[American Liberty] In the Fall of 2006, I received a most unexpected invitation to travel to Cambridge University in Great Britain and take part in a debate before a 200-year-old debating society called the Cambridge Union. The issue we were to debate — "This House believes that the United Nations is a dead loss!" There was an issue I could easily get behind.
My opponents in the debate included Simon Hughes, a member of Parliament and President of the Liberal Democrats; Lord David Hanney, Former UK Ambassador to the UN; and Salil Shetty, Director of the UN’s Millennium Campaign. The two other debaters that were supposed to be on my side were both pro-UN leftists. So, it was a typical five to one debate.
I was the first speaker and that meant I opened the debate. I said in my opening statement, "The UN’s only answer is government control — and confiscation of individual wealth and property. Nowhere is there mentioned in a single UN document that I have read an advocacy for the right to own private property. In fact, quite the opposite is the case as nearly every UN document, report, working paper, program, treaty, protocol, declaration, and resolution is dedicated to the confiscation, redistribution, regulation, and tax of someone’s private property."
To tepid applause I ended my opening statement by saying, "The United Nations is not ’dysfunctional’ as some ’reformers’ have claimed. It is a criminal enterprise in which no moral nation should participate, let alone perpetuate."
When it came time for Liberal Democrat, Simon Hughes to address the issue, he got right in my face and said, "I believe in redistribution of wealth!"
Unfortunately, at that time I was not used to the debate format and didn’t directly respond. Basically, I said "whose wealth — yours or theirs — as I pointed to the audience. He ignored me.
But if I were given the chance to repeat the experience today, this is what I would say: People have dreams and plans for their lives — how they want to live, what they want to accomplish. It’s what drives them to move forward. They study, learn, and work toward the goal. And as they begin to achieve it, along comes YOU — the government powermonger boldly declaring, "I’ll take half."
By what right? What did your government policy contribute by helping them achieve their goals that would grant you the right to take half of everything they have worked to create? When organized crime — the Mafia — takes this exact same action, we arrest them. But, if you wear a government hat — well, its accepted as OK. But in reality, it’s the same theft, the same abuse of power over someone’s life, and it’s all done at the point of a gun! Whether it’s considered legal or not just depends on who is holding the gun!
In the 1960s, some lower-income individuals from Liverpool, England had a dream. But they had to struggle every day to provide for their needs and meet unexpected demands to keep moving forward. To their benefit they had incredible talent and determined motivation to keep going against the odds. They called themselves The Beatles, and as they rose to success and achieved the wealth they had earned completely on their own, the British government declared that up to 90 percent of the Beatles earnings belonged to "the common good," rather than the individual dreams and goals of The Beatles, who’s talent and drive had independently and legally earned it.
No entity, especially government, deserves to grab 90 percent of anything created by an individual. That’s why George Harrison wrote the song TAXMAN containing the line, "be thankful I don’t take it all."
After the Cambridge Union debate our hosts held a reception to give the audience a chance to meet and talk with the debate participants. As it turned out, I was the only debater to attend the reception. Apparently being in control of Parliament or being a member of the House of Lords makes you too special to rub elbows with the lower classes whose dreams you intend to redistribute for your own grab for power.
However, I will never forget, as I walked into the reception, the young female Cambridge student who walked up to ask me a question. She asked, "you really don’t believe in redistribution of wealth?" I answered, "No, it’s theft." She responded, "but if you have more than you need, shouldn’t you share it with others?" I answered, "Why should I?"
This is what she had been taught through the approved curriculum of one of the most prestigious schools in the world. She had no idea how individuals pursuing their dreams created a free society. Involuntary sharing, forced sacrifice, and accepted despair were to be the plight of the masses in the collective planned by the redistributing elites. And that’s the redistribution of wealth in which Simon Hughes so passionately worked to enforce on his subjects.
I began to explain to her the ideals of free enterprise controlled by individual choice in order to guarantee quality. The free market is the root of innovation and progress. I told her how private property ownership is the most powerful source of individual freedom. It’s the means for individuals to build their personal wealth. Moreover, if you don’t have your own property to stand on, how do you have the power of free speech?
I asked her if she had dreams for her life. She said of course she did. And I asked, will you achieve them through a government committee? She looked at me with a puzzled look. I explained, "only you know what interests you, what drives you to get up in the morning and push forward to your dream. While your dream motivates you, the government simply doesn’t care."
