Searching the Forests of Normandy for the MIAs of World War II

Benoît Hopquin has an article in Le Monde on the search for the lost allied soldiers of World War II, i.e., the aviators whose planes were shot down and whose bodies were never found.

Dans la forêt du hameau de Grattenoix, un petit monument régulièrement fleuri a été érigé au milieu de la haute futaie, au centre de quatre cratères envahis par les ronces et les orties. Ici s'écrasa, le 21 janvier 1944, un bombardier américain B-24 Liberator, abattu alors qu'il était en opération contre une rampe de fusées V1. Six des dix membres d'équipage purent sauter en parachute. Quatre furent faits prisonniers et deux pris en charge par la Résistance. Deux corps furent retrouvés et dignement inhumés. Mais les dépouilles mortelles du pilote, le lieutenant Franck W. Sobotka Jr, de New York, et du mécanicien, le sergent Clair P. Shaeffer, de Pennsylvanie, restèrent introuvables.

Le 2 février 1944, Anne Sobotka, la mère de Franck, reçut le télégramme type. Il l'informait « avec un profond regret » que son fils était déclaré « manquant à l'appel ». « Si nous recevons des informations plus précises, nous vous les notifierons avec promptitude », concluait la missive.

HONORER CETTE PROMESSE DE L'ETAT AMÉRICAIN

Près de soixante-dix ans après, en ce petit matin ensoleillé de septembre 2013, Ian Spurgeon attend devant la mairie de Beaussault pour tenter d'honorer cette promesse de l'Etat américain à la mère d'un combattant. L'historien serre dans un dossier une copie du vieux télégramme et quelques informations sur Sobotka et Shaeffer. Il est accompagné de Christine Cohn, une autre historienne, et de Joan Baker, une anthropologue et médecin légiste.

L'équipe arrive de Washington. Elle appartient au DPMO, le service de la défense chargé des prisonniers de guerre et des disparus. Dans le jargon peu sentimental du Pentagone, on appelle ces derniers les MIA, pour missing in action. Au dernier décompte, ils sont encore 73 624 soldats américains de la seconde guerre mondiale qui errent sans sépulture connue. Ils sont quelque part dans un fossé, un champ ou une forêt d'Europe, dans un coin de jungle d'Asie ou dans un pli de rocaille des îles du Pacifique.

Lire aussi : tous nos récits, portraits et reportages dans le dossier 1944 : la libération de la France

 … la mémoire locale s'étiole. Les paysages changent, ici avec la construction d'une route, là d'un immeuble. Les souvenirs deviennent plus vagues. Les témoins directs disparaissent un à un. Agée de 91 ans, Edmonde, la mère de Lionel Legrand, est une des dernières survivantes à avoir assisté au crash du B-24 le 21 janvier 1944.

Elle reçoit les visiteurs étrangers en blouse, dans sa maison cernée par les poules. Sans jamais lâcher son balai, elle raconte, tandis qu'une courageuse interprète traduit son français patoisant : le bombardier en perdition passant au-dessus de la maison en direction des « bouais », le fracas puis son père courant avec d'autres hommes du village vers le lieu du drame. Ian Spurgeon note ses informations dans un petit cahier jaune, remercie. …

UN DÉNOUEMENT INATTENDU

Certaines quêtes obtiennent un dénouement inattendu. Le pilote Billie Dove Harris, de l'Oklahoma, s'était marié à Peggy six semaines avant de partir au front. Son avion fut abattu le 17 juillet 1944. La jeune veuve reçut des messages contradictoires, le disant mort, puis vivant, puis disparu. Elle resta avec cette incertitude et ne se remaria jamais.

Par un incroyable concours de circonstances et un non moins improbable raté de l'administration américaine, Peggy Harris devait apprendre, après plus de six décennies, que son mari était en fait enterré à Colleville. Mieux, une place avait été baptisée en son honneur dans un village normand, Les Ventes, lieu de son décès. Peggy Harris se rendit donc en Normandie et put se recueillir sur la tombe de son mari. Elle rencontra des vieux habitants du village qui lui racontèrent les circonstances de l'accident.

Pour l'heure, à Beaussault, les investigations s'arrêteront là. Le rapport du DPMO sera remis à un autre service au sigle tout aussi intraduisible, le JPAC, qui décidera ou non de l'utilité de procéder à des excavations. Franck Sobotka et Clair Shaeffer attendront encore un peu, là, quelque part dans la forêt de Grattenoix.

Guess Who Is Blamed by France's Newspaper of Record: After Over Five Years of Obama Presidency, Anything Wrong in Iraq Is Still All Bush's Fault

Barack Obama … is right

intones the editorial of France's daily Le Monde (Barack Obama is always right ; unlike, say, his predecessor who was always wrong, as we will discover later in the text)

– et ceux de ses adversaires politiques qui lui imputent la responsabilité de la situation en Irak ont tort ou affichent une mauvaise foi qui confine à l'indécence.

 … M. Obama est peut-être timide sur l'emploi de la force. Mais il faut une bonne dose d'impudence pour lui faire endosser la paternité des événements actuels en Irak. Hormis la part prise par les Irakiens dans leur propre malheur, la responsabilité première dans le démantèlement de l'Etat à Bagdad, dans la dissolution de l'armée, dans l'exacerbation des différends religieux et dans l'explosion du djihadisme en Irak repose d'abord sur celui qui décida d'envahir ce pays : George W. Bush.

In other words, Iraq, and the world, would be better off is only Saddam Hussein was still in power, sending his people to the death fields.

And how dare anybody even think of having the gall to raise their voice to put some of the opprobrium on Obama-the-merciful come to save the American people from itself and to apologize for all of America's past sins?!

To summarize: during the Bush years, everything was Bush's fault.

Electing a paragon like Obama — tolerant (like the Europeans), in harmony with the rest of the world (still like the Europeans) — would solve all the problems on the planet, while making the U.S. respected (and beloved) again.

Since then, we have had chemical massacres in Syria, a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chinese threats in Southeast Asia. (Yes, yes, of course Assad, Putin, and Beijing have nothing but the utmost respect for Obama, and for America, a deeper love you will never see!)

Over five (!) years after Obama's election, who is responsible? It's... still Dubya!

(While on the internal front, everything is the fault of the… Republicans…)

The extreme violence of the assault on June 6, 1944? The Sounds on D-Day Were Soothing

A Frenchman with a German name, Maxime J E Heinisch, writes to the New York Times from Toulouse to say Merci

Every June 6, I, a young Frenchman, remember that I have had the chance to live my life because some foreigners gave theirs, and that many of these lives ended up on the sand without having the chance to fire or fight, a sacrifice that left most of them alone with fear while crossing over to the other side, literally and figuratively.

Every June 6, I remember the words from my grandparents that were all about soothing sounds: the quiet of the crepe soles of the American troops contrasting with those of the invader, or the smooth whistling of gliders landing quietly in the fields. It seemed to them that war’s deafening noises were vanishing with the Allied armies coming.

