Category Archives: Modern Europe

The Pornography Industrial Complex 1.

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Intellectuals “theorize” what ordinary people need no theory to explain or justify.[1]

Both Christianity and bourgeois capitalism deprecated sex.[2]  They built a great civilization on impulse-repression.  Arguably, though, that civilization left people psychologically maimed.  Sexual repression produced “moodiness” in men.  The solution?  Widespread resort to brothels.  Sexual repression produced “hysteria” in women.  The solution?  Manual manipulation of the afflicted area by gynecologists.  Later, the electric-powered vibrator became a favored household appliance.[3]

Not everyone cared to play along.  If enough specialist history books are consulted, it soon becomes apparent that lots of men and women liked sex.  They also didn’t care what “high” culture said on the subject.[4]  The written evidence for this is patchy.  One has to imagine the milk-maids and swineherds in Meissen going for a roll in the porcelain hay.  Surely some of them did.  In the 18th Century, the English “Hell Fire Club” engaged in all sorts of depravity.  Late in the 18th Century, a “quack sexologist” named James Graham[5] created an electrified “celestial bed” that was supposed to facilitate conception.  In the 19th Century, sexual dissidence went hand in hand with political radicalism.  “Owenites,” “Fourierists,” and the myths of Brook Farm all spread stories of “free love” early in the 19th Century, while Havelock Ellis and Edward Carpenter provided a scientific rationale at the end of the century.

One of the dissidents was Wilhelm Reich.  Soon after the end of the First World War, Reich got the idea that what we are most ashamed of—sex in all its variety–might actually be the thing that could heal our psychic wounds.[6]  Later Reich used the term “sexual revolution” to express a causational link between sexual emancipation and political change.  (Subsequently, the German Communist Party expelled Reich for his sexual militancy and the International Psychoanalytical Association expelled Reich for his political militancy.)

The slow percolation into a broader society of Reich’s ideas helped set off the “sexual revolution” of the post-war period.[7]  Blindly, Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex (1972) ratified a belief that sexual liberation began in the Sixties.

In fact, “sexual revolution” did not bring political revolution.  Probably this is an example of “sensualism” (the satisfaction of short-term physical desire) diverting people from revolutionary activity, just as Bolsheviks feared that “economism” (the satisfaction of short-term material wants through union bargaining) would divert the working class from revolution.[8]

Again and again, change-agents are appalled by what they have wrought.  Reich ended his days as a Republican.

[1] Ariel Levy, “Novelty Acts,” The New Yorker, 19 September 2011.

[2] For an illustration of this, see Brian Moore, Black Robe (1985).  The Stone Age hunting and gathering Indians are sexually promiscuous, while the Iron Age French colonists are materially secure and frustrated.

[3] See Rachel Maines, The Technology of Orgasm (2010).

[4] Inevitably, historians have fastened on the more talky and twisted among them.  People like Richard Burton (the explorer). Algernon Swinburne, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti tend to hog the limelight.

[5] Graham was a one-time resident of Philadelphia, but I find no statues to his memory.

[6] You got a bad back?  That’s a different story.  And for God’s sake, never try to do it in the driver’s seat of a Camaro.

[7] Yes, yes, everyone wants to believe that the sexual revolution began in the Sixties (or—for Catholics—in the Seventies and Eighties).  However, it actually began much earlier and is related to post-war housing construction and the urban job market as much as to “the Pill.”  All of these things empowered women to define their own lives.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m67JbGjWnc

[8] For an example of this with contemporary applications, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y_mXLYh_PA

Fifth Column.

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War is a nasty business, based on what I’ve read over a lifetime. Civil war is worse still. It can pit parent against child, sibling against sibling.[1] It fuels suspicion of one’s fellow-citizens. In Summer 1936, civil war broke out in Spain. Although often seen as a prologue to the Second World, the Spanish Civil War was a primitive affair. Not a lot of tanks, or aircraft, or trucks. Marching up toward Madrid, the Nationalist (rebel) commander Emilio Mola divided his troops into four columns to better live off the barren land. He told the foreign correspondents accompanying his army that he had a “fifth column” of sympathizers inside the city which would support his troops. The phrase “fifth column” quickly passed into the common lingo of the era.[2]

In 1938, Austrian Nazis supported the German take-over of Austria. Sudeten Germans around the frontiers of Czechoslovakia agitated for a German taker-over, obviously at the behest of Berlin. Poles-of-German-ancestry demanded free dome from alleged “persecution.”