As I went through these details, more than fifty others attending the reception began to gather around and listen. Some asked questions. More conversations broke out among them. I smiled as I noted that right there in the middle of Merry Olde England, the ideals of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson were being debated.
Finally, my young student said, "What an interesting point of view. How can I learn more." I suggested that she read the works of free-market economists like Milton Freedman and Hernando DeSoto. And if she wanted to understand the fate of freedom lovers who found the moral strength to overcome the darkness and suffering as they were forced to live under government tyranny, I provided examples. These included the works of Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his book The Gulag Archipelago. In addition, I recommended the tiny little book by Ayn Rand called Anthem which in fictional form clearly demonstrates the dangers of governments erasing the history of previous cultures, or controlling every action of individuals, right down to eliminating individuality by replacing their names with government issued numbers. Each of these examples counter economic policies and controls over individuals as they are currently being pursued by the United Nations.
As I finished, seeing her intent interest and the positive reaction of those gathered around, I knew at that moment that I had won the debate!
Continued on Page 47
#2
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Andrey Khrustalev
[REGNUM] On the morning of July 13, 1944, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front moved forward in the direction of the cities of Lvov and Rava-Ruska. The Lvov-Sandomierz operation was launched, which began the liberation of Western Ukraine and which put an end to the history of the SS Division "Galicia". At least, in the form that its German curators initially gave it.
The formation of units from “inferior” (from the point of view of the ideas of National Socialism) Slavs did not begin out of a good life - even though the initiative from below came immediately after the Nazi invasion of the USSR.
Already on June 29, 1941, one of Stepan Bandera’s deputies in the OUN (b)*, Yaroslav Stetsko, having arrived in Lviv in the convoy of the advancing Wehrmacht, organized a “national assembly” that adopted an act on the “restoration of the Ukrainian state.”
It stated: Ukraine "will closely cooperate with the National Socialist Greater Germany, which, under the leadership of its Leader Adolf Hitler, is creating a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian people to free themselves from Moscow occupation." The Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS command, as well as the occupation authorities, did not appreciate this zeal - in 1941, the Third Reich did not need the services of volunteer assistants.
But by 1943, after the defeats at Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge, the situation had changed. When all forces were thrown at the Eastern Front, someone had to maintain the "Ordnung" in the occupied territories.
The date of creation of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia" is considered to be April 28, 1943, although recruitment lasted for several months. Personnel - over 80,000 people.
The division was called volunteer, and modern Ukrainian historians emphasize that motivated youth, high school students and students from the former “borderlands” – the eastern outskirts of Poland – went to “Galicia”.
In reality, anyone could join the volunteer Waffen Grenadier Division, many with physical limitations. The occupation authorities needed a picture - they needed to demonstrate to Berlin the loyalty and enthusiasm of the population under their control. There were far fewer real volunteers.
The first commander of the division was SS Gruppenführer Walter Schimana, a native of the Bohemian Troppau (now Opava in the Czech Republic), an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, and a member of the NSDAP since 1926. The officers of the “national-Ukrainian” division were exclusively Germans.
KILLINGS OF CIVILIANS
"Patriotically minded" Ukrainian historians often claim that ordinary Galicians allegedly did not know where they were signing up, perceiving the abbreviation SS as an abbreviation for "Sich Riflemen". It is difficult to say who this fake is intended for, because the oath of soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers of "Galicia" sounded the same as the oath of other volunteer divisions and legions of the Reich:
"I serve you, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich with loyalty and courage. I swear obedience to you until death. So help me God!"
It is also claimed that those who finally understood that they had not ended up in the "Sich Riflemen" thought of "Galicia" as the core of the Ukrainian army, which would allegedly turn its bayonets against both Stalin and Hitler. From this point of view, the division turns out to be one of the historical predecessors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
But in reality, Galicia unquestioningly obeyed its German masters, just as the Ukrainian Armed Forces are oriented towards their Western partners.
The division's testing phase included participation in punitive actions.
Thus, soldiers of the 4th Galician SS Police Regiment (commander - SS-Sturmbannführer Siegfried Binz, chaplain - Uniate priest, Doctor of Theology Osip Karpinsky ), with the support of a hundred of the UPA* Dmitry Kostenko, nicknamed "Hawk", entered the village of Huta Karpinskaya, populated by Poles, on February 28, 1944. About half a thousand people, including old people, women (one of them was pregnant) and children were driven into the buildings of a school and a church and burned alive. The rest were shot on the spot. An elderly Polish woman, who could not keep up with the guards, was stabbed with a bayonet.
