Cause and Effect Take a Holiday

Sufferning from Radio-philia as I do, I rather enjoy indulging in sources from around the world. One such among the many I listen to is Harvey Stockwin’s commentary on RTHK (Hong Kong).

Among his bravery in the modern age is being open about the things that the Beijing government should be less than proud of, and of this: a critique of the cult of victimhood in Japan over the dropping of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Quite simply, woiuld a land invasion or a blockade that would make the Japanese population submit under the force of starvation and disease? It doesn’t matter to the peace-clique, very few of who were actual victims, and virtually none of them willing to discuss the cruelty the Japanese practiced on civilians, war prisoners, and Japan’s wartime population themselves.

Morality is absent among virtually anyone who makes some abstract sketch of “peace” their life’s work, and morality’s long shadow is little more than a useful tool.

There Is "An Impression of Generalized Disorganization" in the French Army, Says Paris Report on Savings in the Armed Forces

There is "an impression of generalized disorganization" in the French Army, writes Le Monde on its front page, quoting a Senate report for the reform of the armed services.

The problem is not the quality of the fighting soldier, but the politicians who have tried to make saving by instituting reforms throughout the service, with Nathalie Guibert giving a handful of examples of ludicrous changes.

For the Army, it [the reform] was a cultural shock, because it marked the end of the age-old rule, "one commander, one mission, and lots of means."

Plantu weighs in with the French army forced to jettison 7200 jobs


• You'd think we were at the Peugeot automaker!

Today is the Feast Day of St. Maximilian Kolbe

Spare a moment’s thought to the life and trials of St. Maximilian Kolbe who died at Auschwitz. Ten men were to be put to death as a result of a prisoner’s escape. He spared another man’s life by taking the place of another in that reprisal.

"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

- John, 15:13

Lack of Decisive Action from Washington: The Real Reason Why the Europeans Love Barack Obama

[During] the last four years of trans-Atlantic relations, [the] American president laid off making any big demands on the Europeans. The Europeans, in turn, continued hoping to see the multilateral fountain of reason they like to think inhabits Obama.

All in all, that’s a largely passive relationship.

Thus writes John Vinocur, the most conservative commentator working for the New York Times.

A dissonant theme from the American presidential campaign takes over at this point. It has come in the form of remarks from Obama about “headwinds” from Europe’s financial crisis endangering America’s recovery.

By way of emphasis, he sent the U.S. Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, to a North Sea island to tell the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble — and then the European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi — that Europe has “to do some more things” to push growth “in the near term.” The president’s catchphrase for that is “decisive action.”

Boom, pfft, cymbal clash: …

The reaction from major voices in Germany, overseer of Europe’s austerity regimen, to the Obama administration’s perceived hectoring was harsh and bitter in a way that made criticism of Mitt Romney’s remarks in London about the “disconcerting” level of preparations for the Olympics seem frivolous.

Yet a massive irony intrudes here. On different scales, both Obama and Romney are clearly right.

… With a very good argument in the president’s hand — move decisively now, or watch the markets tear the European Union apart (with America’s unemployment rate and Obama’s re-election in the balance) — he chose to avoid singling Germany out, and instead put the problem on the back of the “Europeans.”

Obama and Geithner not naming names in any of their statements looked pretty much like leading from behind.

… The United States ought to have fit in here — even with its decreased leverage and insufficiently explicit discussion of Germany’s role — at a moment when American trans-Atlantic concerns and recommendations, like Europe lowering its interest rates, are justified and reasonable.

In fact, considerable disregard has developed in relation to the Obama administration’s capacity to persuade, dissuade, or create either serious confidence or discomfort in Europe.

In respect to Germany, there’s not much reason for it to react otherwise.

Berlin knows after four years of experience that it won’t confront anything like “decisive action” from Washington that might make it less comfortable doing what it pleases. Example: The German decision, alongside Russia and China, to abstain from approving U.N. intervention in Libya was followed four months later by Obama’s presentation to Merkel of the Medal of Freedom.

A Status Report from Socially Managed Paradise

Waifish, helpless “Youts” who just can’t help themselves are rioting in Amiens over a traffic stop. Apparently this justifies
trashing public goods such a kindergarten “for the people”.