In Spring 1940, the Nazis unleashed their “Blitzkrieg” on Western Europe. Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and—astonishingly—France collapsed. The idea that a powerful state like France could be beaten in weeks boggled the mind. “Collaborationist” regimes, or at least individual “collaborators,” sprang up in many places. The reactionary French Vichy government and the puppet-state in Norway headed by Vidkun Quisling offered prime examples. It soon became an article of faith in Britain and the United States that pro-Nazi “fifth columnists” had undermined their own society in the conquered countries.

Both in Britain and in the United States a hunt for “fifth columnists” soon began. In Britain, the new prime minister quickly put a stop to the left’s demands for prosecution of “the Guilty Men” who had supported appeasement.[3] Only a handful of obvious candidates were detained (Oswald Mosely, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, for example).

It proved to be very different in the United States. There an increasingly bitter debate began over American policy toward involvement in the global conflict. Lynne Olson has argued that the Roosevelt Administration engaged in a campaign of vilification against the leading exponents of “isolationism.”[4] The most notable target was Charles Lindbergh. The “Lone Eagle,” once America’s most admired person, suffered repeated, vitriolic attacks in the press and by FDR’s surrogates. (Interior Secretary Harold Ickes looks worse than he once did.)

Subsequently, after Pearl Harbor, the federal government criminalized Japanese ancestry on the grounds that such people were inherently disloyal.[5] Shrugging off that incident, Americans then launched themselves on an anti-Communist witch-hunt in the later Forties and in the Fifties. As Arthur Schlesinger the Lesser wrote in 1949: “the special Soviet advantage—the warhead—lies in the fifth column; and the fifth column is based on the local Communist parties.” The down-side of this appeared in “black-listing” (See: “Trumbo”) and “McCarthyism.” Much ignored is the reality of Soviet penetration of the US government.

So, the fear of disloyal Americans is nothing new. Most often, it’s been misplaced. That will not stop the idiots and hysterics.

[1] See how political correctness has watered down my prose?

[2] Ernest Hemingway wrote a play called “The Fifth Column.” On Mola, who knew something about civil war, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Mola

[3] It was hard to argue with a guy who had vocally opposed appeasement when he draws a veil over the past.

[4] Lynne Olsen, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 (New York, Random House, 2013).

[5] EffaBeeEye Director J. Edgar Hoover, seems to have thought the charges a crock. He headed American counter-intelligence. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

The Syrian Refugee Crisis.

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A civil war between the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite minority has been ravaging the Middle East. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, more than four million refugees have fled the country.[1] While many went first to all the surrounding countries (Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq), most went to Turkey. By late 2011, the number of refugees in Turkey reached 7,600. By the end of 2012 the number of refugees in Turkey topped 135,000; the number in Egypt passed 150,000. In summer 2014 the appearance of ISIS in eastern Syria and western Iraq sent the number of refugees soaring. By August 2014 the number of refugees in Turkey reached an estimate 850,000. Then the CrISIS just exploded in the second half of 2014. Western aid workers were decapitated, a Jordanian pilot was burned to death, and Yazidis were enslaved. Huge numbers of Syrians “loaded up the truck and moved to Turkey-ey.” By early 2015, Turkey had 2.1 million Syrian refugees within its borders. Camps expanded and proliferated.

Then, in late summer 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees suddenly sought to scale the walls of the European Union (EU). More than 300,000 refugees from Syria entered the EU between January and July 2015. It accelerated from there, with 100,000 refugees entering the EU during July 2015. Now hundreds of thousands are pressing their noses against the glass in Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. Media attention has focused on the appalling human suffering in the West.

How did hundreds of thousands of refugees get from camps in southern Turkey to either the Greco-Turkish frontier near Edirne or to the Turkish coast opposite the nearby Greek island of Lesbos? Most of the refugee camps are in Hatay Province in the far south. There is a railroad station in Iskenderun in Hatay province. The line from Iskerderun runs through Adana, Konya, Afyon, and Izmir (Smyrna) to the port of Dikili, on the Aegean. Dikili faces the island of Lesbos, the nearest Greek land. Lesbos has been swamped in refugees crossing from Turkey. How has the Turkish government failed to perceive or resist this huge movement of people? Are the Turks actually trying to organize the movement of refugees from the camps to the coast?

