Avoiding hypocrisy in an unfree world by SANDY IKEDA.
What do you think of someone who espouses the principle of nonaggression but lives off the fruits of aggression? How moral is it to oppose political power while benefiting from political power? Is it contradictory to write, lecture, and actively protest government intervention while at the same time making an income from the taxes other people pay?
I’ve spent my entire academic career on the faculty of one state-funded university or another, a major part of whose revenue has come from taxation. I understand the virtue of unhampered markets and I’ve asked myself these questions many times.
I was a student of the Austrian economist Hans Sennholz, who used to tell me with pride that none of his income came from government redistribution. (He taught at an institution, Grove City College, famous for refusing all government money.) So I’m sure he would have qualms with the way I’ve made my living, and it has troubled me. A reader recently wrote me a heartfelt letter expressing the same deep, personal concern, putting the issue starkly: “Am I being a hypocrite?”
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “hypocrisy” as “simulation of virtue or goodness; dissimulation, pretense; acting of a part.” Is it hypocrisy then to argue against legal privilege while at the same time living off legal privilege?
A simple case
For simplicity, let’s take an extreme case. Say that I lived in a system in which the majority of people were slaves (that is, forced to serve under the threat of aggression) to a privileged minority. If I were a member of the slave majority, would I be a hypocrite to challenge the status quo and publicly argue for change, even though my livelihood comes off the backs of other slaves? I don’t think so. Nor do I think I would be a hypocrite were I to do this as a member of the privileged class. Evidently, there were abolitionists in the American South who manumitted their slaves before the Civil War.
Our situation in the United States today is less extreme, but it’s similar enough to reach the same conclusion: benefiting from the forced transfer of others’ wealth does not in itself cast a moral pall over our opposition to redistribution. (A separate but related point is that arguments are valid or not independent of the person who voices them. While we might suspect, say, a person’s motives we should still subject her arguments to reason and evidence rather than dismissing them or saying: “Consider the source!”)
What my friends say
I’m proud to count some of the smartest and most respected libertarians among my friends. I posed the question of whether a libertarian like me who works for a tax-funded university is a hypocrite. Here I paraphrase their responses, which I believe apply to most people who work for the government (subject to the qualifications mentioned, below) and certainly to those of us who use the physical and legal infrastructures provided by the state — for example, roads, parks, courts, and property protection.
One colleague wasn’t convinced that it makes you a hypocrite to benefit from a corrupt system, especially if you are committed to opposing what you believe is wrong about that system in whatever capacity you can, so long as you don’t participate in actions that make the problem worse. For instance, the decision to take a job at a state school does not affect whether that job or the state school system exists. It was hard for this colleague to see how taking that job makes things worse — especially if you use the position to teach students why you have reservations about it. She pointed out that holding such a job is very different from lobbying for more state schools or opposing competing options or cost-saving measures.
Another colleague argued that if a government-provided service is morally legitimate and would likely be provided if there were no government — the fire department, for example, as well as schools — then it’s not hypocritical to benefit from it. What’s bad about government-provided services, he said, is their coercively enforced monopolism, not the activities per se.
Drawing the line
So at what point does one become a hypocrite? Arguing against legal privilege in public while scheming in private to get it would be hypocritical, but more generally, libertarian hypocrisy lies simply in acting in such a way as to promote more rather than less government intervention on net.
Here are more responses.
One friend draws the line at advocating policies that would benefit him in a way contrary to his limited-government principles. For example, he would be a hypocrite were he to advocate privatizing other industries but leaving higher education in the public sector. He believes you’re perfectly well entitled to seek employment in a system that you’re forced to support through taxation. Likewise for riding Amtrak, visiting subsidized museums, and so on.
In addition, he marvels at people who say that if you benefit from government-provided goods, you have no right to criticize them. His counterexample is the case where all medical services are public and private medical practice is outlawed. He asks whether anyone would actually believe that a critic of such a system has no right to see a doctor. If so, then every coercive act by government that excludes private providers also chokes off dissent.
But not so fast!
The problem for me with these thoughtful responses is that in real life it’s hard to tell whether the way you earn a living would have been provided voluntarily in the absence of government intervention.
I agree that if we knew that the free market would have created, say, one million jobs in higher education and I held one of those positions under public education, then probably I’m not a hypocrite. But what if taxpayers fund one million and one jobs and I’m hired for that additional job? Or if taxpayers fund 10 million jobs — nine million more than a free society would have provided — and I hold one of those?
I also think there are some professions that are highly problematic from a libertarian perspective. That is, depending on what you see as the proper role of government, or on whether you believe government has any role whatsoever in a free society, some jobs may not even exist.
I’m pretty sure that there would be charitable organizations in a free society, but does that make it okay to hold a job administering Temporary Assistance to Needy Families? I’m also pretty sure that even in a society without government (that is, without a monopoly over the initiation of aggression), there would still be a need for effective governance, but does that mean that a politician, even a libertarian-leaning one, is morally neutral? If you believe government should provide national defense, does that mean anyone working for a voluntary army, an American soldier in Afghanistan perhaps, could also be a nonhypocritical libertarian? How about an engineer designing weapons or a contractor who bids to produce them?
I do think there’s a line somewhere, at least a fuzzy one, separating the ways a card-carrying libertarian can and can’t earn a living without being a hypocrite, and that in some cases it’s clear which side you are on. But I’m also troubled that as government grows, that line gets harder and harder to see.
Note: Murray Rothbard’s “Living in a State-Run World” and Ayn Rand’s “Government Grants and Scholarships” also address this topic. While I don’t necessarily endorse their treatments, there is some overlap with what I say, and those seeking answers to the questions I pose here may find them helpful.
Read a Portuguese version of this article here.
Sandy Ikeda is a professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism.
Soon a bill will be taken up by the Senate to require the President to submit the Iran nuclear agreement to the Senate for review before it is signed by the him. Obama intends to delegate the vote to the UN instead of the U.S. Senate.
It is reported that all 54 Republican and 10 Democrat Senators are on board to vote for the bill. To obtain a veto proof bill 3 more Democrat Senators will need to vote for the bill.
This is a time when Democrat Senators will have to decide on whether they think they have a role to play in the security of the U.S., Israel and other allies, or are willing to delegate their vote to the UN.
It is a time for Democrat Senators to decide if they wish to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
It is also a time for Democrat Senators to decide if they wish to scrap the long held U.S. anti nuclear proliferation policy.
In the past on numerous occasions Obama has demonstrated hostility toward Israel. Since Israel has opposed the Iranian nuclear agreement Obama’s hostility has turned from hostility to open belligerence. From Obama’s behavior you would think Israel is America’s enemy and Iran is America’s friend. Israel has never been a partisan issue. However Obama is calling upon Congress to make it a partisan issue and take sides.
If the Democrats take sides against Israel this will be a tragedy for both Israel and America. Obama will be gone in a year and a half, but Israel and America will never stop working together as friends. Israel is the only democracy in the most dangerous region of the world and both countries must never stop working together as friends for their common good.
Israel is America’s friend and Iran is America’s enemy.
Readers should contact their Senator today to support the Corker-Menendez bill.
Trying to head off a vote on legislation that would require Congressional review of a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration is lobbying senators not to support the bill, Politico reported yesterday.