In total, soldiers of the “national-Ukrainian” regiment and Banderites, according to various sources, killed from 800 to 1,000 civilians.
More difficult to carry out were battles with partisans - for example, the motorized battalion of the 2nd "Galicia" Regiment in Poland took part in an operation against the raid of the 1st Ukrainian Partisan Division named after Sidor Kovpak, which was commanded by the former chief of intelligence "Grandfather" Petro Vershigora.
FRITZ FRIDAY
In early summer 1944, as the front approached Galicia, a decision was made to throw collaborators who had proven their loyalty to the Reich into battle with the Red Army. A serious battle was ahead.
By the end of June, our troops had assembled 1.2 million fighters, over 2,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, over 14,000 guns and mortars, and over 3,100 aircraft for the offensive. The enemy could have deployed almost 6,000 guns and mortars, over 840,000 troops, 540 aircraft, and over 900 tanks and self-propelled guns against our group.
Unlike Belarus, where the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS did not have powerful fortifications and tank groups, in Western Ukraine the enemy managed to build an echeloned system of fortifications (50-60 km deep), and set up 160,000 anti-personnel and 200,000 anti-tank mines.
In addition, the 1st Panzer and 8th Panzer divisions alone had more than 100 "Panthers" among various tanks and self-propelled guns, and the 506th Heavy Panzer Battalion had over 40 "Tigers". But, given that the advancing Soviet troops had gained more than serious experience in the fourth year of the war, the Nazi command was gathering maximum forces and equipment for defense. And here "any bast was in order" - including "Galicia".
In June 1944, the collaborators were transferred to the area of the city of Brody, where "Galicia" fielded more than 11,000 troops, 110 guns, including several 88mm and 34 anti-tank guns. The division was also led by no "conscious Ukrainian nationalist" at this time, but by SS Oberführer Fritz Freytag, who was not even disguised as some kind of Pylyp P'yatnitsa (Freitag is "Friday" in German).
On July 13, having begun an offensive in the Rava-Russky direction, Soviet divisions fairly quickly broke through the enemy’s defenses; the next day, the divisions of the 38th and 60th armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front in the Lvov direction were able to advance 8-10 km.
Soviet aviation attacked the 1st Panzer and 8th Panzer divisions of the enemy, however, the latter retained sufficient striking power - by the beginning of the battles it had more than 230 tanks and self-propelled guns. On July 15, the enemy began to launch counterattacks on our positions.
It was then that the SS Galicia Division entered into battle with the divisions of the 60th Soviet Army at Brody.
NARROW CORRIDOR
Since the Soviet troops at Brody had penetrated into the German positions, the 1st and 8th Panzer Divisions were ordered to attack from the south, and the XIII Army Corps from the north.
In the area of Krugov, the 30th Infantry Regiment came under attack from Soviet troops. This unit, as reported by the chief of staff of "Galicia" Major Wolf-Dietrich Heike, received an order to counterattack the enemy, came under attack from Soviet tanks and was defeated. The regiment lost half of its personnel, and almost all company commanders were out of action. However, the losses of the Soviet 336th Rifle and 99th Rifle divisions were also large, amounting to 320 killed and 250 wounded.
On July 15, units of the 9th Mechanized and 7th Tank Corps (3rd Guards Tank Army) were able to break through a narrow corridor literally 4-6 kilometers wide at Koltovo, which opened up the prospect of outflanking the enemy at Brody for the Red Army. Our command brought two tank armies into the corridor at once - the 3rd Tank and 4th Guards Tank corps. The Germans constantly attacked, and the "walls" of the corridor had to be reinforced with various tank units and tank destroyer units.
On July 17, the 31st Galicia Infantry Regiment, reinforced by artillery, engineer and reconnaissance battalions, and an anti-tank division, fought with the 99th Rifle and 336th Rifle divisions.
On July 18, the situation of the XIII Army Corps became much worse - our troops attacked in several directions at once and effectively encircled eight German divisions in the Brody area. The Galicia units continued to counterattack, but suffered losses and retreated from their positions.
On July 19, the 29th and 31st Infantry Regiments attempted to stop the advance of the 68th Infantry Division at Zabolottsy. They were attacked by units of the 31st Tank Corps.