Every June 6, I also remember my hand full of cartridge cases, when at 9 I discovered Normandy’s beaches: There were so many in the gravel that my schoolmates and I at first thought that someone had spread them around.

On that sunny day, I felt the extreme violence of the assault, and as soon as I was back home, I pinned up the Star and Stripes and United States Army patches on the walls of my bedroom. This was the only way for me to say thank you at that time.

We don’t live in a sane culture, we live in a feminist culture; instead of curbing the worst instincts of women, our culture instead amplifies them

Women are hard wired to wonder if they aren’t missing out on something.  Could they find a better man?  Do they have enough money, the right clothes and shoes?  Are they being treated well enough by their husbands, and at their job?  

A Dalrock post linked by Instapundit links in turn to another, previous Dalrock post entitled The Whispers, which is worth quoting on its own.

I think this pretty neatly fits with the concept of hypergamy, and it does serve a biological purpose.  Women need to make sure they choose the best mate possible, and that they have the status and means to care for the child.

But constantly wondering if what you have is enough isn’t always a virtue;  in the wrong context (most of modern life) it is a prescription for unhappiness.  Not just their unhappiness, but that of their family, especially their children.  A sane culture would curb the dangerous part of this tendency.  It would caution women of the danger of never being happy, as the Brothers Grimm tale The Fisherman’s Wife does (post pending).

But then again we don’t live in a sane culture, we live in a feminist culture.   Feminism’s founding motto is “I never get to have any fun!”  Instead of curbing the worst instincts of women, our culture instead amplifies them.

Here’s an experiment you can try on your own.  Find a five year old, and ask them why did all of your friends get ice cream today and you didn’t? or  why are all of their toys better than yours? Find a bunch of toys they don’t have which look like they would be really great to play with.  Then ask them why their parents don’t love them enough to buy them for them.  For best results, taunt them relentlessly every day.  Wake them up in the middle of the night and ask why their classmates get to sleep in a more comfortable bed than they do.  At breakfast ask them if they think their classmates are eating better food right now.  Find new and interesting things they should feel slighted about.  Try this for say, 30 years.

Now test and see if they are happy.

Read the whole thing™ and check out quotes from Stephen Baskerville's Taken Into Custody (The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family).

As for Instapundit readers, also check out what Miles Per Galleon has to say:

Thing is, I think women in general have *always* been status-conscious when it comes to their relationships with men. Women (again, in general) are obsessed with relationships, period. The never-ending comparisons, check lists, gossip, the microscopic parsing of every conversation, every nuance of every syllable in a conversation with That Man ... this is as old as the hills & hasn't really changed since wimmins were wearing bearskins & grinding meal with stone. This is what wimmins do.

What has changed are the cultural & technological contexts.

Too many to list, but we are aware of the biggies: material affluence, labor-saving machines in the home, mass media, huge changes in law & labor force participation, artificial contraception, feminization of the culture at large, radical moral autonomy & sexual license in place of traditional Judeo-Christian concepts of marriage & family, etc etc.

The combination of all these is a toxic brew exacerbating what have always been women's unfortunate tendencies towards relationship nit-picking, status-checking & insecurity. The physical harshness of life, the lack of a mass media echo chamber, the prominence of traditional religion, social taboos against and legal obstacles to divorce, used to act as strong restraints on excessive dwelling on discontent & fantasies of ditching one's familial & marital obligations ISO the elusive "carefree" life.

Those restraints for the most part have faded & been dismantled, but the less-than-admirable psychological, emotional & behavioral tendencies they held in check did not go away. So we now have the dismal portrait of what a society looks like when unrealistic expectations in relationships and marriage are a dime a dozen, selfishness is hyped and rewarded, neurosis is coddled, promiscuity romanticized & celebrated, and happiness is the ever-elusive mechanical rabbit that keeps the dogs racing around and around the track.

Myths of World War I Debunked and the BBC's Debunking List Debunked in Turn

The BBC presents an opinion piece called 10 big myths about World War One debunked, but a couple of Instapundit readers do a good job of debunking the Dan Snow article in turn, mainly JMH:

The BBC "Myth" article is mostly a crock. Good God, have they forgotten so much over there? The "myths" that they are correct about are mostly ones I've never heard anyone mention.

1. Bloodiest war in history to that point: They're right about this.
2. Most soldiers died - never heard anyone make this claim. BBC made it up so they could debunk it.
3. Men lived in trenches for years on end - No, but they didn't spend three days there either. Men lived in detestable conditions for weeks on end.
4. The Upper Class Got off Lightly: Never, ever, heard anyone make this claim either. Anyone with any knowledge of WWI knows this isn't true. Again, they made it up so they would have something to debunk.
5. Lions led by Donkeys: The source of the quote is in dispute, but the truth of the claim is not. The British had terrible generals throughout the war, especially at the top. Donkeys doesn't mean they were cowards (they weren't), it means they were stupid and stubborn (they were).
6. Gallipoli - yes, there were British soldiers in the general area, but the ANZACs were the ones landed on the wrong beaches and stuck in an untenable position.
7. Tactics remained unchanged - yes, yes they did. This is not a myth, it's truth, at least as far as the British were concerned. The Germans did learn new tactics. The French didn't necessarily change tactics, but they changed strategies. The British donkeys stubbornly stuck to the same failed tactics year after year.
8. No one won - Of the six Great Powers (Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France. UK, Ottomans) that started the war, two (Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) no longer existed at the end, two more (Germany, Russia) saw their governments ended and replaced by new forms, and the final two (France and the UK) lost so many men, they were no longer World Powers at the end of the war. So, yes, it's true that no one won.
9. Versailles - Was it harsh, or was it just stupid and misguided? At the time it was called the Peace to end all Peace.
10. Everyone hated it - oh, so somebody who got a cush, rear-echelon job where he could make time with the lonely ladies didn't mind it, eh? Idiots.

Related: also check out Debunking Three Big Myths of World War I

While discussing who bears the responsibility for starting the conflict, JMH goes on to add that

Germany started it if you blame the Schlieffen plan for leaving Germany no other option for responding to Russian mobilization but invading France.

Russia started it if you blame them for mobilizing against Austria despite clear warnings from Germany that would mean war with Germany.

France started it if you blame them for egging the Russians on against Austria because their government wanted a war with Germany before Germany got any stronger and while Russia was their ally.

Austria started it if you blame them for using the death of a noble they didn't even like as a pretext for subjugating Serbia.

Germany started it if you blame them for supporting Austria's strong-arming of Serbia out of fear that they couldn't lose Austria as an ally because everyone else was allied against Germany.

Serbia started it if you blame them for shooting the Austrian Crown Prince as an act of pointless, idiotic terror.

