Carson, West Point and the Media

Carson, West Point and the Media

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Ben Carson averred he had been offered a free ride to West Point when looking to go to college.

He was a teenager and exceptionally qualified student, one that the “best of the best” colleges and universities would seek out.

He had also joined JROTC in high school, making it inevitable that someone talked to him about going to West Point. 

He also wanted to be a doctor and ROTC and West Point at that time did NOT allow cadets to graduate and go directly to medical school so Dr. Carson never seriously pursued entry into West Point.

Given his age and low interest (he admitted a number of times over the last decade or so that he never formally applied), it is completely believable that he never mastered the specific application process.

He simply recalled that he was told he was a shoe-in, a lock, it was a done deal, if he applied. Given his background and resume that is absolutely correct. 

The Marine Corps, in which I served as an officer, has no academy but the Officer Selection Officers who recruit Marine officers would have crawled naked over broken glass to get Ben Carson to sign up.

Carson may not have total recall but he accurately presented reality.

So what about the journalists who wrote the story? 

They are professional investigators yet they got the facts wrong. They, like teenaged Carson, also miscommunicated the complex admission process to West Point and committed other errors.

So who is being either dishonest, incompetent or both?

It is not Carson. In looking closely at the retelling of a brief event from his late teenage years, everything Dr. Carson says rings true.

How about the professional investigators? 

They blew this story and were clearly either dishonest, incompetent or both.

What does it mean?

Over the decades, news reporters have gone from purveyors of the facts to advocates. They start with a preconceived answer and then cherry pick, ignore, and twist the facts to fit their narrative even when it is patently false.

That is what happened here.

Semper Fi,

Mike

TIPTOEING (Past the Graveyard of Formerly Free Speech)

THOUGHTS FROM THE AMMO LINE
Scott Johnson, Powerline

Ammo Grrrll goes TIPTOEING (Past the Graveyard of Formerly Free Speech):

Way back in my misguided leftist days in San Francisco, I knew two families with wildly-varying child-raising philosophies. One couple had a lively little boy who ran barefoot in damp, chilly, meeting halls that exhibited the same standards of hygiene as many radicals did personally. He ate hot dogs, chips and candy, some picked up off dirty floors. He was bright and energetic and never sick.

Another couple had a little girl who was a hothouse flower. She was fed organic baby food and kept far far from other ragamuffin children and any adult with even a sniffle. As anyone who knows anything about immunity would guess, she was sick most of the time.
My mother was a clean freak of the first order, but her sister (of blessed memory) bordered on the insane on the subject. She boiled her children’s Monopoly pieces and tried to put the board in the oven to sterilize it. (That didn’t work out.) Her kids (my cousins) couldn’t play in a sandbox. Every letter we ever got from them mentioned one or more of the kids being down with the flu.

When I was a young mother, I tried to chart a kind of middle course. I had learned by that time from observing others’ experiences, that it was a yuge mistake to tiptoe around when the baby was napping, whispering to everyone, “Shhhh…the baby’s asleep.” Consequently, our son learned to sleep through piledrivers on the street outside his bedroom and knock-down/drag-out (or more accurately, drag queen) fights coming from the apartment above us. That flat was occupied by two large, high-strung gay men. I gathered from the shrieking, this was not a monogamous couple, yet at least one person was not on board with that, or as the saying goes, “comfortable” with it. They may have been gay, but they still fought like men. It often sounded like a saloon fight choreographed by John Wayne.

A couple weeks ago, I opined on the horrendous damage to our language and our freedom by the cossetted SJWs and Pajama Boys who are allowed to have speakers disinvited, CEOs fired, and entire subjects closed because they feel “unsafe.” Everyone around them is forced to respond to “microaggressions,” a meaningless synonym for “nothing.”

The damage to our Republic by caving to this utter nonsense is hard to calculate. But what about the damage to the shrinking little violets themselves? I am totally serious. What happens to those around whom people are forced to tiptoe?

I know for a fact that if you always tiptoe around an infant, she will never sleep through a night and will startle at the drop of a pin. She will be anxious and fearful.

Life, my dear friends and readers, is very, very tough. Nobody escapes unscathed. I am not talking here about the extraordinary courage necessary to storm the beaches of Normandy, go house to house in Fallujah, or raise a flag at Iwo Jima. I am talking about ordinary life. If you can’t stand to have a speaker on campus with whom you disagree – for a speech you aren’t even going to attend! – you are going to fold like a cheap card table at the first sign of any real trouble. How are you going to survive a layoff? Where will you find the strength to take chemo? How are you going to deal with the sudden death of a spouse, the incomparable pain of the loss of a child, the very real possibility of some day ending up with a serious disability?

