Tag: politics

US military vs the CIA

To say these reports of the US military taking one side and the CIA taking the other could have explosive repercussions would be putting it mildly:

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.

Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,’ the former JCS adviser said. ‘The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration’s policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Once the flow of US intelligence began, Germany, Israel and Russia started passing on information about the whereabouts and intent of radical jihadist groups to the Syrian army; in return, Syria provided information about its own capabilities and intentions. There was no direct contact between the US and the Syrian military; instead, the adviser said, ‘we provided the information – including long-range analyses on Syria’s future put together by contractors or one of our war colleges – and these countries could do with it what they chose, including sharing it with Assad. We were saying to the Germans and the others: “Here’s some information that’s pretty interesting and our interest is mutual.” End of conversation.

The Joint Chiefs let it be known that in return the US would require four things: Assad must restrain Hizbullah from attacking Israel; he must renew the stalled negotiations with Israel to reach a settlement on the Golan Heights; he must agree to accept Russian and other outside military advisers; and he must commit to holding open elections after the war with a wide range of factions included.

A Republican self-throat-cutting ritual

Even the cuckservatives at National Review are aghast at the Republicans in office:

It would be bad enough had Republicans merely acquiesced to foolish policies, but in this bill they actively advanced them. The bill’s most egregious proposal will temporarily expand the H-2B visa program, quadrupling the issuance of visas to foreign workers for nonagricultural or temporary service jobs in 2016 — and it was a Republican initiative from start to finish.

What is the rationale? There is strong evidence that large-scale hiring of foreign workers depresses wages for Americans, and it’s not as if Ferris wheels and ski lifts will go unmanned if we stop importing Peruvian labor.

Clearly, Republican leaders bent to the demands of a tiny segment of employers. Meanwhile, they capitulated on a host of other proposals. Despite serious concerns about the integrity of our refugee-vetting procedures in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, the bill fully funds the government’s refugee-resettlement program, facilitating the president’s promise to settle 10,000 Syrians in the U.S. over the coming year. Despite revelations about outrageous criminal activity in America’s 340 “sanctuary cities,” the bill permits federal grants to those cities without adding any qualifying conditions.

And despite a bipartisan effort to reform the cronyism-riddled EB-5 visa program, under which foreigners can obtain a green card if they invest a certain amount in a business that creates or preserves ten jobs for U.S. citizens, Republican leadership dismissed the reform effort and extended the EB-5 program as is through September.

You know it’s bad when they can’t even bother trying to claim that this is just a tactical defeat that is cleverly setting up a long-term conservative strategic victory. You know, one of those long-term strategic victories that are apparently measured in centuries, because I’ve yet to see one come to pass.

We’re not radicals or extremists

We’re “policy entrepreneurs”. That’s a useful little phrase, that is.

This dynamic is inherently more challenging for those of us on the Right, who have good reason to believe that politicians’ incentives to placate various factional constituencies are so often at odds with the long-term effort to rein in the federal footprint. While political parties can exist as factions rather than ideological entities, conservatism cannot succeed as a factional constituency to a political party.

Several years ago, Ross Douthat identified the Obama-era GOP’s worst tendency as “[n]ot an ideological extremism, exactly, but rather a vision of government that you might call ‘small government for thee, but not for me,’ in which conservatism is just constituent services for the most reliable Republican groups and voters.” This is the worst of Republicanism, and it is incompatible with conservatives’ long-term project.

The GOP could exist as a political party by handing out patronage to its constituent groups—a prescription drug benefit for seniors, corporate agriculture pork masquerading as a farm bill, Export-Import Bank loans to Boeing. Conservatism, however, has no chance of advancing an agenda in this type of factionalized party.

A conservative reform effort, therefore, requires the Republican Party to forego factional politics and the patronage role of elected officials in favor of winning the argument on a conservative articulation of public policy. We must have the confidence that our reform ideas will best serve the nation and, realistically, if the government we have today has been built over 100 years by progressives with a vastly different conception of good policy, it will require attacking the status quo in a manner that makes niche constituencies nervous.

