Andrew C. McCarthy on Syria and intervention

The New Neo Posted on by

There really are no good guys in Syria, says Andrew C. McCarthy:

To repeat, in Syria, there has never been a vacuum – i.e., a void created by the failure to cultivate a viable opposition. Yes, there are some moderates in Syria, but the backbone of Assad’s opposition has always been Islamist: the Muslim Brotherhood and the even more extreme jihadists with whom they seamlessly make common cause. They are not moderates; they want to overthrow Iran’s despicable cat’s paw, Assad, in order to do to Syria what the Brotherhood tried to do to Egypt – and what Islamists have done to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc.

It is not true that Obama failed to back the Syrian “rebels.” In fact, after the mutual Obama-Beltway GOP strategy of siding with Islamists against Qaddafi blew up on us in Libya, a reprise was attempted in Syria. Alas, the “rebels” we backed kept aligning with the jihadists (just as they did in Libya); the weapons we gave them kept ending up in jihadist hands. That was not just because the “rebels” were insufficiently “vetted”; it was because there was no way to overthrow Assad without the Islamists’ playing a major role ”” and, probably, a leading role.

This contributed to the ascendancy of ISIS, but was not the cause of that ascendancy. The cause is the dominant regional culture – Islamic supremacism.

Sad, but I think true, particularly in Syria.

Then we did a reversal:

Then, to make matters worse, Washington forgot that it had gotten enmeshed in Syria in order to oust Assad. Obama desperately wanted his deal with Iran, which wanted Assad left alone. So the Syria misadventure turned on a dime from targeting Assad on behalf of Sunni Islamists and jihadists to targeting Sunni jihadists – ISIS – to the benefit of Assad. Does anyone wonder why the U.S. has no credibility in the region?

So, what should we do in a situation in which all the alternatives seem very very bad? Not that Obama will do it, of course; but it’s still good to try to think it through, even if it’s just a mental exercise:

Our interests in the region are to defeat both Russia/Iran/Assad and ISIS/al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood. It is not either-or, and it does not serve our interests to elevate one side at the expense of the other. After all, the players change sides – Iran, for example, helps al-Qaeda and Hamas, which is the Muslim Brotherhood. The only thing you can really bank on is that they all hate the United States.

Our vital interest in Syria (and Iraq and elsewhere, for that matter) is to prevent its being used as a platform for the launching of attacks against the United States, our allies, and our interests. Moreover, this, it is crucial to remember, is an American problem. It is not one we could responsibly delegate to another country’s “moderate rebels” even if they were numerous enough to need something bigger than a phone booth for their meetings.

That means it is going to take a large commitment of American forces on the ground as well as in the air to achieve our vital interests. But there is no political support for that in our country at the moment. That, no doubt, is why a candidate like Marco Rubio, who is smart enough to see the writing on the wall, seems reluctant to come out and say it. Even if there were political support for using American force, it would be a losing cause to take up unless and until we finally start seeing Iran the way Iran sees us: as the enemy.

There are not good guys and bad guys in this equation. There are bad guys and other bad guys. And quelling the threat these bad guys collectively pose to the United States is our responsibility…

McCarthy goes on to add that, until we can get it right, we should stay out of Syria.

That’s a tough prescription, because although I can’t disagree with his logic, it leaves the result to chance. Two years ago (June 2013), when I was first writing about the Syrian unrest, I noticed the problem McCarthy is describing:

Who are the rebels?

My strong suspicion is that there are few good guys here. It was the same question I asked about Egypt and Libya. In both places there were some “good guy” elements mixed among the Islamicist fanatics, although I suspected the latter would be the ones to end up with the power, just as they had long ago in Iran. And that seems to be the way it’s trending, although news from both countries has died down for the moment.

In Syria I also have grave doubts about the makeup of the “rebels” – a word I have come to hate and distrust. And, as in Iraq, if we aren’t committed to overseeing the aftermath of a rebellion (which we most assuredly are not), we should be careful of the forces we unleash.

However, in Syria there is a huge difference from Egypt, and that is that the current regime in Syria may be almost as bad and as unfriendly to us as anything that could replace it. In Egypt the situation was markedly different; although Mubarak was a tyrant, he was by no means high on the scale of tyranny in the region, and he was a fairly valuable ally. And yet Obama threw him under – yes, the bus. Qaddafi occupied a position in between Mubarak and Assad, in terms of both extent of his tyranny and his alliance with the US (in recent years, anyway, when Qaddafi had demonstrated a slight mellowing compared to the olden days).