We pamper our children at their peril. It’s tantamount to denying them vaccinations to shield them from all adversity, challenges, and differences of opinion.

Not even to mention the peril to a legal system wherein the standard for a tort has traditionally been something that would be offensive to someone “not unusually sensitive” when EVERYONE is “unusually sensitive” and must be catered to.

Do you feel safe with the real JV team captained by Obama, Kerry and a blind-folded foreign policy? BH

Obama just fell for a classic Russian ruse

By John Bolton

, NY Post

Recent Russian efforts to magnify its Middle East influence have been accompanied by a seeming surge in Kremlin “reasonableness.” In fact, Russian calls for new Syrian elections and sharing intelligence with Western powers are nothing more than exercises in “maskirovka,” Russia’s classic technique for disguising its real objectives.

Gullible Westerners, following a long-established pattern, are falling for the ruse.

And a ruse it is. Russia’s goals haven’t changed, only its propaganda.

For example, by offering to attack ISIS targets if Washington and the Free Syrian Army share intelligence regarding those targets, Moscow is trying to blunt criticism that its strikes so far have targeted the FSA itself. 

Russia needs no help finding ISIS, and knows full well America won’t help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even indirectly. Instead, Putin’s aim is to envelop the United States in a web of cooperation that further legitimizes Russia’s dramatically enhanced Middle East presence.

Russia’s support for new Syrian elections is the brashest ploy of all. Drawing the FSA (let alone ISIS, which will presumably sneer at the idea) into protracted negotiations over election rules can only lessen the opposition’s will. In the highly unlikely event elections were actually held, who doubts that Assad’s henchmen would deliver his votes with even more predictability and efficiency than America’s urban political machines?

Putin’s offers of “cooperation” are aimed at weakening Western resistance to Russia’s rising influence in the region and more broadly. Russia’s increasing confidence is also reflected in its worldwide interest in critical undersea communications cables, implicitly threatening their destruction in time of war.

Europe’s continuing Middle East refugee crisis is agitating governments to stop the nearly endless tide inundating them. Although purportedly from Syria, displaced by four years of grinding civil conflict, many of the refugees come from elsewhere, as far away as Afghanistan or as close as Kosovo. Verifying the refugees’ citizenship has overwhelmed Europe’s capacities — and they’re still coming. Most are young men; if they’re allowed to remain, their families will follow in due course.

Solving the refugee problem is the carrot Russia has soothingly offered through its Syrian intervention. But Moscow has more in mind, namely getting relief from the sanctions imposed because of its adventurism in Ukraine.

Recent (and very convenient) media reports that Russian special-operations forces currently deployed in Ukraine are being sent to Syria does two things. First, it announces that Russia has no immediate intention to increase tensions in Ukraine, providing another argument to reduce or eliminate sanctions. Second, it shows Russian commitment to “resolve” the Syria question.

Putin is also signaling to Arab leaders, especially Saudi Arabia, that Russia is a dependable ally, perhaps not so strong as the United States militarily, but at least more constant. By assembling a Shiite coalition including Assad, Iran, its puppet regime in Baghdad and Hezbollah, the Kremlin is showing that, while America dithers, it can act with firmness and resolve.

Plus, regional chaos has already helped provoke a dramatic spike in violence by Palestinians against Israel. And like Winnie the Pooh drawn to honey, Secretary of State John Kerry has diverted to the Israel-Palestinian dispute rather than repelling Russia’s incursions into America’s Middle East dominance. 

However weak Putin’s economic hand or precarious his domestic political position, he has the momentum and a full range of options. His alliance could easily reach an unholy modus vivendi with ISIS, allowing both Iran and ISIS, despite their widely varying (indeed, conflicting) motives, to pursue their respective objectives against the Arabian Peninsula’s oil-producing monarchies. Or, Putin could offer the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs a respite from ISIS and Iranian threats in pursuit of their common objective of higher global oil prices. 

Putin’s domestic vulnerabilities could, of course, be exploited by adversaries who understood his strategy and had both the determination and the capacity to protect their own vital interests. History, confirmed by several recent utterly childlike comments, tells us that President Obama neither understands what Putin is seeking, nor is inclined to counter it.

