; they were only allowed to ask questions from the floor after the MAS operatives made their presentation. The MAS men came armed with folders for the crowd, full of commendations of the MAS from the likes of the Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club, etc., and began distributing them. I had prepared a one-page summary of the Investigative Project's dossier on the Muslim Brotherhood, and it was also being distributed among the crowd, along with the full 40-page version -- but then one of the local officials running the meeting announced that no materials were to be distributed, as this was a meeting devoted to giving an opportunity to the MAS to explain itself to the community, and now people were distributing material "against" -- it had to stop. Many in the crowd took exception, however, to the MAS operatives distributing their folder full of soothing detours as well, and so ultimately that was stopped too and all the printed matter left up front for anyone to take.

Soon thereafter the meeting started, and after some other business, the Muslims began their presentation. They spoke in calm, measured tones. They spoke about their many years in the community, their children, their work (two were physical therapists, one a high school math teacher). They spoke, of course, of the need for "mutual respect." They spoke about the need for both sides to communicate and get to know each other better. They spoke about reassuring someone with a sentimental attachment to the convent building (many of those present had been educated by the nuns who lived there) by saying, "God will be praised in that building." They praised the Muslim American Society as an upstanding civic group with "50 chapters in 55 states across the nation" (yes, you read that right). They spoke of the MAS's commitment to establishing a virtuous and just American society. They denigrated Steve Emerson and his Investigative Project as Islamophobic and claimed that he purveyed falsehoods. When challenged later by an IPT official to name even one specific falsehood in the IPT report on the Muslim American Society and Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Muslim spokesmen said only, "Later on."

I asked them if they were prepared to denounce Hamas and Hizballah, both of which were publicly endorsed by MAS leader Mahdi Bray, as jihad terrorist organizations, and to renounce any intention to bring Sharia to the U.S., in line with the Brotherhood's stated goal of "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house" so that Allah's religion is "made victorious over other religions." In response, the main spokesman for the three hemmed and hawed and emitted billows upon billows of airy nonsense -- to the increasing impatience of the crowd. This spokesman, made nervous by the crowd's vocal disdain for his ever-lengthening non-answer, did ultimately call Hamas and Hizballah terrorist groups and renounce any intention to bring Sharia to the U.S. But since these positions are at odds with what are known to be the positions of the MAS, it seems likely that he was only saying this under pressure -- otherwise he wouldn't have needed to offer so much empty and condescending verbiage to the crowd before getting around to the point.

The other questions were pointed, informed and full of righteous indignation. Challenged about the MAS's leader, the unsavory Bray, the chief spokesman, a physical therapist named Ayman, called him a "civil rights activist." Challenged on whether he thought the people in the room were the Infidels that the Qur'an directs Muslims to wage war against, he told the questioner, "No, you are not an Infidel," and explained that the Qur'anic Infidels were only those who knew the truth and still rejected it. He did not mention, of course, that the Qur'an doesn't envision any other kind of Infidel, and that it has no conception of people who reject Islam in good faith.

Ayman defined jihad as the right of a nation to defend itself whenever it is oppressed and occupied -- a definition large enough to drive a bomb-laden truck through, and that fact didn't elude the questioner, who further asked him whether that definition would indeed make Americans Infidels, because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He explained that no, he wouldn't be raising his five children here if he thought America was Infidel. Another one of the Muslims on the dais insisted that Sharia was democratic and protected democracy. Once again, the glaring contradiction of all this with the words and deeds of the MAS leadership and the Brotherhood was left unexplained.

And so it went. Ultimately, one of the Muslim spokesmen, the other physical therapist, whose name was Muhammad, became firm. Asked if the MAS would prove the sensitivity to the community that the spokesmen were insisting they had by leaving the community, he said: "We are exercising our freedom of religion. We will not apologize for being Muslim. We will not apologize for being American."

Ringing words, but ultimately empty -- ignoring, yet again, the aspect of Islam that is political, and that would subjugate women and non-Muslims and deny the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. And when they were challenged on such issues, the Muslim spokesmen retreated behind their clouds of rhetorical smoke.

Finally, when the local officials tried to stop the questions from the floor while there was still a long line of people waiting to be heard, and to bring on instead a couple of local dhimmis (including a Christian Arab minister in a clerical collar) to explain how wonderful their experience had been living next to the Muslims of another Staten Island mosque, the crowd had had enough of being railroaded and lied to, and wouldn't quiet down. The meeting was summarily ended, prematurely. But it mattered little. The fix was in from the start.

The UN Security Council approved a resolution yesterday (Wednesday, June 9th) imposing a fourth round of sanctions on Iran in response to its continued nuclear enrichment program, which is in violation of prior Security Council resolutions.  The vote was 12 in favor, 2 against (Brazil and Turkey) and 1 abstention (Lebanon).  The new resolution imposes new financial restrictions on Iran, expands an existing arms embargo, and authorizes a greater capacity to stop and search Iranian cargo ships. Targeted sanctions on specific individuals and entities were expanded. The resolution also includes measures directed against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

While the United States, Great Britain, and France were the resolution’s strongest sponsors, China and Russia also expressed their verbal support along with their votes — although the Russian ambassador added a major caveat in his response to a reporter’s question about Russia’s prospective sale of a sophisticated anti-aircraft system to Iran.