Britain started it if you blame them for not just effing declaring a side before Germany gave Austria the green light. If they'd said they would be on Frances side, Germany would have restrained Austria. If they'd said they were going to sit it out, France would have refused to support Russia. Instead they dithered, and let everyone believe what they wanted.

Or, you can blame the Ottomans for the centuries of mis-rule that created the ethnic and religious powderkeg in the Balkans and the final decades of collapse that set everyone else scrambling for the pickings.

Or, finally, I supposed if you are Barack Obama, you can blame George W. Bush. Or maybe a hard drive crash. 

No one is afraid of big, bad America anymore — This is what it looks like when the world’s only superpower decides it’s going to get in touch with its inner self

This is What Declining American Power Looks Like

writes Benny Huang —

Emperor Nero was said to have played the fiddle while Rome burned; Barrack Obama was busy working on his golf game while Iraq did the same. According to his press secretary Jay Carney, the president was fully engaged in that whole Iraq thing while he chipped  and putted his way across Porcupine Creek, an exclusive golf club.

And maybe that’s where he should have been. I don’t know.

 … A little known fact about Obama is that he has fired more hellfire missiles that any other Nobel Peace Prize winner!

So he isn’t afraid to pull the trigger and make bad guys die. Yet despite using drones like playtoys, Obama’s presidency marks an American retreat. I’ll leave that up to the reader to determine whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I know some conservatives and some liberals who can agree that sitting out the next global conflict would be just what the doctor ordered.

Where did it all begin? If I had to put a finger on it, I would say that it began in April of 2009 when, in the midst of his world apology tour, Mr. Obama bowed to the Saudi king. American presidents have not traditionally bowed before foreign leaders. We fought a revolution so that we wouldn’t have to. Though he lied and said that his obvious bow was not a bow, liberals pooh-poohed the whole thing, and pretty soon he was bowing to the Emperor of Japan, the president of China, a robot, and probably the bellhop at his hotel.

The message was clear: We’re not the same superpower we once were. We have been humbled.

Then he began making deep cuts to the military, which is usually a popular thing to do when most people have been deluded into believing that the military receives more funding than welfare programs or education, a preposterous lie. Proposed personnel cuts would reduce the Army in size to a number not seen since 1940. The future of the A-10 Thunderbolt, every infantryman’s best friend, is uncertain due to budget cuts. Long-held garrisons in Europe are being closed.

Not surprisingly, the bad guys of the world are misbehaving. In Egypt, a “pro-democracy” movement that looked suspiciously like a pro-Shariah law movement swept Hosni Mubarak, an American ally, from power. Russia tore away a piece of its neighbor, the Ukraine, without any fear of reprisal from the US or NATO. In Syria, Bashar Assad defied Obama’s “red lines” and (likely) used chemical weapons against his own people. In Iraq, a fledging force of Islamists is routing the Iraqi Army and taunting the United States.

This is what it looks like when the world’s only superpower decides it’s going to get in touch with its inner self.

American fingers have been plugging holes in too many levees for far too long. We’ve held back the North Koreans from attacking their southern cousins, but for how much longer? How many small former satellite states will Putin decide to invade? What’s to prevent China from taking Taiwan? If the Iranians create a worldwide economic catastrophe by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, who will stop them?

Not us. No one is afraid of big, bad America anymore.

It’s clear that the United States has been overextended. In every corner of the world, wherever there is a conflict, the United States picks a side and attempts to influence outcomes using hard or soft power. No other country takes foreign policy to such extremes. Never in the history of the world has one country attempted to do so much—pledging to defend nations such as Japan, Taiwan, and Germany, using its navy to fight piracy and keep the world’s shipping lanes open, battling the narcotics trade, and responding to humanitarian disasters. We do it all!

Whether we can keep doing it is doubtful. Besides the fact that we’re in debt, the young people of our nation, like most of their peers in post-industrial nations, aren’t joining the military in droves.
Yet we should not forget that the news we’re hearing now about the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, about ISIS in Iraq, and about a truculent Russian Federation, are really stories about declining American power. This is what happens when Team America: World Police decides to turn in its badge.

How to have fun during a French train strike

There is a train strike on at the moment in France

writes Stephen Clarke

– but it has, perversely, become an excellent time to travel by train. As long as you don’t have to be at your destination at a certain fixed time, and don’t mind taking the risk that you won’t get a seat (unlikely on all except the really busy routes), now is a great time to take a TGV – one of France’s excellent fast trains. Most of them are running more or less on time, and there are lots of railway workers in red waistcoats at the stations telling you exactly when the next train is leaving. You can also look on the internet, which has reliable lists of non-cancelled trains. I have had to travel around quite a bit over the past few days and have had nothing but good experiences.

 … I’ve taken advantage of this situation recently by ignoring my reservations and travelling when I want. Once I even turned up a whole day early. It’s been very liberating.

… This hasn’t been the case for everyone. There have been the usual news reports about commuters losing income, waiting for hours on platforms, being forced to imitate sardines, and the like.

 … The strike, which has only been supported by a small minority of railway workers, is about reform, as most strikes in France are. The government is being forced by Europe to open up the railways to competition, and is therefore planning to split the French SNCF into three companies. Divide and rule, the unions say. They also don’t want to lose their very French privileges, which include retirement at age 52 for what they call the “personnel roulant” (those who actually work on the trains), with a lifelong pension of 75% of their salary. Enough to buy a decent train set. This has been sweetened even more by an offer from the government to give two years’ salary to anyone who accepts early retirement. They’re among the world’s most privileged industrial workers, which is why they’re on strike – they want to stay that way. Logical, really.

 … One of the places I travelled to by train this week was Waterloo. Not the station in London, the battlefield in Belgium. I went there to see what was happening on the 199th anniversary of the battle, on 18 June. The answer: nothing except massive renovation and building work in preparation for next year. By June 2015, the buildings on the battlefield will never have looked better since the day before Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher started firing cannons at them.

The official film on show at the Lion mound museum is very French, as are most of the displays. Fans of Napoleon seem to have recaptured the whole area now that Wellington has left. The film tells the story of the battle and concludes along the lines that although Napoleon lost (a big admission), at least during the years of his reign, he managed to spread French revolutionary ideas across Europe. It’s a very French interpretation, which made me think that in a way, you have to be grateful to Wellington and Blücher for stopping Napoleon in 1815. Otherwise right now we might have train strikes across the whole continent …

The Political Ad That Applies to Every Nation in the World

"We can't afford that" says the young adult in the Shopping Cart political ad reported on by The Hill (thanks to Instapundit).

Bart Guevara

From The New Yorker

"Old" Europe’s anti-American impulse never in fact went away; At most, it merely went into a latent state, awaiting the proper conditions to become virulent again

During the decade of the naughts and the two administrations of George W. Bush, Europe was seized by a veritable paroxysm of anti-Americanism

noted John Rosenthal a few years ago in regards to a German news report about "An Entirely Normal American" (Christine O'Donnell) or, rather, more loosely translated, "An Entirely Average American, a Simpleton Like the Rest of 'Em".