Not only in Syria but throughout the Middle East, Putin will remain unchecked by America for the next 15 months. As grim as the situation is now, it will be worse in January 2017.

John Bolton, now at the American Enterprise Institute, was US ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. 

The State Department Clown Car Makes Things Worse in The Middle East

The State Department Clown Car Makes Things Worse in The Middle East
John Hinderaker, Powerline

Palestinians have launched at least 28 attacks on Israeli Jews over the past week, leaving seven dead and more than 70 wounded. These attacks, mostly using knives while a few involved guns or motor vehicles, have been encouraged by Islamic preachers on the West Bank and by Mahmoud Abbas.

This violence, while of great concern to Israelis, pales in comparison with the human catastrophes in Syria and elsewhere in the region. But as always, Israel and its tormentors occupy a disproportionate share of the world’s attention, including–unfortunately–that of the U.S. State Department.

Initially, John Kerry sparked outrage by suggesting that the Palestinian attacks were caused by Jews building homes in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem:

“There’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years,” Kerry said during a question-and-answer session, “and there’s an increase in the violence because there’s this frustration that’s growing.”

That makes perfect sense–the natural reaction to Jews moving into their ancestral homeland is to try to kill them, evidently.

Yesterday, State Department spokesman John Kirby made matters worse during his press briefing by maintaining an exquisite neutrality as between would-be murderers and their victims. The colloquy is too long to reproduce here, but it is helpful to read the whole thing to get a full understanding of the tone. I will reproduce some highlights, and comment on them:

QUESTION: Let’s start with the Middle East and some comments that Secretary Kerry made yesterday and also that the White House just made. … There’s been quite a bit of, I don’t know, uproar maybe is the right word about his comments about settlements contributing to – massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years being responsible for the current upsurge in violence. Recognizing that the settlement issue is one that is of serious concern to the Palestinians, is it the Administration’s view that settlement activity is, in fact, to blame for or is responsible for the current surge in attacks that we’re all seeing? 

MR KIRBY: I think the Secretary was very consistent yesterday and has been over time in not trying to affix blame for the recent violence too particularly, and he was unequivocal yesterday, as you saw, in condemning the terrorist attacks against Israelis. What he has talked about is the challenges that are posed on both sides by this absence of progress towards a two-state solution. So – and he’s also highlighted our concern that current trends on the ground, including this violence, as well as ongoing settlement activity are imperiling the viability of eventually getting to a two-state solution. 

QUESTION: So it is not, then, the Administration’s view that a massive increase in settlement activity in the last years is directly responsible? 

MR KIRBY: I think the Secretary well understands that there’s a lot of nuance and context behind the violence that’s occurring recently. And as I said, he was careful not to affix blame in either direction on this in terms of past practices. What he did talk about – and you might have seen it if you saw him at Harvard last night – is that he understands there’s disenfranchisement, there’s disgruntlement, there is – there’s frustration on both sides that has led to this.

So, when dozens of murderous attacks are launched, it is important not to place blame on either the perpetrators or the victims.

Now and then, the fog does lift and the administration’s position is clear. That was true with regard to an incident in Dimona, where an Israeli stabbed several Arabs in retaliation against the many attacks that had been carried out against Jews:

QUESTION: All right, this will be very brief. I understand that you have decided now how to qualify the stabbing attack on the Palestinians in Dimona?

MR KIRBY: Yes, we’ve had a chance to look at that attack more deeply, and I think you’re going to ask me what – do we consider it an act of terrorism. And we do.

QUESTION: You do consider it an act of terrorism. Okay, so that would suggest then that you believe that this is – that both sides are, in fact, committing these —
MR KIRBY: Well, I would say certainly individuals on both sides of this divide are – have proven capable of and in our view guilty of acts of terror.

There are terrorists on both sides, so neutrality is appropriate.

Kirby also ventured the opinion that the Israelis have been guilty of using excessive force. It wasn’t clear what he had in mind here; shooting terrorists who were in the midst of stabbing Israelis, apparently:

QUESTION: [I]n response to Michael’s question, you said you’d seen reports of what many would consider to be excessive use of force. And I presume that you were talking about from the Israeli side. Is that correct?
MR KIRBY: Yes. 

QUESTION: You said what many would consider. So is the Administration among those who would consider what the Israeli actions have been to be excessive? 