The White House is moving aggressively to limit Democratic defections on Capitol Hill that could undermine its negotiations with Iran, dispatching senior officials and President Barack Obama himself to lobby senators against taking action before a nuclear deal with the rogue regime is reached. Senior administration officials have asked Senate Democrats to notify the White House if they are considering signing onto a bill drafted by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) that would give Congress the ability to accept or reject any nuclear deal. The push, several Senate sources said, is to prevent a veto-proof majority from building by heading off any fresh Democratic support for the plan and persuade supporters to keep their powder dry until the conclusion of multilateral negotiations with Iran. The lobbying effort has come from all quarters. Obama has spoken directly with Democratic senators on the Foreign Relations Committee, including Ben Cardin of Maryland. Other senators who are weighing whether to join the legislative effort, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have been briefed by the likes of Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have reached out directly to senators, according to sources on Capitol Hill.
Earlier this week, Iranian officials signaled that they would not accept a deal that would require them to dismantle the Fordow enrichment facility or to stop building the heavy water reactor at Arak. Last week Iran’s foreign minister and nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif leaked plans that the deal being discussed would involve having the United Nations Security Council lift all sanctions imposed on Iran for its illicit nuclear program.
Although President Barack Obama promised in November 2013, when the Joint Plan of Action was signed, that he would “continue to work closely with Congress,” legislators have been frustrated by reports late last year that the president intended to bypass Congress when it came to any nuclear deal with Iran.
For the first time in 36 years, the Annual Security Assessment presented to the U.S. Senate, by previous CIA Directors and Directors of National Intelligence, has “EXCLUDED” Iran and Hezbollah from the State Department’s Bureau of Counter-terrorism List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Without any doubt, at all, the National Intelligence Agencies of over 100 nations, consider Iran the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Iran and Hezbollah have been consistently included on the List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations for 36 years by President Jimmy Carter, President Ronald Reagan, President George H.W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, and President George W. Bush.
This reckless and very “Treacherous” action by the occupant of the Oval Office, will confuse and handcuff U.S. Intelligence Agencies, the FBI, the CIA, the DIA, NSA, the Department of Justice, the National Security Council, the U.S. Armed Forces, and the U.S. State Department. This action was authorized while the world is currently watching Iran’s armed military Quid Force flying in thousands of boots on the ground to effectively take over Iraq, militarily, under the cover of defending Iraq from ISIL Removing Iran and Hezbollah from the List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations was ordered by Obama to support his pro-Iranian and anti-Israeli reckless Middle East Foreign policy, has to date resulted in Iran taking control of Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, with Afghanistan and Bahrain in Iran’s sights.
The unclassified report, issued by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper on February 26, 2015 and entitled the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities”, was published by the Times of Israel amid Israeli concerns. Iran is responsible for having killed and maimed thousands of members of the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq with Iranian manufactured IEDs delivered to al Qaeda in Iraq. Iran is still killing and maiming thousands of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan today with IEDs manufactured in Iran and delivered to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Iran’s terrorist front group, Hezbollah, is responsible for killing over 2000 Americans and members of the U.S. Armed Forces in terrorist attacks for 36 years.
Iran:
These Shiite Radical Islamic Terrorists are the allies Obama has been developing a relationship with for 6 years, while he is entering into a flawed and unauthorized Iranian Nuclear Arms Treaty that will threaten the very survival of Israel, and will threaten the sovereignty of the friendly allies of the United States for the last 60 years of Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.
Obama omitted Iran and Hezbollah from the State Department’s Bureau of Counter-terrorism List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, in preparation for him to execute a dangerous flawed and unauthorized Iranian Nuclear Arms Treaty that will permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons, so Obama can say in a television address to the America people, that he signed the agreement with Iran that is no longer the most dangerous states sponsor of terrorism. Even though provisions of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. Senate ratification of any Nuclear Arms Treaty, Obama refuses to seek Senate approval before he signs a fatally flawed Nuclear Arms Treaty with Iran.
Iran has repeatedly announced for 36 years that they fully intend to destroy Israel, and when Iran finally develops nuclear weapons as a result of Obama’s flawed Nuclear Arms Treaty they plan to put the nuclear weapons atop their ICBMs, in order to be able to threaten Israel, the friendly Sunni allies of the U.S. in the Middle East, NATO, and the United States.
Obama’s goal is to permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons in order to checkmate Israel as a nuclear armed state in the Middle East, although Pakistan has already accomplished that goal. The very dangerous members of the Muslim Brotherhood in key positions of the Obama administration have insisted upon execution of the dangerous and flawed Iranian Nuclear Arms Treaty behind the scenes.
Obama’s vision-less and reckless action will result in a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and may very well eventually lead to WWIII.
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Obama is actually ‘leading from in front’ to diminish U.S. influence around the world.
Over the years Obama has said that the U.S. has too much influence in the Middle East and the world. One of Obama’s promises in 2008 was that he intended to ‘structurally change America’. As a result Obama’s policies have laser like reduced U.S. influence in the Middle East and around the world. By reneging on his ‘red line’ in Syria; abandoning his commitment to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and abandoning the U.S. non-proliferation policy Obama has made the U.S. an untrustworthy ally and reduced its influence around the world. Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is designed to make Iran the hegemony in the Middle East to the detriment of the U.S. and U.S. allies in the region.
To further this goal Obama prematurely withdrew all of our troops from Iraq and has failed to aggressively confront the Islamic State (ISIS). making way for Iran to fill the void. Obama recently removed Iran and its proxy Hezbollah from the U.S. Annual Assessment Report which previously named Iran as the leading State sponsor of terrorism along with Hezbollah. This is a prelude to Obama’s Cuba like rapprochement with these two terrorist entities.
A nuclear armed Iran with long range ballistic missiles as a shield will not only expand Iran’s influence in the Middle East but will buttress Iran’s influence in South America. Iran in cooperation with Bolivia has built a secret military installation in Bolivia which is a direct threat to the U.S. Venezuela is a uranium rich country and is developing into another Iranian base of operations in the Americas. Both of these South American countries view the U.S. as an enemy and once Iran has nuclear weapons there is little doubt Iranian nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. mainland will find its way into these countries. Obama’s agreement with Iran will result in nuclear proliferation.
Obama believes if the U.S. has nuclear weapons then other countries that want them are entitled to them too.
So when pundits say Obama is leading from behind they are wrong. As hard as it is to accept, Obama is ‘leading from the front’ to diminish U.S. influence around the world and to put Iran and other countries on an equal footing with U.S. nuclear capability.
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Jordan Schneider, like many part-time college instructors, teaches on two community college campuses in order to cobble together a living. He earns a paltry $21,000 per year with no benefits for teaching a larger-than-normal load of four courses per semester. Non-tenure track full-time professors earn $47,000. Established professors’ salaries have remained flat, at between $60,000 and $100,000. As a former instructor of English at Georgia Perimeter College and elsewhere, these figures, from the 2014 Delta Cost Project, sound right.