As for the Syrian rebels, well, it’s a mixed bag, and I can only hope we can tell the players without a score card and are encouraging the ones who at least aren’t obviously affiliated with al Qaeda or executing teenagers for blasphemy (read the link and you’ll see what I’m referring to).

That area of the world is, quite frankly, a mess no matter how you look at it. I suppose it’s within the realm of remote possibility that any “rebels” who might defeat Assad and take over the country will be better their predecessor, but I really wouldn’t bet a dime on it.

That was it in a nutshell then. That is it in a nutshell now, although Obama’s weakness and Putin’s aggressiveness have made the situation even worse.

When the choice is between very bad and even worse, it can be incredibly difficult to discover which is which and to act at all. Action is bad. Inaction is bad. And half-assed, wavering, ever-changing action isn’t so great either.

Despite Hillary’s…

The New Neo Posted on by

…continuing problems, have you noticed that she’s still doing fairly well in the polls?

First take a look at her standing against her Democratic rivals Sanders and Biden. At the moment, no contest; Clinton wins hands down.

And this despite the curious fact that Joe Biden—still unannounced—performs considerably better than Hillary does against the Republican field right now:

The closest hypothetical matchup found Biden beating former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina 47% to 41%. Biden also beat former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) (48-40), real-estate tycoon Donald Trump (56-35), and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (49-41).

Clinton, on the other hand, lost head-to-head matchups with Fiorina and Carson, though and voters did prefer her to Trump and, more slightly, to Bush.

And the poll showed that Biden would be the most favorably viewed presidential candidate in either party if he were to enter the race. Overall, 40% of poll respondents said they viewed Biden favorably, compared with 28% who viewed him in a negative light.

This seems bizarre to me in a number of ways, but it’s a consistent finding and I assume it reflects a pretty good approximation of the reality of public opinion as it stands right now. Perhaps it’s the sympathy vote for Biden due to his recent family tragedy, but I don’t think so. In terms of qualifications, personality, and accomplishments, Joe Biden has certainly been around a long time but his record on almost everything is straight liberal stuff, as well as a series of gaffes, missteps, lies, and of course his recent six and a half years of service as Obama’s enabler-and collaborator-in-chief. If the Biden poll numbers reflect a referendum on how Obama’s doing (an old white male Obama, at that), we’re in big big trouble in terms of the electorate’s judgment.

But hey, we already knew that.

But then there’s the fact that, even though Biden does much better than Hillary does against the Republican field, he doesn’t do much better than HIllary against—Hillary. If Biden does run, maybe once he starts campaigning his numbers will rise against Hillary (I’m told he’s “likable,” and she’s not). Or maybe once he reminds people who and what he is and makes some of his trademark errors, his numbers will go down. Biden’s appeal is in general such a deep mystery to me that I’m not making any predictions on that, including whether or not he’ll throw his hat into the ring.

Against Hillary Clinton, however, the clear leader so far among the Republicans is Ben Carson. He’s the only one who seems to consistently beat her, although by a small margin. Not far behind is Carly Fiorina, who’s been gaining on Hillary as her own numbers rise and who has beaten Clinton by 1% in the two most recent polls on the subject. Bush does fairly decently against Clinton, but Hillary is still ahead of him. Trump and Rubio, although not left behind in a cloud of dust, both run somewhat more poorly against her.

Yes, it’s early and maybe none of this means a whole lot. What it means to me, however, is that there are an awful lot of yellow dog Democrats out there, an awful lot of people willing to brush off the serious problems with Clinton’s personality, mendacity, performance, history, and evasiveness in order to elect a Democratic woman to the highest office in the land and to continue the wonderful policies we’ve come to know under Barack Obama.

Ancient jewelry

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not all that fond of precious jewels. That’s very fortunate, because I don’t own many.

Richard Burton would have gotten off easy with me. When I got married, I wore a plain gold wedding ring, one that had been in my family since the 1800s, and never missed or thought of a diamond engagement ring. It just wasn’t my thing.

I have plenty of non-precious pieces of jewelry, though, and I’m particularly keen on this guy’s work (if you’re interested in a gift for somebody—they look better in real life than in the photos, for some reason). On reading the maker’s bio, it occurs to me that the following may be the underlying reason I’m so fond of his jewelry:

I was inspired as a young boy by visiting the great art museums in New York City, and spent many hours in the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at the gold jewelry.