The 100,000 refugees to be taken in by the United States in the next several years seem ridiculous compared to the need. However, the Gulf states have taken in no Syrian refugees. None, nada, zip. They have pitched in a bunch of money to support the refugees. Those sums are piddly compared to what the United States has contributed. The refugee-aid sums provided by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar amount to 60 percent of what the US alone has contributed. In short, the Sunni Arab states aren’t concerned.

The Syrian refugee migration is best understood as part of the larger civil war in the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shi’ites. The Sunni Turks and the Sunni Saudis want the Alawite (a sect of Shi’ism) government of Bashar al-Assad gone. Shi’ite Iran wants the Assad regime to remain in place. How to get the western powers to intervene more effectively against the Assad regime? How about you cause them a bunch of problems? Hence, the refugee crisis.

Western states are deluged in migrants. These refugees are unwelcome in the West. It would be best if they went home. How to get them to go home? We’ll, no one is going home if the Assad government or ISIS is in a position to do them harm. So, get rid of Assad and ISIS. The Sunni states (Turkey, Saudi Arabia) are muscling the West by indirect means to overthrow the Assad regime. The Syrian refugee crisis is an act of aggression against the West by its nominal allies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War

Pleven Plan.

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You can think of the early Cold War as having had layers.[1] Between 1945 and 1947 the Soviets had it pretty much the way they wanted. The Red Army occupied Eastern and much of Central Europe. Chase away or kill the supporters of democracy in Eastern Europe. Stage a bunch of elections. (Run by guys waving pistols saying “Who is against? Raise your hands.”) The Western European countries were in ruins and bankrupt. The Americans cut off Lend-Lease aid as soon as Japan surrendered and they wanted to bring their troops home as soon as possible. The Communist Parties of France, Belgium, and Italy were under Soviet control, so most of the labor unions were under Soviet control as well.[2] Wait for the Americans to leave, use the unions to wreck the economy and the Communist parties to paralyze government, and march in.

From 1947 to 1950, the Americans changed their minds. You can imagine Henry Fonda going “Hey, wait a minute.” With a combination of money, technology, know-how, a basic decency that we used to possess, and that casual ruthlessness Americans adopt when they belatedly decide that they don’t like you, the US slapped the Russkies silly.[3] The Marshall Plan, the CIA, NATO, the Berlin Air Lift all followed.

Then, in June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. Apparently, the Cold War wasn’t just about politics and economics in Western Europe. It also was about being willing to die at a freezing dawn on some ridge in a wide spot in Asia. If it happened in a divided country in Asia, then it might happen in some divided country in Europe—like Germany. The Americans demanded that the Western Europeans prepare to fight the Russkies. If you wanted people who knew about killing Russkies, the natural place to look was Germany.[4] So, re-arm the Germans.

The French (and Italians and British and everyone else) went buggy over this idea. After the Blitz, after Oradour, after the Ardeatine Caves, the last thing any European wanted was the same Germans with new guns.

So, cut to another feature of post-war Western European history: “integration.” By 1947, uniting the nations of Europe “at the peak” hadn’t worked out, so an engaging schemer named Jean Monnet had proposed uniting “at the base.” In 1948 he got the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, to pitch the idea of a European Coal and Steel Community. Every member country would pool its resources and an international authority would apportion them.

How about trying the same thing with the scary prospect of German soldiers? The Germans put in the soldiers, while the British, French, and whoever put in the officers. Jean Monnet got the French defense minister Rene Pleven to pitch this idea in late 1950. They called it the “European Defense Community.” No one liked it except the Americans. However, they were the ones with the money, so…

Years of negotiations followed. French resistance proved most important.[5] In August 1954 the French rejected the EDC. People said “It’s the end of the ‘European’ project.” Right.

[1] Rather like yon Shrek beastie.

[2] Sorry if this offends any progressive-thinking people. It’s just another “inconvenient truth.” Like androgenic climate change for Republicans. See: Franz Borkenau, The Communist International (1938); Stephane Courtois, ed., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (1999). Just for a hoot, see Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims (1981). While you’re at it, see Ronald Radosh, with Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File (1983).

[3] There were probably old guys up at Standing Rock wondering what a Russian reservation was going to look like. Maggots in the flour, watering the cattle before weighing them, ministers with Bibles and “boarding schools.”

[4] Of course, Germans also knew a lot about being killed by Russkies, so they weren’t enthusiastic about this idea.

[5] In 1954, the CIA thought about bribing a majority of French parliamentarians to win passage of this EDC, but concluded that French politicians are like beer: you don’t buy it, you just rent it.