A leisure centre, school and cars were burned overnight on Monday amid the unrest in the rundown district of Amiens, reports said.

The clashes are believed to have started at about 21:00 (19:00 GMT), ending at about 04:00 once police reinforcements arrived. Up to 150 police are said to have used tear gas and rubber bullets to quell the violence.

Authorities have brought in 550 riot cops. 16 police officers have also been injured in this outburst of youthful enthusiasm.

It’s also been reported that police have been fired upon.

The Real Rebels

¡No Pasarán!

Paul Ryan Dissed for Lack of Foreign Policy Know-How; Obama Praised for "Learning what he knows in the Oval Office"

So Emily Bazelon dismisses Paul Ryan with the fact (among others) that the Wisconsin Republican "has no foreign policy experience" (thanks to Instapundit).

Of course, this is the kind of thing that Barack Obama routinely receives praise for. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times was waxing lyrical about the Apologizer-in-Chief for this very feature (or lack of one).

Writes Leslie Gelb in his NYT book review of the James Mann book, The Obamians:

The creator and commander of this diverse team is, of course, Obama himself. And I would go further than Mann and argue that he oversees one of the most centralized foreign policy operations in history — based principally on his brain power and intellectual self-confidence, not on knowledge or experience. Indeed, Obama was much more of a foreign policy tabula rasa than any of his subordinates. Sure, he briefly sat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But essentially he has learned what he knows in the Oval Office.

Barack Obama "has learned what he knows in the Oval Office" lionizes Leslie Gelb with obvious awe for the One's (unquestioned) "brain power and intellectual self-confidence" forming the basis of a foreign policy second to none.

But of course, Paul Ryan (thanks to Duncan for the House Budget Committee Chair's Chicago Club speech) has little to no brain power — as we learn from leftists' (incredibly well-thought-out) tweets — if indeed his skull contains a brain at all.

So, just in case the rule isn't clear yet, here it is:
• when a Democrat has no foreign policy experience,
it is an undisputed asset;
• when a Republican has no foreign policy experience,
it is an unqualified liability.

More generally, the more basic rule is that:
• whatever a Democrat has or does not have (foreign policy experience, his or her length of service in the political world, practical knowledge of the business world, an account of his or her youth and background, etc etc etc) is an asset;
• whatever a Republican has or does not have (idem) is a liability…

Update: See a 2008 campaign example comparing
Barack Obama with Sarah Palin:

Whatever the alleged lack of experience that the Republicans' choice for vice-president may have, it can hardly be greater than that of the Democrats' choice for chief executive — a man with only two years in the national legislature.

Update 2 — More from the New York Times: Obama Lionized by the NYT for "Cutting Generals Entirely Out" of Afghanistan Strategy-Making

When Cultures Aggress

Femmes de la Rue is the title of film student Sophie Peeters documentary about the men who hassle women on the streets of Brussels. These are mainly men of North African origin who do much more than booty-pinching Italian men of old (which is more of a myth at this point) ever did. The question really is: does European feminism have the stomach to deal with a real issue facing women?

Long List of Disillusionment: Europe’s Olympian vision of its future has dimmed to a flicker

Europe’s Olympian vision of its future — great power plus universal indispensability as a beacon of reason — has dimmed to a flicker

writes John Vinocur in his International Herald Tribune column.

Without willingness to accept a dare or two, the situation is unlikely to brighten soon.

The European Union’s debt and deficit grief, compounded by a crisis of political will, is much more than a bad moment that puts progress temporarily on hold.

The community’s faster-higher- stronger thread of grand ambitions has frayed. And the vision meant to give it direction, an independent political role — and to project Europe to the world as something wiser and more responsible than other great powers — has faded.

There are no doubts tingeing the European Union’s exceptional practical achievements, like a single regulatory system or open internal borders. And no one could disparage smaller successes — on the order of reduced mobile phone roaming charges, which save the average E.U. business traveler €1,000 annually. The problem involves once-great-notions associated with Europe that now seem empty and overreaching, shaking confidence in its claim to unlimited promise.