In “Letter to Full-Time Faculty Members,” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Schneider deviates from the typical call for redress through unionization, and appeals to full-time colleagues’ self-interests by arguing that a class of “super adjuncts,” paid more than regular adjuncts but less than full-time faculty ($20,000 to $25,000 per term with benefits), with some of the duties and voting privileges of full-time faculty, would take away administrators’ “trump cards”: the threat of replacing full-timers with cheap adjuncts, who, along with teaching assistants, now account for half of instructional staff (up from one-third in 1987).
But the number of full-time professors on short-term contracts (like “super adjuncts”) has already increased, by 30 to 50 percent between 2004 and 2012.
Goodbye, Full-Time Faculty
In spite of increasing reliance on contingent faculty, higher education costs tripled between 1975 and 2005. Tuition at public four-year colleges and universities increased nearly 160 percent between 1990 and 2012. At private bachelor’s institutions it has almost doubled since 1987. Yet, the proportion of all employees who were full-time faculty has declined 5 to 7 percent at four-year colleges and 16 percent at community colleges between 2000 and 2012.
While students have less access to faculty members, especially full-time faculty members, they are paying for the services of administrators and their professional staffs. Since 1987, this number has more than doubled and increased at a rate twice as fast as the growth in the number of students.
The Delta report states that there is “no single smoking gun” to explain such growth in administration.
Why So Many Administrators?
Huffington Post’s Jon Marcus cannot pin down the reasons either, claiming more resources are being devoted to such things as marketing, diversity, sustainability, security, athletic programs, and conference centers. He quotes Dan King, president of the American Association of University Administrators, who claims that government regulations and demands for such services as remedial help and counseling are responsible. Yet, graduation rates of students at four-year bachelor’s institutions have barely inched up, from 55 percent to 58 percent since 2002.
Political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg seems to have a good diagnosis. In his 2011 Washington Monthly article, “Administrators Ate My Tuition” he noted that well-paid professional bureaucrats have taken over duties once handled by faculty members on a temporary, part-time basis. Unlike faculty members, their motivation is not academic improvement, but growing the bureaucracy, with make-work projects developed at far-away conferences and retreats.
Goodbye to Real Instruction
This is evidenced by the questionable academic value of many of the initiatives coming out of their offices. In fact, many of the programs substitute for real academic instruction. More and more money is spent on diversity, social justice, and sustainability initiatives at the expense of real teaching.
The students who can least afford such diversions, those attending community colleges, are seeing the largest shift from funding for teaching to administrative programs.
I saw this happening at Georgia Perimeter College where I was a part-time instructor from 2007 to 2010. As we were being asked to squeeze several more students into our classes (that were maxed out at 22) for the same $2100 per class, college president Anthony Tricoli was rallying faculty to embrace civic learning.
Around the same time, 2009, the federal government put out the 136-page report, A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future, for which Tricoli served as a roundtable member. The college’s Atlanta Center for Civic Engagement & Learning was one of about 100 participating organizations that included campuses, non-profits, and government agencies. However, real “civic learning” is the farthest from the report’s objectives.
Model centers, such as at the University of Maryland and Salt Lake Community College, show students working in soup kitchens, reading to school children, and cleaning up nature trails. Organizations such as Campus Compact (which GPC joined) and the Association of American Colleges & Universities (the lead writer of A Crucible Moment) provide direction. One instructional ASC&U video shows a statistics professor “collaborating” with an “anti-poverty” representative on a lesson publicizing free tax preparation services in target zip codes for Earned Income Tax Credits. (If there is any doubt about the agenda, a “social justice” sign appears prominently.) Instead of formal essays or research papers, students write “reflection papers.”
At my college, the associate vice president for civic engagement and service learning, attorney Deborah Gonzalez, made $104,000 for offering “infrastructure and resources, to share best practices and technical assistance . . . , to [help faculty] implement initiatives to help their students engage in their communities, both locally and globally”—all while presumably helping students strengthen their “academic goals and objectives.” In response to her call for courses with a “Civic-engagement or Service-learning component,” a colleague shared having students serve as docents at the Margaret Mitchell House. I failed to see how such activities, whether “global” or ushering at a local historic site, would help students struggling with grammar.
The grand new Center for Civic Engagement and Service-Learning opened in 2010 with much fanfare and a keynote address by former President Jimmy Carter. The program listed a good number of individuals drawing salaries or partial salaries for their efforts: the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Executive Director, the Service-Learning Coordinator, the Administrative Secretary, and eleven faculty members.
In 2012, however, Tricoli was forced to resign over a $25 million budget deficit; he is now suing, charging conspiracy to ruin his reputation. I don’t know what percentage the civic engagement initiative represented, but such programs are not cheap.
Rather than pleading for part of the increasingly smaller portion of budgets allocated to academic instruction, it seems that Schneider and others ought to be demanding the ouster of bureaucrats and the restoration of higher education to its rightful purpose.
“Pugh converted to Islam in 1998 while living in Texas and became radical in his beliefs, according to ABC News. In 2001, while Pugh was a mechanic for American Airlines, a coworker reported to the FBI that Pugh said he sympathized with Osama bin Laden and was expressing anti-American sentiment, ABC reported. Pugh’s Facebook page includes pro-Palestine and anti-Israel posts and photos, as well as anti-American military posts.” —Heavy.com
“Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, U.S. Air Force Veteran, Charged With Trying to Join ISIS,” by Michael Kosnar and Daniel Arkin, NBC News, March 17, 2015:
A former U.S. Air Force mechanic has been charged with attempting to go to Syria to join ISIS, authorities said Tuesday. Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh was indicted Monday by a grand jury in Brooklyn on two charges, including attempting to provide material support to a terror organization.
The indictment said that Pugh was fired from a job in Kuwait as an airplane mechanic in December 2014. It said that he flew from Egypt to Turkey on January 10, in an effort to cross the border into Syria to join ISIS and wage violent jihad.
Turkish authorities denied him entry into the country, however, and sent him on a return flight to Egypt. He was deported from Egypt to the U.S. in January 15, after he was found carrying suspicious items, including a photograph of a machine gun.
Pugh was arrested Jan. 16, but the case has been sealed since that date.
Searches of his laptop revealed online queries about borders and crossing points controlled by the Islamic State, and videos showing ISIS executions. Posting on social media show Pugh repeatedly professed a desire never to return to the U.S., even though he has family — including children — in the country.
Pugh is a U.S. citizen whose last known address in the United States was in Neptune, New Jersey.
He served in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990 as an avionics instrument specialist, according to court documents. While in the Air Force, he reportedly received training in the installation and maintenance of aircraft engine, navigation, and weapons systems….
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Here is a proposed to-do-list for members of Congress to deal with legal and illegal immigration:
Any questions?
‘The doc’s most engaging character’ – ‘A magnificent antihero, a cheery, chatty prevaricator’ – ‘Slick’ – ‘Scary’ – ‘A loathsome mercenary’ – ‘Sleazy spin doctor’
New Warmist film by Sony Pictures, ‘Merchants of Doubt’, portrays Marc Morano as evil nemesis/arch-enemy of climate change promoters – Morano is ‘a grinning-skull nihilist’
Global warming movies sets out to smear skeptics, but ‘features ‘a semi-affectionate portrait of professional attack dog Marc Morano’
[Note: The other upcoming documentary, Morano’s skeptical global warming documentary, ‘Climate Hustle’ ,is set to rock climate debate – Release set for later in 2015. Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry: ‘Morano’s film Climate Hustle; check out the trailer. Seems to more entertaining anyways than ‘Merchants of Doubt.’…Stay tuned…]
‘Merchants of Doubt’ director pushing to ban Morano & other skeptics from TV!
