The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
The Army's Green Berets took on a critical role in helping train Ukrainian forces
The U.S. Army's Special Forces, better known as Green Berets, have had a deep impact on Ukraine's fight to defend itself from a Russian invasion, despite not being directly involved in the conflict.
"Ukraine was taken very seriously by Special Forces," retired Green Beret Sgt. Maj. Martin Moore told Fox News Digital.
After
Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, a move that faced minimal
resistance, the Ukrainian military began an effort to modernize its
forces to prepare for possible further Russian incursions into the
country. The U.S. military also quickly stepped in to help, with the
Army's Green Berets taking on a critical role in training Ukrainian
forces.
Ukrainian soldiers take positions outside a military facility
(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
"They
immediately set upon a great effort to protect to Ukraine, to provide
training," Moore said. "There's nobody better at training than Green
Berets. These are people that can teach."
While elite military
units such as the Navy SEAL teams garner widespread attention, the
Army's Green Berets are fanned out across the world helping armies
prepare for wars similar to the one now being fought in Ukraine. This
work is typically done quietly, something Moore said Green Berets
prefer.
"They do something different," Moore said. "They go where nobody else is and find out what is possible."
Moore
said Green Berets are a "force multiplier," improving the combat
capability of the international forces they work with. He stressed that
they are not about "raids and ambushes," but about having an
"unparalleled understanding of the place" where they are operating.
A Green Berets U.S. Army Special Forces Group soldier in action
Green
Berets are required to learn a foreign language as part of their
training and are constantly trained in the political, economic and
cultural complexities of the regions in which they are assigned to
operate. This unique skill set allows them to partner with foreign
forces for training and at times to fight alongside them.
Those
skills have been put to use in Ukraine since 2014, with Green Berets
and members of the Army's National Guard advising and training Ukrainian
forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in western Ukraine. It's the
same facility Russia attacked with rockets on March 13, killing 35. The Americans had already left, vacating the facility and moving troops deployed there to Germany in February.
Part of the job Green Berets did at Yavoriv was to train their Ukrainian counterparts
to set up militia units that could wage guerrilla warfare against an
invading force. The Ukrainian military can now put those lessons to use,
with the government actively encouraging its citizens to join the fight
against Russian forces.
Civilians practice moving in groups at a military training exercise.
(Alexey Furman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But
the work Green Berets are doing in Europe hasn't stopped, with forces
still stationed in Europe helping prepare partner countries for the
possibility of a Russian invasion farther into Europe. Such a move would
be a mistake for Russia, Moore told Fox News Digital, arguing that the
invasion of Ukraine has already gone poorly in part because of U.S.
assistance, and a further move into NATO territory would go even worse.
"Russia has a horrible thing waiting for them if they want to push this thing further," Moore said.
And most Americans don't even know there's a jihad threat from which they need to be saved.
Old Joe Biden’s handlers have essentially erased the Southern
border, and as a result, illegals are streaming in at a rapid clip. Even
the New York Times, a reliable Leftist propaganda organ, admitted
last October that “migrants were encountered 1.7 million times in the
last 12 months, the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since
at least 1960.” A new record could be set in 2022, as the UK’s Daily Mailreported
Thursday that “more than 170,000 migrants are waiting on the
Mexican-side of the U.S.-Mexico border to cross and claim asylum” once
the Biden administration trashes, as it is expected to do, Title 42, a
Trump-era provision that allowed illegal migrants to be expelled during
the COVID-19 hysteria. And as all this is unfolding, al-Qaeda has
published a new online magazine encouraging jihad terrorists to
immigrate to the United States and commit massacres here. It looks as if
yet another Biden-caused disaster is in the offing.
Those 170,000 migrants, according to the Daily Mail,
will be just the beginning: “The U.S. could be just hours away from
another wave of mass migration if the Biden administration lifts Title
42.” Who are these people who will stream in? What is their background?
Come on, man! Nobody knows, and apparently, no one in the Biden
administration cares. They’re coming here, they’ll go on welfare,
they’ll vote Democrat, and that’s all that matters. Criminals?
Terrorists? Maybe — indeed, probably — but who cares?
Terrorists are watching, too. On Wednesday, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),
an al-Qaeda group called Hurras Al-Tawheed (that is, Guardians of
Monotheism) published an issue of the online magazine “Mujahedeen in the
West.” The lead article is an extended defense of the Islamic concept
of hijra (moving to a non-Muslim land in order to expand the
scope and influence of Islam) and a refutation of claims that this was a
duty for Muslims only in the time of Muhammad but not today.
The concept of hijra is based in part on the Qur’an,
which tells Muslims, “Whoever emigrates for the sake of Allah will find
much refuge and abundance in the earth, and whoever forsakes his home, a
refugee for Allah and his messenger, and death overtakes him, his
reward is then obligatory upon Allah. Allah is always forgiving,
merciful.” (4:100) Muhammad himself, according to Islamic tradition,
performed the first hijra when he moved from Mecca, where he
was born, to Medina, where he became for the first time a political and
military leader as well as a religious one. This is extremely
significant in Islamic theology, for the Qur’an holds up Muhammad as the
“excellent example” (33:21), to be emulated in every possible respect.
The al-Qaeda magazine argues strongly that Muslims should be
immigrating to infidel lands today, even saying, “Woe to the liars, as
the angels told the Muslims who remained [that is, didn’t embark on a hijra] and were given hellfire. The angels told the Muslims who did not do hijrah that their destination will be JAHANNAM [hell].”
In another article, the jihadis exhorted “the Lions of Allah:”
“Do not waste your time on small lone wolf attacks, go to their
embassies, courts, security checkpoints and strike them in their
gathering of unbelief.” It praised Muslims who live in “the abode of
unbelief” (e.g., the United States) but nevertheless “manage to be
guided by Allah and choose to live for the religion of Allah and not the
religion of Democracy.” These strong believers “did not submit to the
fragile emasculated, pro-feminist, pro-LGBTQTAGHUT+ ‘Islam.’” Taghut is the idolatrous rule of disbelievers.
After that, the magazine really gets down to business, providing
aspiring jihadis with detailed bomb-making instructions.
Now, is it possible that any young jihadi will read this
magazine and decide to take advantage of Old Joe’s essentially
nonexistent Southern border to enter the United States and set off his
homemade bomb here? Of course, it is. In August 2021,
outgoing Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott warned that the Southern
border was “a national security crisis,” with “TSDBs at a level we have
never seen before. That’s a real threat.” TSDB is the Terrorist
Screening Database; Scott meant that suspected jihad terrorists were
streaming into the U.S. at record levels. And what was there to stop
them?