Beyond concern for the euro’s permanence, the list of disillusionment is long.

[And since the year 2000], Europe’s notions of becoming a geopolitical co-equal of the United States and China have shriveled.

With France doing most of the imagining — and successfully attaching a European nameplate to its own strategic goals — the Continent was cast as a pole of power in a notional construct called a multipolar world that was aimed at counterbalancing the weight of the United States. This still sounds very visionary, but has become unrealistic — as did a French-inspired plan, supported by the Russians, to rival the dollar as the world’s single reserve currency through a basket of other currencies featuring the euro.

Neither concept has weathered the reality of Europe’s incapacity to bring a convincing close to its debt and deficit misery. The G-20 summit meetings, a French idea and a pop-up showroom for multipolarity since 2008, have markedly declined in significance. In parallel, the French-German blueprint to build a European defense force, a symbol-to-be of its independence from an American-led NATO, is no longer a priority.

Germany, in turn, has focused almost all its visionary energy on Germany. Since reunification, and with the founding of the euro, it has regarded itself as “normalized,” or no longer required to play the role of its partners’ constant benefactor.

… all the same, an important initiative could take shape with enough credibility and ambition to make Europe look alive, bolder and in refocus mode: a trans-Atlantic free trade zone.

Advocacy of such a goal by E.U. leaders is a political dare because it exposes the time-wasting hollowness of Europe’s desires concerning multipolarity and reserve currencies.

… Could [Angela] Merkel, François Hollande, and David Cameron — all of whom would have a hard time turning their backs on a shot at some real economic renewal and job growth — jointly put this year’s American presidential candidates on the spot and propose a trans-Atlantic free trade pact?

A Return to their Natural State

French State Run Broadcaster Delights that they Can Once Again be Irrationally Abusive to an American Political Figure

The francophone branch of France 24 has taken to some rather 2002-esque looking criticism of America, now that Mitt Romney is in French journalism’s myopic view. Below is a translation of a “débat” (as they refer to them in the original Klingon) that Erik reported on this past Friday. It involve the usual amplification of whatever leftist vulgarity the newsroom chortles about. It is essencially a masturbatory rant:

The World According to Mitt Romney
By Anne-Diandra Louarn on 31/07/2012 - 16:48


On the occasion of a six day European tour, Mitt Romney hoped to prove his international stature. On balance, the Republican candidate's gaffes seem to have made a lasting impression.

In London, "Mitt, the idiot"

On the eve of his arrival in Britain, the first leg of his European tour, Mitt Romney was critical of the organization and security of the London Games. "Disconcerting" and "bleak" are the adjectives that the Republican candidate for president of the United States used, referring to the failures of the security company G4S and the threat of strike by British customs. Romney, who was the organizer of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, was seen immediately lambasted by the English press. "Mitt the twit", headlined "The Sun", July 27. Stung by the Republican, the reaction of Prime Minister David Cameron has also not made to wait: "We hold the Olympics in one of the most popular, active and lively in the world. Of course it is easier if you organize them in the middle of nowhere."

Make a note, people, because this is the first and only time a French scribbler has citied in a positive light anything from any part of the British press outside of The Guardian. You are unlikely to ever see it again.

Other gaffes are highly esteemed as well. The former Massachusetts governor announced he would meet the head of British intelligence, an interview that should not have been revealed. He also clumsily called the Labor leader Ed Miliband "Mr. Leader," [ED.: as if he would be expected to address them with any of this trash] he had obviously forgotten his name.

Controversial remarks in Jerusalem

.Continuing his tour of Israel, Romney has raised more than a million dollars from American Jewish donors. His speech, welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, caused outrage on the Palestinian side.

Commending Israel for its booming economy, Romney explained that the difference between the Israeli GDP and that displayed by the Palestinian Authority was "cultural". Deemed "racist", these statements were immediately criticized by Saeb Erekat, a close associate of President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Referring to earlier in his speech, "Jerusalem, the capital of Israel," Romney had already angered Palestinians.

