The new NATO

The New Neo Posted on by

When is an alliance not an alliance? When it’s NATO. I propose a new acronym: NATOH, for Not About To Offer Help. The help being asked right now is the bare minimum, and against an enemy that threatens most of the countries of NATO, too – if not as obviously in the verbal sense as it threatens the US, then even more in the geographic sense.

The nations of NATO other than the US have long been lacking in terms of financial support for the organization. In addition, in the shadow of America’s protective umbrella they mostly decided that they don’t need a robust defensive military capability of their own. They also decided to let in enough Muslims from foreign countries to make a difference in their internal politics. But I think even without the latter pressure, many of them would still be balking at helping – and by “helping” I mean something as simple as letting us use their airspace.

They really do think the crocodile will eat them last. And several of them really hate Donald Trump. Do they not even see Iran as dangerous? They probably consider their own Muslim populations and their own Jew-haters more immediately dangerous – and may also think that, if push ever came to shove with Iran, the US would help them anyway as it did big-time in the days before there even was a NATO.

Even Meloni of Italy, who heretofore had seemed to be Trump-friendly and more or less on the right, isn’t very cooperative:

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told lawmakers Italy “does not take part” in the U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran and “does not want to enter” the war. She described the conflict as one of the most serious international crises in recent decades and warned that the escalation reflected a broader breakdown in the international legal order.

And here I thought Iran didn’t follow the so-called “international legal order” – and never has.

More:

Meloni’s comments marked one of the clearest statements by a major European government distancing itself from the military campaign.

Speaking to the Italian Senate, Meloni said the U.S.-Israeli strikes were an intervention in which Italy “does not take part and does not intend to take part.” She emphasized that Italy is not currently at war and does not intend to enter the conflict.

At the same time, the Italian government acknowledged that the war represents a serious security concern for Europe. Meloni warned that Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would pose a direct threat to European security and said the situation could destabilize the broader international system.

The prime minister also criticized the broader pattern of military interventions outside what she described as the framework of international law, calling the war part of a growing trend that risks undermining the existing global order.

Maybe something has been lost in translation, because that sounds almost lunatic to me. “International law” cannot help you with a nation that considers itself outside it and plans your destruction and to conquer you. “International law” will not protect Israel from being blown to smithereens if Iran gets nuclear weapons, either, although how much would Europe weep at that? I submit not very much at all.

Also:

Italy has also begun pulling back some of its military personnel stationed in the region. The Italian defense ministry confirmed that troops stationed at a base in Erbil in Iraq’s Kurdistan region were being withdrawn as the security situation deteriorated.

The base had hosted more than 300 Italian troops before the current escalation.

Et tu, Meloni? What gives with her? Roger L. Simon observes:

But now, in case you missed it—in close imitation of Spain’s execrable Pedro Sanchez—Ms. Meloni has done a volte-face, a complete turn-around from her Trumpianism, and, in a fiery speech, has vilified the Iran War and denied the US landing rights for its planes on Italian airfields, as several other European countries have.

She further roundly condemned Israel and began to sound weirdly like a latter-day Benito Mussolini, who also shifted his position on Jews, initiating anti-Jewish racial laws in 1938. Well, to be fair, not quite that bad.

Nevertheless, our former heroine has joined the rest of Western Europe in the same equivocation and passivity in the face of Iranian terror that has led President Trump, with support from his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to threaten, quite seriously, to leave NATO.

As explanation, he cites this article:

“Why is the Meloni government suddenly moving towards harsher positions against the United States and Israel regarding the Iran war? Could it be because of the referendum defeat on the separation of judicial careers?

“Although the vote was ostensibly a technical matter, it was heavily exploited by the far-left, the pro-Palestinians and the Islamists, turning it into a referendum against her government. The result was a turnout of 59% and a 54% voting against the reform.

“Meloni said that the vote was not a political one but exclusively technical, and she may be right about that. However, her recent moves suggest that Meloni is far more concerned than she lets on about the far-left, pro-Palestinian positions, to the point of undermining positions that, more than ever, need to be held firm. Added to this are the government’s rather ambiguous positions toward the Iranian regime, with which the Italian government appears unwilling to engage.”

Who knows? Much of Europe – and that seems to include Italy at the moment – apparently thinks they can placate their own left (as well as their own Muslim populations, whether large or small) and sit this one out while Daddy US and the hated Jews of Israel take care of it for them.