The al-Qaeda magazine’s last article addresses non-Muslims who
are sounding the alarm about the ongoing jihad threat. “We enjoy your
distress by our magazines,” it says. “May our words continue to give you
restless nights. We see your tweets, and articles. Go ahead! Continue
barking and tweeting. While we can enjoy your concern and distress. The
majority of disbelievers will not even listen to you. Funny how you try
to ‘save’ them.”
Yes, it’s funny, because most Americans at this point have no
idea that there is a jihad threat from which they need to be saved. I
myself have been calling attention to it for well over twenty years, and
for my pains have been called a “rogue academic,” a “bigot,” and far
worse, even “antichrist.” The establishment media doesn’t want you to
know that there is a jihad, or that it threatens Americans, and has done
its best to defame and destroy those who have called attention to it.
Unfortunately, that will not make the threat go away.
This incident is yet another example of the endemic hypocrisy of the PA regarding its dealings with Israel.
Appeals by heads of the
Christian community in Bethlehem for the release of Shahwan from prison
have been completely ignored by the PA leadership, which appears afraid
of a backlash from Islamists and other radical groups if it dares to
release the pastor. The appeals have also been ignored by many
journalists who mostly chose to focus only on stories that reflect
negatively on Israel.
Even more alarming is that the Palestinian Authority, which now
has close relations with the Biden administration, is punishing a
Palestinian Christian for the "crime" of meeting with a Jew.
If the PA is going to incarcerate every Palestinian who meets
with settlers or does business with Jews, it will have to build enough
prisons to hold tens of thousands of its people. Moreover, if the PA
considers meetings with Jews to be a crime punishable by imprisonment
and hard labor, why are its leaders continuing to hold public and secret
meetings with Israeli officials?
If PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself is prepared to travel to
the Israeli city of Rosh Ha'ayin to meet with Israel's Defense Minister
Benny Gantz, whom the Palestinians have repeatedly condemned as a "war
criminal," why isn't a pastor allowed to meet with a rabbi?
This incident is yet another example of the endemic hypocrisy of the PA regarding its dealings with Israel.
The Beit Al-Liqa incident is also further proof of the PA's discrimination and mistreatment of the Christian minority.
It is much easier for the PA to arrest a Palestinian pastor than,
say, the head of a Muslim clan. The Christians are not going to take to
the streets to riot and attack Palestinian security officers when one
of their men is arrested. Muslims, by contrast, would not hesitate to
attack the PA and confront its security forces.
All this is happening while the Biden administration continues to
engage with the PA about the need to revive the peace process and the
PA's purported commitment to the so-called two-state solution, while
ignoring the persecution of Christians and major human rights violations
committed by the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Pastor
Johnny Shahwan, a Palestinian Christian from Beit Jala, just outside
Bethlehem, has been in a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison for the past
two weeks, after he was arrested for meeting with a Jew who previously
served as a member of Israel's parliament. Appeals by heads of the
Christian community in Bethlehem for Shahwan's release have been ignored
by the PA leadership, which appears afraid of a backlash from Islamists
and other radical groups if it dares to release the pastor. Pictured: A
view of Beit Jala. (Image source: SalibaQ/Wikimedia Commons)
Johnny Shahwan, a Palestinian Christian from the Bethlehem area, has been in a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison
for the past two weeks. Shahwan, a pastor who runs the Beit Al-Liqa
(House of Encounter) in the town of Beit Jala, just outside Bethlehem,
was arrested for meeting with a Jew who previously served as a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
Beit Al-Liqa, which includes a guest house and a child daycare center, was shut down by the PA security forces for allegedly hosting
the meeting between Shahwan and Yehuda Glick, a rabbi, politician and
activist, who was a member of the Knesset representing the Likud Party.
The next day, unidentified gunmen fired several shots at the center in protest of the meeting between the pastor and the rabbi. No one was hurt.
The pastor was arrested shortly after many Palestinians expressed
outrage over the meeting he held at Beit Al-Liqa with the American-born
Glick. The Palestinians accused Shahwan of promoting normalization with the "Zionist entity" and welcoming an "extremist Zionist settler" into the center in Beit Jala.
A statement issued by Beit Al-Liqa on March 2, 2022 claimed that Shahwan and the other Palestinians were not aware of Glick's identity when they opened the center's doors to him.
The statement sought to embark on damage control by saying that Glick had sneaked into the center with a group of visitors:
"Beit Al-Liqa hosted a group of German tourists... At the
end of the meeting with Pastor Johnny Shahwan, an unidentified person
[Glick] suddenly walked in and asked to take a 'selfie' with Shahwan and
the tourists. We were not aware of the presence of this extremist
Zionist person, and he was not part of the group's itinerary."
In an attempt to appease the Islamists who condemned Shahwan and his community, Beit Al-Liqa said in the statement
that it "affirms our commitment as a Palestinian national Christian
institution to all Palestinians and opposition to normalization [with
Israel]." The statement went on to denounce the Jews living in the West
Bank as "criminals."
Despite the strongly worded text, and the claim that the organizers
were not aware of Glick's identity, the PA leadership quickly dispatched
a large police force to arrest Shahwan. The center was shut down for a
week pending an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the presence of Glick at Beit Al-Liqa.
Shahwan is now facing trial on charges
of "undermining the national sentiments [of Palestinians], stirring up
sectarian strife and insulting the prestige of the [non-existent
Palestinian] State." If convicted, he could face a lengthy term in
prison with hard labor.
Appeals by heads of the Christian community in Bethlehem for the release
of Shahwan from prison have been completely ignored by the PA
leadership, which appears afraid of a backlash from Islamists and other
radical groups if it dares to release the pastor. The appeals have also
been ignored by many journalists who mostly chose to focus only on
stories that reflect negatively on Israel.
Given the widespread campaign of incitement against Shahwan on social
media, it would probably be safer for him to remain in a Palestinian
prison than to be released to his home in the Bethlehem area. There, he
could be attacked by the extremists who consider him a traitor for
meeting with an Israeli Jew.
The widespread incitement against Shahwan is itself quite disturbing.
Even more alarming is that the Palestinian Authority, which now has
close relations with the Biden administration, is punishing a
Palestinian Christian for the "crime" of meeting with a Jew. Even if
Glick is seen as a right-winger living in a settlement, that does not
give the PA the right to throw him into prison and close down his
institution.