In Gdansk, Romney saves face

The third and final stop, Poland, seems to have gone better for Mitt Romney. The Republican candidate has received the indirect support of Lech Walesa, former Polish President and 1983 Nobel Peace prize winner. If he felt it would be "moved" to display an official position, however, he confessed he was "very excited" after his interview with Romney. The Republican candidate has not made any statement to the press but took time to pose alongside Walesa, icon of the anti-communists.

Although no misstep has been noted during this last stop, across the Atlantic, the Romney’s six days trip is far from convincing. The American business press points out that the Republican candidate has carefully avoided European countries at the heart of the debt crisis, while the U.S. are also feeling the impact. "This trip is more like a vacation!" crowed the FT. The decision to oust the euro area from his journey echoed fairly strict bound by Romney last June during a broadcast on CBS: "We will not send checks to Europe. We “will not bail out European banks. We will stay here to support our economy, " he said.

The point of this paragraph being WHAT exactly? That the world’s business is European interests, and nothing else? That Israel is now part of Europe?

Is there no awareness of cause and effect when in the face of their eternal, never-ending, spitefulness and hopelessly inept management of the financial crisis, that they expect America to bail them out at the expense of Americans?

We then move on to the soothing. The notion that they will get what they wish from the rest of the world, and that Obama will win re-election, and will do an about-face and lend them money to dispense as welfare or some other childish fantasy.

The fact is that Romney’s outreach to Poland undoes some of Obama’s disastrous management of relations with Poland, who is arguably our closest ally in the EU.

Obama, imbattable sur la scène internationaleObama, unbeatable on the international scene

Accused of being Manichean and considered too superficial in its vision of international relations is definitely not unique to the Republicans. And the many gaffes committed in recent days in Europe confirm the weakness of the former governor of Massachusetts. "Mitt Romney has offered Barack Obama a gift that is priceless for the presidency," according to "The Guardian". It must be said that the current U.S. President, a 2009 Nobel Peace winner, is particularly popular on the old continent. Warmly received during his European tour, candidate Obama's speech in Berlin landmark and had raised hopes.

Increased popularity, once elected, over his Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the world record holder of diplomatic travels, it was said "If Obama was competing for the presidency of Europe, he would receive 90% of the vote! His foreign policy is prudent, realistic and very popular outside of our borders," said EJ Dionne of the "Washington Post" in a radio interview on American radio network NPR.

Yet the American president had, too, made some diplomatic missteps in his campaign. One of the most publicized had just taken place in Poland where he had referred to a "Polish death camps" instead of Nazi extermination camps during an official ceremony in honor of a resistant Polish.

Finally, many political commentators relativize the impact of the provision of European Romney. "The U.S. presidential election is about the economy, not on gaffes or big speeches abroad", concludes the German conservative daily "Die Welt".

In a recent survey for the New York Times and CBS released July 19, Romney was - for the first time since the beginning of the campaign - expected to win the presidential election with 47% of likely voters supporting him, and 46% for Obama. The weakening of the president’s electability is due to a decline in Americans' confidence in its management of the economy, a subject traditionally reputed to be a Republican strength.

That reputation being demonstrated as we speak.

And sorry, EJ, Americans care about THEIR vote, not some servile state of channeling the wishes of those you and an eleite believe to be our moral superiors abroad on the basis of nothing.

The Comparisons are Not Lost on the Reader

In memory of his endless supply of grievances and forgetfulness, The gem by Plantu about Hiroshima was published by Le Monde on 6-AUG-2005, 60 years to the day that the bomb than ended Japan’s war was dropped.

Another Steaming Pile of Plantu:

Uncle Sam:
As the beards from al Queda like to remind us: from time to time, you need to be aware of the massacring of civilians!

If you Yankees were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help; There was a great King somewhere in your life

Althouse has a similar post (with the help of Meade), in text form (cheers to Instapundit):

Lord North: Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by colonists and yeomen who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.

… There are a lot of smart people out there in the New World. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking British subjects of the Crown out there.

… If you yankees were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great King somewhere in your life. Some members of Parliament helped to create this unbelievable Royal Navy system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in French and Indian Wars and the East India Company.