I saw the following today at Instapundit:

Who likes war? Very few people. And the way this war has been presented by the media, I’m surprised it has any support at all. Are war decisions decided by referendum? Does complying with a treaty depend on liking the person in charge? It’s not as though Trump has suddenly attacked some innocent country with no provocation and that presents no threat.

Kurt Schlichter replies to Baker:

The Europeans are not dealing with “a man.” They are dealing with the United States of America.

The United States needed the most innocuous kind of cooperation from them. They denied the United States that cooperation.

The implied argument is that their obligations within our alliance depend on whether they like the guy we chose as our president. “Sure, we’re allies…if we approve of who you elected.”

Nope.

We are not going to forget, and we’re not going to forgive. I’m indifferent to their excuses or their rationalizations. The United States of America needed their help and not very much help. They turned us down. That changes everything. And they aren’t going to like how it changes everything.

Well, not really. It doesn’t change a thing if the left comes to power again in this country. That is almost undoubtedly what most of Western Europe and at least half of the US is hoping.

There are many defiant responses to Schlichter’s tweet, including the sort of anti-Trump garbage you often see from trolls, such as: “And we’re never going to forgive or forget that you elected a rapist paedophile fraudster as president not once but twice. The very definition of insanity.”

Other comments say that Trump should have consulted the Europeans before attacking Iran. This seems absurd to me – they would have told him not to do it, and he would have been risking the element of surprise. If the West was really united in fighting against the Iranian menace, it would be one thing. But it most definitely is not. Do the Western Europeans believe their own rationalizations? I don’t know, but I think perhaps they do, because the alternative is too terrifying to them and would require more of them than they are willing to give.

Sometimes I get very tired of the absurdities I see online.

The situation makes me think of this:

[NOTE: And by the way, the genius headline writers at the NY Times think NATO stands for “North American Treaty Organization.”

A note for those asking after commenter Rufus T. Firefly

The New Neo Posted on by

Several people noticed that commenter “Rufus T. Firefly” hasn’t been commenting for about two months and wondered whether he’s okay. I sent him an email and he replied that he’s very much okay. He said he’d try to get back to doing some commenting soon; my impression is that he’s been very very busy.

So you can rest easy about that.

Rahm Emanuel, 2028?

The New Neo Posted on by

Emanuel seems to be intent on positioning himself as the more moderate Democrat for 2028. It’s a segment that’s wide open, except for John Fetterman:

Likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender Rahm Emanuel sat down this week with Michael Moynihan, co-host of The Fifth Column podcast. A veteran of American politics, he has served as a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama, a member of Congress, mayor of Chicago, and U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Reflecting on the current state of his party, Emanuel told Moynihan, “Democrats have lost the plot.”

“We lost the plot. We, as Democrats, nationally, from Latinx to defunding the police, to police organizations are all racist, to bringing a set of cultural wars to our schools, we are on the losing side of those cultural wars. Full Stop.

“You are worried about bathroom access and locker room access, why don’t you focus on classroom excellence? You have 50% of our kids not reading at grade level.”

I don’t think Emanuel has a chance of being nominated by the Democrats in 2028, for one very simple reason: he’s Jewish and the party has become highly anti-Semitic. I also wouldn’t trust his “moderate” declarations, although his record is indeed moderate compared to most of his fellow-Democrats these days. But beware: Spanberger of Virginia, to take one prominent example, campaigned as a moderate but once in office became radical in terms of actions.

I do know, at least based on anecdotal evidence of a friend of mine, that there are indeed voters yearning for moderate candidates and willing to vote for them. How numerous this voting group is I do not know.

Howard University snags quite the prize: Kendi

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I’ve written several previous posts about Kendi, for example this.]

Howard University has given Ibran X. Kendi a plum job – or, as the headline of the article puts it, “Howard University appoints racist crackpot as history professor, giving him an endowed chair.” An excerpt:

… [Kendi] “will serve as the inaugural holder of the Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History, a position supported by $3 million in donor funding that honors its namesake historian, known as the ‘father of Black history’…In addition to his chair position, Kendi will direct the school’s new Institute for Advanced Study, which ‘is dedicated to interdisciplinary study advancing research of importance to the global African Diaspora, including inquiry into race, technology, racism, climate change, and disparities,’” reports Campus Reform.

Interim President Wayne A.I. Frederick said the appointment “affirms Howard University’s enduring responsibility to steward Black history with rigor, integrity, and purpose.”