New York Times: Morano exemplifies ‘slickness, grandiosity & charm’
New York Times: ‘Morano is a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism’
Warmist Naomi Oreskes: ‘People like Morano have made a career out of being contrarians, and they are very good at it. When a scientist comes up against a well-trained, savvy person, scientists will always lose in the debate.’
Warmist Randy Olson laments: ‘Wish the enviros had someone comparable to Morano, but they don’t’
TV villain slogan: “If only he’d used his powers for good, instead of for evil.”
Morano responds to tobacco smear: ‘The warmists have it exactly backwards. It is the global warming proponents who are guilty of the tobacco tactics.’ See: Flashback: Warmists’ mimic tobacco industry tactics: ‘Like tobacco industry, Warmists’ manufactured uncertainty & fear by stridently proclaiming certainty & consensus based on dubious & uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate’
Watch ‘Merchants of Doubt’ Trailer here:
Morano featured as villain in new warmist documentary: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Marc Morano in warmist film: ‘I am not a scientist, although I do occasionally play one on TV — Ok — Hell, more than occasionally.’ – ‘We (skeptics) the negative force, we are just trying to stop stuff.’
[Note: For those not interested in attempted smear job on global warming skeptics, Hollywood has the answer. See ‘Kingsman’ instead! See: The movie ‘Kingsman’: ‘The most subversive anti-AGW movie’ – ‘This movie presents in Technicolor the awful nature of alarmists; they are elitist, narcissistic and misanthropic. And riddled in hypocrisy’]
NYT: Morano exemplifies ‘slickness, grandiosity & charm’ – New York Times: ‘Morano is a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism’ – NYT film review of warmist documentary ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘Public relations, in contrast, is built on slickness, grandiosity and charm. These traits are exemplified by Marc Morano, a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism and currently the executive director of the website Climate Depot. One of the film’s conceits is that the actions of Mr. Morano and his colleagues can be con games and magic tricks.’
Newspaper calls Marc Morano ‘terrifyingly impressive’ and ‘sadistic’ – Daily Californian’s film review of ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘Marc Morano is one of the terrifyingly, impressive and yet sadistic experts with this skill set. His statements add shock and give viewers a hard-hitting wakeup call’
Mag. reviews ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Calls Morano ‘a grinning-skull nihilist LulzSec member’ – Calls Climate Depot ‘leading site for climate change skeptics’ – Excerpt: Morano is ‘a grinning-skull nihilist LulzSec member, hacking reality for the LOLs—a mirror-world Yes Man who has decided there’s more to be gained in being an actual yes man.’ – ‘Morano, who ascended from accosting celebrities outside the men’s room for Rush Limbaugh’s TV show in the mid-1990s to debating Bill Nye on global warming on CNN in 2012, seems to relish revealing the secrets to his greatest illusions.
San Francisco Chronicle Calls Climate Depot’s Morano ‘shifty’, ‘slick’, & ‘scary’ – San Francisco Chronicle on ‘Merchants of Doubt’ film: ‘Much more powerful are the moments like the interview with climate change ‘expert’ Marc Morano, who luxuriates in his shifty tactics and misdirection plays. To him, it’s all fun and games — he’s both slick and scary.’
Film Review: Morano is ‘the documentary’s most engaging character’ – One of ‘sleazy spin doctors who will stop at nothing to obscure the truth’ – ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – The documentary’s most engaging character, after all, is self-described creator of chaos Marc Morano, who runs the climate denial site Climate Depot and who frequently appears as an “expert” on network news. (“I am not a scientist, although I do play one on TV,” he explains.)
LA Weekly review: Warmist film features ‘a magnificent antihero in Marc Morano, a cheery, chatty prevaricator’ – LA Weekly review of ‘Merchants of Doubt’: [Producer Robby] Kenner finds a magnificent antihero in Marc Morano, a cheery, chatty prevaricator who has made a mint by muddying water. His job is to promote skepticism of a truth that even Skeptic magazine believes in, and since Morano’s cocksure, and good at yelling on TV, he steamrolls over climate scientists on cable despite his lack of expertise. In interviews, he’s disarmingly guileless…The film and Morano agree on one thing: All that the deniers of climate change have to do to succeed is reduce the country’s certainty. They’ve been wildly successful.’
NY Post film review features Morano as a ‘shifty pundit’– ‘Merchants of Doubt’ doc pulls curtain back on shifty pundits’ – ‘One oft-quoted “climate change skeptic,” Marc Morano, admits in the film, ‘I’m not a scientist, but I do play one on TV occasionally…hell, more than occasionally.’
Warmist producer of Oreskes film: ‘Morano was very funny, very charming, and I think does great damage, but he was honest’ – San Fran Chronicle: Marc Morano, whose job it is to rebut climate change, is not only candid but also humorous. Kenner credits him with helping to set the tone of the film. “Morano was really frank,” he says. “That was a shocking interview. Any time I asked him a hard question, he was far from being insulted. Nothing could scare him. He was very funny, very charming, and I think does great damage, but he was honest.”
Review: Warmist film features ‘a semi-affectionate portrait of professional attack dog Marc Morano’ – Review of ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘The totally amoral Morano, who more or less admits that he’s only in it for the thrill of the game. There’s a reason folks like Singer and Morano are able to affect public policy with specious data, and it’s because they’re good at playing characters and cracking self-deprecating jokes and generally being interesting on camera, and real climate scientists aren’t.’
Warmist thinks Morano is both ‘a talking bobble head for cable news’ and a ‘little man behind the curtain’?! – Morano is one of the ‘shills for the fossil fuel-industry’ – ‘The documentary’s interview with Morano reveals that he learned many of his tricks from door-to-door sales, including the need to keep it simple so that people can fill in the blanks with their pre-existing biases. Morano’s biggest piece of advice is that the best way to attack science is to attack individuals.’
Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry rips the ‘bankruptcy of the ‘Merchants of Doubt’ meme – ‘Morano is actually quite broadly knowledgeable about climate science and the associated politics’ – Curry on ‘Merchants of Doubt’: ‘Censorship and propaganda; lets call a spade a spade.’ – Curry: ‘I’ve met Marc Morano a number of times. He is actually quite broadly knowledgeable about climate science and the associated politics. He is the one ‘doubter’ in this whole piece that actually has some influence in the current climate debate.’ – ‘And coming sometime next fall (I think; no release date set) is Marc Morano’s film Climate Hustle; check out the trailer. Seems to more entertaining anyways than ‘Merchants of Doubt.’
Godfather Morano plays villain in movie – ‘No movie is complete without a good villain, and Morano is good, because he is fearless and committed. I was impressed last week with the Mel Gibson villain role in The Expendables. Gibson has that spark of impetuosity, fearlessness and confidence that Morano displays–you just know when presented with a choice–Morano will ACT WITH VIGOR, as Yogi said–when you come to a fork in the road, take it. Morano will take BOTH CHOICES AND THEN DOUBLE BACK AND DO IT AGAIN.’