Utopianism and its’ Limits

With a history of extremist utopianism, European elites once again might be dreaming their populations into social failure again. Take for example the fetish for redrawing maps, exemplified by the bleatings of one who assumed that not just people, but whole nations can be bullied into conforming to some new model way of being:

Alfred Heineken did more than just brew beer. He also thought about things, like the future of Europe and how best to proceed.

"I propose a United Europe of 75 states," he wrote in a pamphlet published in the summer of 1992, "each with a population of five to 10 million inhabitants."

Heineken, a creative old man with a lot of time and money on his hands, was famous for having wacky ideas. And the one about Europe was quickly forgotten.

Alas. Because 20 years later, it is more relevant than ever.

Why all this you ask? It seems to be solely driven by a desire to rule the world, despite a distinct lack of interest in actually policing any dysfunctional part of it on an as-needed basis. Otherwise, it somehow goes all the way back to the 19th century need to buy off ugly mobs with bread and circuses instead of offering them the right to create their own opportunity and healthy civil society:

Everything which has a function, one could argue, has an optimal size. A pen can be bigger or smaller, you still need to be able to use it.

The European welfare state has multiple functions. It needs to protect its territory from outside, uphold the rule of law, provide healthcare, education, take care of the roads and the forests and - to a more or lesser degree - distribute wealth.

After all, an elite governing a bankrupted mass, emasculated by taxation and grand projets can still be loved for giving away whatever is left that they can find, can they not?

In an age where technology can either make people as independent as ever before, or as servile as ever before, they choose the class warfare racket to be their oriflamme, and the vessel of their hopes.

Goodbye, Friend

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, 1938-2012

Tennessee Tree House: Living, and Preaching, in an Appalachian Tree Cathedral

David Walter Banks has some remarkable pictures from Tennessee, where Horace Burgess has spent twenty years of his life building an enormous tree house that doubles as a… cathedral. In fact,

The tree house includes seven trees, including one of the massive oaks that are common in this region of Tennessee. Crossville is in the foothills of the Appalachians. The forest has been beautifully preserved.

Horace recovers all kinds of boards on construction sites. Rather than see them destined for destruction, he retrieves the pieces of wood and adds them to the building.

Sunday, Horace preaches before visitors. … Horace Burgess had lived a life of wandering after his return from Vietnam. One day he "met" God. A "born again" Christian, he has devoted his tree house to Jesus.

Visitors can leave the tree house and truthfully
say that while at the top, "they saw Jesus"

Non Sequitur Cartoon: The Department of Economic Management

Learn the Word, Bro

The Atlanticist reminds your correspondent that CFO jobs don’t grow on trees. So morally repugnant Chic-Fil-A motorist and bullier of the 99% Adam Smith should probably learn the following phrase, now that he’s been fired from medical supplies manufacturer Vante:

“Do you want fries with that?”

The Leftist Way: Making the Useful Unwashed Believe Non-Existent Economics Facts

My clients are diminished by me having a gov contract?! Now you’re making shit up @nopasa @richlowrie @LilMissRightie #p2 #tcot #left #right

I received a curious tweet out of the blue, from someone looking very much like a funded political operator very-much mis-stating his identity. It begins with a name which is supposed to look banal and “non-partisan” in nature, and links a blog that looks too well produced not to have been put together by a paid political operation, obfuscating for a phony argument that President Obama has been good for the economy at large.

But a close look at the web page is a encylopedia example of passive-aggressive politicval demagoguery masking itself as a “mild” news-opinion site, promoted by someone who purports to be involved in business. There is nothing other than a bizzare defense of the Kony donation exploitation sham, Sandra Fluke’s stunt, and an attempt to compare Mitt Romney (who is not the President) to Vadimir Putin.

The type of business this light and authority on the workings of business and the economy is not stated.

When I tried to engage him in a conversation about productive businesses and the effect of aggressive regulation, he then went on to tell be something about having a US government contract in an attempt to silence the question. It assumes that business is business in any regulatory environment, and that all should be well is we all had tons of government contracts. As if.

If anything about his stated identity is true, the Solicitation number and possibly even his SF 330 should be a matter of public record. So far, he’s reinforced the fact that the “outreach” is Democrat political sham by not saying anything that makes any sense.