MR KIRBY: I think, again, without qualifying each and every one of them, we’ve certainly seen some reports of security activity that could indicate the potential excessive use of force. And again, we don’t want to see that anywhere. We don’t want to see that here in our own country. So yeah, we’re concerned about that. 

QUESTION: So the – so you have raised this issue with Israelis? You’ve said that — 

MR KIRBY: We – we’re always concerned about credible reports of excessive use of force against civilians [Ed.: I.e., terrorists armed with knives], and we routinely raise our concerns about that. 

QUESTION: Okay. Now, that’s just a little bit different than what you said before. So you believe that these are credible reports of excessive use of force by the Israeli security forces on Palestinian citizens?
MR KIRBY: We’ve seen reports. We’re always concerned about those kinds of reports.

The Arabs have frequently used rumors of changes in the administration of Temple Mount as a pretext for violence, and apparently are doing so again. The Obama administration gave them aid and comfort:

QUESTION: All right. And then the visit to Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif by Israelis, is that – does the Administration consider that to be visits to there – does the Administration consider that to be incitement? 

MR KIRBY: I’m not going to be able to characterize every single act with terminology. What the Secretary has said and stands by is that we want to see the status quo restored, the status quo arrangement there on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount, and for both sides to take actions to de-escalate the tensions. … 

QUESTION: Is it the Administration’s position that the status quo at the Temple Mount has been broken? 

MR KIRBY: Well, certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.

The topic was revisited later, and Kirby reinforced his point:

QUESTION: So I just have two extremely brief ones, so we can move on after that. You said in answer to my question on the status quo whether – at the Temple Mount whether it’s been broken or not, you said that it has not been observed and that is what has led to – I think. I’ll go back and look at the transcript, but I think you said it had not been – it was not – has not been observed and that is what has led to a great deal of the violence. That certainly sounds like you’re affixing some kind of blame to Israel if this is, in fact, what the Administration believes has led to the violence – the visits by – visit by Israelis to —
MR KIRBY: Well, it’s not about believing it, Matt. I mean, you just looked at what’s been happening in that – on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount recently. I mean, just if we’re looking at this in acute – through an acute lens, I mean, the activity there, the status quo not being observed, has led to violence. There’s – that’s indisputable. That’s not a belief; that’s a fact.

It is not a fact, however, and shortly thereafter Kirby took to Twitter to recant:

Emphasis added. The result of the State Department’s oafish diplomacy was to enrage our ally Israel:

Jerusalem reacted furiously Thursday to State Department spokesman John Kirby’s statement that Jerusalem was not maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount and accused it of using disproportionate force to stop the wave of stabbing attacks. 

“The comments by the US State Department spokesman are so crazy, deceitful and baseless, that I expect President [Barack] Obama and US Secretary of State [John] Kerry to distance themselves from them, and to clarify the US position today,” said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.

John Kerry’s State Department is a clown show, and Kerry drives the clown car.

Socialists Can’t Add.

Socialists Can’t Add

Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

People send me these beautiful presentations about wealth inequality (pie charts, tables, bar graphs, broken-line graphs and all in vivid colors) and almost all of it is nonsense. 

Outside of the obvious fact that rich people are much richer than I am (about which I really do not care), the rest is all smoke and mirrors.

Here is reality in three numbers:

The combined wealth of all U.S. billionaires: $2.2 trillion (that is a “T”).

Projected Federal expenditures for 2015: $3.8 trillion

Total value of U.S. wealth: $188 trillion

The richest of the rich don’t own everything – only a small fraction of our national wealth (about 1.2%).

The billionaires’ total wealth would only run the U.S. Government for about seven (7) months. After that, we would be right back in the same mess of unsustainable government overspending.

So how does $2.2 trillion become infinitely huge while a debt of over $18 trillion (a number about eight times as large) become insignificant nothingness?

Because Far Left numbers are not about facts or reason or logic – they are about faith and socialist religious doctrine.

These people BELIEVE it so and nothing else matters.

Good grief.

Socialist math sucks!

Mike

HOW HILLARY WRECKED THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S DIGITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

HOW HILLARY WRECKED THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S DIGITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

Hillary Clinton’s disregard for cyber-security at the State Department, and hence for the national security, is manifest from her use of a private email server. But the wreckage Clinton left behind in State’s main digital information security office arguably demonstrates her disregard even more starkly, and probably posed an even greater threat to national security.

Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller provides the details. He cites scathing audits issued by the State Department’s former acting IG, Harold Geisel, a hand-picked Clintonista. During Hillary’s tenure, Geisel issued eight reports warning about worsening problems and growing security weaknesses within the Bureau of Information Resource Management (IRM). One of Geisel’s reports, issued not long after Clinton left the State Department, was so damning that the IRM became the butt of caustic comments throughout the IT world, according to Pollock.

In 2013, Geisel’s successor, Steve Linick, issued a “management alert” to State Department leadership, warning that IRM’s security deficiencies persisted. “The department has yet to report externally on or correct many of the existing significant deficiencies, thereby leading to continuing undue risk in the management of information,” Linick said.

The IRM was established by Colin Powell after the 9/11 Commission highlighted the failure of key government agencies to exchange anti-terrorist intelligence. Powell and his successor, Condeleeza Rice, built the IRM to ensure secure communications among all U.S. embassies and consulates.

The IRM became the central hub for all of the State Department’s IT communications systems. As Geisel explained in one of his reports, IRM “personnel are responsible for the management and oversight of the department’s information systems, which includes the department’s unclassified and classified networks” and “handles all aspects of information security for the department’s intelligence systems.”

The need to maintain the security of the IRM could not be more obvious. Geisel warned that “the weakened security controls could adversely affect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and information systems” used by U.S. officials around the world. Yet, according to multiple IG reports, Clinton allowed the IRM to degenerate into an office without a mission or strategy. And even after being alerted to the problem, she failed to get it fixed.

The IRM’s deterioration isn’t unrelated to the Clinton email scandal. As Pollock points out, Clinton put Bryan Pagliano, her 2008 presidential campaign IT director, in the IRM in early 2009 as a “strategic advisor” who reported to the department’s deputy chief information officer. Pagliano had no prior national security experience and apparently lacked a national security clearance.

The IRM scandal also brings to mind Benghazi. In that case, Clinton failed to respond to repeated warnings about the deterioration of security at U.S. embassies in the region. In this instance, she failed to respond to repeated warnings about the deterioration of a vital information network.

Clinton likes to talk about being “ready.” But she wasn’t ready to be Secretary of State and she certainly isn’t ready to the President of the United States.

Whither Israel?

Whither Israel?

Col Mike walker, USMC (retired)

All,

 

The concept that a vacuum will not be filled by bad actors, the overriding premise of this Administration's Middle East policy of American withdrawal, has ended in abject failure.

 

I am not speaking to the refugee crisis in Europe, although that is a tragedy of epic proportions.

 

I am not talking of the ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Middle East, even granting it is a crime against humanity if ever there was one.

 

I am not speaking to defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in Iraq; the greatest squandering of blood and treasure in the history of this nation since Vietnam.

 

I am not speaking to the Administration's claim of "success" in Yemen which has become a failed state overrun by terrorists.

 

Nor am I speaking to the nonexistent rise of Libya's "democratic impulses" once claimed by the President.

 

The Islamic Republic is my target.

 

Not only will the new accord with Iran end like the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea: An enemy with nuclear weapon, but we are now down the darkest road since 1939.

 

Unlike North Korea where a repugnant state emerged into mature nuclear theater where every other state was under a nuclear umbrella superior to that of North Korea, in the Middle East we are introducing an aggressive nuclear power into an immature free fire zone.

 

But it is far worse than that.

 

This administration has quit the Middle East for all intents and purposes and ceded control to the most warlike coalition to hold power there in over a millennium.

 

If things remain unchecked then the rise of the Putin-Assad-Khoemeni cabal can only end in one of two scenarios:

 

(1) A likely global thermonuclear conflict to prevent a second holocaust being visited upon the people of Israel.

 

or 

 

(2) The passive acceptance of a second holocaust followed by a belated global war once it becomes clear that Jews were not the only people on the list.

 

May God have mercy on us all.

Mike

Mabus: The Big Mouthed SecNav

Raymond Edwin "Ray" Mabus, Jr. is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who has served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy since 2009 and was appointed by Barry.

Mabus: The Big Mouthed SecNav

Col Mike walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Mabus is acting like a pompous jerk, a remark I have never made in regards to a senior official in the chain of command.

Deciding to agree or disagree, accept or reject the report on women in Marine Corps combat arms is his prerogative as is the final decision. Marines will obey orders either way on this issue.