Why are the Germans so mad at the Greeks?

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You can’t get blood out of a stone. The Greek debt will have to be “restructured”[1] for the crisis to end. Germany owns the largest single chunk of the debt[2] and is the dominant force in Eurozone decision-making. The Germans are obdurately refusing to restructure the debt, at least until the Greeks show a firm commitment to economic reforms. This position is opening a gap between Germany and other countries like France, and threatens to drive Greece right out of the Eurozone. Why are the Germans so determined to play the “bad cop”? Here it is worth thinking about two factors.   One is German formative experiences; the other is Greek behavior.

While journalists invoke the great post-WWI inflation as an explanation for German insistence on austerity and probity, a more immediate influence may be that of German reunification in 1990. An old Russian joke about Communism held that “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” The same held true in the former East Germany. Inefficiency went hand-in-hand with feather-bedding. Massive shut-downs of uncompetitive eastern factories followed unification. West Germans bitterly complained of the poor work ethic of the “Ossies.” Unemployment doubled in the eastern territories between 1990 and 1995. Nevertheless, western Germans kept faith with eastern Germans. Wages and pensions doubled in the east,. One informed estimate of the total cost of German reunification between 1990 and 2010 runs to 2 trillion Euros, or 100 million Euros per year for twenty years.[3] Much of this came in the form of subsidies paid from western Germany to the eastern Germany. In the end, however, Germany emerged as the highly-competitive dynamo that dominates the European economy today. No one helped the Germans pay these costs. Two figures in this trauma were Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schauble. Now they have the same prescription for Greece.

In contrast, the Greeks have behaved disgracefully from one end of this long crisis to the other. Anyone who lives in Britain, Canada, Australia, or the United States knows Greeks to be hard-working and entrepreneurial. Those aren’t the Greeks who were left behind by the great emigration. The Greeks of Greece can excite only contempt. They obtained much of the loans through outright fraud. They spent the money on artificially raising living standards (wages, pensions, public employment), rather than on productive investment that would allow Greece to repay its debts. They ignore the fact that a huge write-off of Greek debt already took place back in 2009. They have tried to prosecute the Greek official who revealed that Greece governments had been “cooking the books” for a decade. From first to last, they have resisted carrying out most reforms so that the economy could return to economic viability. They denounce being asked to pay their bills or to work for a living as “humiliation.” Lots of German tourists have seen Greeks ‘”at work”: for example, 2.3 million German tourists visited Greece in 2007.

The Germans are in the wrong on the need to restructure the Greek debt. The Germans fail to realize that Greece today is a much poorer country than was western Germany when it bailed-out eastern Germany by itself. However, the Greeks are just in the wrong. The Greeks of today are not the Greeks of the Peloponnesian War. Resolution, honor and self-sacrifice are not Greek characteristics today. Neither side seems to recognize the truth.

The truth is that the Greeks will not pay. Do the Germans want to destroy Europe and create a “humanitarian” crisis to make a point? What can be saved of and for “Europe”?

[1] The IMF has recommended a 30 percent reduction and a stretching out of the payment period to reduce annual payments and to allow inflation to further reduce the real value of the obligations.

[2] See the chart at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33426328

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reunification#Cost_of_reunification

“Die for Danzig?” Marcel Deat, “Mourir pour Danzig?” L’Oeuvre, 4 May 1939.

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Fighting Russia isn’t a very popular idea. Fighting Russia over Ukraine doesn’t have much support in spite of the obvious Russian intervention in the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. But fighting Russia if it attacks a fellow member of NATO seems like a no-brainer. That’s what a military alliance is all about, right? Well, not necessarily.[1]

Back in 1956, in the midst of the Eisenhower administration and at the height of the Cold War, 82 percent of Americans believed that a Russian attack on one member was an attack on all and that the US should fight, while 8 percent opposed it, and 10 percent weren’t sure. In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 56 percent of Americans supported using force against Russia if it became involved in a “serious military conflict” with another NATO member state, while 37 percent were opposed, and a mere 7 percent weren’t sure. Among some other NATO countries, support then falls off by small steps. Support for fighting slides down through Canada (53), Britain (49), Poland and Spain (48), France (47), Italy (40), and Germany (38).[2] In Germany, 58 percent opposed fighting Russia, while only 4 percent weren’t sure.