KATYUSHAS ENSURED A BREAKTHROUGH
In the books of modern Ukrainian historians it is stated that "Galicia" held back the attacks of "steel avalanches" in unprepared positions, collaborators allegedly literally threw themselves under T-34s with grenades and anti-tank grenade launchers and burned the vehicles at the cost of their own lives.
The journal of the 31st Tank Corps indicates that in the sector of Guta Penyatskaya, Maidan, Podgortsy, in addition to two regiments of "Galichina", there was also a regiment of the 349th Infantry Division, an artillery regiment. The enemy took cover in full-profile trenches, pillboxes and forests.
In addition to artillery, Galicia was armed with many anti-tank grenade launchers, including heavy "offenrohrs". There were no "steel avalanches" - a maximum of ten to fifteen T-34s operated against the division, and in total during its battles near Brody, in different parts of the front and on different days, from 70 to 90 tanks and self-propelled guns.
Having encountered stubborn resistance from the enemy, the Soviet troops took advantage of the support of the 201st Guards Mortar Division - the Katyushas fired about 98 rounds, killing more than 25 people. As German officers recalled, the Galicians wavered under the blows of rocket artillery and fled from their positions.
Soviet troops drove the collaborators out of Podgortsy. Moreover, on that day, units of the 31st Tank Corps attacked the positions of "Galichina" near Yasenev, from the southern direction, from where the Galician "SS men" did not expect an attack. Our soldiers managed to cut off the Brody-Krasne highway.
Convinced that the German troops' defense had collapsed and they were surrounded, Oberführer Fritz Freitag decided to resign as division commander. Major General Gerhard Lindemann, commander of the 361st Infantry Division, took over "Galicia".
THE ROUT AND POSTSCRIPT
The divisions of the German 48th Panzer Corps, which were tasked with unblocking the troops trapped in the cauldron at Brody, including the remainder of the "Galicia", did not complete the task.
The encircled people tried to break out of the cauldron on their own, but they came under powerful attacks from our aviation and artillery. According to Major Gaike's reports, about 500 "Galicia" servicemen broke out of the cauldron (out of 11 thousand, let us recall).
From the journal of the Soviet 15th Rifle Corps, we can learn that on July 22, the enemy lost more than 2,000 killed and 1,850 captured. According to data collected by military historian Beglyar Navruzov, "Galicia" lost 9,600 killed and missing.
Modern Ukrainian authors, for obvious reasons, cite more modest figures: 3,500 killed, 2,000 captured, less than 2,000 went over to the UPA* (that is, they simply ran away and betrayed the Fuhrer) - the total losses of the division, Kiev historiography estimates at just over seven thousand.
Be that as it may, in the battles from July 15 to 22, "Galichina" was routed. Like the entire Brody group of the enemy - more than 20 thousand were killed, about 12-15 thousand were taken prisoner.
The history of the Galician SS, however, had a postscript. In September 1944, "Galicia" was re-formed, and its "combat path" continued in Slovakia, where it suppressed a national uprising.
Here the Galicians acted together with the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger, which had previously distinguished itself with mass murders in Belarus. Several units of the Galicians joined the battle group of SS-Obersturmführer Karl Wildner, which, when the Germans took the center of the uprising, Banská Bystrica, "cleansed" this city.
In January 1945, the revived Galicia was sent to suppress the Yugoslav partisans.
In April, a month before the end of the war, a Ukrainian was finally put in charge of the collaborators. By decision of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht, "Galicia" was transformed into the "Ukrainian National Army", headed by Pavlo Shandruk, a former ensign general in the Petliura army and now a German lieutenant general.
The Galicians surrendered to the British and Americans, knowing what awaited them if they fell into the hands of the Red Army.
SS MEN NOT RECOGNIZED AS NAZIS
In 1949, the Association of Former Members of the Galicia Division appeared in the American occupation zone. That same year, by the way, Shandruk quietly left the newly formed FRG for the States, where he lived in freedom until old age (he died in 1979). Since the 1960s, the association of former SS men moved from West Germany to Canada. Sympathizers of these "fighters against Bolshevism" claim that the division was not condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal, completely forgetting that the court recognized the entire SS as a criminal organization.
But it is significant that the Jules Deschênes Commission, a Canadian war crimes body that operated in 1985-86, brought charges against only 20 soldiers and officers. This is not surprising, since the commission included many descendants of migrants from the Baltics and Ukraine.
