A Made-In-America Generalissimo For Egypt

Foreign Policy, History, Islam, Middle East, Military

There’s a surprise. President Mohamed Morsi’s replacement is Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was trained in a “prestigious and historic college in Pennsylvania”: “the U.S. Army War College, in 2006.”

The Daily Beast (whose website’s front-page is festooned with enormous icons and very little text) has an in-depth (and thankfully wordy) expose on Egypt’s new strongman, the “’American trained’ general.”

From “The Quiet General: What Does Egypt’s Ruler Want?”

… After Morsi’s election last summer, the new president moved quickly to change the dinosaurs of the Army. Outsiders marveled at the seeming lack of resistance from the high command, without realizing that this was a generational change—a revolution within the military itself, led by al-Sisi. Morsi appointed al-Sisi the new defense minister, seemingly believing that neither he nor the other generals would turn on him as long as he respected their economic privileges.

Whatever the scope of his original goals, al-Sisi reportedly started stealthily to maneuver himself into a much more ambitious position late last year. As Morsi started claiming more dictatorial powers, excluding rivals from his team, and declaring himself immune to rulings by the courts, bloody riots broke out. The country, once more, seemed to be spiraling toward chaos.

Even as security forces were called on to defend the increasingly unpopular regime, al-Sisi began to behave in public as a player independent of the Morsi government. The general called a meeting for talks among opposition groups, and military intelligence officers began to communicate secretly through intermediaries with those who wanted to force Morsi out of office, according to anti-Morsi sources.

In May, old-guard elites, including intellectuals and journalists, met with al-Sisi at a military event and encouraged him to act. “Don’t rush,” he said, in a way that suggested, according to one of those present, “all in good time.” …

MORE.

Miss Mubarak Yet?

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Islam, Middle East

Sadly, and as this writer wrote on October 18, 2011, when Mohamed Husni Mubarak was ousted, the Egyptian Christian Coptic community lost a protector.

Yes, how is the Lotus Revolution working out? That was how the West had dubbed the mess in Egypt. With few exceptions, the American media slobbered mightily over the revolution in Egypt.

So, you had the Beltway libertarians joining Anderson Cooper (CNN), Neil Cavuto (Fox News), and Christiane Amanpour (ABC) in spirit at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to celebrate Egypt’s democratic spring; you had America’s female journos rushing to the mainly macho scene to show solidarity with the generic freedom fighters, who, it turned out, doubled up as common-or-garden gropers and rapists.

At the time, this writer wrote about the impossibility of a happy ending “in a country that has become progressively more Islamic since the 1950s.” I added that, “Mubarak’s dictatorial powers were directed, unjustly indubitably, against the Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim brotherhood.” Unjustly, but probably quite usefully.

“This is about freedom,” said the immensely silly Lara Logan before the freedom fighters piled up on top of her.

Indeed.

In touting the sea-change underway in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world, our moron media interviewed 0.1% of the country’s population, the intelligentsia, to extrapolate to the majority. And there was also the a central stupidity, so prevalent in the US, whereby all human beings are said to be the same under the skin, with an equal “civilizing potential.”

Glenn Beck Awakens To The Color Of Hate Crime (But Fails To Credit Those Who Went Before)

Crime, Ethics, Glenn Beck, Morality, Race, Racism

“Oprah Winfrey, you disgust me.” Those were powerful and dramatic words—Glenn Beck’s—but they were probably the only original comments he came up with today on his radio show, during which the broadcaster finally deigned to chronicle one of the most heinous black-on-white hate crimes to have been ignored by mainstream, second-hander media and The Man himself for years.

When Beck used the words “the boyfriend was actually the lucky one,” to segue into a description of the butchering by 5 blacks of twenty-one-year-old Channon Christian, I had an idea where the material might have come from.

Those were words I lifted, last week, from my 2011 book (“Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa”), for the WND column. Here’s the excerpt from “Who’s Killing Whom? Speak Up, Bill O’Reilly!”:

“Five blacks—four men and a woman—anally raped Hugh, then shot him to death, wrapped his body in bedding, soaked it in gasoline and set it alight. He was the lucky one. Channon, his fair and fragile-looking friend, was repeatedly gang raped by the four men—vaginally, anally and orally. Before she died, her murderers poured a household cleaner down her throat, in an effort to cleanse away DNA. She was left to die, either from the bleeding caused ‘by the tearing,’ or from asphyxiation. Knoxville officials would not say. She was then stuffed in a garbage can like trash.”