If the PA is going to incarcerate every Palestinian who meets with
settlers or does business with Jews, it will have to build enough
prisons to hold tens of thousands of its people. Moreover, if the PA
considers meetings with Jews to be a crime punishable by imprisonment
and hard labor, why are its leaders continuing to hold public and secret
meetings with Israeli officials?
If PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself is prepared to travel to the Israeli city of Rosh Ha'ayin to meet
with Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz, whom the Palestinians have
repeatedly condemned as a "war criminal," why isn't a pastor allowed to
meet with a rabbi?
If the PA Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, is allowed to meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, why can't any Palestinian Christian organization host a rabbi -- or any Jew?
This incident is yet another example of the endemic hypocrisy of the PA regarding its dealings with Israel.
On the one hand, the PA and its representatives stridently condemn
normalization with Israel and sometimes even call for boycotting the
state. On the other hand, the PA continues to work closely with Israel,
especially through security coordination in the West Bank. It is also
worth noting that many of the leaders of the PA hold Israeli-issued VIP
cards that grant them privileges denied to most Palestinians, including
free entry into Israel.
The Beit Al-Liqa incident is also further proof of the PA's
discrimination and mistreatment of the Christian minority. This was not
the first incident of its kind targeting Christians in the Bethlehem
area.
Last month, several Palestinians from the village of Nahalin severely beat two members of the Christian Nassar family over a land dispute.
It is much easier for the PA to arrest a Palestinian pastor than,
say, the head of a Muslim clan. The Christians are not going to take to
the streets to riot and attack Palestinian security officers when one of
their men is arrested. Muslims, by contrast, would not hesitate to
attack the PA and confront its security forces.
The arrest of Shahwan and the closure of Beit Al-Liqa sends a number of messages to the Palestinian public.
First, that anyone who meets or works with a Jew could end up in prison.
Second, that the Christians remain vulnerable and weak and are
subjected to stricter laws and rules, most likely because they are not
Muslims and are even regarded as "infidels."
Third, that the PA is no different from Hamas or other radical groups
in opposing peace and coexistence with Israel. The PA, in other words,
is trying to prove to the Palestinians that it is even more extremist
than Hamas in dealing with Israel.
Fourth, the incident should be seen in the context of the PA's
ongoing campaign of incitement against Jews in general and settlers in
particular. By denouncing Glick as an "extremist Zionist settler" and
labeling all settlers as "criminals," the PA leadership is giving a
green light to its people to murder these Jews.
All this is happening while the Biden administration continues to
engage with the PA about the need to revive the peace process and the
PA's purported commitment to the so-called two-state solution, while
ignoring the persecution of Christians and major human rights violations
committed by the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
It is high time for the Americans and Europeans who are funding
Palestinian leaders to start asking hard questions and demand
accountability and transparency. While they are at it, they might also
ask the PA leaders why they are cracking down on Christians in the
Bethlehem area and intimidating them by arresting one of their leaders
for the crime of meeting with a rabbi.
MESA scholars vote overwhelmingly to endorse boycott of Israel, but will not force decision on individual scholars.
Students at Tel Aviv University on the first day of the new academic year
An international academic organization devoted to study of the Arab world and Israel has voted to endorse boycotting Israel.
Members
of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) voted 768-167 in favor of
a resolution “endorsing the Palestinian call for solidarity in the form
of boycotts, divestment and sanctions,” known as BDS.
The
resolution also calls for an “academic boycott” of Israeli institutions,
including universities — a term that BDS proponents typically define as
severing all formal ties with the institutions. But the association
says it will not target individual students or scholars, that Israeli
scholars will still be eligible for membership, and that each individual
member of the group has the right to refrain from participating in the
boycott.
“Our members have cast a clear vote to answer the call
for solidarity from Palestinian scholars and students experiencing
violations of their right to education and other human rights,” the
group’s president, Eve Troutt Powell, said in a statement. “MESA’s Board
will work to honor the will of its members and ensure that the call for
an academic boycott is upheld without undermining our commitment to the
free exchange of ideas and scholarship.”
Of those voting on the
resolution, 80% backed it, according to the group. Now, the group’s
board of directors are tasked with finding ways to “give effect to the
spirit and intent of this resolution,” the resolution says.
Powell did not respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment.
The
vote makes MESA, with 2,800 members, the latest group of academics to
approve a BDS resolution, and likely the one whose membership is most
knowledgeable about Israel and the Middle East. Other academic
organizations that have also endorsed part or all of BDS include the
American Anthropological Association, the Modern Languages Association
and the American Studies Association.
Those resolutions have not
led to widespread effects for Israeli scholars or universities. But the
votes are symbolically significant amid debate over how Israel is
discussed on college campuses.
Critics
say such resolutions from academic groups encourage campus
antisemitism, or are themselves antisemitic in nature because they
single out Israel for censure. The AMCHA Initiative, a pro-Israel campus
advocacy group, timed the release of an in-house study to the vote,
claiming that professors who supported BDS were more likely to foster
antisemitic climates on campus. After the results of the vote were
revealed, AMCHA issued a statement calling it “morally reprehensible and
incredibly dangerous.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it
was “appalled” at the vote, which it argued was “undermining academic
principles of dialogue and obstructing Israeli-Palestinian engagement.”
It called for the many universities that have some affiliation with MESA
to disassociate themselves from the vote.
But
MESA says its resolution is all about academic freedom and dialogue,
including the freedom of Israeli academics to criticize their country
without fear of reprisal.
The group has more than 2,800 members
from all over the world, including 33 in Israel, though the highest
concentration are in the United States. It also has a long list of
institutional members, including departments at universities such as
Brandeis and Columbia.
Its mission statement includes Israel under
a list of Middle East and North African countries its members’ studies
are “primarily concerned with,” and also states that the group opposes
antisemitism. Some members are Jewish studies or Israel studies
professors.
Ian Lustick, founder and past president of
the Association for Israel Studies, is one Jewish MESA member who voted
for the BDS resolution. He wrote in an op-ed for Mondoweiss, a
website highly critical of Israel, that he supported the resolution
“because it is flexible and respects the moral posture and complex
circumstances affecting those whose support is solicited,” adding that
he himself has no intention of cutting ties with Israeli universities.