More precisely, this was the case for the “old” European core of Germany and France, as well as the neighboring countries most influenced by the latter. Back in the day, several “euro-blogs” documented the phenomenon on a nearly daily basis. These included Davids Medienkritik, focusing on Germany, No Pasarán, focusing on France, and my own Transatlantic Intelligencer. In the meanwhile, since the election of Barack Obama, the subject of European anti-Americanism is rarely touched upon even in new media and one could well have imagined that the phenomenon itself had simply disappeared.

But as the reactions of leading French and German newspapers to the Tea Party and the prospect of large Republican gains in the upcoming congressional elections make clear, “old” Europe’s anti-American impulse never in fact went away. At most, it merely went into a latent state, awaiting the proper conditions to become virulent again.

Consider, for instance, the sub-head of a recent article in the German daily Die Welt on Christine O’Donnell as the supposed “nightmare opponent” [Angstgegenerin] of the Democrats: “Christine O’Donnell is even simpler than Sarah Palin — but the Democrats are afraid of her.” When applied to persons, as it is in this context, the German adjective simpel carries a strong whiff of “simpleton.”

Lest it be imagined that the crack is reserved for just O’Donnell and Palin and might somehow be construed as sparing their supporters and/or Americans more generally, the front page features a distinctly unflattering photo of a seemingly unhinged and cockeyed O’Donnell, accompanied — with a wink and a nudge — by the headline: “An entirely normal American.” (In an allusion to O’Donnell’s now famous “I’m You” ad, the teaser-text states that this is what O’Donnell claims to be. But it then quickly adds that “ordinary people [literally, ‘people in the street’]” are indeed enthusiastic about her, thus lending credence to the claim.)

Above is the October 18 [2010] front page of Die Welt, one of Germany’s leading newspapers. It should be noted that of all Germany’s major dailies, Die Welt is probably the least prone to anti-American excesses.

Leftists' defense of Russia’s sphere of influence overlooks the question of whether the countries that fall within it are there by choice or coercion

Western intellectuals have long had a soft spot for Russia

writes Slawomir Sierakowski in a New York Times contribution entitled Putin's Useful Idiots. In the past century, following in the footsteps of Voltaire and Johann Gottfried von Herder,

intellectuals like André Gide, Pablo Neruda and Jean-Paul Sartre all stumped for the Soviet Union as what Lenin allegedly called “useful idiots,” apologizing for its monstrosities long after the rest of the world recognized them.

To those in the Eastern Europe left — myself included — who know Russia better than most, such naïveté has long been a source of chagrin. And yet it continues, even today, as many American and Western European intellectuals do all they can to minimize the dangerous aggression by Vladimir V. Putin.

Writing in The Nation, the Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen argued that Mr. Putin was largely blameless for the conflict in Ukraine, that he had tried to avoid it but that the West had forced his hand. In Mr. Cohen’s eyes, the West has unnecessarily humiliated Russia by inviting countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join NATO.

Ukraine, he wrote, is part of Russia’s sphere of influence, so why can’t we just accept Mr. Putin’s proposal that Ukraine be federalized, with neutrality guaranteed in a new constitution?

Mr. Cohen’s defense of Russia’s sphere of influence overlooks the question of whether the countries that fall within it are there by choice or coercion. Ukraine is willing to be in the Western sphere of influence because it receives support for civil society, the economy and national defense — and Russia does nothing of the kind.

Mr. Cohen and others don’t just defend Russia; they attack the pro-democracy activists in Ukraine. 

 … Strangely, Western intellectuals seem unbothered by anyone who notes the similarity between their pronouncements and Russian propaganda. Indeed, they dismiss such charges out of hand. Zoltan Grossman, who teaches at Evergreen State in Olympia, Wash., writes that it is “wrong and irresponsible to assert that the presence of fascists and Nazis in the new government is merely Russian propaganda.”

For Dr. Grossman, inconvenient details are less important than the fact that Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the far-right organization Right Sector, had been appointed deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

 … What naïve American intellectuals say free of charge, the canny Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, says for 250,000 euros a year as a board member of Gazprom, the Russian oil giant. Mr. Schröder, the German father of “Gazprom socialism” — a new subspecies of limousine liberalism — has repeatedly embarrassed Berlin by supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

He isn’t alone — another former chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, has likewise sung Russia’s praises of late, as has Günter Verheugen, a prominent former European Union commissioner.

What drives these men? Is it a case of poorly conceived pacifism? An eruption of remorse for war crimes carried out against Russians, so many years ago? Or the Stockholm syndrome of a victim fascinated by his executioner?

Obviously, they are entitled to their opinions. But in speaking out this way they are doing great damage to Germany’s postwar government, built on a commitment to democracy and national self-determination, everything that is currently under attack by Mr. Putin.

The irony is that by standing beside Russia and pointing fingers at fascist phantoms in Ukraine, Western intellectuals are aligning themselves not just with the autocrat in the Kremlin, but the legions of far-right parties across Europe that have come to Russia’s defense, among them Hungary’s Jobbik, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Austria’s Freedom Party, Italy’s Lega Nord and the French Front National. Who says Russia needs propaganda? It already has its useful idiots.

The Chickenhawk comeback embodies every liberal’s response to well-considered arguments: Shut up!

Listening to Markos “Kos” Moulitsas wax indignant on his Daily Kos blog about critics of the Taliban “prisoner” swap is like déjà vu all over again

says Benny Huang.

Two thousand four is back, y’all!

Kos, who has never been as relevant since those early days of the Iraq War, dragged out the old “chickenhawk” epithet again to describe anyone who thinks it’s kind of a raw deal, not to mention illegal under the circumstances, to swap five Taliban heavy-hitters for one traitorous soldier who risked the lives of his brothers in arms on several occasions. Said Kos on his blog: “It’s been a while since we’ve heard the squawking of those chickenhawks, always eager to send our people into combat, yet unwilling to serve their nation themselves.”

 … His “chickenhawk” comeback is really just a warmed over version of every liberal’s response to well-considered arguments. Though it may take different forms at different times the gist is always the same: Shut up!

Shut up about the administration’s evolving rationale for the trade. Shut up about the illegality of releasing prisoners from Gitmo without congressional oversight. Shut up about an apparent attempt to cover up the fishy circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Shut up about the likelihood of these Taliban commanders returning the battlefield. Just shut up already, you chickenhawk!

Kos is not a combat veteran. There’s nothing wrong with that; he claimed to have “missed deploying to the Gulf War by a hair.” He stayed behind in Europe because that’s where the Army wanted him to be.

You know who didn’t miss deploying by a hair? John McCain. He’s been a critic of the Obama-instigated Taliban jailbreak. Said McCain: “Do not trade one person for five hardcore, the hardest of the hardcore murdering war criminals who will clearly reenter the fight and send them to Qatar, of all places, where they will be free to roam, including to the Taliban headquarters there, and then after a year they will be allowed to go back into the fight in Afghanistan.”

