Deafening Silence Regarding Black on Black Crime!

A Conservative in Academia tells it like he finds it to be. (See 1 below.)

There is nothing comedic about black on black crime and the tragic recent shovel beating to death of a young student by a mob of hoodlums in Chicago but is appears the only one to speak out is Comedian Bill Cosby. This article asks where are the other black voices.

They are silent when it comes to black on black crime but they are quite vocal when it comes to shaking down businesses and protesting just about everything else under the sun. (See 2 below.)

According to the White House Press Secretary, President Obama will soon make the 'right' decision about Afghanistan and it will come after consulting Congress, and all his various advisers.

I am just speculating but I suspect he will go on television and make another speech about why he made the decision that he did.

If he accepts the advice of his general then he will cause gas pains and heart burn among the Liberal element of his party. If he sides with V.P. Biden he will pacify the Left Wing of his party but probably offend many in the Pentagon and possibly endanger the troops already there. If he chooses to do neither and pulls out, which he says he will not, then he will be in a peck of trouble with more hawkish Americans.

If he makes the decision to stay and send the requested number of troops(it will be months before they are dispatched) during this period he will have to buck up public support which is slowly ebbing.

It will be interesting and critical whatever he decides. (See 3 below.)

Blitzer interviews Eric Cantor to get a ranking Republican member's view. (See 4 below.)

The Head of Acorn finds O'keefe's camera's lens were out of focus and therefore, racist. She blames GW for the organization's 'nut case' problems. (See 5 below.)

Henry Kissinger, who helped orchestrate our withdrawal/defeat in N Viet Nam, offers some advice on how to win in Afghanistan.

Personally I never cared for Kissinger. Brilliant yes, but I could never see him eating a hot dog at a baseball game with his sleeves rolled. Thus, I believe he never understood the ramifications of an American defeat in Viet Nam. (See 6 below.)

Spanish Inquisition alive and well. More hypocrisy and anti-Semitism. (See 7 below.)

In yesterday's memo referring to Bret Stephens article I failed to call attention to the fact that it was hypothetical based on his theorizing about what would eventually come to pass in January 2010.


Dick




1)Swimming Upstream: The Life of a Conservative Professor in Academia
By Ron Lipsman

I have been a faculty member at a major State University for 40 years. Several years after my arrival, I voted for George McGovern. Eight years later, I voted for Ronald Reagan. In those eight years, my family and I experienced several traumas that caused me to reevaluate -- and ultimately, drastically alter -- the political, cultural and economic axioms that had governed my life.


Within months of buying my first home in an excellent neighborhood, within walking distance to the University and, most importantly, located in a district with an outstanding local public elementary school, my five year old son was forcibly bussed to an inferior school, many miles away, in a horrible neighborhood in order to satisfy the utopian vision of a myopic federal judge. This betrayal of my fundamental rights was undoubtedly the greatest shock to my political psyche.


Another was a Sabbatical year spent living and working in Jerusalem, during which time the UN issued time the infamous "Zionism is racism" resolution. I was able to observe firsthand that the standard propaganda about Israel and Zionism that was promulgated in America and elsewhere -- almost exclusively by those on the Left that I had formerly supported -- was nothing more than bald-faced, hateful lies. This and other events in the 1970s caused me to rethink everything that I had taken for granted since adolescence about how the world worked.


I emerged from the exercise as an enthusiastic conservative. Thus I was no longer your average faculty member who adhered to the liberal party line, but instead one of a tiny cadre who completely disagreed with the leftist mentality that dominated the thought of campus faculty and administrators.


The overwhelmingly liberal atmosphere on campus is well known. In the one place in society at which there should be diversity of thought, exploration of conflicting ideas and a propensity to challenge conventional wisdom, we have instead a mind-numbing conformity of opinion and a complete unwillingness to entertain any thought or idea that deviates from the accepted truth. That conformity encompasses:


•The legitimacy of virtually any program that promotes the interests of minority and female faculty, staff and students, even if the program is blatantly racist or sexist -- justified by a belief that America's past unjust treatment of blacks, American Indians and Japanese-Americans, and its unfair treatment of women render such discrimination necessary and lawful.
•A multicultural mentality, which preaches that America's Eurocentric, white, Christian heritage is responsible for colonialism, imperialism, racism and sexism, and that its replacement by a culture that "celebrates diversity" will transform the US into a more just and humane society.
•A distrust of free markets and democratic capitalism, and its severe limitation in favor of a centralized, government-controlled economy that will redistribute the wealth of America more fairly.
•A denigration of religious belief and its replacement by the "worship" of secular humanism, with mindless environmentalism occupying a central place in the new religion.