Kendi supports racial discrimination against whites, and hates capitalism. “To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism…Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist,” says Ibram X. Kendi’s best-selling book promoting race-based government policies, How to Be An Antiracist. The “key concept” in Ibram Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist was that discrimination against whites is the only way to achieve equality for black people: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” wrote Kendi in that book. Students in many school systems have been assigned a book by Kendi that is historically inaccurate. Kendi once wrote an op-ed suggesting that white people are aliens from outer space.

Boston University had tried giving Kendi a similarly influential job and lots of money during heyday of Black Lives Matter and the antiracism craze (June 2020), and got almost nothing for their pains and their money. The center he headed was finally demonetized last year:

… [Kendi] wrote zero academic papers at least during the first three years he was there…..On a [2024] page titled ‘What We’re Working On,’ nothing is listed from this year. No policy reports or convenings have been published since 2022…[In 2024] The Antiracist Legal Education Project advertises an event from September 2023 as ‘upcoming,’ while the annual Antiracist Book Festival was not held in 2023 or 2024. A Vertex Symposium, which is also described as an annual event, has not occurred since 2022.”

As Campus Reform notes, “Before joining Howard, Kendi founded and led Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research (CAR), which launched in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. The center aimed to promote policies and scholarship designed to build what Kendi described as an ‘antiracist society,’ but was shuttered by the university last June following reports of internal management issues and financial concerns…..Campus Reform reported on the closure and questions raised by staffers about the center’s operations, including former employee Yanique Redwood, who stated that employees felt ‘overwhelmed’ and that leadership made ‘too many promises’ to funders while delivering few tangible results.”

Boston University’s gain is Howard University’s loss, although Howard doesn’t seem to see it that way.

At least Kendi’s not a terrorist from the 60s. Many of them landed cushy university jobs, too – after they got out of prison, or remained “free as a bird” on technicalities.

Only a perfect war will do – and maybe not even that, if it’s waged by Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

Those who hate Trump on the left and on the erstwhile right also hate the Iran War, or the Iran operation, or whatever you want to call it. They’ve declared it a failure after a month, “without evidence.” Or rather, the evidence they cite is that the regime spokespeople – the ones who are still alive – mouth defiant words and are able to get some missiles off now and then.

And today we have this difficult news:

An American pilot was rescued in a daring operation by US special forces Friday after Iran shot down an F-15E fighter jet — and placed a bounty on the crew.

A second fighter pilot was still missing.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed “newly developed and advanced air defenses” had downed the jet, which was “completely destroyed and crashed,” Tehran’s Press TV reported.

Since nothing the Iranian press says can be trusted at face value, there’s no reason to imagine this was the result of newly developed or advanced air defenses. If indeed the plane was shot down rather than had some mechanical problem – and I tend to think it was shot down, since the US isn’t denying it (or officially confirming it yet, as far as I can tell). The mechanism probably was either some local air defense system that had remained intact, or had been repaired, or something newly supplied from Russia that actually worked and constituted a surprise.

Trump’s enemies are very happy about this because they can use it to bolster their “the war has failed!” narrative, although there’s no logic to it. Anyone who thought thousands upon thousands of air strikes could occur without one or more planes being shot down (or coming down through mechanical failure) is either tremendously naive or disingenuous or both.

The demand is for no war ever – or if that fails, a perfect war. Even if the current regime were to surrender, I can practically guarantee that the Trump-haters (mostly on the left but not solely on the left) would give him no credit and would say the war was still a failure. They’d find a way and they’d find a reason.

One of the stupidest things they demand is the need to know exactly how long the war will last, even at its outset. Or the need to get a guarantee that everything will work out. Or they pretend that they haven’t been given reasons for the war. They also ignore the differences between the people of Iraq during that war and the Iranian people during this one. In addition, they act as though regime change was the main goal in Iran, and that if it doesn’t happen then the whole endeavor is a failure – when the idea was always that regime change would be an excellent side effect but that destroying the regime’s weapons and leadership would be a vast improvement on the non-war alternatives that have long been the status quo.

But they ignore all that and compare this war to some Platonic perfect war that does not exist in the real world. Or they say, “Of course, it’s a terrible regime that needed to end, but ….” offering no way to have made it end.

Trump is portrayed as stupid and blundering and ill-meaning, because that’s the only Trump that exists in their minds.