The Association for Israel Studies opposed the BDS resolution during MESA’s annual meeting in December
when it was put to the full member vote. Though the Association for
Israel Studies is currently an institutional member of MESA, it will
likely debate its continued association with the group now that the
resolution has passed, according to Lustick.
A rival academic
group, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, was
formed in 2007 due to what its founders said was persistent anti-Israel
bias at MESA. Its president, Asaf Romirowsky, issued harsh criticism of
MESA’s BDS vote ahead of the final results, saying that the group is
“clearly a politicized advocacy organization.”
Illegal spies are typically placed inside the country 'for times just like this'
Jack Barsky joined a pre-arranged Friday morning Zoom meeting 18 minutes before it was scheduled to begin.
Wearing
a navy blue, long-sleeved sweater with a white, collared shirt
underneath, he appeared the everyday gentleman – an all-American father,
possibly a grandfather – as he sat with his arms folded in front of a
pre-set background of the Hudson River as the interview began.
"So, literally what's going on in the world right now with Ukraine? That's exactly what [illegal spies] were created for."
Barsky, now a 74-year-old author and public speaker, lives a life that appears to be that of a typical American citizen. But his life and his story are anything but typical.
Barsky
was born Albrecht Dittrich before he was recruited by the now-defunct
KGB, which later became the Federal Security Service of the Russian
Federation (FSB). He was trained and groomed for years before he spent a
decade living a double life as a Russian spy in New York City.
"I wound up to be one of the best-trained agents they ever sent to the United States," he told Fox News Digital.
ALBRECHT DITTRICH
This undated photo shows Jack Barsky with his mother when she
visited him in Moscow while he was training to become a KGB agent.
(Courtesy of Jack Barsky)
Albrecht
Dittrich was born in Germany in 1949. He was raised in a part of the
country that became the German Democratic Republic – known as "East
Germany" – a vassal state dominated by the Soviet Union.
"I grew up as a good little communist," Barsky told Fox News Digital.
"From
my right side, this short fellow in a black trench coat, he comes
really close. And then he whispers in my ear: 'You gotta come home or
else you're dead.'"
— Jack Barsky, to Fox News Digital
Given
the Stasi’s – the secret police’s – practice of keeping records on all
of East Germany’s residents, Dittrich’s good grades and allegiance to
the communist party caught the attention of the KGB not long after he
entered the workforce. He spent a year and a half communicating
informally with recruiters before he flew to the KGB and Soviet Army
headquarters in Berlin and met with the head of the security agency.
"Out of the blue, he asked me: ‘So what? Can we count on you?’" he recalled of his meeting with the top-ranked KGB official.
A Russian KGB/Stasi helmet in front of Brandenburg Gate in Berlin,
just two days ahead of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall, Nov. 7, 2019, in Berlin, Germany.
(Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Dittrich was given until noontime the next day to provide a final answer.
"I
thought it through, I said, it is an opportunity to help the world
revolution, to free some of the suppressed folks in the Western
countries to have the good life," he said with a chuckle. "I said yes. I
had no idea what I really signed up for."
Five years later, he said, "I showed up in the United States."
BECOMING JACK BARSKY
The gravesite for Jack Barsky, the 10-year-old boy who died in
Maryland and whose identity Albrecht Dittrich ultimately assumed.
(Courtesy of Jack Barsky)
Dittrich
underwent two years of basic training before he was sent to Moscow for
another two and a half years. There, the emphasis was not only on honing
in on his spycraft skills, but being able to speak English so well that
only a glint of an accent was evident.
When his handlers
determined he was ready, Dittrich said goodbye to his mother, his wife
and their young child, and left behind his life in Germany. From there,
he took "a long zigzag trip through Europe with multiple forged
passports" – and varied which documents he used to prevent traceability.
He entered the U.S. in Chicago and made his way to New York City,
ditching the bogus passports along the way.
"In the fall of 1978,
I showed up in the United States," he said. "The only documentation I
had was a certified copy of a birth certificate in the name of Jack
Barsky."
Dittrich took on the identity of Jack Philip Barsky, a 10-year-old boy who died in Maryland in September 1955.
The
mother of the original Jack Barsky bore the maiden name Schwartz, which
Dittrich’s handlers preferred because of the surname’s presumed German
or Jewish-German roots, Barsky said. He used it as a way to explain away
any remnants of a German accent, and told anyone who questioned him he
was born into a bilingual household in Orange, New Jersey.
From
then on, Albrecht Dittrich was someone from a past life – a life that
was revisited only once every two years, when Barsky was granted a trip
back home.
But despite the fact that the actual Jack Barsky was not around to interfere, becoming the new Barsky "wasn’t easy."
"I
tried once to get one birth certificate and that failed, because the
office that issued the birth certificates also cross-referenced death
certificates, and I wound up asking for the copy of my birth certificate
after I died," he recalled. His second attempt was successful, but he
wasn’t yet out of the woods.
One Madison Avenue, Manhattan, New York
(Google Maps)
He
then covered himself in dirt and played the character of a farmworker,
because the farm industry was exempt from Social Security requirements
at the time, when he went to the Social Security office to get the
necessary documentation.
"I made myself into somebody who had
just jumped off the potato truck. I rubbed soap into my eyes to make
them red, I had stubble on my face, the hair wasn’t really combed well,
dirty T-shirt," he said. "Two weeks later, I got the Social Security
card in the mail, and I was allowed to actually legally work in the
United States."
Barsky
moved to New York City’s Upper East Side, but avoided almost any social
interaction for about a year, until he had all his necessary
documentation. His first job was working as a bike messenger, which he
did for two and a half years. When he was on the road or interacting
with customers – and even when he had downtime in the office – he
absorbed everything.
Barsky then went to college, and graduated from Baruch College as Class of 1984 valedictorian.
By
that point, he "felt rather comfortable in my American skin," Barsky
said. He took a job as a computer programmer for MetLife, working in the
One Madison Avenue high-rise – all the while still secretly working for
the KGB and feeding his handlers any and all information.
"That's
when I finally was on my way to become middle class, in the end, the
upper middle-class person, at which point I would have become a much
more dangerous agent," he said. "But before that happened, I quit."
‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’
Jack Barsky (right) with his mother, center, and his KBG handler, named Sergej
(Courtesy of Jack Barsky)
"The
first and foremost aspect of the mission of folks like us was just
there, being in the U.S., being available," Barsky said. "We were
supposed to be on standby just in case," he added, referring to the
possibility that diplomats in the U.S., most of whom were KGB spies,
were kicked out of the country.