Never mind the pitchforks and torches. They’re just policy implementation enhancers.

Anyhow, this is precisely what I was saying about a year ago. You must cherish your extremists, not turn your backs on them, much less shoot at them. They provide the impetus for advancement; even if they go too far, at least they are going in the right direction.

Disband the Republican Party

Rush Limbaugh is railing against the Republicans in light of their most recent cuckservative betrayal.

Blasting the Republican-led Congress over a $1.1 trillion omnibus bill that, among other things, fully funds Planned Parenthood and has the White House declaring victory yet again on fiscal fronts, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said Thursday that the GOP should be disbanded.

“There is no Republican Party!” Limbaugh said. “You know, we don’t even need a Republican Party if they’re gonna do this. You know, just elect Democrats, disband the Republican Party, and let the Democrats run it, because that’s what’s happening anyway.”

Limbaugh recounted how American voters “showed up in record numbers” and “defeated Democrats down the ballot” in order to get Republicans to stop runaway spending and President Barack Obama’s agenda.

“And now the Republicans have the largest number of seats in the House they’ve had in Congress since the Civil War,” he said. “And it hasn’t made any difference at all. It is as though Nancy Pelosi is still running the House and Harry Reid is still running the Senate. ‘Betrayed’ is not even the word here. What has happened here is worse than betrayal. Betrayal is pretty bad, but it’s worse than that.”

He’s not at all wrong and one would certainly like to take him at face
value, but it’s hard not to look at his past record and conclude that in
six months, he’ll be calling this “the most important election ever”
and urging listeners to vote Republican or else!

Unfit for office

It’s fascinating to hear the press and the Republican Party that just sold out the American people again trying to claim Donald Trump is unfit for office when it’s got idiot candidates like these spouting off like ignorant tough guys who don’t understand that Russia and Iran are not Iraq and Grenada:

“If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate.”

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.

“Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it,” blurted Christie: “I would talk to Vladimir Putin … I’d say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’

“Yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling … we have in the Oval Office … right now.”

Ex-Gov. George Pataki and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum would also impose a no-fly zone and shoot down Russian planes that violated it. Said Gov. John Kasich, “It’s time we punched the Russians in the nose.”

Carly Fiorina would impose a no-fly zone and not even talk to Putin until we’ve conducted “military exercises in the Baltic States” on Russia’s border. Jeb Bush, too, would impose a no-fly zone.

These warhawks apparently assume that President Putin is a coward who, if you shoot down his warplanes, will back away from a fight.

Are we sure? After the Turks shot down that Sukhoi SU-24, Moscow sent fighter planes to Syria to escort its bombers and has reportedly deployed its lethal S-300 antiaircraft system there.

A U.S. Marine Corps aviator describes the S-300: “A complete game changer for all fourth-gen aircraft [like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18]. That thing is a beast and you don’t want to get near it.”

Yes, the US military can beat the Russian military. It can almost surely beat both Iran and Russia-in-Syria. But it can’t do so without paying a price that is far heavier than any rational American wishes to pay. And if an already-exhausted US military gets stuck into the Middle East, that will give China a free hand in the Pacific and might even permit Russia to take back Ukraine.

This is precisely how great military powers manage to lose wars; they overrate their capabilities, sufficiently alarm enough enemies to cause them to band together, and try to fight a multiple-front war.

If this still surprises you

Then you really, really, need to read Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America:

Conservatives give Ryan a pass on budget deal they despise

‘The end product here is just cleaning the barn, it’s a disaster,’ one Freedom Caucus member complains.

The House Freedom Caucus hates the massive government-funding bill: Spending levels are billions of dollars higher than what conservatives wanted, and at least two top policy priorities — language addressing Syrian refugees and so-called sanctity of life — were cut.

But unlike past fiscal battles, when lawmakers took shots at GOP leaders and tried to tank bills, this time conservatives are largely holding their fire. Even as they vow to oppose the package, many are still praising Speaker Paul Ryan’s handling of the $1.1 trillion spending bill and $680 billion in tax breaks.