What would they have accepted as the proper provocation for a war? For the left, I suppose the answer might be “anything if a Democrat decided on it,” but “nothing” for Trump. And what of the isolationist right? What would they accept? Maybe an actual nuclear attack on the US or a full-scale military invasion by some foreign power? Maybe. Maybe even those things wouldn’t be enough. They might be labeled a false flag, as 9/11 was labeled by 9/11 Truthers who sprang up shortly after that horrific event. Or perhaps this sort of thing:

How long ago did I first start hearing that about FDR and Pearl Harbor? I can’t recall, but it was many decades ago. Even World War II was hardly a perfect war, so that must be discredited as well – a war against one of the most evil enemies in history. And yes, the casualties were very high.

Thing is, once you start feeling that the government has lied to you – which it certainly has at times – some people will slip into the convention that practically everything the government says is a lie – and in particular is a lie if doubting it feeds into their already-existent belief system. Plenty of people have lost faith in anything government says and does, and have found people to blame for that.

Another factor in all of this is the protected nature of most Americans over the years. The draft ended over fifty years ago, and so with an all-volunteer military, most people don’t have to serve in the military and lack any military knowledge of the type that might be learned by serving. I’m not asking to bring the draft back. But an abysmal level of ignorance, and pundits preying on that ignorance, is one of the consequences of the end of the draft.

Hegseth allows the military to carry arms on base

The New Neo Posted on by

Gun-free zones have the unfortunate consequence of making the people in them vulnerable to someone with a gun. This has been especially ironic on military bases, where there have been mass murders such as the ones at Fort Hood.

Here’s an article from 2014:

For decades, soldiers and their families have been able to purchase guns for personal use in retail stores on some bases. Even today, some “base exchanges” sell guns. Soldiers and their families can fire personal firearms at target ranges, participate in competitions and in gun clubs – all located on the nation’s military bases. But a federal directive won’t allow them to carry concealed weapons on bases, even though it’s legal in the rest of Texas.

Now, with two separate rampage shootings within five years of one another at Killeen’s Fort Hood Army base that left a total of 17 people dead, there is renewed discussion over whether soldiers and their family members should be able to carry concealed handguns on military posts in states like Texas. …

Until the 1990s, military personnel often kept personal firearms in their base homes without question. But starting in the 1990s, first under then-President George H.W. Bush, the Department of Defense issued an order prohibiting privately owned weapons on bases unless a commander makes an exception.

There were actually two fatal mass shootings at Fort Hood, the first in 2009 and the second in 2014. The 2014 one happened on April 2, which happens to be the same date as today. Perhaps that wasn’t lost on Hegseth when he issued this declaration:

The War Department’s uniformed service members are trained at the highest and unwavering standards. These warfighters, entrusted with the safety of our nation, are no less entitled to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms than any other American. Our warfighters defend the right of others to carry — they should be able to carry themselves. Recent events like what happened at Fort Stewart, Holloman Air Force Base, or Pensacola Naval Air Station have made clear that some threats are closer to home than we would like.

If you look at the responses to the tweet of Hegseth’s that I linked, many are negative. For example:

The sheer amount of negligent discharges that will inevitably follow is gonna be wild. There is no legitimate reasons non-mp’s to carry service rifle/pistol when not within a combat zone or conducting training. Accountability, safety, and oversight will be a nightmare.

Of course there can be problems. But there are already obvious problems with the present situation. The comment ignores the fact that it’s only been since the presidency of Bush I that the carrying of such weapons on base was banned. Why? Were there a lot of problems?

From that 2014 article:

“If they live in the base housing … guns have to be registered,” said Geoffrey Corn, professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, who served more than 20 years as an Army officer.

Corn said he opposes proposals to allow concealed weapons on bases.

“The idea of carrying a concealed weapon is really inconsistent with the military culture,” he said.

He said military supervisors have enough to worry about without the concern that a soldier made unhappy by a particular order could be packing a hidden firearm.

But in 2014 at Fort Hood that’s exactly the situation, and it didn’t stop the shooter at all:

On April 2, 2014, a spree shooting occurred at several locations on the Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas. Four people, including the gunman, were killed while 14 additional people were injured; 12 by gunshot wounds. The shooter, 34-year-old Army Specialist Ivan Lopez-Lopez, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Immediately prior to the shooting, Lopez went to the 49th Transportation Battalion administrative office where he tried to obtain a ten-day leave form so he could attend to “family matters”. However, he was informed that he would have to come back later to retrieve it, sparking a verbal altercation between him and several other soldiers. The request was ultimately denied because Lopez had already secured housing in an apartment in Killeen.