Not being in sync with any of this, how did I cope? Not so well, actually. First of all, it took me a long time to recognize and accept that the university atmosphere I knew as a student was gone. Initially, I was too busy pursuing my career and building my academic resume to notice what a fish out of water I had become.


My epiphany came about 20 years ago at the inauguration of a new campus president. In his acceptance speech, he said many things that seemed bizarre to me, but the comment I recall most vividly was his insistence that he would create a world-class university by building "excellence through diversity." His point seemed to be that by substantially increasing the number of minority and female faculty, staff and students (and consequently decreasing the number of white males), this would of necessity make us a great university.


I always thought that the best way to build a great university was to attract the brightest, most innovative and productive faculty and students -- regardless of their hue -- but I realized at that moment, as the applause for his idea rained down, how out of step I was.


What did I do? To my eternal shame, I ducked. Oh initially, during a painful, but relatively brief period, I contested the new campus consensus. People quickly, but politely, informed me that my ideas were retrograde and that I would be well advised to get with the program. In fact, I was passed over for an administrative position I coveted and for which I was far more qualified than the individual selected. Realizing that my resistance was damaging my reputation on campus, I more or less clammed up and spent more than a decade trying to ignore the poisonous atmosphere.


This less than noble strategy proved effective and eventually I achieved a high administrative position in which I adhered to policies and shepherded programs that were diametrically opposed to my fundamental beliefs. For years I tended to my bleeding tongue because I was constantly biting it during meetings to prevent myself from blurting out my true feelings about the bigoted ideas that constituted the consensus of the folks at the table.


But as I began to near retirement, I decided there was no point in maintaining my forced silence any longer. As I had 15 years earlier, I unburdened myself and let fly my misgivings about the liberal campus hegemony. What happened this time? Here come three novel observations:


•1. To my surprise, my "retrograde" conservative opinions were not met with calumny or derision, but rather with smiles and amusement. "Oh, that's just Ron being Ron," it was said. I wasn't viewed as a threat to the campus philosophy, but rather as some kind of queer duck to be tolerated at best, ignored at worst. This was certainly more pleasant for me than being told to shut up and get your head straight as I anticipated. But it was also incredibly frustrating that colleagues didn't take me seriously. The impression I had was that they felt there was no reason to take my ideas seriously because I was so obviously wrong that no right-thinking person could be swayed by my arguments.


•2. My second observation is that I was not the only one failing to make waves. In fact, there were no waves whatsoever. There was no debate, no controversy; just the calm serenity of a campus at peace with its almost universally accepted mind set. I attribute this to three things. First, of course, anyone raising an objection was viewed, as I was, as hopelessly out of it and worthy only of being ignored. This has a chilling effect, perhaps even more effective than derision. Second, I suspect that those who believed as I did were still in lockdown mode -- for the same reasons as I was over the years. And third, I believe the liberal brainwash has been so effective on campus -- and in the national educational system in general -- that many in the liberal majority can't even fathom that there is anyone who doubts the legitimacy of their point of view.


•3. My final observation is the following. The liberal hegemony exists in many quarters of the country beside academia -- e.g., the mainstream media, major foundations, law schools and the trail lawyers they produce, public school teachers, the Democratic Party, even big corporations. But none of these can maintain the atmosphere as effortlessly as campus profs and administrators. Politicians encounter opposition from their constituents; the media from its readers, listeners and viewers; trail lawyers from their clients; and corporations from their stockholders and consumers. But the educational establishment-both higher and lower-encounters little resistance. The students are ignorant, the parents are cowed, and Boards of Regents are cowardly. The ivory tower is alive and well in America and the intellectual product it presents is completely one-sided. What a tragedy for our nation and especially for its youth.

2)Black Leaders Ignore Black-on-Black Crime
By E.W. Jackson

On Thursday, September 24th, after an apparently productive day at Fengler High School in Chicago, Derrion Albert, a black 16 year old honor student was knocked to the ground by a blow to the head with a railroad tie. He was then punched, kicked and stomped. Those who responded to rescue him were too late.