 … Markos Moulitsas became one of the world’s biggest bloggers when he did precisely because the Left needed a war hero on their team to call other people cowards and traitors. It is a sad commentary on the Left that the best they could come up with was Kos and, of course, John “Christmas in Cambodia” Kerry. Moulitsas’s service was honorable but not particularly remarkable or heroic, which makes his ten year marathon of macho posturing rather painful to watch, mostly for his sake. Obviously, no one has told him yet that he looks foolish.

Ten years ago, No Pasarán featured a major in-depth post on the subject :Shape Up, Shut Up, or Ship Out

Obesity

Serguei's take on evolution

"In Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell"

Ronald Reagan's speech at Pointe du Hoc for the 40th anniversary of the Normandy invasion (merci à Mike in San Diego).

Reagan also held a speech at the Omaha Beach Military Cemetery…

The story of D-Day.

 

The Longest Day in a 10-Question Quiz

For the 70th anniversary of D-Day, D-Day, Geo Magazine has a 10-question quiz on the Normandy landings (en français but readily understandable)…

The story of D-Day.

Civil Rights Act of 1964: The power of the word racist to close minds and mouths is unparalleled

Most people only think they support the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they don’t know what it contains and because portions of it go unenforced

writes Benny Huang as the law celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Another reason people support the CRA is because they don’t want to be called racist. The power of that word—racist—to close minds and mouths is unparalleled.

But there are plenty of good reasons to oppose this lousy, unconstitutional law that have nothing to do with racism. Republican Republican Senator Barry … Goldwater’s opposition to the 1964 bill was threefold: that it represented an unconstitutional power grab by the feds, that it would be an endless source of litigation, and that it would force sovereign citizens to engage in involuntary economic transactions. The senator has been proven right on all three counts.

If liberals want to demonstrate their love of the CRA they could begin by following it; the whole thing, not just the parts that they like. The law bans discrimination in government and private commercial enterprises (which they erroneously label “public accommodations”) based on five protected categories: race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

Liberals still support discriminatory practices based upon three of these categories—race, sex, and religion.

In regards to race and sex, liberals favor policies that give preference to women and racial minorities as a means of redressing historical grievances. Unfortunately for them, the law they claim to love so much does not contain a “redress of grievances” loophole no matter how much they wish it did. A preference for blacks is just as illegal as a racial preference for whites; a preference for women is just as illegal as a preference for men.

  … If liberals were administered a healthy dose of truth serum they might stop lying long enough to tell us what they really mean—they don’t really like laws that prohibit religious discrimination because religion is silly superstition at best, violent and repressive at worst, and thus not worthy of protection. They don’t say that because it makes them sound like bigots, which they are. They would also tell you that they don’t really oppose discrimination based on race or sex as long as the victims are always men of fair complexion.

When It Ends the Longest Day

Many men won't see the sunset
When it ends the longest day…

The story of D-Day.


From the Associated Press, the story of a Frenchman who joined American forces to free his homeland:

When he left Paris at age 18, the plan was to go to New York for a year and learn his father's sewing machine trade. Six years later, Bernard Dargols found himself crossing the Channel in a U.S. Army uniform, sloshing ashore on Omaha Beach to a homeland that had persecuted his Jewish family.

Dargols' journey from Paris to New York and back ended when he drove his Army jeep into a courtyard in the recently liberated French capital, striding upstairs into a darkened apartment and into the arms of his weeping mother. Until that moment, he hadn't known whether she had survived the Nazi occupation.

"She hadn't seen me in six years and I saw she was alive," Dargols said in an interview ahead of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that helped defeat the Nazis.

Update: a 10-question quiz on the Normandy landings (en français)…

What Are Prisons For If They Serve to Radicalize Muslim Prisoners and Make Them Killers?

The man who gunned down four people in Brussels last Saturday (he did this one day after Elliot Rodger shot three people to death in Santa Barbara) seems to have been identified.

Like Mohamed Merah before him, the suspect Mehdi Nemmouche traveled to Syria to fight the Jihad and when he returned to France, where he became a radicalized Muslim while spending time in a "terrorism-creating" prison.

Indeed, Farhad Khosrokhavar, the author of L’Islam en prison, told Stéphanie Le Bars that "Nemmouch will not be the last case" we see of prison radicals opening fire on civilians in the street, leading Plantu to draw a Le Monde cartoon telling "France" that "your flag is scramming" to Syria.

What Are We Waiting For?! It's Long Past Time to Outlaw Knives (Especially When Kids Can Get Their Hands on the Weapons)

The Associated Press reports that

Prosecutors say two 12-year-old southeastern Wisconsin girls stabbed their 12-year-old friend nearly to death in the wood to please a mythological creature they learned about online.

What Are the Bergdahls Proud of? That Their Son Is Wiser, More Talented, and More Tolerant Than the Average American (Soldier)

Is it uncouth or beyond the pale to do a little analysis of the statements by Bowe Bergdahl's parents on CNN?

I'm proud of you 

says Robert Bergdahl from Boise, Idaho, via TV to his son (02:25).  The man, who looks like (is it uncouth to note this as well?) a 1970s Marxist, goes on to say a few words in a foreign tongue (an Afghan language?) and to enumerate the army sergeant's alleged international credentials, as well as his multi-culti talents — traits that show Bowe's superiority to the average American.

And to the average American soldier.

I'm so proud of your character, I'm so proud of your patience, and your perseverance. I'm so proud of your cultural abilities to adapt, your language skills, your desire and your action to serve this country in a very difficult, long war. 

But in all this, what is Bob Bergdahl most proud of? More internationalism and more multi-culti stuff:

But most of all, I'm proud [breaking down] of how much you wanted to help the afghan people and what you were willing to do to go to that length…

Update: Did Bob Bergdahl delete a tweet?

Update 2 — from the comments section, Radegunda explains that  

Pa Bergdahl said some very significant words in Arabic: the "Bismallah" refrain from the Koran, which in this context sounds like a greeting or expression of solidarity from one Muslim to another. They both appear to identify with the Taliban side in the global jihad.

Indeed. And so it would seem that Bob's beard is less 1970s Marxist than Islamist… Plus what does this do to the leftists' insistence that rumors about Obama's Islamism deserve nothing but ridicule?

What Leftists Revel In: Shame — Shame for Being American, Shame for Having the Audacity to Speak Out, etc…

According to emails quoted by CNN's Jake Tapper (thanks to InstaPundit), freed POW Bowe Bergdahl is said to have vilified his country and deserted, while his "selfish act" caused seven deaths among the comrades who were trying to save him from his Al Qaeda captors.

"The future is too good to waste on lies," Bowe wrote to his parents [in 2009]. "And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting."

Bergdahl wrote to them, "I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting."