Lopez then went outside to smoke a cigarette. At approximately 4:00 p.m., he returned and opened fire with a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson M&P pistol inside the same building, injuring three soldiers—?PFC Wilfred Sanchez, Sgt. Jonathan Westbrook, and SFC Warren Hardnett—?all of whom had been involved in the altercation with Lopez. [6][12] Lopez also killed Sgt. First Class Daniel Ferguson, who was attempting to barricade a lockless conference room door to prevent Lopez from gaining entry and harming anyone inside.

This went on for many minutes, as Lopez went to different areas of the base shooting people, all of whom I will assume were unarmed. What finally stopped him? This:

Approximately eight minutes after the shooting first started, Lopez drove to the parking lot of another building, Building 39002, where he was confronted by an unidentified military police officer, with whom he had a verbal exchange. When he brandished his weapon, the officer fired a shot at him that missed. Lopez responded by committing suicide, shooting himself in the right side of the head.

He finally encountered someone armed.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Pam Bondi is out as AG. I think she’s been on the way out ever since she “misspoke” on the Epstein files. She’s never been popular with the online right crowd.

This is from Trump, who – not surprisingly – isn’t telling why this happened:

Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900. We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

(2) Trump had already spoken out against Tucker Carlson (something J. D. Vance has yet to do, but it could happen). Now Trump has reposted a Douglas Murray column that absolutely excoriates Carlson as only Murray can do, entitled, “Deranged Tucker Carlson backstabs Trump.” Here’s Murray’s piece, if you’re interested. It is certainly clear where Trump stands on Carlson.

(3) California fraud involving government programs is incredibly widespread and has been going on for ages. Is anyone here surprised? The latest arrests involve hospice care that never was, to the tune of about fifty million dollars. Chump change in California:

The FBI, with the Health and Human Services (HHS), raided the home of Amelou Gill and Gladwin Gill, a doctor and a nurse, in Southern California over accusations that they committed $7 million in hospice fraud.

According to J.D. Vance, the FBI conducted additional raids in the area. In total, they nabbed people who allegedly stole over $50 million. …

St. Francis Palliative Care in Anaheim, which the Gills operate, has a 2.3% mortality rate over the last five years.

It’s odd when a hospice center has a 97% survival rate because people usually enter hospice at the end of a terminal illness.

It’s not unheard of that people who enroll in hospice don’t die within the six months allotted, and often they renew for another six months, and this can go on for quite some time. Or, now and then, they get better. But a 97% survival rate is beyond ludicrous.

There were many many signs in California (and elsewhere) that massive fraud was ongoing, and not just in hospice care. Much of it was ignored, although there were some prosecutions by the state. However:

(4) Moon launch by NASA:

The spur, of course, for today’s great leap was Elon Musk. While NASA’s big rival in the Sixties was the Soviets’ space programme, which threatened to prove that their ethos of collectivism could make faster progress than the American way of free men, free enterprise (and of course, free Nazis), Musk emerged in the 21st century as part Bond villain, and part John Galt. That Sixties narrative is now in danger of being reversed, with SpaceX taking the role of Ayn Randian, square-jawed enterprise and individual heroism, and NASA looking like the clumsy, over-burdened, over-regulated state-sector attempt, with more being spent on HR than R&D.

(5) Happy Passover! Each year, the meaning of the holiday seems to deepen. This year is no exception.

I need a new computer

The New Neo Posted on by

Mine is so outdated it’s ludicrous. How old is it? Well, let’s just say I’ve got Windows 7.

It’s not that I couldn’t have gone out and bought a new one years and years ago. After all, there’s a wide range of types and prices, and I mostly read and write on mine so I don’t need anything all that fancy. But what I hate, and what keeps me clinging – bitterly or otherwise – to the one I have is that I hate transitions to new devices and new systems.

And so I’ve been putting it off – for years. I nurse my old one along. It’s a Lenovo laptop, and people laugh when they see it, especially the keyboard. It has been worn down, like mountains that have been around for half a billion years. I’m going to post a photo, even though this is highly embarrassing:

And yes, I know I not only could get a new computer, but I could instead just get a new keyboard and attach it to the old laptop. But the keyboard is only a small part of the problem.

The seductive thing is – sometimes my computer works just fine. In fact, most of the time it works just fine. And so it lulls me into procrastinating on the task of replacing it – until I hit a day like today, when it’s been balky and strange and then suddenly, for no discernible reason at all, it’s fine again.

And, in the nature of computers, it’s not telling me: why today? Why now? Maybe it’s something else besides the ancient computer. Maybe it’s the wifi connection. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s – who knows?

And please please don’t tell me to get a Mac. Had one for many years and hated it. I never never never got used to it.