Derrion had walked into the middle of a fight between two rival black gangs. He attempted to help one of the victims in the melee and was killed for his trouble. This took place in Barack Obama's Chicago. All his work for "social justice" did a great deal for Obama, but it did nothing for Derrion Albert. Of course the President is not responsible for this tragedy, but it does expose the fatuous claim that such occurrences are the result of social injustice rather than the personal choice to engage in lawless behavior. The ghettos, drugs, gangs and violence are on display for all to see in spite of Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Acorn and all the community organizing.

Treating poor black people as victims to be "organized" has been an abject failure. They are human beings to be educated, inspired and required to take responsibility for their own lives. The tragedy here is that Derrion was doing just that and it was working, but the malignant pathology of the ghetto spread to him on that unfortunate day and ended his promising life.

There is another tragedy. The so called black civil rights leaders have been mute. Had this been a white gang attacking a black gang member, they would have jumped in front of every camera and microphone available to decry racism and injustice in America. If it had been a black criminal with a long rap sheet, killed in a confrontation with a white police officer, there would be protests and perhaps riots against systemic racism in the police department.

Yet in this case and others like it, there is a deafening silence from some of the biggest mouths in America. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Louis Farrakhan and the Congressional Black Caucus see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. When Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested by a white police officer, President Barack Obama -- without any facts -- found it necessary to put in his two cents. Here in Chicago, the salient facts are abundantly clear and a heinous murder has been committed in his home town, but the president is silent. Malicious, homicidal maniacs brutally killed a decent young man on the streets Obama "organized," but he has nothing to say. The self-appointed, media supported "black leaders" have not seen fit to hold a press conference or a rally supporting Derrion Albert and his family and condemning the perpetrators of this vicious crime. They have not called for witnesses to come forward.

There's a reason for their uncharacteristic silence. Derrion's murder does not fit the black liberation narrative. As one civil rights leader said to me, "If we focus on black on black crime, we let white folks off the hook." Never mind that the leading cause of death among black males ages 18 to 24 is homicide by other black males. In one interview before Obama was elected, Michelle Obama commented on threats to Barack Obama's safety saying, "As a black man, Barack can get shot going to the gas station." What she did not say is that his likely killer would be another black man. Blacks are only 13% of the population, but over 40% of the murder victims. Ninety Three percent of those black victims are killed by other black people. As a black man, I am far more wary of the real black criminal than the imagined white racist.

Absentee fathers, abortion, drug use, gangs and black on black crime have a much greater impact on people's lives than theoretical systemic racism, but these issues do not fit the liberal paradigm to which civil rights leaders are hostage. The problems of the black community must be understood solely as a social justice problem inflicted on blacks by whites. No other explanation is worthy of discussion, and woe to those dare suggest otherwise. In truth the civil rights spokesmen have another agenda which supersedes the well-being of black folks -- their personal financial and political well being.

Liberal benefactors and foundations are not interested in addressing social pathologies which can only be eliminated by change of values, stable families and the willingness of fathers to parent their children. The government's coffers are closed to moral judgments and spirituality. Faith in God, parental love and discipline to instill values of decency and responsibility are the antidotes to gangs, crime and drugs. However, allegations of racism, discrimination and social injustice are far more marketable for the Rainbow Coalition and the NAACP.

The people who killed Derrion are monsters. Monsters come in all colors, but these happen to be black. They are not victims. They are cold-blooded criminals with no regard for human life. Maybe when the so called black leaders start speaking out against gangs and criminals as parasites instead of victims of society, there will be fewer real victims like Derrion Albert.

E.W. Jackson is a national radio commentator and President of STAND, Staying True to America's National Destiny.

3)White House: Obama will make up own mind on Afghan
By Anne Gearan


The White House said Tuesday that President Barack Obama considers it "tremendously important" to listen to Congress about the flagging war in Afghanistan but won't base his decisions on the mood on Capitol Hill or eroding public support for the war.

"The president is going to make a decision ��" popular or unpopular ��" based on what he thinks is in the best interests of the country," press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. As for support from lawmakers, Gibbs said Obama is focused on getting his war strategy right, not on "who's for or who's against what."