If so, was the army sergeant (whose last name, incidentally, means mountain valley in Scandinavian) saying anything differently than the (admittedly slightly more diplomatic) woman who now lives in the White House? (That would be Michelle "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country" Obama.)

Like Michelle, father Bob Bergdahl went on TV to praise his relative's superiority to the average American (soldier).

Notice that on his battalion's Facebook page, the moderator asked for "more respect to be shown":

I challenge any one of you who label him a traitor to spend 5 years in captivity with the Taliban or Haqqani, then come back and accuse him again. Whatever his intent when he walked away or was captured, he has more than paid for it.

We have seen this before: it is (or it is akin to) the leftists' typical shame-you-into-silence stance.

That amounts to a whole lot of shame coming from the left side of the aisle…

As Glenn Reynolds has quoted Richard Fernandez saying,

It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.

The weirdest souvenirs in Paris's new official merchandise shop have to be the Parisian scented candles

The French, as we all know, are an inventive people Paris has just found a new way to earn some much-needed money for its anti-pollution campaign

writes Stephen Clarke:

a shop selling official merchandise. The new boutique at 29 rue de Rivoli, in the Hôtel de Ville building, is selling a  selection of knick-knacks with “Paris” written on them, as well as some bulky but authentic-looking souvenirs that will help you create your own corner of the French capital in your back garden. Sadly, not a full-size version of the Eiffel Tower – because an accurate scale model, with the staircases, lifts and intricate ironwork would make a great garden feature, especially if you could get it to light up and flicker like the real one does. But the shop at city hall is selling copies of the metal chairs you get in Parisian parks, as well as some nice wooden yachts like the ones children (and grown-up kids) can rent in the Jardins du Luxembourg and the Tuileries to sail on the ponds.

 … A good thing … : the boutique has a great selection of books, which are available on-line if they’re not in the shop itself. My recommendation would be the very cheap little volume of photos of the Marais taken in the 1960s and early 1970s. This was before the demolition of the Les Halles market, but also before the renovation of some buildings that are now looking very spruce but came perilously close to falling down. It’s all in Le Marais de Roland Liot that costs only €2.85.

 … The weirdest souvenirs in the shop have to be the Parisian scented candles. Now it doesn’t take much cynicism to ask what these candles should smell of if they want to be authentic. As the author of a book called A Year in the Merde, I won’t even bother to make the most obvious suggestion. The Marais candle is said to smell of leather and wood, reminiscent of the old houses there. Fair enough, though it’s more of a zingy, zesty, trendy place now. The St Germain des Prés candle tries to recreate the intellectual atmosphere of the Latin Quarter, not with red wine, cigarette ash and hot air, but with wood, amber and vetiver (the last of which does apparently have a smoky fragrance, so it scores a point for authenticity). However, I can’t understand why flowers, fruits and vanilla are meant to capture the atmosphere of the Canal Saint Martin in summer – it’s a prime picnic spot, so ham, camembert and gherkins would be nearer the mark. And why shouldn’t your kitchen smell of cheese rather than flowers?

But this is a little cynical dig at what must be a good thing if it in any way eases local taxes. Turning a chunk of city hall into a profitable boutique must be good news. The only strange thing about it is that recently, city hall has been repeating its campaign against Sunday trading by saying that it doesn’t want the city turned into one big shopping mall. Admittedly the official Paris shop is only open Monday to Saturday, but if the city can turn part of its own HQ into a shopping mall whenever it chooses, can’t some of its citizens do the same, whenever they choose, and give much-needed work to Parisians trying to afford their local taxes?

Dirty Bertie: an English King Made in France

The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, [Albert Edward, nicknamed Bertie,] had a reputation for being the most fashionable man in Paris

writes The Daily Telegraph.

According to [Stephen Clarke's] biography, Dirty Bertie: an English King Made in France, [the Prince of Wales] also had a reputation for sleeping with the city's most famous prostitutes.

 … The prince became King in January 1901. His nephew was Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor from 1888-1918. "Bertie really was the only man in Europe who could calm the Kaiser's warlike outbursts," writes Clarke. "It was on a peace mission to Germany in 1910 that Bertie suffered the attack of cigar-induced breathlessness that would kill him. And as soon as he died, the French began to say that war was inevitable. Bertie, Europe's great peacemaker, was gone."

Superpowers Don't Get to Retire: What America Still Owes the World

Even the New Republic!

Even the leftists at New Republic state that the apologizer-in-chief's dream of America is a fairy tale.

A fairy tale given that, in the words of Robert Kagan, superpowers simply do not get to retire.

(One only wishes they would have said this six or seven years ago…)

Like squeegee-men at a Bronx intersection, EU leaders simply won’t take no for an answer

Enthusiastic supporters of the European Union (EU) are crying in their beers

chuckles Benny Huang,

after faring poorly in the European Parliament elections [last] Sunday. Those who dream of a new, post-nationalist Europe will have to make room for contrarians of both the Left and Right who are decidedly cooler to the great experiment known as the European Union.

 In Britain, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) swayed 29% of voters with its decidedly anti-EU platform, finishing better than the Labor and Tory parties. Those limeys, they just have to be different; and thank goodness for it or else they might have adopted the Euro like a lot of other foolish countries, thus handcuffing themselves to the moribund economy of Greece and other ailing European economies not far behind.

The French came out in force for National Front which won 25% of the vote, more than any other party. An anti-EU party in Germany, a nation where pro-EU sentiments are still the default position, managed to win 7% of the vote and elect a few members to the Strasbourg assembly for the first time. In Denmark, the Danish People’s Party defeated its rivals with 27% of the vote. While these tallies may seem insignificant in an American context, they are in fact very healthy returns in multi-party parliamentary systems.

 … Getting everyday Europeans to love the European Union has always been a tough sell. Nine years ago, when the EU’s proposed constitution was put to a popular vote in France and the Netherlands, most political observers agreed that the election was a referendum on the very essence of European integration; until the vote actually happened, that is, then it didn’t mean a thing. Both nations roundly rejected the constitution. Shortly thereafter, a proposed vote in Ireland was cancelled, which was the ruling class’s way of saying that there shall be no more voting until the people can figure out how to do it correctly.

A number of European nations have ratified the EU constitution, though nearly all by parliamentary vote. Only in Spain and Luxembourg did popular majorities say yes to the EU. In several other nations—the UK, Portugal, Poland, Denmark—the vote has been “postponed.” There is little chance that popular majorities in these countries will approve the EU constitution so a vote on ratification will be put off until public opinion can be massaged in the proper direction.

Noticing a trend here? Like squeegee-men at a Bronx intersection, they simply won’t take no for an answer.

 … Those who favor the EU understand well that Brussels has a sleeper hold on its member states, they just don’t talk about it as if it’s a bad thing. Where others complain of lost sovereignty, they say good riddance to ugly nationalism. Where others mourn the demise of national identities, they rejoice at the slow fading of artificial lines that have divided people for too long.