‘The Marx Brothers’: Director Robby Kenner of ‘Merchants of Doubt’ is’ little brother of 1960s radical leftist Martin Kenner’ – Naomi Oreskes warned many skeptics ‘see environmentalists as creeping communists. They see them as reds under the bed. They call them watermelons — you know, green on the outside, red on the inside. And they worry that environmental regulation will be the slippery slope to socialism.’
Skeptic responds to ‘Merchants of Doubt’ producer’s Call to ban skeptics from TV – ‘Surely the best way to defeat a bad scientific argument is to engage with it and show how it is in error. Denying people free speech in the media only fuels the flames.’
Early returns: Warmist film ‘Merchants of Doubt’ struggling at box office – Heartland friend Marc Morano won the “Best Reading of Emails While Traveling in a Car in a Crummy Documentary” Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
WashPost Film Critic Applauds Film Charging Climate ‘Deniers’ Just Like Tobacco Lobbyists
Morano responds: ‘The warmists have it exactly backwards. It is the global warming proponents who are guilty of the tobacco tactics.’ See: Flashback: Warmists’ mimic tobacco industry tactics: ‘Like tobacco industry, Warmists’ manufactured uncertainty & fear by stridently proclaiming certainty & consensus based on dubious & uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate’
Naomi Oreskes, THE Merchant of Doubt herself, uses tactics of the tobacco lobby – ‘Oreskes wrote an entire book designed to denigrate scientists based on tenuous links on unrelated topics with 20 year old documents. She is The Merchant of Doubt — it’s what she sells — “doubts” about the motivation of skeptical scientists. Her fantasies about skeptics using tobacco tactics is pure psychological projection…In a science debate about the climate, the only things that matter are evidence and reasoning about the climate. Those who can’t point out flaws in the science debate launch personal attacks from the gutter instead.’
Open Letter: Warmist Oreskes ‘Merchants of Doubt’ may face ‘potential major legal entanglement?’
Merchants of ‘smear’ movie slanders eminent Physicist Dr. Fred Singer – Singer Fires Back! – Dr. Singer: ‘I would prefer to avoid having to go to court; but if we do, we are confident that we will prevail.’ – ‘Oreskes book “Merchants of Doubt” contains a number of serious scientific errors; also, it is not in accordance with the kind of scholarship expected from an academic historian. Instead of primary sources, she relies on secondary and even tertiary sources who have obvious, demonstrated agenda.’
Marshall Institute Rebuts Oreskes Silly New Book: ‘A Critique of Merchants of Doubt’
Warmist Naomi Oreskes warns of the mass extinction of household pets
Related Link:
According to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement Florida was one of the top destinations in 2014. The largest numbers of refugees came from Cuba (2,177), Iraq (425), Burma (376), Democratic Republic of the Congo (155), Eritrea (36) and Iran (30).
Ann Cochran from Refugee Resettlement Watch notes, “[A]lthough we [the United States] resettled 69,986 refugees in FY 2014, that is not the complete story. The Office of Refugee Resettlement was responsible for over 30,000 asylees and another 58,000 ‘unaccompanied alien children’ being treated as refugees as well (and, cared for with your tax dollars!).”
Top resettlement states for FY 2014 are as follows:
Also three other states topped 2,000: Washington (2,483), North Carolina (2,443) and Minnesota (2,232). Readers may visit the Office of Refugee Resettlement to see from where in the world refugees to their state came from in 2014.
What is a fiscal year? For the purposes of refugee resettlement, a fiscal year runs from October 1 of the previous year to September 30th of the present year. So, that means we have now completed 5 months of fiscal year 2015.
RELATED ARTICLE: Corporate Greed Behind Push for H-1B Visas as Multinational Corps Fire Americans, Hire Immigrants
Sunday, March 15th, the Voice of Israel (VOI) Global Radio System aired a “National Security” program with Executive Producer and host Dan Diker and guests Dr. Harold Rhode former Pentagon Islamic Affairs expert, Distinguished Gatestone Institute Senior Fellow and Bassem Eid Arab correspondent for VOI. Eid is founder of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. The thought provoking title was “Whom Do Radical Islamists Want as Israel’s Next Prime Minister?”
This is a must listen program for all those concerned about Israel’s future in the run up to Tuesday’s March 17th Israeli Knesset elections. Those elections have more than 20 parties competing for 120 seats. It will pit the current ruling coalition Likud government led by PM Benjamin Netanyahu against the Zionist Union headed by MK Yitzhak Herzog and former Justice Minister of Hatnuah, Tzipi Livni. There is also a new emerging factor. A coalition negotiated following the Knesset elections. It could include a Joint Arab List that might secure upwards of 13 to 15 seats. The Joint Arab List electoral results might possibly bolster the Zionist Union led opposition, including the leftist Meretz party, seeking to be given the nod to form a ruling coalition if selected by Israel President Reuven Rivlin. The VOI will have extensive live and extended coverage of these important Israeli Knesset elections on March 17th.
You may register and listen live to the VOI here.
Overarching this Knesset elections were disclosures this weekend of the U.S. Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee addressing complaints by PM Netanyahu of “foreign country involvement.” This is a reference to reports that the U.S. Administration has funded NGOs engaged in possible anti-Netanyahu “anyone but Bibi” vote campaigns among the country’s Arab and urban Jewish voters. The effort involves former Obama Presidential campaign field operations staff headed by Jeremy Bird of 270 Strategies. Support has come from major Obama Jewish Democratic contributors and possibly State Department funding of NGOs. Whether the Administration would prefer a new Israeli government whose policies might materially affect the national security and sovereignty of Jewish nation is at question?
This Ides of March VOI “National Security” program, is a fascinating and elucidating commentary about the dynamics of the contending forces in the regional Muslim communities, both Shia and Sunni, and views of the US Administration as an unreliable ally. That is reflected in the views of Saudi -backed Al Arabiya that gave high marks to PM Netanyahu for standing up to the threat posed by the Islamic State, Iran and proxies Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. As pointed out by Dr. Rhode, Al Arabiya, strongly endorsed Netanyahu’s address before the Joint Meeting of Congress on March 3rd seeking to obtain a better deal to deter Iran from achieving nuclear hegemony in the region. There is also discussion of Egypt’s President Al-Sisi’s emerging role of importance trying to fashion a Sunni regional coalition of forces, the equivalent of a NATO – type organization to confront IS. Al-Sisi’s New Year’s speech in Cairo, before Al Azhar and the Awqfar Ministry, espoused reform of underlying Qur’anic doctrine that has returned to the takfir purist form of Islam emblematic of the apocalyptic IS, a self styled Caliphate. A Caliphate that as Dr. Rhode pointed out may have been fostered originally by Shia Mahdist Iran now ironically engaged in combating IS in Iraq.
Rhode and Diker suggested that if a more compliant Israel government was elected on Tuesday that IS and Hamas cells in the West Bank and Hezbollah with Iran on the Golan might foment possible trouble. Iran, as noted by Diker and Rhode, is rapidly spreading its hegemony threatening the region from Yemen on the Red Sea, across the Arabian Peninsula to the shores of the Persian Gulf and through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon on the Mediterranean coast. An Iran whose nuclear quest may have already triggered nuclear proliferation with Saudi Arabia’s disclosure of a recent nuclear development deal with South Korea. We found fascinating the discussion among Diker, Rhode and Bassem Eid, astute VOI Arab correspondent, on the internal Israel Arab Muslim divide over the question of whether they would support the United Arab List.