What is unacceptable are his unprofessional remarks demeaning the integrity of the Marine Corps and serving Marines without a shred of evidence to back up his asinine remarks. 

That is conduct unbecoming and puts an unneeded stain on the honor of the post he holds.

Unless and until he uses that same big mouth to apologize for those remarks then screw him and the horse he rode in on.

Semper Fi,

Mike

CENSUS: ECONOMY IS GOING NOWHERE

CENSUS: ECONOMY IS GOING NOWHERE
John Hinderaker, Powerline

The Census Bureau released its income and poverty numbers for 2014 today. The poverty rate was up slightly and median family income, inflation-adjusted, was down slightly, but both numbers were essentially flat. U.S. News goes out on a limb:

The numbers may explain some of the political furor going on in the country, said Lawrence Mishel, president and CEO of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “Anyone wondering why people in this country are feeling so ornery need look no further than this report,” Mishel said. “Wages have been broadly stagnant for a dozen years and median household income peaked in 1999.”

Yes, Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Democratic presidential field are running against the bad effects of the policies they advocated and, in Sanders’ case, voted for. I found this interesting:

Asian households had the highest median income in the United States at $74,300 in 2014. The median income for non-Hispanic white households was $60,300, for black households $35,400 and Hispanic households $42,500. The median income for white households decreased by 1.7 percent between 2013 and 2014, while there was no statistically significant change for black, Asian, and Hispanic households.

One more reason why the Democrats’ half-hearted efforts to win back the white middle class are doomed.

I think it is bizarre that so little attention has been paid to the fact that Asians’ incomes have considerably outstripped whites’. The Asian-American population is now approaching 20 million, and their household incomes are now 23% higher than whites’, on the average. This is a rather stunning statistic. Why is so little attention paid to this income “gap”? Is it the result of discrimination against whites? If not, what could the cause possibly be?

I think the reason for the media’s silence on these numbers is that there is no good way to fit them into the narrative.

A Contrarian View: Blame the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe on Europe

A Contrarian View: Blame the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe on Europe
Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

For me, the current Syrian refugee problem roiling Europe is a replay of the events following the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, the Europeans could not understand the underlying causes of the Balkan conflicts (anything outside an economic-driven analysis was beyond their ken) and therefore they had no possibility of coming to grips with a viable solution.  

In the end, they adopted a low-risk "Gee I hope things get better" approach.

Things did not get better.

After repeated failures by Europe and Europe in tandem with the UN, the endless slaughter and human tragedies finally drew in the United States under the aegis of NATO and the war ended. I know of what I write as I found myself as the third consecutive generation of my family to don a uniform, pick up a rifle and head over to Europe to fix one of their messes.

Fast forward twenty or so years and we have Syria. Once again, Europe proved itself to be hopelessly befuddled as to how to proceed. In the end they adopted a low-risk "Gee I hope things get better" approach.

Things did not get better and now it is time for Europe to take responsibility for their collective failure.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Another great city. How would you like to live there?

Teaching History in America

Teaching History in America
Email response by Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

Harry,

Thanks for the Wall Street Journal post below.

The teaching of U.S. History over the last century has evolved from "cheerleading" (George Washington never told a lie, etc) to "warts and all" history to (borrowing Jeane Kirkpartick's phrase) "Hate America First" history. 

I have always been beholden to "warts and all" history as seeking truth over advocacy - no matter how imperfectly - always lands one in a superior ethical and moral position.

The problem facing secondary history education in America today is not simply the shameful influence of the dishonest "Hate America First" advocates.

Another major problem is that World History is largely stuck in the "cheerleading" teaching era.

Students (falsely) assume that World History books are objective and truthful (i.e. they are getting a "warts and all" presentation).

In reality, the historical "warts" of other places are buried or often outright eliminated while American historical "warts" are placed at the center of the instruction.

For example, did you know that the country that imported the greatest number of slaves from Africa was Brazil? It was simple geography: short sea trips to an eager market meant greater profits for the slave traders.

As a result, American students cannot but conclude that the United States is terribly lacking and inferior to other nations and cultures.

This teaching wrong does a tremendous disservice to the students as there is not a place on earth that does not possess a rich expanse of historical "warts."

When World History is truthfully presented with its "warts" on display in equal measure, a clearer understanding of U.S. History is inescapable.