Obama met at the White House with leaders of key war oversight and appropriations committees from both parties in the House and Senate. The session was part of a review of the war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is expected to last several more weeks.

A core question is whether Obama will widen the war again after adding 21,000 U.S. troops earlier this year. The top three U.S. military officials overseeing the war favor continuing the fight against an emboldened Taliban and have concluded they need tens of thousands more U.S. troops beyond the 68,000 already there.

The White House has cautioned for weeks that no decision on troops will come until Obama has reviewed all elements of the war effort.

What's clear is there will be no withdrawal of U.S. troops as the war hits a somber eight-year anniversary on Wednesday. Gibbs said Obama made that point personally clear in a meeting last week with his national security team, and the spokesman told reporters Monday: "I don't think we have the option to leave."

Obama planned to open the meeting with lawmakers by giving an update on his review and then taking questions. More than two dozen lawmakers were invited.

Obama's top defense and diplomacy advisers said the United States retains the Afghanistan war goal that he outlined just two months into his presidency ��" to sideline al-Qaida ��" but changing circumstances require a reassessment of how to get there.

A "snap decision" on whether to add more U.S troops would be counterproductive, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.

"It's important that at the end of the day that the president makes a decision that he believes in," Clinton added.

Divided on Afghanistan, Congress takes up a massive defense spending bill this week even before the president settles on a direction for the war.

Republican Sen. John McCain, Obama's opponent in last year's presidential election and one of the lawmakers expected at Tuesday's meeting, said he thinks it's critical that the administration avoid thinking of the insurgent Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorist network as separate issues.

"If the Taliban returns, they will work with al-Qaida," he said on NBC Tuesday morning. "It's just a historical fact. You can't separate the two. ... I strongly disagree with those who allege those are separate problems. They have worked together in the past and they will work together in the future."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates appealed Monday for calm amid the intense administration debate over the war, and for time and privacy for the president to come to a decision. Gates' remarks stood as an implicit rebuke of the man he helped install as the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for lobbying in public for additional troops Obama may decide to forgo.

"It is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right," Gates said at an Army conference. "In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations ��" civilians and military alike ��" provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately."

Gates has not said whether he supports McChrystal's recommendation to expand the number of U.S. forces by as much as nearly 60 percent. He is holding that request in his desk drawer while Obama sorts through competing recommendations and theories from some of his most trusted advisers.

But Gates conceded in a CNN interview that, "Because of our inability and the inability, frankly, of our allies to put enough troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban do have the momentum right now."

The fierce Taliban attack that killed eight American soldiers over the weekend added to the pressure. The assault overwhelmed a remote U.S. outpost where American forces have been stretched thin in battling insurgents, underscoring the appeal from the top Afghanistan commander for as many as 40,000 additional forces ��" and at the same time reminding the nation of the costs of war.

Gates' remarks came days after McChrystal bluntly warned in London that Afghan insurgents were gathering strength.

At issue is whether U.S. forces should continue to focus on fighting the Taliban and securing the Afghan population or shift to more narrowly targeting, with unmanned spy drones and covert operations, al-Qaida terrorists believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

Gates and some other advisers appear to favor a middle path. A hybrid strategy could preserve the essential outline of an Afghan counterinsurgency campaign that McChrystal rebuilt this summer from the disarray of nearly eight years of undermanned combat, while expanding the hunt for al-Qaida next door.

4)Rep. Cantor on CNN
By Tom Bevan


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's speak with a top Republican who was there. Eric Cantor is the minority whip in the House of Representatives.

Congressman, you just came out of that meeting. What was your bottom-line assessment? How did it go?

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R- VA), MINORITY WHIP: Well, Wolf, you know, we were glad to come to the White House. I mean, obviously, this is a huge decision for this president.

A lot of us came out early spring when, in March, President Obama said he was committed to the mission in Afghanistan, to make sure that we dismantled al Qaeda and its extremist allies in the name of U.S. security. And so now what we're hearing is from the commanders in the field an urgent cry for additional troops, and everyone is concerned about the status quo as the situation grows more dangerous for our troops on the ground.

We were here to express our support for the president and his committing to the mission up front, and expressed our support to work with him if he makes the right decision, which is to listen to his commanders in the field who are asking desperately for more troops.