The EU cannot be stronger without the member states being weaker. It’s a zero sum game. More decisions being made at the Union-level mean fewer being made in the various capitals of Europe. The message of Sunday’s vote was loud and clear, if the elites are willing to hear it: Europeans don’t want a superstate if it will cost them their homelands.

Who, Exactly, Is It Who Should Apologize for Slavery and Make Reparations? America? The South? The Descendants of the Planters? …

Instapundit links a Richard Epstein article, The Case Against Reparations for Slavery.

I wrote about what follows 17 years ago, when the topic came up during the Clinton administration. Shortened versions of the post below appeared in the International Herald Tribune, in the Washington Post, and in Le Monde (and I admit to feeling honored when a college professor of philosophy later contacted me to ask to include my letter to the WaPo editor in his course book).

Notice that in 1997, all that was being asked for was an apology, and (to his credit) Bill Clinton did not give one. Only a dozen years later or so did the Congress vote for this — with one leftist lawmaker wondering "why nobody ever thought of doing so before" (perhaps, answered one pundit, because 600,000 Americans happened to have died between 1861 and 1865). And now, the liberals have gone to the next step and ask for reparations… (Nor will that be the end of it…)

Having said that…

    I should like to know on behalf of whom, exactly, slavery should be apologized for and whom remedies should be made to. I myself, like the majority of today's U.S. population, am descended from immigrants who arrived after the turn of the 20th century and therefore have nothing to do with the treatment of blacks on the plantations (or that of Indians on the plains, for that matter).

    As for Americans living at the time slavery existed, over twice as many whites lived in states where slavery was illegal and where it had been so, for the most part, since before the French Revolution. Nobody can hardly apologize for the South either, since most whites even there — two thirds of them, to be precise — did not own a single slave.

    Maybe somebody should apologize for the planters and slaveholders? (Their descendants?) But they inherited the system they dwelled in, and although they certainly did little if anything to change it, in what way are they more guilty than the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and other European nationals who introduced it in all their colonies (including, of course, the future United States) and whose only reason for not introducing it onto the European continent proper (as well as the North of the future U.S., needless to say) was the absence of a propitious climate?

    And how, finally, are the above-mentioned whites more guilty than the Arab traders and, especially, the African tribes whose warriors raided neighboring villages to gain slave labor (slaves of the same skin color in this case) themselves or to sell their enemies to the Europeans?

    And speaking of remedies, didn't as many Americans die in the Civil War as in all of America's 20th-century wars combined? Didn't one Southerner of military age out of four lose his life in the conflict? How many bereaved families is that, altogether — North and South? And apologies, and remedies are still supposed to be owed?!

The Day After a Deranged Gunman Shoots 3 to Death in Santa Barbara—Prompting Calls for America to Emulate Gun-Control Europe—4 Are Gunned Down in Brussels

Less than 24 hours after three people were shot to death by a California madman (not counting himself, while his other three victims were stabbed to death) — prompting attacks on America's gun culture and calls for the U.S. to emulate gun-control havens such as those in Europe — the Daily News and Libération report a gunman in Brussels

hustling through a hallway at [a] museum where he quickly unpacks the long gun and opens fire 

killing four in the process, "before calmly and quickly packing his rifle and walking off." (It happened at a Jewish museum — in fact, the Jewish Museum — wouldn't you know it?)

Belgium has launched a nationwide manhunt for the gunman … who killed an Israeli tourist couple and a French woman and left a Belgian in critical condition with shots to the face and throat "probably acted alone, was armed and well prepared."

 … The attack, which came on the eve of national and European Parliament elections, led officials to immediately raise anti-terror measures and protection of Jewish sites.

In liberal California, meanwhile, the families involved in the Elliot Rodger tragedy have been blaming the usual suspects:

 … the father of 20-year-old student who was killed in the rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara blames "craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA" for his son's death.

Richard Martinez, says his son Christopher Martinez was one of those killed in the rampage that claimed seven in the Isla Vista area near UCSB on Friday night. The father went on to say "When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say, 'Stop this madness!' Too many have died. We should say to ourselves, 'Not one more!'"

As for the family of the killer himself, which is "staunchly against guns", reports the Daily Mail, its members have also been blaming "a country where weapons can be bought with ease":

 … the aunt of British born murderer Elliot Rodger made an impassioned appeal on Sunday to Barack Obama and the U.S. authorities to 'Stop the slaughter.'

Jenni Rodger, 55, who lives in south west France, said: 'He was a sick kid – somebody who was seriously mentally disturbed – and yet he was able to get hold of guns.'

 … 'What kind of a society allows this?' said Ms Rodger. 'How can this be allowed to happen? I want to appeal to Americans to do something about this horrific problem.

'I want the president and the authorities to finally stop these killings. The only possible good thing that can come out of all this is America finally taking action.'

Well, shouldn't the police also be held responsible (at least partially)? After all,

Police interviewed Rodger and found him to be a ‘perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human’. 

Police interviewed Rodger and found him to be a ‘perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human,’ but noted
Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/05/dumb-cops-cops-talked-gunman-ahead-shooting-wonderful-human/#CrOPE0hHIV92iU91.99

What's more, deputies never saw the menacing videos before the rampage.

Here we seem to have another culprit: why did the parents not make more of an effort to show the videos to the police?

And how present were those parents in the kid's life? Did they have no idea about his problems regarding his social life (and his virginity)?

All this is to say that, yes, there is a chance that, given an early enough intervention, game could have gotten him laid and quieted his inner rage

remarks Chateau Artiste in a PUA post (cheers to Instapundit).

Shouldn't the earliest intervention have been made by… Elliot's own… father?!

A Croatian friend once told me that in his country, when parents noticed a teen son starting to act like he needed something, something different, the father said "Come with me", drove (or rode, in the olden days) across town, and presented him to… a prostitute. Virginity problem solved, hormone rage lowered. (When learning the kid was a virgin, the gal sometimes did it for free, but always, she made an effort to "give" a bit more than usual.)

And with the money he had, Elliot Rodger could have gone not just to a cheap whore but to a high-class (yes, blonde) call girl. Several call girls. (Yes, all blonde.) At the same time. Several times a week.

OK, not the ideal solution, perhaps, for someone pining for lover and tenderness (although…), but, yes, it would have "quieted his inner rage", making him more attractive in the process to the "normal" LTC girls he craved…

And instead of blaming the NRA and (conservative) politicians for the deaths, how about blaming… the… mass murderer?! The murderer who also used knives and a car in his death spree, and yet no one is speaking of banning knives and motor vehicles.

As for his allegedly being a conservative, John Hinderaker has debunked that canard in this case of a person who in fact turns out to be a "prototypical liberal male" (cheers to Instapundit, again). Indeed, contrary to the wishes of most leftists, most mass murderers seem to turn out to come from the Left side of the political aisle.
Finally, "experts" have been claiming that mass murderers are hard to predict.