In modern Ukraine, the "Galicia Division Reserve" is active, led by Igor Ivankov, Vasyl Bychko and Dmitry Pravosudov. This historical and cultural society, dedicated to the glorification of SS men, opened a memorial cemetery in the Zolochiv district of the Lviv region in 1994. After the Maidan of 2014, marches in memory of the division became regular.
In Lviv itself, at the Lychakiv Cemetery, a monument to the SS men of "Galicia" has been erected. This is all the more significant because in May-June of this year, with the permission of the Lviv City Council, the cemetery on the Hill of Glory, where the Soviet soldiers-liberators were buried, was destroyed.
The Kiev regime supports the myth-making of the activists of the Galicia Reserve, who regularly publish books that talk about how the “Ukrainian division” almost led the XIII Army Corps out of encirclement and single-handedly held back the onslaught of entire Soviet armies.
"Reservists" can be seen at various mass events in SS uniforms. And there is nothing shameful about this, because already under Volodymyr Zelensky, the Supreme Court of Ukraine in 2022 recognized the division's symbols - responsible, among other things, for the murder of Jews - as not Nazi. This means that they are not prohibited. Active financial support for the "Division Reserve" is provided by the heirs of the veterans of "Galicia" in the Canadian and other diaspora. But new generations of Nazis are already growing up, who support the neo-SS inside Ukraine as well.
[AmericanThinker] Cynical Publius, a poster on X, accurately describes for me the fantastical conspiratorial posts this week about Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Jeffrey Epstein records and death as “ragebait engagement farming.” I hate mobs and mob thinking, and I think Bondi has achieved a remarkable courtroom record against a tsunami of judicial insurrection.
For example, this week the Department of Justice, which she heads, just won its 13th Supreme Court victory in six months. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirms that the President is proud of her and considers the “continued fixation or sowing discord on [his] cabinet is baseless and unfounded in reality. On Saturday, the president reiterated his strong support for Bondi. I will endeavor to explain how absurd this furor is and why this (like the ludicrous Pizzagate-like fantasy before it) has so many dupes believing in unsubstantiated nonsense.
A very detailed portrait of Epstein’s background and operations can be found in a 2003 article in Vanity Fair, which reveals a shrewd operator who cultivated celebrities, business figures, politicians, scientists, and people of note to amass a considerable fortune. He was also a man with a perversion for sexual relations with underage young women.
There has long been a widely held belief that he maintained a list of notable people with details of their crimes. Bondi said she had the Epstein list “on her desk,” and indicated it would be released. This was a mistake, because if the belief was that there was a roster of prominent people engaged in pedophilia, there is no such list. (If there ever had been, he most likely scrubbed it long before any criminal investigation.) Read the rest at the link
#4
...I should like to invoke the Great Detective, and the dog that did not bark in the night: had there been a single shred of evidence that could have connected DJT to Epstein, even in the most remotely possible way, it would have been deployed by the Biden Administration without hesitation or second thought. They had no compunction whatsoever about fabricating court cases against him, they disregarded evidence of at least one plot to kill him...for something tying him to Epstein, no matter how tenuously, there would have been literal parties in the White House and it would have been trumpeted across every imaginable media outlet.
If there was a list, it disappeared long ago, most likely at the hands of Epstein himself before he went back to jail for the last time and almost certainly during the YEAR OR SO that Ghislane Maxwell was on the run - she may be a perverted whack job with Everest-scale daddy issues, but she isn't stupid.
Thus endeth today's rant; please return to your regularly scheduled Monday.
[FoxNews] Chronic lateness can be frustrating for those left waiting, and is often attributed to laziness and carelessness.
But experts say a health issue called time blindness could be to blame for perpetual tardiness.
Often misunderstood as an inability to perceive time, the condition disrupts a person’s ability to estimate how long it will take to complete tasks, affecting everything from daily routines to long-term productivity.
"The cardinal feature of time blindness is an inability to estimate a time interval," Dr. Mauran Sivananthan, a psychiatrist with Henry Ford Health in Detroit, Michigan, told Fox News Digital.
This can negatively affect a person's ability to use time as a guide to plan the day.
Laurie Singer, a board-certified behavior analyst at Laurie Singer Behavioral Services in California, reiterated that those with time agnosia — another name for the condition — are unable to properly process the passing of time.