With regard to the conflict in Ukraine, Poland (50 percent) and the United States (46 percent) most strongly support sending weapons to the Kiev government. Thereafter, support declines among other NATO members through Canada (44), Britain (42), and France (40), before falling off sharply in Spain (25 percent), Italy (22) and Germany (19). Similarly, 62 percent of Americans favor admitting Ukraine to NATO, but only 36 percent of Germans supported such a move.

One way to think about this is that, in spite of the frequent media references to a revived Cold War, most people in the West aren’t there yet. Still, it may be where we are headed. Favorable opinion about the United States among Russians has fallen from 51 percent in 2013 to 15 percent in June 2015 and favorable opinion about NATO has fallen from 37 percent to 26 percent over the same period. Favorable opinion about Russia in the NATO countries has fallen from 37 percent to 26 percent.

Another way to think about this is that there has been a significant disaggregation within the NATO alliance since the end of the Cold War. The United States and Germany now represent opposite poles on a number of key policy issues. As the creation of the Eurozone and the negotiations over the Greek debt crisis show, Germany has become the dominant power in Europe. Americans demonstrate a resolution (or belligerence) unmatched by the Germans. This is something with which future leaders of both countries will have to wrestle.

Still another way to think about this is that we are witnessing yet another phase in the troubled, tortuous relationship between Germany and Russia. Before the First World War they were two conservative empires in opposed alliances. Between the wars they were ideologically opposed states driven to co-operate by their international pariah status. Since 1945, the partitioned Germanys first clung to their dominant partner, then West Germany’s “Ostpolitik” began opening a road East based on economic complementarity. Vladimir Putin’s assertion of Russian power and interests among the non-NATO former members of the Soviet Union has challenged that relationship. Belarus and Georgia may be next, but people worry that he will not stop at the borders of the Baltic states. Putin’s own moderation—or lack of it–holds the key.

[1] Naftali Bendavid, “Poll Shows West Is Divided On How to Deal With Russia,” WSJ, 10 June 2015.

[2] The Polish stance is worth some thought because Poland is going to provide the most likely battlefield in such a conflict.

Whistling past the graveyard?

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Simon Nixon holds that in the years before the financial crisis broke, Greece was flush with money. The Greek governments of the time did the popular thing by increasing pensions and wages for public employees well beyond the level that the feeble Greek economy could sustain in normal times. Then the slump dried up the river of money. Greece faced a crisis; a Greek financial collapse could spread to the rest of the Eurozone; and the European Central Bank, the Eurozone countries, and the International Monetary Fund stepped in with a bailout.[1]

In return for this bail-out, the creditors demanded that Greece make reforms of its unsustainable public-sector and pension systems to reduce spending to a level that the Greek economy could support in normal times. Instead of pursuing this politically unpopular course, Greece laid its main effort on enhanced tax collection and on a reform of the pension system that did not address the real problem. Thus, the number of bureaucrats fell as they were transferred to early retirement. This increased the burden of pensions in the budget rather than reducing it.

The Syriza government argues that budget cuts will just push Greece deeper into recession. They have been asking for an expansionary budget policy combined with more money from the European Union for “investment.”

There is a consensus on the need to “restructure” (greatly reduce) Greece’s debt. There is a consensus among the creditors on the need for serious reforms of Greece’s public sector and pension systems. A deal should be easy to reach. However, the Greeks want the debt reduction to come at the same time as the promise to implement reforms in the future.[2] The creditors don’t trust the Greeks to implement the reforms once they have the money in hand. As a result, they insist that the reforms have to precede any debt restructuring.

Anatole Kaletsky argues that, between the outbreak of the Greek financial crisis in 2009 and the end of 2014, there existed a real danger that a Greek default would be the first domino in a chain that ran through Portugal, Spain, and Italy before crashing down on Germany.[3] In January 2015, however, Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, won approval for a massive program of bond-buying on the part of the ECB. In essence, the ECB now can print all the money it needs to drown the fires of a financial crisis. Euro-zone countries agreed to this measure in order to build a fire-wall between Greece and the rest of the Eurozone. Now, the dangers of a Greek default are chiefly to the Greeks themselves: default will block access to foreign credits, end ECB support for the Greek banking system, lead to a run on the banks that will leave many people empty handed, and the government will be unable to pay the pensioners and public employees on whose behalf it has been engaged in this game of chicken.