White trash.

For the information that he and his much-touted researchers had missed, Beck credited a nameless listener, who, if he exists, is probably an avid reader of what Peter Brimelow dubbed the Guerrilla Press.

Yes, the superb reporters at VDARE have been doing the work Beck and the Republican Lincoln idolators have hitherto refused to do. As has Michelle Malkin, the departed Larry Auster, Jack Kerwick (a much-needed, new arrival), this writer, WND reporters, and others.

Ego has no place in telling the story of, as I put it, the “racial hatred … seared into the mangled white bodies of these victims and many more like them.”

What is important is that Glenn Beck, a powerful broadcaster, may have finally awoken to the color of hate crime.

Still, I do not trust individuals who fail to cite their sources, and do not credit those on whose shoulders they stand. Neither should you. If you want the unvarnished goods on crime from the correct angle—continue to track the guerrilla press.

And—do I really have to tell you this?!—don’t trust anyone who gets behind a mass murderer.

Your mother should have told you as much. (Only the other day, my liberal father reiterated the thought to me that he did not know how anyone could exculpate, much less lionize, Honest Abe .)

UPDATED: John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius? (Part 1)

Capitalism, Celebrity, Classical Liberalism, Communism, Debt, Economy, History, Inflation, Intellectualism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Media

“John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius?! (Part 1)” is the first part of my conversation with Benn Steil. Dr. Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is “The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order”:

1) ILANA MERCER: Congratulations on a beautifully written book, so carefully researched, with both archival and secondary material. Followers of the Austrian School of economics, as I believe we both are, have a reflexive disdain for John Maynard Keynes. Nevertheless, the portrait you drew of him was powerful and persuasive. For example, it is easy to sympathize with Keynes’ frustration with the American mind—so prosaic and anti-intellectual—during the critical Bretton-Woods negotiations. There is much to admire too about Keynes’ “unrelenting nationalism.” I had never before thought of Keynes as an English patriot, first. You, a Hayekian thinker, managed to humanize J. M. Keynes. How did that happen?

BENN STEIL: Thanks Ilana. I’m a great admirer of Hayek’s writing, as you know, but I’ve never been one to wear the Austrian (or any other) label. More importantly, “The Battle of Bretton Woods” is in large measure a parallel biography of Keynes and Harry Dexter White, and no biographer succeeds in engaging readers of any stripe without empathy towards his subjects. In the case of Keynes, I may not sympathize with his economics in the way that his greatest biographer, Robert Skidelsky, does, but I found it not in the least bit difficult to admire him as a gifted public intellectual and to warm to him as a human being, with all his obvious flaws and foibles. One aspect of Keynes that I tried to bring out is how fundamental his English upbringing and nationalism were to shaping both his economic and political thinking. He was a defective diplomat, no doubt, but he took to the role with ease and enthusiasm.

2) MERCER: My mistake. You were awarded the 2010 Hayek Book Prize, so I presumed you favored Austrian economics. But back to Keynes. As you reveal, he “never bothered with a [doctorate]; he hadn’t even a degree in economics,” and “he formally studied economics for a brief period” only. (page 61) His election to “a life fellowship at Kings College, Cambridge, at twenty-six” seemed to rely on familial membership in Britain’s intellectual peerage. Yet, as you contend, he amalgamated the qualities of “mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher” “with a genius that no economist has ever matched.” (page 62) Guide the perplexed, please.

STEIL: It’s important to understand that in Keynes’s day, …”

Read the rest of the conversation, “John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius?! (Part 1),” on WND. Stay tuned for the conclusion, next week, of the Steil-Mercer conversation about Keynes.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

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UPDATE (8/15): I forewarned Benn Steil, who is the nicest gentleman—and, unlike J. M. Keynes, a jolly good sport—that our readers are hard-core. If only these readers used respectful language, but there is nothing I can do about the conduct of others.

It has to be obvious from my questions to Dr. Steil (part 2 is still to come) that I have the utmost respect for his scholarship and that I enjoyed what was an impressively researched, beautifully written book. I am not one of those tinny ideologues who’d rather miss out on an important intellectual contribution just because it doesn’t comport 100% with my philosophy. I’m too curious for that.

Benn Steil and I began communicating when I penned an irate blog about a negative review of his book in The Times Literary Supplement.