Aha! Ancient jewelry was his inspiration. Now that, I’ve always liked. And the thing that has long fascinated and amazed me about very ancient jewelry is that the design of most of it could be easily worn today; it never dates. And what’s more, jewelry that is thousands of years old and displayed in museum collections looks, for the most part, practically new.

For example, please take a look at the stunning examples here and reflect on how very old most of them are.

Care to guess the age of this one?

lapis

Hint: it’s from Ur.

Which makes it about 4500 years old, give or take a few.

Here’s one that’s practically modern:

goldnecklace

And to the inhabitants of Ur, it would be futuristic. But to us, it’s a bit old: it’s made of emeralds, garnets, and gold, and is a Helenistic piece from about 200 BC.

And of course, the whole thing also reminds me of poetry, in this case Yeats:

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Although neither Grecian nor Byzantine (the latter being the site of where Constantinople and now Istanbul lies), and made in the late 1700s in India, this is something akin to the way I always pictured the artifact in the last verse of the poem:

humabird

Or this, also from India and the same period, which includes enamel and gold (as in the poem):

enamalparrot

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Electoral votes and illegal immigrants

The New Neo Posted on by

This Politico article makes a very interesting point that I hadn’t heard talked about before, although you can bet your bottom dollar that the left has long been aware of it:

the census counts illegal immigrants and other noncitizens equally with citizens. Since the census is used to determine the number of House seats apportioned to each state, those states with large populations of illegal immigrants and other noncitizens gain extra seats in the House at the expense of states with fewer such “whole number of persons.”

This math gives strongly Democratic states an unfair edge in the Electoral College. Using citizen-only population statistics, American University scholar Leonard Steinhorn projects California would lose five House seats and therefore five electoral votes. New York and Washington would lose one seat, and thus one electoral vote apiece. These three states, which have voted overwhelming for Democrats over the latest six presidential elections, would lose seven electoral votes altogether. The GOP’s path to victory, by contrast, depends on states that would lose a mere three electoral votes in total. Republican stronghold Texas would lose two House seats and therefore two electoral votes. Florida, which Republicans must win to reclaim the presidency, loses one seat and thus one electoral vote.

But that leaves the electoral math only half done. The 10 House seats taken away from these states would then need to be reallocated to states with relatively small numbers of noncitizens. The following ten states, the bulk of which lean Republican, would likely gain one House seat and thus one additional electoral vote: Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

In other campaign news, did you notice what Obama said about his dear friend and ex-SOS Hillary Clinton the other day? No love lost there.

Carson the knife

The New Neo Posted on by

Ben Carson is a candidate who has surprised a lot of people.

He’s surprised a lot of liberals and leftists who buy (and/or spread) the meme that Republicans and conservatives are racist, because his popularity has been growing and he’s now one of the frontrunners for the Republican nomination. But to those who don’t see things primarily in racial terms, or who don’t buy the “Republicans are racists” myth, he nevertheless remains surprising because in a tough, crowded, and often-bombastic field of candidates, such a quiet, soft-spoken man has risen to become one of the leaders.

But his gentle voice belies the fact that he is hard-hitting and actually quite blunt. Witness his discussion of Islam and the presidency and the phenomenon of taqiyya, and his refusal to back down in the face of criticism of what he has said.

His voice may be soothing, and he is a healer by profession. But remember that he is a healer who cuts in the process of healing. He also is a healer who took radical steps in some of his operations—very controversial and radical steps, such as his revival of the hemispherectomy as a surgical procedure.

If you know much about Carson’s life, you know this:

In his book Gifted Hands, Carson relates that in his youth, he had a violent temper. Once, while in the ninth grade, he nearly stabbed a friend during a fight over a radio station. After this incident, he began reading the Book of Proverbs, applying verses on anger and thereafter “never had another problem with temper”.

Actually, although I don’t have time to find a better link right now, the story I heard him relate is that he DID stab at the guy, and would have injured him badly because he tried to stab him in the gut, but that the boy’s belt buckle stopped the knife from penetrating.

Now, that’s a man who wasn’t always projecting “nice.” That’s a man who is intense, but has matured and conquered his character flaws through sheer force of iron will as well as religion. His intensity shows, too, if you take the trouble to notice it.

Note, also, the continuity of the theme of the knife. The would-be killer’s blade became the surgeon’s healing scalpel, at least in the symbolic sense.

An amazing story, a very unusual person, and one who should not be underestimated.