Bassem disclosed the previously not well known fact that 60 percent of Israeli Arab Muslims are more likely to vote for Jewish parties as loyal citizens rather than for the Arab list. The Party’s leaders are more concerned about Israel as an ‘apartheid state’. They have fashioned seditious relations with Ramallah, Gaza, Damascus and even Tehran and all enemies of Israel. Bassem also noted that the Palestinians view the Likud government and Netanyahu as more reliable with honoring commitments than prior experiences with both Labor and Kadima governments. Rhode explained that regional Arabs view favorably the Israeli democratic traditions that Arab Muslim citizens enjoy. He told of the impact of that on the Egyptian body guards of the late President Anwar Sadat when he came to Jerusalem in 1977 to give a speech before the Knesset. They noted, he said, the sharp contrast between the quiet respect paid to President Sadat when he spoke and the vigorous debates in the Knesset chamber that followed his address. The VOI program offers insights into what might occur Tuesday when Israel votes for the 33rd Knesset. The comments of these American and Israeli experts raise serious questions about the objectives of the US Administration Vis a vis a P5+1 non-binding deal to facilitate Iran’s nuclear hegemony.
Monday, March 16th, this writer and Mike Bates, co-host of Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio 1330 am WEBY will be interviewed by VOI National Security host Dan Diker. That recorded program will address Obama Administration funding via State Department AID and US Jewish moguls involved with OneVoice, V-15 and the Abraham Fund to get out the anti-Bibi vote in Israel. The program will also delve into controversy surrounding Sen. Cotton’s ‘Iran letter’. That controversy has led to revelations suggesting that the Administration is striving to establish a rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran avoiding Congressional review instead seeking a nuclear agreement by the P5+1 at the UN via a Security Council resolution. That could result in lifting more than an estimated $70 billion in UN financial sanctions against Iran held in US banks controlled by the US Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control. Sunday talk show criticism of the Cotton letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran by Secretary of State Kerry and former Secretary Madeleine Albright on CBS’ Face the Nation were contested by Sen. Cotton who drew attention to the precedent of a non verifiable deal made during the Clinton Administration with North Korea that eventuated in the latter’s creating a nuclear stockpile of weapons 12 years later.
Tuesday, VOI host Diker will join Northwest Florida’s talk radio 1330 am WEBY periodic Middle East Round Table co-hosts Bates and Gordon to report first returns from what many consider the fateful 2015 Knesset elections during 4:00 PM CST (5:00 PM EST) segment of “Your Turn”.
Listen Live here.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.
We posted several times this week on the controversy that erupted following publication of letter on Monday, March 9th, 2014, authored by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) and signed by 46 other Republican colleagues that was tweeted to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Seven Republican Senators for various reasons declined to do so. It drew the ire of the President, Secretary of State Kerry and most Democratic Senators. It triggered several White House website “We the People” website petition campaigns. One requested charges of “treason” be filed while the other accused Sen. Cotton and the 46 Republican signatories of violating the 1799 Logan Act suggesting they could be sued for illegally conducting foreign relations when Members of Congress are exempt from the hoary law. Further, both sides of the aisle have done so historically, including then Senators Kerry and Biden, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. That didn’t stop some media like the New York Daily News and others from suggesting Republican signatories of the Cotton Letter were acting in a traitorous manner in an editorial and front page headline, “GOPers Sabotage Bam Nuke Deal”.
The letter has been called “mutinous” by a former Army General cited by the Washington Post. Politico blamed Sen. Cotton for “getting us a hard-line Supreme Ruler.” President Obama found it “somewhat ironic” that the Cotton letter may have aligned them with so-called hardliner opposition in Iran to the nuclear deal. Others contended that the letter was “ misguided” and ”disrespectful” of the Presidential perogatives under our Constitution for negotiations of treaties and executive agreements. In our most recent post on the controversy on Friday, we wrote:
Two independent legal experts confirmed the Constitutional requirements for review of foreign treaties and Congressional executive agreements. Sen. Cotton’s letter also pointed out that any executive order signed by the President may not survive past the end of his term in 22 months and might be modified or terminated for cause by any successor. That raised a question of why the Memorandum of Understanding was non-binding. That provoked responses from both Foreign Minister Zarif and Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei. While the latter railed in rhetoric about how the GOP initiative reflected “the disintegration of the US” and why our representations can’t be trusted and laughing at the State Department citing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. It was left to Foreign Minister Zarif, to reveal that Congress wouldn’t have to approve anything saying: “The executive agreement was not bilateral but rather multi-lateral with the rest of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, subject to a resolution of the Security Council.”
Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu wrote in a Jewish Press article published today, “U.N. Security Council’s lifting of sanctions and endorsement of a deal might make Congress irrelevant.” He then cites the observation of Omri Ceren, Communications Director for the Washington, DC-based The Israel Project:
The letter forced the Administration to explain why they’re icing Congress out of Iran negotiations, and now that explanation has ignited a firestorm. The administration looks like it intentionally chose a weaker, non-binding arrangement, rather than a treaty, to avoid Senate oversight.
Ken Timmerman, whose FrontPageMagazine article, we cited noted the reason for Zarif’s and presumably the Administration position:
The Obama administration has told Congress that it won’t submit the nuclear agreement with Iran for Congressional approval, but now Zarif is saying that it will be submitted to the United Nations, to form the basis of a United Nations Security Council resolution, presumably aimed at lifting UN sanctions on Iran.
That prompted Sen. Coker (R-TN) and Foreign Relations Senate Committee chair co-sponsor of The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 to write President Obama Thursday:
There are now reports that your administration is contemplating taking an agreement, or aspects of it, to the United Nations Security Council for a vote.
Enabling the United Nations to consider an agreement or portions of it, while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would enable Congress to do the same, is a direct affront to the American people and seeks to undermine Congress’s appropriate role.
Sen. Cotton was interviewed on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America program on Wednesday, March 11th, 2014 in the midst of the continuing controversy. He presented the salient background and rationale for the letter. Among points regarding his letter he made during the interview were:
He indicated that the letter took shape following Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to a Joint Meeting of Congress that, in his opinion, raised questions about what sort of deal the Administration was entering into among both his Republican and many Democratic colleagues, as it did not preclude Iran from achieving a nuclear capability.
His letter was directed at informing Iran’s leaders of the Constitutional authorities for Senate review of foreign treaties and executive agreements and that they may be terminated by end of President Obama’s term or modified by succeeding Presidents or Congress under existing related sanctions legislation. He thought that the response from Iran’s foreign minister reflected his lack of understanding of Congressional review and ratification requirements as regarding any Memorandum of Understanding on Iran’s nuclear program that the US P5+1 might enter into.
He illustrated the ability of President to rescind executive agreements of predecessors with reference to the 2004 letter of former President Bush to the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reaffirming Israel’s rights under UN Resolution 242 to “secure and defensible” borders and that Jerusalem was Israel’s undivided capital. President Obama, according to Sen. Cotton, rescinded that executive agreement by suggesting that Israel might divide Jerusalem along the lines of the pre-1967 1949 Armistice Line.