Then there is the collateral damage. A “Grexit” may not do serious damage to the European economy. It will harm the reputation of the IMF. IMF rules bar it from lending to countries that are unlikely to be able to sustain the debt. The Eurozone lured the IMF into participating in the Greek bail-out by warnings of a “financial contagion.” Well, the current level of Greek debt is not sustainable. A Greek default will gore the IMF, which prime minister Tsipras has just denounced as ‘criminal.” That will affect IMF lending programs in several ways for the foreseeable future.

The level of emotional engagement here reminds us that politics isn’t always rational.

[1] Simon Nixon, “Athens and Its Creditors Head for the Brink,” WSJ, 8 June 2015.

[2] See: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

[3] Anatole Kaletsky, “Greek crisis: Europe has nothing to fear from Greek belligerence,” The Guardian, 16 June 2015.

A tale of two occupied cities.

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Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran two stories in one day on the problems of “occupied territories” in two wars. The stories cast some light on possible future developments.

Since seizing Mosul in June 2014, ISIS has provided a sort of good government to the captured city of 1-1.5 million people.[1] Roads have been repaired and are well-maintained. The street lights are working far better than they did under the old regime. Theft of electricity through improvised wiring has ended. You can walk down the street without navigating around kiosks and barrows. Littering has come to a stop. All men wear beards and all women are fully covered. You don’t feel offended all the time by people scrolling through their Smart phones because the cell towers and Internet have been turned off.[2] ISIS drove out the Christian minority from the city. Now churches host garage sales. ISIS blew up the Shi’ite shrines that once dotted the city. One way to ensure compliance with government orders is to kill anyone who violates them.

The recapture of Mosul has been a loudly-proclaimed goal of the American—I mean Iraqi—strategy against ISIS. So far, most of the heavy lifting has been done by the Kurds, who have made advances around the western, northern, and eastern flanks of the city. However, the fall of Ramadi in Anbar province has put a spoke in the wheel of that strategy for the moment.

The Sunni majority in the city fears both the reconquest by the Shi’ite-dominated government and what might follow at the hands of the “liberators.”

It isn’t at all clear that Petro Poroshenko’s Ukraine government expects—or even wants—to recover the rebel territories in eastern Ukraine.[3] A cease-fire worked out in February 2015 has greatly reduced casualties among civilians. However, Poroshenko’s government has been tightening controls on movement between the two parts of Ukraine. One estimate is that trade across the cease-fire line has fallen by perhaps 70 percent since the cease-fire was implemented.[4] The Poroshenko government argues that the economic and political integration clauses of the cease-fire agreement have to wait on the military aspect of the cease-fire being “fully ensured.” The distinction seems intended to punish the residents of the eastern zone. Delays at the Kiev government’s check-points have extended a round-trip between Donetsk and neighboring towns in Ukraine proper from two hours to twelve hours. Furthermore, the Ukrainian border guards regularly demand hefty bribes—in effect a government tax on exports—from truckers. Food and medical supplies from Ukraine have begun to dwindle as the border guards refuse to allow their passage. The Kiev government has begun denying pension benefits to anyone living permanently in the rebel-held regions. The Russians have not taken up the slack. Yet. This policy runs the risk of driving many people in eastern Ukraine who do not support “independence” under the Russian thumb into the arms of the rebels. One frustrated traveler said “”Give me the opportunity to work and live peacefully and I don’t care who is in power.”

Clearly, conditions in Mosul are far worse than in eastern Ukraine. The occupation of Mosul by ISIS seems likely to end in a horrific fashion, while Ukraine will be partitioned.

[1] Nour Malas, “Year of Islamic State Rule Transforms Mosul,” WSJ, 10 June 2015.

[2] That doesn’t mean that no news reaches the city. Residents seem well aware of the reports of very destructive fighting, looting, and retribution killings by Shi’ite militias in the re-capture of Tikrit.

[3] Laura Mills, “In Ukraine, Anger Grows as Border Tightens,” WSJ, 10 June 2015.

[4] That is, much more trade took place while the fighting was still going on at a high pitch.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: Grexit Rising:

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When it comes to tossing around their weight, it doesn’t matter that each country has a single vote at the U.N. General Assembly. There are a few big, important countries and there are many little, unimportant countries. You can see this at work in the current stand-off over the Greek debt issue.