[NOTE I: Carson is showing a facility with social media as well as a fearless tendency to stand up for his religious beliefs.]

[NOTE II: The reference in the title of this post is to this song, which is about a character very different from Dr. Carson.]

Stuff happens

The New Neo Posted on by

Like, for instance, Wasserman Schultz and Obama take the lead, and the Democrats follow in distorting the words and message of a Republican candidate. The idea is to distract from their own failings, and to undermine the opposition

So, what else is new?

The fact that this particular distortion is about Jeb Bush, who is already falling way down in the polls, is irrelevant. It still works to create a meme about thoughtless, uncaring, mean old Republicans, and it still matters.

Richard Fernandez and the puzzle of Barack Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Richard Fernandez notes that some of his most ominous predictions appear to be coming true lately. But rather than gloating, he’s not very happy at all:

The validation of so many sad insights is of little consolation unless one is like those movie paleontologists so happy to be vindicated in their prediction that dinosaurs still exist that they do not care that they are about to be eaten by one. One can only hope the readers of this site are not similarly consoled. A history of good guesses does nothing to answer the problem which desperately needs solving: alright we’re in a crisis, but what do we do now? How do we dig ourselves out of the hole?

I’m neither the prognosticator nor the writer that Richard Fernandez is, but I’m enough of both to feel the very same sentiment when my dire predictions appear to have been on target.

In another post, Fernandez riffs off a Bret Stephens article that discusses Obama’s foreign policy failures as essentially of the “fool” (“Obama is unteachable”) variety in our old “fool vs. knave” debate.

But I’m with commenter Subotai Bahadur, who writes:

Obama is not ideologically deceived. He is not doubling down on failure. He is doing what he is doing deliberately, and he is winning.

If it was incompetence, if there was an element of chance, if any statistical probability was operating; at least once in his two terms Obama would have done something that was not harmful to the country in either the foreign or domestic fields.

This is calculation. This is careful calculation and concerted action.

Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

…And the Gods of the Copybook Headings are preparing a page to be written in Crimson.

Actually, I think one of the fascinating things about Obama (and I don’t mean “fascinating” in a positive way) is that he is subject to so many interpretations. I’ve been studying him since 2007, have read probably millions of words about him and have written possibly hundreds of thousands on the topic, if not more. And yet, and yet, something about him continues to elude—not just me, but many extremely intelligent people such as Fernandez, whose intelligence I respect just about as deeply as I respect anyone’s.

I think it may stem from the unusual fact that Obama is a consummate actor, a man so practiced and so ideological that everything he says and does is purposeful and is a piece of propaganda. There are no spontaneous moves, no impulsive actions, although sometimes he tries to make us believe that he’s doing something impulsively. Nothing is apolitical, either, except perhaps his golf game.

This is what my gut tells me, anyway. And he is remarkably consistent, one of the most consistent people I’ve ever observed, although if his underlying purpose isn’t discerned he can seem meandering and even foolish and inconsistent.

I believe that Obama’s purpose—the overarching impetus for all he has done as president (and indeed, for much of his life before that) is something I wrote about back in 2009:

Obama considers himself a man of destiny. He seems to have believed that his election itself would have a transformative effect on America, separate from any particular programs or policies he would put into place once inaugurated. He promised change, yes; but the very first change would be the fact that he–Barack Obama, an African-American man–had been elected president. If slavery was (and in some sense still is) America’s original sin, and if the Civil War wasn’t enough to undo that fundamental flaw, then Obama’s election would be a sign that America had finally taken a decisive step to purge itself of that sin.

A step, yes; but only the first in a lengthy process. The second step would be confession. And there were many other sins as well for which America must begin to atone. That is why Obama proceeded to go on a worldwide tour early in his presidency, apologizing to nation after nation for America’s manifold sins of hubris and exceptionalism, militarism and imperialism, greed and excess. These were the many ways in which Obama and his fellow leftists have reframed American exceptionalism as American tyranny.

If Obama has anything to say about it, there will be further steps in America’s journey of penance and redemption through the mechanism of his presidency. The redistribution of income is only fair and moral, since taxing the rich will punish them for their greed; and cap and trade will be the penalty for having used more than our fair share of resources. Foreign policy is a major mechanism by which this country will be made level with other countries–just one nation among the rest, stripped of much of its power and its weaponry.