Lebanon’s decision to abstain was a pleasant surprise, considering the influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah in the Lebanese government. Brazil and Turkey, as expected, opposed the new resolution on the grounds that it could undermine a proposed nuclear fuel swap between Iran and the two countries. They seemed to forget that the European Union has been trying to negotiate with Iran since 2005 and the Obama administration waited 18 months while trying to engage Iran before seeking passage of this resolution.  Only when new sanctions became a real possibility did Iran come around to the fuel swap concept that it had first agreed upon and then promptly reneged on last fall.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters after the vote that the “resolution is strong, it’s tough and it’s comprehensive. And it is something that Iran fought very hard to prevent passage today. The effort, the time, the money, and the poise that they employed to try to prevent this resolution’s passage only underscores their understanding, that this is a major blow.”

Despite the ineffectiveness of the three prior resolutions, Ambassador Rice expressed confidence that the cumulative effect on Iran of all the resolutions is “harmful and hurtful.”

Iran remains unbowed. Its representative told the Security Council after the vote that it had no intention of changing its present course. He accused the United States and Great Britain in particular of continuing a long pattern of interference in Iran’s affairs and displaying a double standard vis-a-vis Israel. Ambassador Rice told reporters that these comments were “reprehensible, offensive, and inaccurate.”

On paper at least, the new resolution does appear to represent a significant move forward from the prior three. More specifically, the resolution prohibits Iran from investing in sensitive nuclear activities abroad, like uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, as well as activities involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The ban also applies to investment in uranium mining.

States are prohibited from selling or in any way transferring to Iran various categories of heavy weapons (battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and certain missiles or missile systems). States are similarly prohibited from providing technical or financial assistance for such systems, or spare parts.

The resolution also sets up a new cargo inspection framework. States are expected to inspect any vessel on their territory suspected of carrying prohibited cargo, including banned conventional arms or sensitive nuclear or missile items. States are also expected to cooperate in such inspections on the high seas.

States are called upon to prevent any financial service and to freeze any asset that could contribute to Iran’s proliferation.

Most significantly, the resolution targets the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for its role in proliferation and requires states to mandate that businesses exercise vigilance over all transactions involving the IRGC. Fifteen IRGC-related companies linked to proliferation will have their assets frozen. The IRGC is the major power center in Iran’s economic and military spheres as well as one of the government’s primary instruments for suppressing political dissent. Impairing the IRGC’s freedom of operations will be a significant accomplishment, if successful.

UN Security Council sanctions resolutions against pre-liberation Iraq, North Korea, and Iran have had a bad track record in actual practice. The resolutions have been easy for the sanctioned countries to evade through the use of multiple front entities, money laundering and trading partners unwilling to give up short term advantage for longer term peace and security.

Also, enforcement of the cargo inspection at sea will be a challenge if Iran, as expected, refuses to cooperate. When the French UN ambassador, for example, was asked what measures France would be willing to take in such a scenario, he refused to answer what he called a “hypothetical question.”

Most ominously, the Russian UN ambassador told reporters that Russia did not consider the sale of its sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran to be within the resolution’s scope. The S-300 missile defense system would no doubt be used by Iran to shield its nuclear sites against a potential air strike, should military force become necessary to stop Iran from producing nuclear bombs. The Russian ambassador is technically correct because the resolution’s ban on the transfer to Iran of certain missile systems is written in such a way that it creates a big loophole for Russia to walk through in delivering to Iran its ground-to-air missiles, including its S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and anti-missile interceptors.

The Obama administration will spin the latest sanctions resolution against Iran as a major diplomatic triumph and a significant obstacle in the way of Iran’s progress towards achieving nuclear arms capability.  But  until the S-300 loophole is closed, until the U.S. and its allies figure out a way to effectively stop evasions of the sanctions, and until enough countries show that they are willing to enforce the cargo inspections, the Obama administration might want to wait before it celebrates.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

And so it is with Noor Ramjanally. He had hoped to use the undeniably noxious BNP as a scapegoat to help him advance his claim to privileged victim status. No dice...this time.

"Essex Muslim leader in court over kidnap claim," from the BBC, June 9 (thanks to Paul):

A Muslim community leader claimed he was abducted by members of the British National Party, a court has heard.

Noor Ramjanally, 36, of Loughton, Essex, has denied attempting to pervert the course of justice by falsely telling police he had been abducted.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard Mr Ramjanally had complained of having accelerant poured through his letterbox prior to being "kidnapped".

The court heard the local council spent £1,300 improving security at his home.

A new door was fitted to his council flat and police installed a hidden camera, a local authority official told the court.

Denied offence

But prosecutor Matthew Gowan said camera footage revealed no sign of the "two burly men" Mr Ramjanally claimed had snatched him at knife point last August....