“Left Slash Right” is a propaganda operation run by a liar.

Le Débat sur France 24: Mitt Romney a-t'il commis des gaffes ou non ?

While a heated debate on Mitt Romney's alleged gaffes was taking place on the English-language set of the France 24 news channel, a similar one was taking place on the French set of Le Débat (partie 1 et partie 2 / partie 1 sur YouTube et partie 2 sur YouTube):

Tournée diplomatique de Mitt Romney : à la recherche d'une stature internationale

Débat consacré à la tournée internationale de Mitt Romney : Royaume-Uni, Israël, Pologne.... Le candidat républicain à la Maison Blanche veut montrer qu'il a l'étoffe d'un homme d'État. A-t-il remporté son pari ou a-t-il perdu des points dans la course à la présidentielle ? Quelle vision du monde pour le républicain ? Quel impact sur l'élection présidentielle de novembre ?

Émission préparée par Pauline Heilmann, Camille Febvrier et Anthony Saint-Léger.

Nos invités :

• Ellen WASYLINA, Membre de "Republicans Abroad"
• Martin MICHELOT, Chercheur au German Marshall Fund Paris, Spécialiste de la politique domestique et étrangère américaine
  
• François DURPAIRE, Historien, spécialiste des États-Unis
• Paul VALLET, Professeur de Relations Internationales, spécialiste de la politique américaine

Regardez la deuxième partie.

See also France24's mocking visual of Mitt Romney:

Update: Joe reacts:

[The] rather 2002-esque looking criticism of [Mitt Romney's] America … involve[s] the usual amplification of whatever leftist vulgarity the newsroom chortles about. It is essencially a masturbatory rant

Good-Bye, Friend: RIP John Keegan; Keegan's Perspective on the Iraq War

John Keegan has died (cheers to Instapundit), the military historian who is best known for The Face of Battle (I still treasure my college course book copy), although my own favorite is Warpaths: Travels of a Military Historian in North America:

Military history and geography explain each other in North America as nowhere else in the world. Award-winning historian John Keegan explores their relationship and examines the battles fought over three centuries between Frenchman and Indian, Royalist and colonist, Union and Confederacy.

Highly recommended. Keegan has been mentioned half a dozen times on No Pasarán. Back in June 2004, we quoted from his Daily Telegraph column:

What monopolises the headlines and prime time television at the moment is news from Iraq on the activity of small, localised minorities struggling to entrench themselves before full peace is imposed and an effective state structure is restored. The news is, in fact, very repetitive: disorder in Najaf and Fallujah, misbehaviour by a tiny handful of US Army reservists — not properly trained regular soldiers — in one prison. There is nothing from Iraq's other 8,000 towns and villages, nothing from Kurdistan, where complete peace prevails, very little from Basra, where British forces are on good terms with the residents.

A day earlier, I wrote a post mentioning his book, The Iraq War, and linking that year's D-Day commemorations to another anniversary from 2004:

… it turns out that there is another 60th birthday this year. That of the Ba'ath party. Yes. It was founded by a Syrian (a Christian, incidentally) in 1944.

I am currently reading a book by an author variously described as "our greatest modern military historian" and "the most readable and most original of living military historians". In The Iraq War, John Keegan does not only describe the military operations from March to April 2003, but gives the context and background of the Iraq conflict, from the history of Mesopotamia to the historic break between Sunnis and Shi'ites, from the fall of the Ottoman empire to the contemporary rivalries. What caught my attention (and what, if truth be told, got a flame of anger burning inside me) was the information on the last page of chapter 3 relating to the origin of the Ba'ath party.

Speaking of Saddam Hussein : "The nature of his régime owed more to twentieth-century ideologies of intolerance and systems of repression than to anything derived from the more distant past."

Speaking of Saddam's Ba'ath party: "Michel Aflaq, the founder of Ba'athism, had modelled the organization of his party on Hitler's Nazi movement, of which he was an admirer."

Let us remember the Iraqi citizens quoted in Steven Vincent's Reason article: "European and Arab journalists talk to us, but they don’t care about our happiness in being liberated. They only want us to make anti-American comments."