That is not entirely true, as I wrote in a dispassionate and in-depth study into the issue of gun control:

Unless I am mistaken, there was not a single occasion of a shootist over the past 50 years, whether underage kids or grown-up adults, who did not previously show warning signs — if only the fact that they were described as "remote" — warning signs that were deliberately and repeatedly ignored, by family and friends as well as by professionals and people in authority; and that, for fear of the left's PC police.

(This is true even in the military; think only of the warning signs concerning Major Nidal Hassan, universally and persistently ignored, prior to the Islamist's 2009 Fort Hood massacre.)

… After a shooting spree, as William S. Burroughs once said, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it and who, (not at all) incidentally, would never do anything remotely like it.

 … had an armed American — had the average armed American — been present at the school or at the university, he (or she) would have used his (or her) weapon to start firing back at Adam Lanza [or Elliot Rodger], and either hit the gunman or forced him to take cover, preventing him from continuing his deadly spree.

As for Michael Moore claiming that "Americans kill people", 24 hours after Elliot Rodgers' rampage, a man enters a museum in Brussels (the Jewish Museum, who would have guessed?) and lets loose with the gun he is carrying, killing four (of course, we have no way of knowing if the unidentified killer is an American citizen, but somehow I doubt it). [Update: here is the reaction of a Jewish rock musician — en français.] One more than was shot by Rodger (the three other victims were stabbed to death). (Note to Michael Moore: Brussels is in Belgium; and Belgium is in Europe; neither is in, or anywhere near, the United States.)

Moreover, as I wrote in my post on gun control,

it is easy for leftists, American as well as foreign, to tout the success of the gun control laws in the rest of the Western world when you ignore :
• the 1996 massacre of 16 children at a Scottish primary school;
• the 2000 killing of eight kids in Japan;
• the 2002 deaths of eight people in Nanterre, France;
• the 2002 killing of 16 kids in Erfurt, Germany;
• the 2007 shootings to death of eight people in Tuusula, Finland;
• the killing of 10 people at a Finnish university less than a year later;
• the 2009 killing of 15 people in Winnenden, Germany;
• and, needless to say, Anders Breivik's 2011 mass murder of 77 Norwegians, most of them teenagers.

Dinesh D’Souza had to pay: Try to imagine Michael Moore being arrested during Bush’s 2nd term and the ensuing outcry it would have caused on the Left

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza pleaded guilty last week to charges of funneling campaign donations in excess of the legal limit through straw donors to the campaign of Senate hopeful Wendy Long.

Thus starts Benny Huang's Patriot Update report.

The D’Souza case has reeked from the beginning of reprisal from on high. His film “2016: Obama’s America” was the second highest grossing political documentary of all time, just behind Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Some have called D’Souza’s film the conservative answer to “Fahrenheit,” though I reject that comparison on the grounds that “2016” is actually truthful. But try to imagine Moore being arrested during Bush’s second term and the ensuing outcry it would have caused on the Left. Hollywood would be making movies for years to come portraying Moore as a political prisoner.

Some might argue that D’Souza is an innocent man who took a plea deal rather than going to trial and risking a harsher sentence. I doubt it, but if that’s the case he should have stuck to his guns.

Even in light of his recent guilty plea, the D’Souza case still seems fishy. In a society in which the application of the law is so often whimsical all prosecutions begin to take on the appearance of selectivity and even payback.

But wait a second, a dissenting voice might say, D’Souza did the crime and now he’s doing the time. How can that be political payback? The answer is that crimes have been so estranged from their punishments that they hardly seem even tangentially related. Yes, it appears that D’Souza broke the law but that in and of itself tells us little about why he’s in the docket.

There are all sorts of people breaking the law right now, in high places and low, who are being excused. Illegal aliens are living in our midst. Plenty of industries are employing them too, which is also illegal. CIA director David Petraeus divulged classified information to his biographer/mistress. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper perjured himself when he said that the NSA was not “wittingly” spying on Americans. Planned Parenthood is failing in their obligation as mandatory reporters by remaining silent about underage rape victims seeking abortions at their facilities. Both AG Eric Holder and IRS official Lois Lerner are in blatant contempt of Congress. Holder is also guilty of perjury, having testified before Congress that he only learned of Operation Fast and Furious “in the last few days,” implying that he had been in the dark about the gun-walking program. Officials at the IRS illegally disclosed classified tax information to the leftwing journalistic foundation ProPublica, as well as to the Human Rights Campaign and the Los Angeles Times.

Certain people are apparently above the law. Dinesh D’Souza isn’t one of those people, though he could be if he were one of the cool kids, that is, a progressive who receives invitations to all the right Georgetown parties. Instead he made a movie that examined Obama’s political education, including his anticolonialist roots and communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. So he had to pay.

Which isn’t to say that D’Souza should skate. The rule of law is a part of civilization’s foundation that has been steadily eroding for decades. Law breakers should face punishment and that includes D’Souza. I say this while still maintaining that the campaign finance law he broke is silly and constitutionally dubious. Laws that are unconstitutional should be overturned through judicial review, and laws that are bad policy should be repealed via the legislative process. Simply ignoring laws we don’t like is a slippery slope to anarchy.

Eric Holder, the highest law enforcement officer in the land, disagrees. He argues that his office has great “discretion” in enforcement. “There is a vast amount of discretion … that an attorney general has,” Holder said. “But that discretion has to be used in an appropriate way so that you’re acting consistent [sic] with the aims of the statute but at the same time making sure that you are acting in a way that is consistent with our values, consistent with the Constitution and protecting the American people.”

 A quick look at Holder’s track record, however, reveals that his exercise of discretion is not based on concern for values, the Constitution, or the American people. His idea of “discretion” should really be called bias. Holder’s DOJ only enforces laws it likes and only against people it doesn’t. By ignoring certain laws, it essentially nullifies them without actually having to go through the legislative process.

 … Dinesh D’Souza admitted to violating the law and for that he should pay. Yet his admitted guilt makes him no less of a victim of revanchist prosecution for a minor crime. As the old adage goes, “They’re framing a guilty man in there.”

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed

Admiral William McRaven, a 36-year veteran Navy SEAL and commander of the forces that killed Osama bin Laden, delivered a rousing commencement speech Thursday to graduates at his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin

writes Cheryl Carpenter Klimek (thanks to Valerie).

In urging students to find the courage to change the world, McRaven shared these 10 life lessons, as seen in the video below:

1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
2. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.
3. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers.
4. If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.
5. If you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses.
6. If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.
7. If you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.
8. If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment.
9. If you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.
10. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell.

For each lesson, McRaven offered a narrative of how it applied to him. The most poignant explanation came just before No. 10, when he said:

Finally, in SEAL training there is a bell, a brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see.

All you have to do to quit is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’clock.  Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims.

Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT — and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training.

Just ring the bell.