The President’s objective, endeavoring to conclude so-called verifiable agreements on Iran’s nuclear agreements in their current form, would be a bad deal as reflecting in Israeli Prime Minister’s address comments before a Joint Meeting of Congress on March 3rd as it could allow Iran to continue developing a nuclear capability, not preclude it.
He suggested that President Obama’s motivation for pushing for the Iran nuclear deal was to achieve a strategic rapprochement with Iran. This despite the Islamic Republic cited by our State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. Among specific examples cite by Cotton during the interview were the 1979 US Embassy hostage taking and terrorist attacks by proxies over several decades that resulted in deaths and injuries to hundreds of American diplomats and service personnel in Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
On the Matter of the Administration’s new Authorization for the Use of Military Power submitted to the Senate, he called it seriously restrictive. He pointed to the collapse of Iraq and rise of the Islamic State following the Administration’s failure to conclude a status of forces agreement with Iraq on the termination of the Iraq War in 2011.
When asked about Iran’s involvement in the current battle for Tikrit with Iraq national security forces and Iranian controlled Shia Militia, Cotton noted the role of the Quds Force, a combination of Special Forces and its CIA and its ubiquitous commander Qassem Suleymani. He accused Suleymani’s Quds Force of involvement in American casualties in both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. It also reflected Iran’s rapidly expanding sphere of influence over four Arab countries in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and more recently, Yemen.
Sen. Cotton’s Bennett program interview came just before revelations about the implications of Foreign Minister Zarif’s remarks suggesting the non-binding Memo of Understanding reflected resort to UN approval of any appraisal arising from the multilateral negotiations with the P5+1. You may listen to the Bennett interview with Sen. Cotton, here.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is courtesy of CNN.
Yesterday, we wrote how 47 Republican Senators, led by Arkansas U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, did us a real favor when they sent an open letter to the “Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. By published the open letter to Iran’s leaders, responses from Tehran revealed that the Congress may be by-passed and its approval might not be required to ratify a nuclear deal with Iran. Secretary of State Kerry indicated during his Senate Armed Services Hearing Wednesday that the Memorandum of Understanding was “non-binding” and thus no approval was required. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki affirmed that position. The White House “We the People” website petition campaign created by “C.H.” of Bogota, New Jersey accused the 47 signatories of ‘traitorous’ actions violating the 1799 Logan Act which bars private persons, but not members of Congress, from conducting foreign relations was simply a smokescreen. Ditto for the New York Daily News front page and editorial declaration published Tuesday.
Two independent legal experts confirmed the Constitutional requirements for review of foreign treaties and Congressional executive agreements. Sen. Cotton’s letter also pointed out that any executive order signed by the President may not survive past the end of his term in 22 months and might be modified or terminated for cause by any successor. That raised a question of why the Memorandum of Understanding was non-binding. That provoked responses from both Foreign Minister Zarif and Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei. While the latter railed in rhetoric about how the GOP initiative reflected “the disintegration of the U.S.” and why our representations can’t be trusted and laughing at the State Department citing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. It was left to Foreign Minister Zarif, to reveal that Congress wouldn’t have to approve anything saying: “The executive agreement was not bilateral but rather multi-lateral with the rest of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, subject to a resolution of the Security Council.”
Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu wrote in a Jewish Press article published today, “U.N. Security Council’s lifting of sanctions and endorsement of a deal might make Congress irrelevant.” He then cites the observation of Omri Ceren, Communications Director for the Washington, DC-based The Israel Project:
The letter forced the Administration to explain why they’re icing Congress out of Iran negotiations, and now that explanation has ignited a firestorm. The administration looks like it intentionally chose a weaker, non-binding arrangement, rather than a treaty, to avoid Senate oversight
After we published our clarification of Sen. Cotton’s letter, our colleague Ken Timmerman wrote and thanked us for our piece. He said more would be revealed in his FrontPage Magazine, article published today, “Iran Deal Secrets Revealed – by Iran.”
Here are some excerpts from the Timmerman article.
On why Zarif said Congressional approval wasn’t required:
That if the current negotiation with P5+1 result[s] in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.
Timmerman’s observation:
The Obama administration has told Congress that it won’t submit the nuclear agreement with Iran for Congressional approval, but now Zarif is saying that it will be submitted to the United Nations, to form the basis of a United Nations Security Council resolution, presumably aimed at lifting UN sanctions on Iran.
That prompted Sen. Coker (R-TN) and Foreign Relations Senate Committee chair co-sponsor of The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 to write President Obama Thursday:
There are now reports that your administration is contemplating taking an agreement, or aspects of it, to the United Nations Security Council for a vote.
Enabling the United Nations to consider an agreement or portions of it, while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would enable Congress to do the same, is a direct affront to the American people and seeks to undermine Congress’s appropriate role.
Timmerman then recounts the repeated Iranian violations of the interim Joint Plan of Action adopted in November 2013 and how the Administration has caved to Iran’s demands:
When the negotiations began, the U.S. was insisting that Iran comply with five United Nations Security Council resolutions and suspend all uranium enrichment. Now the discussion is on how many centrifuges Iran can spin, and more importantly, how many new generation (and more efficient) centrifuges Iran can install.
On issue after issue, it’s the United States – not Iran – that has given way. When Iran got caught violating the terms of the November 2013 agreement within the first two months, by enriching fresh batches of uranium to 20%, the United States pretended not to notice.
When the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed that Iran had produced fresh batches of 20% uranium on Jan. 20, 2014, no one called it a violation, highlighting instead Iranian steps to convert a portion of the 20% uranium into fuel rods for a research reactor.
Anyone who was been observing Iran’s nuclear cheat and retreat over the past twenty years recognizes the pattern: Iran is constantly pushing the limits, and when they get called out, they take a step backwards until they think we are no longer watching, when they do it again.
And we never punish them. Not ever.
Timmerman asked a rhetorical question and gave the obvious answer:
Can Obama legally circumvent Congress and go directly to the United Nations?
Undoubtedly, just as he could ignore multiple U.S. laws – and his own statements – that prevented him for granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens by Executive Order.
But if the Iranians really believe they can find sanctuary from Congress in Turtle Bay, former White House speech writer Marc Thiessen suggests they should think again.
“The US constitution trumps international law. The U.S. constitutional trumps the United Nations,” he told FoxNews anchor Megyn Kelly on Thursday. “The Supreme Court has actually ruled on this.”
It should be crystal clear to anyone observing the U.S.-Iran charade what Tehran wants from these talks: absolute victory over the United States.
Iran’s “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator himself, said it the day the November 2013 agreement was announced: “In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iran’s national will,” he tweeted victoriously.
So why is Iran engaging in this subterfuge? It is all about achieving victory, meaning continuing the inevitable development of nuclear weapons, and having their financial sanctions lifted:
This is the deal-maker for the Iranian regime, the one thing they want so bad they actually will make concessions to achieve it.
But wait: even though the Iranians claim the sanctions are unjust, and that all the sanctions imposed over the past two decades must be removed instantaneously for a deal to be signed, that does not mean they will walk away if some sanctions stay in place.