BLITZER: Do you have a problem with what Harry Reid just said, that strategy before resources -- in other words, let the president and his commanders come up with a strategy and then the issue of troops and other resources would be made? Is that a problem for you?

CANTOR: Well, you know, the position I believe that many of us are taking is based upon General McChrystal's report. That is the commander in the field. That is the essence of the recommendations that have worked their way up through the system. I believe that that strategy is on the table for the president to make the decision.

We came here in support of the president's -- president relying on his commanders so that we can execute on our mission, which is going to be a tough one, which is to stabilize that region of the world in the name of U.S. security.

BLITZER: Is it fair to say that the Republicans who were in that room, Congressman, urged the president to implement General McChrystal's recommendations?

CANTOR: I think it is a fair assessment right now that Republicans are committed to supporting this president if he says, yes, I will support our commanders on the ground.

BLITZER: What if he says, no, he says I want to come up with a different strategy, in effect reducing the number of troops? Some say Vice President Joe Biden advances such a strategy.

CANTOR: You know, Wolf, I think now all of us want what's best for this country, and we want to set politics aside and want to put U.S. security first. And I believe that the best move is to look to the commanders in the field.

None of us know better what's possible and what we can accomplish than the commander in the field, as is evidenced by General McChrystal's report. So, if the president chooses to go a different route, you know, it is obviously going to be tough for us, but we'll need to listen to what this president says about how we can succeed in our mission. It is about success in the mission.

BLITZER: Did he give you any indication of a time frame when he'll make up his mind?

CANTOR: There wasn't any definite commitment to a time frame. Obviously, there are many of us who feel that delay does signal uncertainty to the region. It does, I believe, signal uncertainty to the lives we've got on the ground.

This is why it is so urgent, I believe probably reflected in the voice of General McChrystal, who has had a lot of experience, as we know, Wolf, in Iraq with these types of operations, which is why we're here to say we'll support this president in responding to the request of General McChrystal.

BLITZER: What was the major point that you made? I assume you had a chance to say something to the president today, Congressman. Give us a tiny little synopsis of your major point.

CANTOR: I did, Wolf, and I said to the president, look, I mean, it is his decision as commander-in-chief, and obviously a tough one. And I spoke about the political will of this country and how no one likes war. And thank God we have men and women in uniform who will commit -- who will go on the front lines for us.

And I committed to the president to be supportive as possible in building a political case that it's necessary for us to have patience. It's necessary for us to support our commanders on the ground, to give him and his colleagues and the folks in the field what they need to secure their lives, as well as our interests.

BLITZER: Who made the case in that meeting, Congressman, not to send any more troops?

CANTOR: Well, I think it was fairly unanimous that no one wants to leave the region. I think history is fraught with examples of an attempt to try and change the nature of that region unsuccessfully, and then a disappearance of those forces. I don't think anyone wants to do that, but I do think now there are some who want to avoid perhaps the political risk that it's going to take to respond to General McChrystal's request.

BLITZER: All right. Congressman Eric Cantor, thanks very much for joining us.

CANTOR: Thank you, Wolf.

5)ACORN's Lewis suggests opponents are racist


Joseph Curl

ACORN's Bertha Lewis charged Tuesday that accusations about the embattled community organizing group are racist, alleging that a coordinated political effort started by former Bush adviser Karl Rove sought to stop the group from registering minority voters.

"For many years, there've been folks who've disagreed with our ideology or methodology that [have] gone after us," Mrs. Lewis, ACORN's chief executive officer, said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

"I mean we, [going back] to 2004, we now see through e-mails from Karl Rove from the previous administration that ACORN itself was targeted, targeted to go after us so that we would stop doing voter registration because it was said that we were moving too many minorities to vote, changing the power dynamics on the local election and that we needed to be stopped."

She also labeled as racist the infamous videos that show ACORN workers advising a man and young woman posing as pimp and prostitute how to circumvent the law. "These new filmmakers, [James] O'Keefe himself, told The Washington Post, 'They're registering too many minorities; they usually vote Democratic; somebody's got to stop them,'" Mrs. Lewis said.

But Mrs. Lewis did not mention that The Post was forced to issue a later correction on the story, saying the quote attributed to Mr. O'Keefe was inaccurate.