“In terms of the process, I can tell you I’ve had more meaningful conversations with the speaker and leadership in the last couple of weeks than I think I have in the last couple of years,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who instigated the revolt against Speaker John Boehner that led to Boehner’s resignation this fall. “I would give it an A-plus in terms of trying to reach out to the rank and file.”

See, it may be a really dreadful bill, but the important thing is that those who oppose it had “meaningful conversations” and got “to feel included”. It is because they lack any sort of coherent ideology or substantive political principles that conservatives inevitably “grow” in office.

It may not prove much comfort, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that for the vast majority of human history, governments have ruled without much interference from the governed. What we are witnessing is simply a return to historical normalcy. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just the end of a dream that the Founding Fathers knew very well was likely to be transient.

Are we a moral people? No, obviously not. So, it should not be surprising that we are no longer fit for the form of government they created.

“Donald Trump has won the nomination”

Roger Simon throws in the towel and declares Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee:

La Serenissima may be among the most beautiful cities in the world but everything there seems to be done “for affect” as well. It’s all a stage set.

As was the debate Tuesday night, because, for all the back and forth, the chills and semi-thrills, the Rubio-Cruz-Paul contretemps,  the desperate pleadings of Jeb Bush, the reminder by Chris Christie of what might have been if he hadn’t kowtowed to Lord Obama, Carly Fiorina telling us again that she has met Putin, Frank Luntz and all his focus groups and all the thumb-sucking wise men and women in all the ships at sea and CNBC, as they say about a mile up the Strip from the Venetian at the Monte Carlo, “les jeux sont faits.“

No more bets, ladies and gentlemen.  The game is over.  Donald Trump has won the nomination.

Everyone acknowledged as much, heads nodding around me in the press room, when, nearly at the end of the debate, Hugh Hewitt served up by far the most serious, in the sense of fateful, question of the night by asking Trump to answer finally whether he will support the Republican candidate under any circumstances.

The Donald smiled, stared straight into the camera with the practiced skill of a Cronkite or a Murrow, though more playful and, one reluctantly admits, winning, and acknowledged that, yes, he will.  He has been treated well by all concerned and even come to like and admire many of the candidates on the stage with him.  Murmurs of approval all around.

And then he administered the coup de television. Looking square into the lens at America he promised to beat Hillary Clinton in November.  And he did so in full recognition by all concerned, barring force majeure, he already was the nominee and everybody knew it.  He was taking a graceful bow.

Game, set, match, tournament and whatever they say in bocce.

I wouldn’t count out the inevitable shenanigans on the part of the Republican establishment. But regardless of their best efforts, it is obvious that Trump has successfully defied every expectation and prediction of his collapse.

Of course, it didn’t help the establishment that they lined up behind Jeb Bush, arguably the worst mainstream candidate in recent history. 


“We can’t disassociate ourselves from peace-loving Muslims.” 
– Jeb Bush

 Or from rainbow-farting unicorns.

Why John C. Wright is not a libertarian

In which Mr. Wright explains why he is no longer a libertarian:

I often introduce myself as a recovering libertarian. It is not an entirely serious introduction, but it is not entirely frivolous either.

Why “recovering”? Sad experience teaches that any ideology, even a sound one, like libertarianism, is intoxicating. The appeal of ideology is the appeal of elegance. Just as Newton reduced all motions from the orbits to apples falling to three expressions, every intellectual craves a simple formula to explain the human condition. Libertarianism is based on a single principle that limits the state’s use of force to retaliation against fraud and trespass.

Nearly all the natural moral rules all men carry in their hearts are satisfied by the simple rule that you may do as you like provided you leave your neighbor free to do as he likes. No neighbor may rob, defraud nor attack another.

The intoxication comes with each case that fits neatly to the theory. Natural morality agrees that wars to defend the innocent are permissible, as is killing in self defense. Natural morality agrees that a man should keep his contracts, and so on.