He added that he was sent to the
U.S. with the goal of "collecting information about foreign policy,
getting close to foreign policy decision makers or influencers."
His
handlers gave him names of people and organizations with whom they
wanted him to get cozy, including the Hudson Institute, "a conservative
think tank," and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser
under President Carter.
"That
was a pipe dream," he said. "I never got to a point where I was
positioned in society to have a realistic explanation why I would want
to befriend some of these people."
He also wrote periodic reports
about how the American public was responding to world events and tried
to make as many other connections as possible.
"The other thing
that was important to them was for me to get to know as many people as
possible – contacts, contacts, contacts, that’s what I heard a lot. And
then profile them, analyze them, send profiles to Moscow for them to
determine whether they would be good candidates for recruitment."
This undated photo shows Jack Barsky and his colleagues at MetLife.
(Courtesy of Jack Barsky)
He
said he was never told what happened with any of the people he
reported, or if and how KGB higher-ups used the information he shared.
Barsky
also spoke regularly to his handlers in Moscow, and communicated with
them at least weekly via radio transmissions. In New York, he and his
network communicated via signals in agreed-upon spots – a detail that
becomes important later in Barsky’s story – and passed information using
"dead drops," a process that entails leaving items or documents in an
agreed-upon spot for someone else to retrieve later. He was allowed to
mail two letters with "secret writings" to his loved ones per month, he
said.
Asked if he recalled any moment where he thought, "mission
accomplished," Barsky told Fox News Digital even developments that might
seem small – getting his Social Security card, safely returning to
Moscow and East Germany every two years – were seen as big steps.
Getting his job at MetLife, and even his gig as a bike messenger, were seen as accomplishments.
"I
had achieved probably the impossible, because there were so many
situations where it was at best, 50-50 for me to actually get through
and not fail," he said. "But again, this was a suicidal mission, quite
frankly. And the fact that I actually established myself as an American,
that was my, I believe, my biggest achievement."
THE RED DOT
This undated photo shows Jack Barsky and his infant daughter, Chelsea.
(Courtesy of Jack Barsky)
Barsky
realized he had to make a life-altering decision in December 1988, when
the KGB began sending messages urging him to "get out." By that point,
he was married, in his mid-30s, and living in Queens with an
18-month-old daughter at home.
"There was a spot that we had
arranged where agents could put some graphic signals. Very basic ... But
the one that I remember the most is the red dot," he said. "The spot
was at a supporting pole for the elevated A-train, so as I walked up the
stairs and I would look at that particular spot. There was never
anything there that was just routine."
But that changed early one
Monday morning as he was on his way to work. For the first time ever, he
spotted a signal: a red dot.
"That red dot meant I was in
danger," he explained. "It was like, ‘Emergency!’ And I did nothing. I
got on a train and went to work and stared at the computer screen for
all day without doing anything."
The next message came during his regularly scheduled Thursday radio transmission.
"You
got to get out. This is an emergency," the encrypted message stated,
Barsky said. "We have reason to believe that you're being investigated
by the FBI."
But
he doubted what he was being told. Having years of experience looking
over his shoulder and taking countermeasures to assure he was not being
followed, he wasn’t convinced.
A commuter walks on the platform of the Woodside LIRR train
station in the Queens borough of New York on Monday, Aug. 3, 2020.
(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He
chose not to respond to the radio transmission, despite Moscow’s
request that he confirm that he received the message and understood his
instructions. They repeated the radio transmission every day, he
remembered.
But "the most dramatic moment in [his] entire life"
came roughly three weeks later, as he stood on the platform of a Queens
subway station, still dark outside, around 6:30 a.m. or 7 a.m.
"From
my right side, this short fellow in a black trench coat, he comes
really close. And then he whispers in my ear: 'You gotta come home or
else you're dead.'"
He said he had a choice: to take this as a
serious threat against his life, or attribute the message to "a lack of
understanding of the English language" or an exaggeration.
He had made his decision: He would leave behind his life as a spy and would stay with his wife and his budding American family.
Barsky
did what he could to ensure that his family in Germany was safe, and
sent them one final secret writing, in which he told them that the FBI
might be after him. He told them: "I’m not coming home because I have
HIV AIDS and that I may have a chance for treatment."
He
asked friends within the organization in Moscow to send his family the
money he had earned through his work. They did so and ultimately told
them that Dittrich had died from AIDS.
His mother died in 1984, before she was able to learn the truth about her son.
Barsky’s
story is no secret anymore. Though it took time and years of
investigation, the FBI ultimately caught up to him, according to
Barsky’s own details and interviews conducted in "The Agent," a podcast
about his life.
To put the story simply, agents ultimately
overheard via wiretap Barsky admitting to his wife that he had
previously worked as a KGB spy. They arrested him and confirmed that he
was telling the truth and was no longer working for the KGB. They then
began working with him to better understand Russia’s secrets.
The
Jack Barskys of today – spies sent from the Soviet Union, Russia or
other similarly situated nations – are few and far between, but "they’re
still around," former FBI special agent Robin Dreeke told Fox News
Digital.
He estimated that there was only "a handful" of agents in the U.S. at one time.
"Jack
is a great example of why there's not hundreds of them. Because they
don't fulfill a huge function, and they take up a huge amount of
resources and money," he continued. "Basically, you're paying an
employee and a lot of time and resources and money to do not a whole lot
… their main role and function is to perform when an event happens that
they need to activate them."
And today’s spies rarely have the level of training that he received.
Dreeke,
former head of the bureau’s Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis
Program, worked personally with Russian "illegals" – spies in the U.S.
illegally and outside of diplomatic cover – during his time with the FBI
New York’s Russian Military Intelligence Squad from 1997 to 2005.
Dreeke's unit tried to recruit Russian spies and then neutralize them to
protect American interests, national security and NATO allies.
Barsky’s training was "significantly higher" than what the general illegal spy will get, Dreeke told Fox News Digital.
"Jack
did a lot of one-on-one training, as a matter of fact, all of his
training was one on one, very in-depth. And typically, they go through
schools... people in large classrooms," he said.
In addition to
his "in-depth," "thorough" training, Barsky’s level of communication
with Moscow was "much higher than normal," Dreeke said. His tasks, while
not significantly different from those of the other spies, were
"unusual" in comparison.
"The tasks he was given were really high
tempo, operational-type stuff that generally, the actual intelligence
officers (Russian diplomats in the country legally) will get, like him
conducting those dead drops … that's pretty unusual for someone that's
not legal," said Dreeke, who has since authored several books and
founded a company, People Formula.