6) Deployments and Diplomacy:More troops is a start. But to win in Afghanistan, we'll need help from its powerful neighbors.
By Henry Kissinger

The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, poses cruel dilemmas for President Obama. If he refuses the recommendation and General McChrystal's argument that his forces are inadequate for the mission, Obama will be blamed for the dramatic consequences. If he accepts the recommendation, his opponents may come to describe it, at least in part, as Obama's war. If he compromises, he may fall between all stools—too little to make progress, too much to still controversy. And he must make the choice on the basis of assessments he cannot prove when he makes them.

This is the inextricable anguish of the presidency, for which Obama is entitled to respect from every side of the debate. Full disclosure compels me to state at the beginning that I favor fulfilling the commander's request and a modification of the strategy. But I also hope that the debate ahead of us avoids the demoralizing trajectory that characterized the previous controversies in wars against adversaries using guerrilla tactics, especially Vietnam and Iraq.

Each of those wars began with widespread public support. Each developed into a stalemate, in part because the strategy of guerrillas generally aims at psychological exhaustion. Stalemate triggered a debate about the winnability of the war. A significant segment of the public grew disenchanted and started questioning the moral basis of the conflict. Inexorably, the demand arose for an exit strategy with an emphasis on exit and not strategy.

The demand for an exit strategy is, of course, a metaphor for withdrawal, and withdrawal that is not accompanied by a willingness to sustain the outcome amounts to abandonment. In Vietnam, Congress terminated an American role even after all our troops had, in fact, been withdrawn for two years. It remains to be seen to what extent the achievements of the surge in Iraq will be sustained there politically.

The most unambiguous form of exit strategy is victory, though as we have seen in Korea, where American troops have remained since 1953, even that may not permit troop withdrawals. A seemingly unavoidable paradox emerges. The domestic debate generates the pressure for diplomatic compromise. Yet the fanaticism that motivates guerrillas—not to speak of suicide bombers—does not allow for compromise unless they face defeat or exhaustion. That, in turn, implies a surge testing the patience of the American public. Is that paradox soluble?

The prevailing strategy in Afghanistan is based on the classic anti-insurrection doctrine: to build a central government, commit it to the improvement of the lives of its people, and then protect the population until that government's own forces are able, with our training, to take over. The request for more forces by General McChrystal states explicitly that his existing forces are inadequate for this mission, implying three options: to continue the present deployment and abandon the McChrystal strategy; to decrease the present deployment with a new strategy; or to increase the existing deployment with a strategy focused on the security of the population. A decision not to increase current force levels involves, at a minimum, abandoning the strategy proposed by General McChrystal and endorsed by Gen. David Petraeus; it would be widely interpreted as the first step toward withdrawal. The second option—offered as an alternative—would shrink the current mission by focusing on counter-terrorism rather than counter-insurgency. The argument would be that the overriding American strategic objective in Afghanistan is to prevent the country from turning once again into a base for international terrorism. Hence the defeat of Al Qaeda and radical Islamic jihad should be the dominant priority. Since the Taliban, according to this view, is a local, not a global, threat, it can be relegated to being a secondary target. A negotiation with the group might isolate Al Qaeda and lead to its defeat, in return for not challenging the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan. After all, it was the Taliban which provided bases for Al Qaeda in the first place.

This theory seems to me to be too clever by half. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are unlikely to be able to be separated so neatly geographically. It would also imply the partition of Afghanistan along functional lines, for it is highly improbable that the civic actions on which our policies are based could be carried out in areas controlled by the Taliban. Even so-called realists—like me—would gag at a tacit U.S. cooperation with the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan.

This is not to exclude the possibility of defections from the Taliban as occurred from Al Qaeda in Iraq's Anbar province. But those occurred after the surge, not as a way to avoid it. To adopt such a course is a disguised way of retreating from Afghanistan altogether.

Those in the chain of command in Afghanistan, each with outstanding qualifications, have all been recently appointed by the Obama administration. Rejecting their recommendations would be a triumph of domestic politics over strategic judgment. It would draw us into a numbers game without definable criteria.