The I.M.F., although chock-full of technical experts, still has an acute political awareness. So, the I.M.F. has long favored pairing a reduction (“restructuring”) of the debt owed by Greece to its European creditors (especially Germany) with economic reforms by Greece. Greek debt is up to 180 percent of GDP. There is no way the Greeks are going to make the sacrifices necessary to pay the debt, but the European creditors have refused to absorb the losses. The Greeks revolted against both austerity and the reforms pushed by the I.M.F. and the European Union. Now there is a dead-lock. However, in public the I.M.F. has laid the blame for the impasse at the feet of the Greek government. Complaints about the intransigence of the creditors were uttered sotto voce.[1] That reflects the importance of Germany and France on the world scene and within the European Union. The harsh stance toward the Greeks also reflects the utter unimportance of their country. Greeks are by nature Hellenophiles, so they have some difficulty registering the reality that no one else cares what happens to Greece.

Before joining the Eurozone, the Greeks could have dealt with their debt problem (and did) by devaluing their currency. Effectively, this robbed their creditors. Served the creditors right for lending to the Greeks. Financial Darwinism in action. Nobody much cared. Joining the Eurozone, with its single exchange rate, robbed Greece of this option.[2]

In a normal bankruptcy, the creditors would have to eat a lot of their claims on the grounds that they had been foolish to lend the money in the first place. The Greek case is different because the crisis arose when it became apparent that several Greek governments representing different parties had “cooked” the national accounts in order to deceive lenders. So, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that Greece would get its head held under the tap while someone (with a German accent) gave them a good scrub with a steel brush. Still, you can’t get blood out of a stone. Why not say “enough is enough”?

I conjecture that there are several reasons. First, once all is forgiven, and the debt has been written down, and the Greeks have agreed to some cosmetic reforms of unions and pensions, and enough time has passed for people in financial markets to forget about the whole thing[3], the Greeks will do it again. There is no solution to this problem except to boot the Greeks out of the Eurozone. Second, what will be the effect of a Greek default on the creditors? Back in August 2012, it was estimated that the Eurozone Central Banks could lose as much as 100 billion Euros from a Greek default, with the German Central Bank getting soaked for up to 27 billion Euros.[4] I have not seen much discussion of the impact on the creditor economies of a Greek default (but maybe I wasn’t looking). Economically, but even more politically, accepting that the money is gone will be hard for democracies to choke down. Still, push is coming to shove. Either before or after a new “extension,” the Greeks will get shoved out the door.

[1] Liz Alderman and Landon Thomas, Jr., “I.M.F. Recalls Negotiators as Deadline Looms for Greek Deal,” NYT, 12 June 2015.

[2] In exchange, the Greeks gained the transient psychic benefit of believing that they did not live in a banana republic.

[3] In all likelihood a relatively short span of time. Which should make Americans wonder whether anyone learned any lessons from our own “recent unpleasantness.”

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis#Greece

The Islamic Brigades II.

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In 2007, more than twenty men—most from the large Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis–went to join Al Shabab, the Somali Islamist militia. Federal authorities launched an investigation. They ended up prosecuting eight men as facilitators and recruiters.

In recent years, eight young men from the Norwegian town of Frederikstad have gone to Syria. Norwegian authorities have investigated the role of an Islamist group called Prophet’s Umma for its role in recruiting jihadis and facilitating their movement toward the battlefront.

Investigating the recruiters and facilitators is important to the fight against radical Islamism. So, too, is trying to understand why some people are open to recruitment. There aren’t any good answers here so far. Mostly, there are just some anecdotes about human beings. Can we learn anything from looking at them?

Two friends from the same neighborhood in Minneapolis; high-school drops outs; in minor trouble with the law; converts to Islam; and soldiers of jihad.[1]

Troy Kastigar (1981-2009) went from being a funny, energetic, boundary-testing kid to smoking weed, drinking, and failing his high-school classes.[2] He dropped out of high school, later got a G.E.D., and worked fitfully between bouts of unemployment. He went back to school to become an X-Ray tech, but he was told that it would be difficult for him to get a job in the field because of his criminal record. His friend, Doug McCain, also dropped out of high school, then had some run-ins with the law over drugs, moving violations, and theft.

In about 2004, both men converted to Islam. There is a large Somali community in Minneapolis, so Islam presented itself more prominently there than in many other American cities. After a while, they moved beyond Islam to Islamism. In November 2008, Kastigar went to Kenya. He said he was going to study the Koran. In fact, he soon crossed the border to join Al Shabab. He was killed fighting with the group in September 2009. In 2009, Doug McCain moved to San Diego. He had family out there, he worked in restaurants, and he took some classes at a community college. In 2014 he went to Syria. In August 2014 he was killed fighting with ISIS.