Illegal spies, Dreeke explained, are typically placed inside the country "for times just like this."
"Russians
put illegals inside our country during the Cold War in case whoever
went to war, and all the diplomats were expelled, Russia could still
collect intelligence and run their operatives inside the country because
they have a network of illegals," he said.
He added: "So,
literally what's going on in the world right now with Ukraine? That's
exactly what illegals were created for: They were created to not just do
penetrations of government institutions and organizations, but also to
be in place in case the diplomatic corps gets expelled."
RUSSIAN GOALS
The Kremlin towers in front of the Russian Foreign Ministry headquarters on March 18, 2021
(Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
Today, with the spotlight on Russia amid the ongoing invasion in Ukraine,
spies still lurking in the United States are likely operating on "high
alert," Barsky said. Not only would they be more aware of what is
happening in the country, but they would also be careful not to "become
too aggressive" or potentially make mistakes.
"One of the tasks I
had, and I was told that everybody who was operating in a foreign
country was supposed to … look for any signs of the country preparing
for war," Barsky explained. "Guaranteed … the Russian agents in this
country are on high alert … To the extent you could do more to look for
signs of preparation for war, you would."
He added that this
would be the time that he would be reaching out to contacts he had made
over the years, either those who were in the military or in companies
that produced weapons.
Dreeke noted that spies who are living
undercover in the U.S. would be reporting back about what people are
saying, compared to, and in addition to, what the news reports are
saying, but will be looking over their shoulders along the way.
"I
suspect they will not be opening new sources of information, but only
going to well-established human intelligence sources of information,"
Dreeke continued. "They are needing that information critically for
policymaking – policymakers and decision makers on Russia's side. At the
same time, though, they are now entirely paranoid about factions on
their own side."
Stephanie Pagones is a Digital Reporter for FOX Business and Fox News. Story tips can be
sent to stephanie.pagones@fox.com and on Twitter: @steph_pagones.
At the Fed’s Board, there’s only one Republican and 45 Democrats in leadership positions.
Earlier this month the Biden administration's nomination of Sarah
Bloom Raskin as a top bank regulator fell apart. Raskin, who favored
using monetary policy to crush the oil and gas industry while rewarding
the subsidized wind and solar boondoggles of politically connected
investors, was blocked by Senator Manchin who announced he would not
vote for the radical.
“The Federal Reserve Board is not an institution that should
politicize its critical decisions. This is a 10-year term to perhaps the
most important independent body that is tasked with ensuring the
stability of the American economy. At this historic moment for both the
United States and the world at large, it is imperative the Federal
Reserve Board preserves its independence and steers clear of any hint of
partisanship," Manchin stated.
He urged the Fed to focus on fighting inflation instead of pursuing political agendas.
This was the second radical financial nomination the Biden
administration had lost after Saule Omarova: a Soviet trained academic
who wanted the Federal Reserve to nationalize banking.
These two high-profile defeats don’t appear to have taught the Biden administration anything.
Still waiting in the wings is Lisa Cook’s nomination to the Federal
Reserve Board. Cook is unqualified for the position and she’s only being
nominated because of her radical racial views.
Cook has promoted police defunding, advocated
for slavery reparations, and declared that, “free speech has its
limits”. Beyond her abrasive social media presence, Cook’s academic
work, such as it is, is oriented toward identity politics and blaming
racism for economic disparities.
She's the co-author of a New York Times op-ed titled, "It
Was a Mistake for Me to Choose This Field" which falsely claims that,
"if economics is hostile to women, it is especially antagonistic to
black women". This familiar brand of professional victimhood is the last
thing the Fed needs.
Despite all this, Lisa Cook was selected for the board of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. This is part of a larger phenomenon in
which local Fed boards have already been politicized.
The involvement of local Fed boards in politics includes the false
claim by the New York Fed that America suffers from "systemic racism"
and that "economic equality is a critical component for social justice".
These are not only economically misguided views, but they're
particularly dangerous when advocated by bodies with the power to
manipulate monetary policies.
Finance professor Emre Kuvvet cites research
showing that, "Democrats outnumber Republicans 4.5:1 among economics
faculty at 40 leading universities" and found that "the ratio of
Democrats to Republicans among Fed economists is 10.4 to 1."
As disastrous economic policies have triggered a wave of
catastrophic inflation, with possible worse consequences to come, while
Democrats embrace academic socialist theories like Modern Monetary
Theory which insist that money can be endlessly printed with no
consequences, the growing radicalization of Fed economists represents a
systemic threat.
The Left believes that it understands economics when over a century
of history clearly shows otherwise. Destructive policies that have
wrecked our economy are being justified by credentialism and gatekeeping
through networks of politically aligned academics.
But as the debate over Sarah Bloom Raskin’s Fed nomination shows, we
are no longer simply dealing with traditional tax-and-spend policies,
or even pure spending policies, but larger efforts to transform the
economy by eliminating entire industries, like the energy industry, or
nationalizing others, such as the banking industry, to force leftist
policies on Americans.
Kuvvet notes that,
“Among those whose voter registration information is available, there
are 208 Democrat and only 20 Republican economists at the Federal
Reserve System.“ Regionally he finds that there are,
“111 Democrat and 18 Republican economists at the regional Federal
Reserve Banks” and “44 Democrat and only 3 Republican economists in
leadership positions at all regional Federal Reserve Banks.”
Meanwhile “at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
there are 97 Democrat economists and only two Republican economists” and
he finds that “at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
there is only one Republican economist in the leadership position,
while there are 45 Democrat economists in leadership positions.”
The growing radicalization of the Democrats is translating, over
time, into a growing radicalization of Fed economists. The defeat of
individual radical nominees who are so far out of step as to be
unsuitable for the last moderate Senate Democrat who can cast a crucial
vote is not a sign that the system is working, but that a last ditch
battle is being fought for our survival.
The lack of intellectual diversity at the Fed has all but eliminated
ideological checks and balances. And while the radicalization of
academia in general has had catastrophic consequences for American
intellectual life, the economic consequences are potentially even more
serious. Like the next generation of judges, the next generation of
economists will be detached from the very concept of objective truths,
they will be convinced that their mission is to transform the
institutions they are part of until they bow to their political ideology
and values.