President Obama, as a candidate, proclaimed Afghanistan a necessary war. As president, he has shown considerable courage in implementing his promise to increase our forces in Afghanistan and to pursue the war more energetically. A sudden reversal of American policy would fundamentally affect domestic stability in Pakistan by freeing the Qaeda forces along the Afghan border for even deeper incursions into Pakistan, threatening domestic chaos. It would raise the most serious questions about American steadiness in India, the probable target should a collapse in Afghanistan give jihad an even greater impetus. In short, the reversal of a process introduced with sweeping visions by two administrations may lead to chaos, ultimately deeper American involvement, and loss of confidence in American reliability. The prospects of world order will be greatly affected by whether our strategy comes to be perceived as a retreat from the region, or a more effective way to sustain it.

The military strategy proposed by Generals McChrystal and Petraeus needs, however, to be given a broader context with particular emphasis on the political environment. Every guerrilla war raises the challenge of how to define military objectives. Military strategy is traditionally defined by control of the maximum amount of territory. But the strategy of the guerrilla—described by Mao—is to draw the adversary into a morass of popular resistance in which, after a while, extrication becomes his principal objective. In Vietnam, the guerrillas often ceded control of the territory during the day and returned at night to prevent political stabilization. Therefore, in guerrilla war, control of 75 percent of the territory 100 percent of the time is more important than controlling 100 percent of the territory 75 percent of the time. A key strategic issue, therefore, will be which part of Afghan territory can be effectively controlled in terms of these criteria.

This is of particular relevance to Afghanistan. No outside force has, since the Mongol invasion, ever pacified the entire country. Even Alexander the Great only passed through. Afghanistan has been governed, if at all, by a coalition of local feudal or semifeudal rulers. In the past, any attempt to endow the central government with overriding authority has been resisted by some established local rulers. That is likely to be the fate of any central government in Kabul, regardless of its ideological coloration and perhaps even its efficiency. It would be ironic if, by following the received counterinsurgency playbook too literally, we produced another motive for civil war. Can a civil society be built on a national basis in a country which is neither a nation nor a state?

In a partly feudal, multiethnic society, fundamental social reform is a long process, perhaps unrelatable to the rhythm of our electoral processes. For the foreseeable future, the control from Kabul may be tenuous and its structure less than ideal. More emphasis needs to be given to regional efforts and regional militia. This would also enhance our political flexibility. A major effort is needed to encourage such an evolution.

Concurrently, a serious diplomatic effort is needed to address the major anomaly of the Afghan war. In all previous American ground-combat efforts, once the decision was taken, there was no alternative to America's leading the effort; no other country had the combination of resources or national interest required. The special aspect of Afghanistan is that it has powerful neighbors or near neighbors—Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran. Each is threatened in one way or another and, in many respects, more than we are by the emergence of a base for international terrorism: Pakistan by Al Qaeda; India by general jihadism and specific terror groups; China by fundamentalist Shiite jihadists in Xinjiang; Russia by unrest in the Muslim south; even Iran by the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. Each has substantial capacities for defending its interests. Each has chosen, so far, to stand more or less aloof.

The summit of neighboring (or near-neighboring) countries proposed by the secretary of state could, together with NATO allies, begin to deal with this anomaly. It should seek an international commitment to an enforced nonterrorist Afghanistan, much as countries were neutralized by international agreement when Europe dominated world affairs. This is a complex undertaking. But a -common effort could at least remove shortsighted temptations to benefit from the embarrassment of rivals. It would take advantage of the positive aspect that, unlike Vietnam or Iraq, the guerrillas do not enjoy significant support. It may finally be the route to an effective national government. If cooperation cannot be achieved, the United States may have no choice but to reconsider its options and to gear its role in Afghanistan to goals directly relevant to threats to American security. In that eventuality, it will do so not as an abdication but as a strategic judgment. But it is premature to reach such a conclusion on present evidence.

For the immediate future, it is essential to avoid another wrenching domestic division and to conduct the inevitable debate with respect for its complexity and the stark choices confronting our country.


7) ZOA CONDEMNS SPAIN FOR EXPELLING ISRAELI ARCHITECTS & SOLAR EXPERTS FROM SOLAR POWER COMPETITION




The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned the decision of the government of Spain to expel Israeli architects and solar experts from competing in the finals of the international competition between university architecture departments to design and build a self-sufficient house using solar power. Spain’s Housing Ministry disqualified Ariel University Center of Samaria in Ariel, a Jewish city of over 20,000 people, from competing in the finals. In the words of Sergio Vega, project manager of the competition, Solar Decathlon, “The decision was made by the Spanish government based on the fact that the university is located in occupied territory in the West Bank.” But in fact, there is no EU policy that supports such a practice.