At least one other man from the same social circle also traveled to Syria. Abdirahmaan Muhumed, worked at the airport from November 2001 to May 2011. At different times he worked at refueling planes and on cleaning crews. Acquaintances had seen him as a more secular than a religious man. He worked out a lot and played basketball. Then he started to become exercised over the fighting in Gaza and in Libya. Muslim people suffering under assault from Western powers. Muslim or not, Muhumed drank—and to excess—on some occasions. Drinking just enflamed him all the more on the issues. He went to Syria and died in the same fight as did Doug McCain.

The little town of Frederickstad, Norway, is south of Oslo. It is a more diverse place than one might expect of a small town. The Muslim community is largely made up of Somali refugees, but there also are immigrants from Algeria, Pakistan, Kurdistan, and Chechnya.[3]

The Chaib family came from Algeria to Frederickstad. Their son Abdullah (1989-2012) grew into a popular figure in his school and neighborhood. His ability at soccer enhanced a general “cool guy” demeanor.   At some point and by some means, Abdullah Chaib became committed to jihad. A then-radical Norwegian Muslim who visited Frederikstad recalled Chaib as “a real fanatic…[who] talked about jihad all the time.” In November 2012 Abdullah Chaib went to Syria. In December 2012 he died fighting there.

Chaib’s death in battle set an example for some other boys in the town. Among them was Adu Edelbijev. His parents came to Norway from Chechnya in 2002. He attended the same school as Chaib and, like Chaib, was a good athlete. He didn’t feel estranged from Norway, but his hopes to join the army were foiled by bad eyesight. He began to take religion seriously. By 2013 he had begun to prepare to go to Syria. He left in August 2013. In November 2014, he died while fighting with ISIS near Kobani.

Rebecca Sanchez Hammer was a Filipina who came to Norway and married a Norwegian who later died. They had a son, Torlief Sanchez Hammer. A group of goofy dopers used Torlief Hammer’s basement as a place to bake their heads. For several years, the police regularly broke up their parties and confiscated their drugs and pipes.

When, before he left for Syria, Adu Edelbijev lectured Torlief Hammer about his bad habits, the boy listened. Hammer converted to Islam, took the new first name Abdul, and suddenly stopped using drugs. His run-ins with the police ended, but his satisfaction with life did not improve. “”I have no friends, no job, nothing,” he told his mother. This did not cause him to reject Islam however. It only deepened his commitment. In December 2013, the young man took the road to Syria.

The parents of Samiullah Khan (1991- ) came from Pakistan to Norway, but did not prosper. His father murdered someone, did a stretch in prison, then accidentally killed someone else while driving drunk. This background left Khan feeling marked and excluded by native Norwegians and Pakistani immigrants. He went to fight in Syria, was wounded, returned to Norway, and was arrested for belonging to a terrorist organization.

It is easy to write off these people as failures who made foolish—and fatal–decisions. But is it possible that there foolish and fatal decision reflected an aspiration for a more satisfying life than what the larger societies in which they lived could offer?

A friend of Kastigar and McLean argued that “They just wanted to be a part of something. They were just trying to find something that just accepted them for who they were.” A friend of Abdirahman said that “He always wanted to be a freedom fighter, he always wanted to be a hero,” recalled a friend.

“None of them ever even mentioned religion when we knew them,” recalled one policeman speaking about the group around Torlief Hammer. “The only thing they had in common is that they did not function in society. But they wanted to be able to do something, to be good at something.” Torlief Hammer told his mother that “he wanted to fix himself after too much disco, too many girlfriends and too much smoking.”

In March 1940, George Orwell published a review of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In it, Orwell argued that Hitler “has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.”[4]

As the United States lugubriously embarks on the election campaign of 2016, will any of the candidates offer voters “struggle and self-sacrifice”? Or will they promise “ease, security and avoidance of pain”? That is an easy question to answer. But what if there are a lot of people who would never consider radical Islam, yet still feel some longing for something more ennobling than the next entitlement or the next tax cut?

[1] Jack Healy, “For Jihad Recruits, a Pipeline From Minnesota to Militancy,” NYT, 7 September 2014.

[2] I wondered if these were signs of Depression. His mother describes him as having had a “sadness and a darkness” move into his life.

[3] Andrew Higgins, “A Norway Town And Its Pipeline to Jihad in Syria,” NYT, 5 April 2015.

[4] http://genius.com/George-orwell-review-of-mein-kampf-annotated