That failure combined with the "Hate America First" dishonesty is what makes teaching secondary history in America a less than ideal undertaking.

Mike

---

 The College Board’s about-face on U.S. history is a significant political event.

 

By DANIEL HENNINGER   WSJ Aug. 26, 2015 

In this summer of agitated discontent for American conservatives, we can report a victory for them, assuming that is still permitted.

Last year, the College Board, the nonprofit corporation that controls all the high-school Advanced Placement courses and exams, published new guidelines for the AP U.S. history test. They read like a left-wing dream. Obsession with identity, gender, class, crimes against the American Indian and the sins of capitalism suffused the proposed guidelines for teachers of AP American history.

As of a few weeks ago, that tilt in the guidelines has vanished. The College Board’s rewritten 2015 teaching guidelines are almost a model of political fair-mindedness. This isn’t just an about-face. It is an important political event.

 

The earlier guidelines characterized the discovery of America as mostly the story of Europeans bringing pestilence, destructive plants and cultural obliteration to American Indians. The new guidelines put it this way: “Mutual misunderstandings between Europeans and Native Americans often defined the early years of interaction and trade as each group sought to make sense of the other. Over time, Europeans and Native Americans adopted some useful aspects of each other’s culture.”

 

Opinion Journal Video Wonder Land Columnist Dan Henninger on why the nonprofit revised its Advanced Placement History exam for high-school students. Photo credit: Associated Press. The previous, neo-Marxist guidelines said, “Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history, with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities.” That has been removed. The revised guidelines have plenty about “identity” but nothing worth mounting a Super PAC to battle.

 

Also new: “The effort for American independence was energized by colonial leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, as well as by popular movements that included the political activism of laborers, artisans, and women.” The earlier version never suggested the existence of Franklin—or Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison or anyone resembling a Founding Father. Now they’re back. Even the Federalist Papers were fished out of the memory hole.

 

Most incredible of all, the private enterprise system is, as they say, reimagined as a force for good: “As the price of many goods decreased, workers’ real wages increased, providing new access to a variety of goods and services.” There’s an idea that has fallen out of favor the past six years.

 

The final sentence of my June 11 column on the previous guidelines, “Bye, Bye, American History,” said: “The College Board promises that what it produces next month will be ‘balanced.’ We await the event.”

 

The College Board delivered on its promise. The new guidelines, which convey an understanding of American history to thousands of high-school students, are about as balanced as one could hope for. The framework itself, on the College Board website inside the AP tab, is worth a look.

 

What happened?

 

To Bernie-Sanders progressives, what happened was a sellout. For ThinkProgress.org, “College Board Caves to Conservative Pressure.”

 

What really happened was the resurrection of an American idea the left wants to extinguish—federalism. Some states began to push back. Legislative opposition to the guidelines formed in Georgia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Nebraska, Tennessee, Colorado and Texas.

 

Stanley Kurtz, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has argued that the College Board was concerned that its lucrative nationwide testing franchise would be at risk if states began to replace it with their own courses. I think he’s right.

 

What remains, however, is that the College Board, after somehow thinking it could produce a politically tendentious document that would have established “identity politics” as the official narrative of U.S. history, ended up with a set of guidelines that deftly straddles the political center.

 

This is a significant event. It marks an important turn in the American culture wars that exploded at the Republican convention in 1992 with the religious right, a movement that faded but whose sense of political alienation has remained alive, whether in the original tea-party groups or today with voters adopting the improbable Donald Trump.

 

What these disaffected people have held in common is the sense that their animating beliefs in—if one may say so—God and country were not merely being opposed but were being rolled completely off the table by institutions—“Washington,” the courts, a College Board—over which they had no apparent control.

 

They were not wrong.

 

The original AP U.S. history guidelines were a case study in the left’s irrepressible impulse, here or elsewhere, to always go too far. The left always said it just wanted “to be heard.” They were, but it was never enough. The goal was to make the American center-right simply shut up. Now, with campus trigger-warnings and microagression manias, the left is telling liberals to shut up too. They rule, and you do. Ask the Little Sisters of the Poor.

 

Guess what? In a country of 319 million “diverse” people, that is really a hard political goal to lock down, no matter how many institutions are captured.

 

Is the country polarized? How could it not be? Is there a solution? Take a look at how the AP U.S. history mess was handled. Someone rewrote those guidelines into a reasonable political accommodation. It is not impossible.

 

Write to henninger@wsj.com.