That means using the Federal Reserve, like any other institution, to
punish their political opponents and reward their allies, to destroy
those elements of American life that they oppose and to abuse their
institutional power to build socialist systems at everyone else’s
expense.
The radicalization of the Democrats and their preponderance in
leadership positions through the Fed system due to a lack of
intellectual diversity represents a systemic threat to the American
economy. It is a threat that Republicans have been negligent in failing
to acknowledge and confront. The consolidation of academia as a hostile
environment for conservatives, moderates, libertarians, and other
non-leftists is not just a cultural and political, but also an economic
crisis.
Without intellectual diversity, the Federal Reserve will become
increasingly radicalized, tainted by radical appointees who will insist
that a failure to comply with leftist political agendas represents a
risk and that complying with those agendas is sound economic policy.
If Republicans fail to meet this threat, socialism will arrive without the need for elections.
When conservatives recognized that the radicalization of the legal
profession was tainting the judiciary and endangering the constitution,
they rallied and built the Federalist Society. Economics has a strong
conservative tendency, but the lack of external attention and support
being paid to the problem means that it has not become a priority for
conservative groups.
The latest slate of radical Fed nominees is a warning of what a
radical group of regulators can look like, but the answer goes beyond
casting votes on individual nominees, but remedying the disproportionate
ideological tilt within the Fed system before the system decides to
remedy us.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and
Islamic terrorism.
Why the heckler’s veto is wrong and why universities must prevent its use.
As further confirmation that universities have devolved into
islands of repression in a sea of freedom, some 120 Yale Law School
students seriously disrupted a March 10th event. Sponsored by the Yale
Federalist Society, the event featured Kristen Waggoner, lead counsel
for the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and Monica Miller
of the progressive American Humanist Association (AHA), appearing
together on the panel to discuss (ironically, it turns out) free speech
issues.
Yale’s LGBTQ students had already mobilized their opposition to
the appearance of Waggoner, particularly because ADF, they claimed in a flyer they
distributed, “is an organization designated by the SPLC [Southern
Poverty Law Center] as a hate group” and that the Federalist Society’s
invitation to Waggoner provided “a veneer of respectability [that] is
part of what allows this group to do work that attacks the very lives of
LGBTQ people in the US and globally.” Once it has been predetermined
that the organization for which Waggoner is lead counsel was anti-gay,
it no longer mattered what she would say at the event. The moral scolds
at Yale Law School had already decided she should be canceled and
forbidden from giving her opinions about anything at all.
Preventing someone with opposing views to even speak, to make
his or her opinions known and heard by the campus community, means that
the disruptors are so sure of their beliefs, so positive that their
perception is the valid one, the only true one, that they are
comfortable with suppressing the alternate beliefs and ideology of those
whose speech they seek to silence. Students, even graduate law
students, are certainly not omniscient nor do they know the single
truths about a range of topics guest speakers bring into debates. Their
experience is insufficient to make them credible arbiters of what may be
said, and what must not be said, on university campuses.
They do not have the moral right or intellectual capacity to gauge what is bad speech and what is good speech.
And they exert their unearned moral and intellectual superiority
to silence ideological opponents because feckless administrators have
tolerated this outrageous behavior, the use of what is known as the
“heckler’s veto,” for too long now and are reaping the inevitable
backlash.
The heckler’s veto is an unethical tactic used the advance one’s
own beliefs by defeating an ideological opponent’s argument by
silencing him, instead of having to offer a compelling argument of one’s
own; someone with alternate views has his speech canceled or, if it is
held, shouted down, disrupted, and jeered at.
When students shout down a speaker with whom they disagree and
refuse to even let that person voice their opinions—regardless of how
abhorrent or aberrant the disruptors think them to be—they are acting
both rudely and pretentiously, assuming that their opinions are so valid
and powerful that someone with opposing ideas does not even deserve to
have them aired and considered. And when law students behave in this
manner, as they did in a similarly grotesque fashion recently at UC
Hastings School of Law when they shouted down Georgetown’s
Ilya Shapiro, one might question both their intellectual maturity and
their ability to maintain suitable judicial temperament as future
lawyers.
Additionally important, when a speaker like Waggoner is
invited to the Yale campus, she is a guest of the entire law school, and
it is neither the right nor role of a few self-selected students to
censure speakers and decide—in advance—that the speaker has no right to
even air his or her views. In most cases, speakers who have been shouted
down and prevented from speaking are highly-educated,
academically-accomplished, and appropriately credentialed individuals
with many years of professional experience behind them, so their ideas
are formed by far more education, accomplishment, and intellectual
activity than the protesting college students themselves have, making
attempts by activist students to suppress the speech of those whose
intellects are superior seem not only discourteous and audacious but
misguided.
Waggoner, for example, was the lead counsel for the First Amendment rights case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,
which she argued before the United States Supreme Court. The law
students who disrupted her speech at Yale may disagree with her position
on whether a baker should be compelled to create a wedding cake for a
gay couple, but her legal skills and knowledge are evident, as is the
insight and perspective she brings to a debate over this current
cultural issue.
The censorious Yale brown shirts, like their fellow travelers on
other campuses, have created their own definitions of free speech,
putting limits on it that are contrary to what universities say it is
and should be, and classifying certain speech—that with which they
disagree—as harmful, cruel, even “violent”—sometimes manifesting itself
as “hate speech” because it might, in their minds, discomfort a member
of a victimized identity group.
But the Constitution and most university speech codes do not
contain those exemptions, nor should they. So-called hate speech is a
political categorization not a legal one.
And the notion that a LGBTQ student, real or imaginary,
somewhere may find offense if Waggoner speaks at Yale is no
justification for silencing her, regardless of how unacceptable some
tendentious, intolerant students may think she and her ideas are.
It is neither the responsibility nor duty of universities to
foreclose certain debates because the discussion may hurt someone’s
feelings somewhere. And it is certainly not the right of self-selected
moral scolds to censor speech of which they disapprove and promote and
allow only speech with which they agree. Such an approach violates both
the letter and spirit of academic free speech precepts.
In fact, this very sentiment is defined in the concise but eloquent 2014 University of Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression, commonly referred to as the Chicago Principles. “The
ideas of different members of the University community will often and
quite naturally conflict,” the statement reads, in words echoing Yale’s
own version of a free speech declaration, the 1974 “Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at Yale,”
commonly known as the Woodward Report. “But it is not the proper role
of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and
opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.
Although the University greatly values civility . . . concerns about
civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for
closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those
ideas may be to some members of our community.” [Emphasis added.]