The theory says the state must remain carefully neutral in all cultural and moral questions: the use of intoxicating drugs for recreational use, suicide assisted or no, polygamy, prostitution, gambling, pornography, duels to the death (provided only all participants fully agree!) or, for that matter, copulating with a corpse on the roof of your house in plain view of the neighbors’ children playing in their backyards, and then eating the corpse, all must be legal.

For me, the intoxicating spell ended in three sharp realizations, each one as forceful as a thunderbolt.

Read the rest of it there.

As for me, I’ve always been a small-l libertarian rather than a large-L one. These days, I consider myself more of a Christian nationalist, or a Western Civilizationist than a libertarian per se. Human liberty is an important priority, but we now have a sound historical basis for understanding that a free and open society of the sort that Libertarianism assumed is simply not an option.

The anti-nationalist conspiracy succeeds

The second-round defeat of the Front National in France is not surprising; as I said, it is going to take TWO election cycles before the nationalists can come to power. But for now, the alliance of the left and “center right”, which in American terms is similar to the alliance between liberals and cuckservatives, has been sufficient to keep the Front National out of power:

France’s far-right National Front (FN) has failed to win a single region in the second round of municipal polls. The party was beaten into third place, despite leading in six of 13 regions in the first round of voting a week ago.

The centre-right Republicans finished ahead of President Francois Hollande’s governing Socialist Party.

FN leader Marine Le Pen said that mainstream parties had colluded to keep it from power and vowed to keep on fighting.

“Nothing can stop us now,” she told supporters. “By tripling our number of councillors, we will be the main opposition force in most of the regions of France.”

Ms Le Pen said the party had been “disenfranchised in the most indecent of ways by a campaign of lies and disinformation”.

She had stood as a regional presidential candidate in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, while her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen was the FN’s candidate in the race in Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, in the south.

After both led with more than 40% of the vote in the first round on 6 December, the Socialist candidates in those regions pulled out so their voters could support Republican candidates in the second round.

The FN actually increased its votes in the second round to more than 6.8 million, from 6.02 million on 6 December as more people voted, according to the ministry of the interior (In French). But the FN share of the vote went down slightly from 27.73% to 27.36%.

The anti-nationalists always call the nationalists “Nazis”. It’s nothing more than the usual DISQUALIFY write large. But of course, through their collusion and corruption of the democratic system, the anti-nationalists ensure that the real version, the ultranationalists, will come to power through non-democratic means as soon as the nationalists realize that the will of the people is defined as automatically excluding them, stop playing the game, and throw their support to the ultras.

Reformers turn restrictionist

Donald Trump has a convert, and then some, in Larry Kudlow:

I’ve Changed. This Is War. Seal the Borders. Stop the Visas.

I know this is not my usual position. But this is a war. Therefore I have come to believe there should be no immigration or visa waivers until the U.S. adopts a completely new system to stop radical Islamic terrorists from entering the country. A wartime lockdown. And a big change in my thinking.

ISIS and related Islamic terrorists are already here. More are coming. We must stop them.

Until FBI director James Comey gives us the green light, I say seal the borders.

Here’s what we must do: Completely reform the vetting process for immigrants and foreign visitors. Change the screening process. Come up with a new visa-application review process. Stop this nonsense of marriage-visa fraud. And in the meantime, seal the borders. I agree with Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, who argued many of these points in excellent detail on the National Review website on Friday.

Again, why am I taking this hardline position? In the past, I have been an immigration reformer, not a restrictionist. But we are at war. That changes everything.

This is an expected, but delightful, development. It won’t be long before the American mainstream endorses mass repatriations. That is the best possible outcome; a widespread resurgence of peaceful nationalism that is not unlawfully resisted by an anti-democratic internationalist elite.

  1. Stop all visas, green cards, and immigration.
  2. Seal the borders. 
  3. Repatriate all illegals, criminals, dual-citizens, and nationals from Muslim countries.
  4. Debate and formulate a new immigration system that will return the US demographics to a reasonable facsimile of 1965 over time.
  5.  Implement the new system.