These Jewish architects and solar experts were expelled from the competition after Ariel University Center reached the finals, together with 20 other universities from around the world after two years of collaboration with the competition’s management and the Spanish government. In this framework, the college was even awarded a 100,000 Euro grant by the competition’s organizers to build a model house for the final competition slated to be held in Madrid in June 2010.



The cancellation of the Israeli team’s participation in the competition was urged by an initiative put out by the group so-called Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine as a continuation of the racist academic boycott against Israel being led for quite some time by the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC).



Ariel University responded saying that it “rejects with disgust the one-sided announcement.” It claimed the decision “contravenes international law and international charters on academic freedom” and harms 10,000 students at the university, including 500 Arabs” (Giles Tremlett, ‘Spain expels Israeli scientists from solar energy competition,’ The Guardian [London], September 4, 2009).

Ariel University received support from Professor Pascal Rollet of France’s Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Grenoble, who wrote in solidarity to the University that “I do not agree with the Spanish decision because the Ariel University’s activities are directed towards academic excellence for peace. Kindly receive my utmost support in this difficult situation” (Yaheli Moran Zelikovich, ‘Spain boycotts Ariel college for being on ‘occupied territory,’ September 24, 2009).



Spain is arguably the most hostile country to Israel in Europe

In 2007, the Madrid municipality of Ciempozuelos cancelled its observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, preferring to highlight what it termed the “genocide of the Palestinian people” by the Jews. In February 2009, El Mundo, a leading Spanish newspaper, published an openly anti-Semitic column by columnist Antonio Gala which identified “Jewish greed” as the cause of the persecution of Jews throughout history. This month, the same newspaper decided to publish an interview with the discredited British Holocaust denier David Irving, found by a British court to be “anti-Semitic and racist,” as part of its coverage of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. The Israeli ambassador, Raphael Schutz, who protested the Irving interview, has himself been subjected to anti-Semitic abuse in Madrid, where three men shouted “dirty Jew,” “Jew bastard” and “Jewish dog” at him. According to the 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Project, Spain has the highest level of anti-Semitism in Europe, with more Spanish respondents holding negative than positive views about Jews.


Ignacio Russell Cano, a Spanish journalist, wrote in 2007 that, “In a country whose citizenship leaped into the streets to protest the Lebanon war, carrying swastikas to denounce Israel’s existence as part of the [only] western government congratulated by [Hizballah chief Hassan] Nasrallah himself in one of his fatwa-speeches… no one in Spain – Osama, Chávez, Castro, Putin, and Ahmadinejad – is so heavily attacked by [the government] as Israel.”



ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We condemn this racist, bigoted and anti-Semitic decision of the government of Spain to expel Israeli academics from a solar energy competition, but we cannot claim to be surprised. Spain has the shameful distinction of the highest levels of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment in Europe, which is saying something when one considers how awash Europe in general is with such poisonous passions.

“One would think that Spain, would be especially sensitive to targeting Jews, given Spain’s horrific history of the Inquisition, the expulsion of Jews in 1492 and the murder or forced conversion of Jews who remained.

“The effort to boycott the Jewish state of Israel, Israeli institutions and individuals, whatever spurious rationale is offered – no one boycotts Chinese academics because of that country’s genuine and frightening record of repression at home and brutal occupation of Tibet – is nothing other than part of a campaign to demonize Jews and the Jewish state of Israel, period. There are no extenuating circumstances for the Spanish government, especially given its recent record of hostility to Israel.

“This Spanish decision falls within a larger context of subjecting Israel to vicious boycotts – but never any other country on the face of the earth, no matter how genuinely abusive of human rights – and other discriminatory and anti-Semitic activity that has been shown to be rife in the country.

“We call upon the Spanish government to reverse this shameful decision. If they do not, we call upon the U.S. Department of Energy, which is a sponsor of the competition, to terminate its sponsorship forthwith. If this Spanish decision is not rescinded, we urge all people of goodwill to no longer to travel to Spain for either business or pleasure