For instance, someone may miscalculate how long it takes to get ready in the morning, rushing out the door and arriving late.
Others may get absorbed in an activity (a symptom known as hyperfocus), losing track of time completely, the expert noted.
CAUSES OF TIME BLINDNESS
Time blindness is considered an "executive function issue," Sivananthan said.
Executive function refers to skills like working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibition control.
These skills are essential for everyday tasks like making plans, solving problems and adapting to new situations, according to Cleveland Clinic.
"Various parts of the brain are affected by ADHD, including the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum," Sivananthan said. "There have been many studies looking at the role of the cerebellum in time processing."
The condition can also appear in individuals with autism, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), traumatic brain injuries, depression, anxiety, and even conditions like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, experts say. And some of us were just born that way. Continued on Page 47
#2
My Ex was perpetually late, so I would just tell her a false early starting time
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/14/2025 7:36 Comments ||
Top||
#3
My sister-in-law Linda was always late for family get-togethers. My mother-in-law would tell her dinner was at 2:30, while for everyone else it was 3:30.
Linda would still be late.
#4
Mr. Wife is in charge of the space-time continuum in our house. And yes, he often lies to me about appointment times. I also lie to myself when I put appointments on my calendar — it helps somewhat. Interestingly, it appears to be innate: one of the trailing daughters takes after me, one after him. And our fosterlings are also divided — two are fastidiously punctual, the third is not.
[Free Beacon] In publishing, as in much of life, timing is everything. And by that measure, if by no other, Iran’s Grand Strategy, Vali Nasr’s latest analysis of the Islamic Republic, is a smashing success.
First available just two short weeks before Israel’s stunningly successful aerial campaign against the mullahs, Nasr’s book attempts—but fails—to frame the Islamic Republic as having "evolved into a prototypical nation-state" whose "aims are now secular in nature."
To Nasr, a professor and distinguished Middle East specialist at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies who emigrated from Iran to the United States after the ayatollahs seized power in 1979, Islam is merely "an instrument in the hands of [Iran’s] political class and military leaders to realize political and economic interests at home and define national interest abroad." Iran, he argues, is essentially a normal country following a rational path.
Yet Nasr’s analysis repeatedly undermines his own thesis, as history amply demonstrates how the regime’s insistence on religious and ideological purity has over and over again—including in its most recent humiliation by Israel—stymied the country’s political, economic, and military goals. As Henry Kissinger famously put it in 2006, "Iran has to take a decision whether it wants to be a nation or a cause"; since then, it has repeatedly opted for the cause.
Nasr begins his narration in earnest with the revolution, when the clerics overthrew the shah and kidnapped 66 American embassy employees. He concedes that "Iran’s foreign policy effectively abandoned any pragmatic considerations that could have involved engaging the United States; instead, it became a battle between good and evil."
So, too, did Ayatollah Khomeini’s determination to "export the revolution" to neighboring countries, entailing the expenditure of vast sums on proxy armies across the Levant, short-circuit any reasonable prospects of economic and political success. The absurd nine-year-long Iran-Iraq war, which claimed over one million lives and resulted in no territorial gains, served to consolidate the clerics’ viselike grip on the country and calcify its combative approach to foreign policy. Far from practical, Khomeini announced that "the path to Jerusalem ran through Karbala," a city in Iraq.
His successor as supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has proven even more conceptually rigid. Nasr observes that Khamenei regarded the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the consequence of the dissipation of ideological vigilance and embrace of Western liberal ideas in its stead" and, accordingly, has steadfastly resisted any meaningful efforts at political or religious reform. He repeatedly crossed swords with would-be reformers within the regime, and he always prevailed. Nasr notes that, decades ago, Khamenei articulated a set of industrial, economic, cultural, and technological targets to be reached 20 years hence but candidly acknowledges that "Iran has not progressed on the goals of its Vision 2025."
Continued on Page 47
#2
It doesn’t matter whether secular or religious, totalitarian governments are always sliding down the slope to failed state.
Professor Nasr is so obviously wrong about Iran having evolved to secularity and normalcy that one has to wonder at his motivation at putting his reputation on the line in staking out this position.
#3
After reading the whole thing: One thing that sadly is not at all surprising is that this stinking pile of wrongness was published by Princeton University Press. Only Columbia or Harvard publishing it would have been less surprising.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