Obama is here to punish America for its sins, and he’s been very successful at that. That the left and many liberals continue to love him, continue to support him, is a puzzlement to many people. But why wouldn’t those who have been successfully taught that America is a great evil in the world—birthed in evil, steeped in evil, and empowered by evil; especially racial evil but also countless other evils big and small—applaud his efforts?

In my recent post exploring the life and work of the remarkable Brit F. L. Lucas, I came across a quotation that’s particularly apt:

“One may question whether real civilisation is so safely afloat,” he wrote in his last published letter (1966), “that we can afford to use our pens for boring holes in the bottom of it.”

Obama could never have been elected, or in particular re-elected, if generations of intellectuals and not-so-intellectuals had not spent so much time and effort boring holes in the bottom of Western Civilization. Obama is merely reaping the fruits of their lengthy and patient labor.

Netanyahu’s speech yesterday at the UN

The New Neo Posted on by

From Netanyahu:

But most dramatically, he rebuked the membership of the very institution where he was speaking ”” the United Nations ”” for tolerating Iran’s relentless threats to destroy the Jewish state and “rushing to embrace” the regime. “Seventy years after the murder of six million Jews, Iran’s rulers promise to destroy my country, murder my people. And the response from this body, the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here,” he charged furiously, “has been absolutely nothing. Utter silence. Deafening silence.”

And then Netanyahu paused, staring defiantly, reproachfully out into the hall, head nodding slightly. For 44 very long seconds. In silent rebuke. And in apparent mourning for international morality.

If you read the comments to this video at YouTube, you’ll understand how the Nazis were popular with quite a few people, and still are.

More on the Oregon shootings

The New Neo Posted on by

There are many reports that the gunman singled out Christians for killing. We don’t know why, although it’s easy to think of several possible reasons: to get attention, because he hated Christians, because he was an anti-Christian Muslim, because he was an anti-Christian atheist, because he was an anti-Christian leftist, because he really did think Christians were going to go to heaven, because he thought Christians were from Mars and were trying to plant electrodes in his brain.

What you won’t hear from the left, which is intent on using this and all other such incidents to shill for more gun control, and then more and more and more gun control: this was a gun-free zone, a fact which only stopped law-abiding citizens from defending themselves; fewer people were killed by guns in this mass murder than are murdered in a typical month in the city of Chicago; and so far we know absolutely nothing about whether this gun (or guns) was obtained legally or illegally, or much of anything else about it.

UPDATE: All of the shooter’s firearms were purchased legally.

Oregon shooting [UPDATED]

The New Neo Posted on by

News recently broke of a fatal mass shooting at Umpqua community College in Roseburg, Oregon. There are preliminary reports of 10 killed and 20 injured, but as we know, that can change.

I have a very busy day today and might not be able to post till some time this evening, so this is an open thread where you can discuss it.

UPDATE: As is usually the case with news stories like these, the best coverage seems to be coming from the British press. That’s “best” as in “offering most information.” One is never completely sure whether, in all the rush, the information is correct. But I’ve noticed in the past that the British press gets it right more often than not, and at least as often as the US press, and much more quickly, too.

This article in the Daily Mail is typical. So far, it appears—despite all sorts of theories being offered about the politics or causes espoused by the shooter—that his belief system was chaos and nihilism, and his cause was to become famous as he left (with a bang rather than a whimper) a world he didn’t much care for. For those reasons, I’m not discussing too much more about him, unless I get some information worth mentioning.

His horrific crime will be turned into a cause by political factions looking to prove their points. First and foremost is our very own strawman-bashing, fact-twisting, crisis-exploiting president.

Out with the old, in with the new

The New Neo Posted on by

People are starting to be evicted from their rental homes/apartments in order to make way for the influx of “refugees” from the Middle East to Europe:

A woman in Germany is being evicted from her home of 23 years to make way for asylum-seekers, in the second such case to emerge.

Gabrielle Keller has been given until the end of the year to leave her flat in the small southern town of Eschbach, near the border with France.

The flat belongs to the local municipality, which says it is needed to house refugees.

Ms. Keller is 56 years old, and she pays rent; she is not a ward of the government.

The mayor commented thusly:

Mario Schlafke, the mayor of Eschbach, says the town had no choice but to ask Ms Keller to leave.

“The council hasn’t taken a frivolous decision,” he told Welt newspaper. “The alternative would have been to set up beds in the gym.”

No; we couldn’t have that, could we?

The city says it has offered to help her find other accommodations, but Keller has denied this and retained a lawyer.