“What they really care about are the financial sanctions,” an Iranian businessman familiar with the way the Tehran regime moves money told me. “As long as they can use and move dollars, the rest they don’t care about.”
Iran has lived so long with sanctions on dual use technology and weapons procurement that they have learned how to get around them. “They can get anything they want,” the businessman told me. “It may cost them 5 percent or 10 percent more, but they consider that the cost of doing business.”
So be prepared for a last minute, Hail Mary deal that will lift financial sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iranian promises not to build the bomb.
If such a deal will prevent or even delay a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East is anyone’s guess.
Remember, Sen. Cotton’s observation in a Tweet, after hearing Secretary Kerry’s testimony on Capitol Hill, Wednesday:
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, second from right. Source: CNN September 2014.
Despite sustaining significant damage to its infrastructure and capacity for violence during the previous conflict, Hamas in Gaza is once again resurgent – replenishing its weapons stockpiles and resuming construction of its offensive terror tunnel system.
Without counter-measures, it appears highly likely that Hamas will soon have the means to fight a fourth war, warns The Henry Jackson Society in a new policy paper, Hamas Today: An Assessment of Alliances and Capabilities, launched this week in Parliament.
Examining the state of Hamas since the Gaza conflict last year, the paper finds that the group remains a corrosive and destabilising factor in the region. Links to terrorism in the Sinai peninsula and the Muslim Brotherhood have put Hamas at odds with the Sisi regime in Egypt, which has now imposed a tight blockade of Gaza. At the same time Hamas continues to enjoy sponsorship from powerful allies, courting Turkey and renewing ties with Iran while also continuing to receive the backing of Qatar.
Hamas remains a major obstacle to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian equation, and as the report outlines, with no real distinction between Hamas’ political and military wings, further outreach to Hamas is unlikely to yield progress. It is now essential that the international community prioritises preventing the flow of funds and arms to Hamas by coordinating with ongoing Egyptian and Israeli efforts to prevent further escalations.
Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at The Centre for The New Middle East at The Henry Jackson Society, commented:
“Hamas remains completely committed to an extremist and uncompromising ideology that prevents it from playing any kind of helpful part in achieving a sustainable peace. For the sake of stability in the region and the welfare of the population of Gaza, eliminating Hamas must be the long term goal. In the meantime it is important that all parties work to prevent further militarisation in Gaza and that the international community avoids any move that would embolden Hamas. Concessions to groups such as Hamas inevitably undermine Palestinian moderates and incentivise recourse to violence on the part of extremists.”
Hamas Today: An Assessment of Alliances and Capabilities is available to download here.
Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.
Hamas Today: An Assessment of Alliances and Capabilities is the first publication authored by our latest edition to the team, Resident Associate Fellow Tom Wilson. We’re delighted to welcome Tom to the team.
Working within our Centre for the New Middle East (CNME), Tom will assist us in addressing the continually changing politics of the Middle East with a focus on Israel, Iran and Palestinian extremist groups.
His writing has been widely published in The Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post and Commentary Magazine, where he previously worked as a Tikvah Fellow. As well as continuing to examine Hamas’ strategy post-Gaza, including the frosty relations with Egypt’s Sisi regime, he will be scrutinising the nuclear negotiations with Iran as the deadline for a settlement nears. Our work at CNME has never been more relevant and we are excited that Tom is joining us at such a pivotal time.
“You shall find the strongest people in enmity towards the believers to the Jews and the polytheists.” That’s Qur’an 5:82. “Fight them until there is no fitna [‘strife’], and religion belongs to Allah alone.” That’s Qur’an 8:39. “Fitna is worse than killing.” That’s Qur’an 2:191 and 2:217.
Will some moderate Muslim leader please explain how Ismail Al-Wahwah is misunderstanding and misinterpreting the Qur’an?
Meanwhile, “Al-Wahwah” would be the perfect name for a Muslim leader whining about “Islamophobia.” I hope that will be the subject of this learned imam’s next Friday sermon.
“Australian Islamist Leader Ismail Al-Wahwah Incites to Wage Jihad against Jews: ‘They Are the Most Evil Creatures of Allah,’” MEMRI, March 3, 2015:
In a Friday sermon, Ismail Al-Wahwah, spokesman for the Australian chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, said: “The Jews are the most evil creatures of Allah. Moral corruption is linked to the Jews.” He further said: “There is only one solution for that cancerous tumor: It must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from.”
Following are excerpts from the video, which was posted on the Internet on March 3 by the Hizb ut-Tahrir channel.
Ismail Wahwah: Allah said [in the Quran]: “Fight them until there is no fitna [‘strife’], and religion belongs to Allah alone.” He said: “Fitna is worse than killing.” Refraining from fighting and from waging Jihad against the Jews constitutes fitna. This fitna is worse than killing, because it means that the Israelites will rule the Muslims until Judgment Day.
Recognizing the Jews and giving them even a single inch of Palestine constitutes the epitome of evil, because this will strengthen that cancerous entity. They are the most evil creatures of Allah: “You shall find the strongest people in enmity towards the believers to the Jews and the polytheists.” Refraining from fighting them constitutes widespread evil. It will enable them to kill Muslims and take over their countries, in order to spread corruption upon the land, and to capture and kill women and men. All forms of corruption are linked to the Israelites and their arrogance.
[…]
The wombs of this nation’s women have not ceased to give birth to heroes. This nation is abundant in women giving birth to heroes and mujahideen. It has always been so and will continue to be so until Judgment Day.
[…]
Past, present, and future – since their inception, the Israelites have gone hand in hand with evil and disobedience. “They did not prevent one another from any wrongdoing.” A Jew does not prevent another from wrongdoing. If [a Jew] criticizes another in the media, it is only to pull the wool over one’s eyes. The Jews are in alliance and in concert with one another.
Some superficial Muslims tell you about some Jew who demonstrated against the corruption. As long he is in Palestine, that Jew is an aggressor like any criminal. His very presence in Palestine constitutes an aggression, because he is an occupier, no matter who he is.
We must not be deceived by this. The Jews are the most evil creatures of Allah. Moral corruption is linked to the Jews. Prostitution in the world began with the Israelites. Usury and gambling began with the Israelites. Killing who began with the Israelites. They slayed the prophets without just cause. Prophets must not be killed, yet the Israelites killed them.
[…]
If the Jews were given the whole world, they would want the heavens. That is the nature of the Jews.
[…]
It is a delusion to think that there can be peace and coexistence with the Israelites, with the Jews. It is a delusion to think that we can share one state or two states, and that the Jews can be our neighbors, as suggested by some self-proclaimed, yet deluded, “scholars.” One such [“scholar”] claims that fighting neighbors is forbidden. He is one of them. Therefore, coexistence with Israel and the Jews is a delusion. There is only one solution for that cancerous tumor: It must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from.
[…]
They have corrupted the world with their corrupt media. The Israelites have corrupted the world with so-called art, cinema, and corrupt films, and with sex trade, drug trade, and moral depravity. They have corrupted the world in every respect. These are the Israelites.
[…]
Whatever the outcome is of today’s battle, it is not the final battle. There is a sea of blood between the Jews and us. They will pay with blood for blood, with tears for tears, and with destruction for destruction. They are deluding themselves if they think that this nation will ever surrender to a gang of foreigners.
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