Universities, including Yale, encourage vigorous responses by
students and faculty to speech with which they disagree, including
courteous protests outside the venue, the use of placards, sitting in
silence at the event with armbands, or issuing flyers and other material
encouraging attendees to avoid the event or read alternate information.
But vocal disruptions—shouting, pounding on desks, jeering, using
noisemakers, or otherwise interfering with a speaking event in a way
that prevents attendees to hear the speech—all of those modes of
behavior are specifically prohibited. Reports describing
the Yale event, however, suggested that the pounding on desks,
shouting, and vigorous disruption were so excessive that faculty and
students in other rooms in the same building felt and heard the noise
through the walls.
Freedom of speech, contrary to the thinking of some activists,
does not mean freedom to suppress the speech of another by drowning out
his or her speech with yours.
“Although members of the University community are free to
criticize and contest the views expressed on campus,” the Chicago
Principles read, “and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited
to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise
interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or
even loathe.”
Additionally, the university has a duty to ensure that any
individual on campus is allowed to speak and present his or her views,
and the university has an obligation to protect that right by enforcing,
if necessary, cordial behavior and decorum and removing anyone who
violates that expected behavior. “To this end,” the statement continues,
“the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a
lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to
protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”
In fact, Yale law professor Kate Stith, who moderated the event, can be seen in a video recording
of the event struggling to read aloud Yale’s free speech policy,
although the rude response from the demonstrators was that “this
protest is free speech,” and her admonition was ignored.
Yale’s own Woodward Report rejected the idea “that speech can be
suppressed by anyone who deems it false or offensive . . . [and] [t]hey
make the majority, or any willful minority, the arbiters of truth for
all. If expression may be prevented, censored or punished, because of
its content or because of the motives attributed to those who promote
it, then it is no longer free. It will be subordinated to other values
that we believe to be of lower priority in a university.”
Students must be told during orientation that disruptions such
as the type discussed here will never be tolerated,
are never appropriate, and will lead to punishment of the offending
students, up to and including suspension or expulsion.
Assuming a speaker is the invited guest of a registered student
group, and is recognized by the university as such, all invited speakers
must be treated with civility, courtesy, and deference. Attendance to
an event like the Yale lecture was not mandatory, so if a guest
speaker’s ideas are toxic or repulsive then a student can choose to not
attend an event, but it is not the right of an individual student or
group of students to decide that a speaker, because his or her ideology
is in opposition to the students’, should not be allowed to speak and
deserves to have his or her event shut down.
After the outrageous Yale event, D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman suggested in an email to
his fellow federal judges that the behavior of the law students
involved in shutting down the invited speakers should rightly disqualify
them from holding future clerkships, “that students who are identified
as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted.
All federal judges,” he wrote, “should carefully consider whether any
student so identified should be disqualified from potential clerkships.”
Whether that punishment is appropriate or just, the truth is
that when they do become lawyers, these law students will have to hear
competing arguments in a case, convince a judge and jury of their
interpretation of an argument, and successfully argue for their client
based on reason, facts, legal precedent, and intellectual ability.
As future lawyers, they will not be able to pound on a table and
suppress the speech of others in the courtroom, including opposing
counsel and a judge. They will not be able to only present their side of
a case without having the other side present theirs. And the university
is a place where the same decorum and procedures for promoting views,
developing intellectual arguments, providing facts and research to
support one’s opinions, and inspiring academic inquiry and scholarly
debate is fundamental to the advancement of learning.
That is precisely why universities exist and why any attempts to
suppress certain speech—because it is currently out of favor or novel
or even controversial—are antithetical to what the university represents
and why, either in a law school classroom or in a courtroom, unfettered
free speech is paramount, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. put
it, even “for the thought that we hate.”
Photo: Washington Free Beacon YouTube
Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D., a Freedom Center Journalism Fellow in Academic Free
Speech and President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East,
is the author of Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and
Jews.
Like her position on child sex offenders or drug kingpins, it's just temporarily politically inconvenient to bring it up.
Fact checks were an Orwellian farce before all this. Now they're
just editorials that try to tell you that black is white and white is
black.
The media's hysterical efforts to spin Ketanji Brown Jackson's
record has escalated into an insistence that she didn't say the things
she said.
Jackson had filed a petition on behalf of Gitmo terrorists (she
claims that federal public defenders don't pick their clients, but she
continued to be involved in Gitmo cases on a pro bono basis even after
moving on to a law firm) and in a petition on behalf of the terrorists,
which named President Bush, Rumsfeld and others, accused the United
States of America of acts that “constitute war crimes and/or crimes
against humanity”.
There's zero ambiguity in this regard. It's there in black and white.
SIXTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF ALIEN TORT STATUTE - WAR CRIMES
By the actions described above, Respondents’ acts directing,
ordering, confirming, ratifying, and/or conspiring to bring about the
torture and other inhumane treatment of Petitioner Khiali-Gul constitute
war crimes and/or crimes against humanity in violation of the law of
nations under the Alien Tort Statute
Again, black and white.
Despite that the media has loudly and falsely claimed that Ketanji
Brown Jackson did no such thing and that even if she did, it was
justified.
Senate Democrats, like Durbin, who lie about it, have their lies
upheld by the media, while the same outlets loudly attack Republicans
like Senator Cormyn and claim that they're liars.
And again, it's there in black and white.
Democrats and the media desperately split hairs and claim that
Jackson wasn't accusing Bush of "war crimes", she was just accusing
America.
Except that the petition specifically accuses Bush, Rumsfeld and
several generals of "directing, ordering, confirming, ratifying, and/or
conspiring" to commit war crimes.
Jackson, at the hearing, played dumb and claimed that she couldn't remember. Media fact checks have led to absurdities like this.
Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, CNN legal
analyst and expert on military justice, said that since the rules for
these kinds of filings essentially required the President and the
secretary of defense to be named as respondents – Jackson’s filings made
clear that Bush and Rumsfeld were being sued in their official capacity
– “it’s more than a little misleading to suggest that claims in that
lawsuit are necessarily claims about the named respondents personally.”
Fiery but peaceful.
Jackson was accusing Bush of war crimes in his "official capacity", not personally.
Now Jackson wasn't spewing anything that the majority of lefties
didn't believe at the time and still do. Like her position on child sex
offenders or drug kingpins, it's just temporarily politically
inconvenient to bring it up. And that requires frantic lies and more
lies until her nomination goes through.
