JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-hosts:  Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com.  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.

Hour One

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Mary Kissel, in re: Nina Rees, charter schools.  Teachers' Union. 

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  Edward W Hayes, criminal defense attorney par excellence, in re: Meet the New Squeegee Men.  Bill de Blasio’s New York is coming unwound. The Squeegee Man was the personification of old, dysfunctional, pre-Giuliani New York City. These guys were extortion artists, who would “help” motorists stuck in clogged automotive arteries, such as those leading to the Lincoln Tunnel, by forcing their unsolicited windshield-cleaning services on them and then demanding payment, the demand generally being accompanied by verbal abuse or the threat of violence — and, occasionally, with actual violence. Squeegee Man symbolized the disorder and lawlessness of New York life — not a murderer or a rapist, just one of the many lower-level hassles and terrors that made the city so unbearable back in what some insist on remembering as the good ol’ days of crack addicts and hookers on Times Square.

Squeegee Man is making a comeback, both in his traditional form — as documented by the New York Post — and in a new, mutant form: Sunday Hijacker. Sunday Hijacker is cleverer and more cynical than his predecessor, and his modus operandi is to make a scene inside a church during worship until somebody pays him to go away. Screaming, knocking over furnishings, and threatening violence are his shtick.

On Sunday, I was at Mass at a congregation with whom I sometimes worship (Catholic liturgy on Park Avenue — that’s a National Review Sunday, missing only the tying of a soft-shackle Edwards), and was intrigued by one of the announcements at the end of the service: Parishioners were asked to call 9-1-1 if they were threatened inside the church or on the church grounds by people demanding money. We were implored to make a donation to one of the many Catholic charities caring for the homeless instead of complying with vagrants’ demands for cash. The police, parishioners were assured, had been contacted, and they had promised to pay extra attention to the church.

I had a pretty good idea what they were talking about: A few minutes before Mass began, a very angry and incoherent man had been raging through the church, shouting various obscenities and generally making an urban spectacle of himself. The ushers, exhibiting the telltale signs of resignation, gently showed him out, inquiring as to whether he’d care to spend the remainder of the day with the police. Said inquiry was met with a negative, and a not especially polite one.

On Monday, I spoke with a church employee about the situation — and, as we spoke, the same guy was in the church, making the same spectacle, threatening elderly people, particularly women. “He’s here every single day,” she said. “It’s dangerous. We talked to the police. They took him to Bellevue,” a nearby hospital with a psychiatric ward. “He was released, and back here the next day. We don’t know what else to do.” Because the church is a place that is open to the public, she said, it probably will be obliged to get a restraining order — dealing with Sunday Hijackers on a case-by-case basis.

Detective Frank Bogucki, the community-affairs officer for the 17th Precinct, said that my inquiry was the first he had heard of the matter. “It’s not common, but it happens sometimes,” he said. “It’s happened in other parishes.” NYPD headquarters did not respond to a . . .

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Angelo M. Codevilla, professor Emeritus of international relations at Boston University, Library of Law and Liberty & Hoover, in re: Bringing International Contempt upon America  Recently, President Obama protested to Vladimir Putin that Russia had been violating the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces in Europe treaty (INF) for the last six years by testing precisely the kind of missile that the treaty prohibits. That protest, as reported by the New York Times, is a textbook lesson in how a government earns the contempt of others.

The U.S.-Soviet INF treaty had settled one of the Cold War’s major military confrontations. The Soviet Union had been threatening to overwhelm Europe with its medium-range, nuclear-tipped missiles. The missiles with which the United States responded—placing them on the territory of allies like Britain and West Germany—threatened Soviet elites and military forces especially severely because their short flight times would not have allowed them much chance to take shelter. The INF treaty, which banished both sets of missiles, turned out to be a prelude to the Cold War’s end.

Vladimir Putin, however, never renounced the Soviet objective of overwhelming Europe politically by exhibiting the power to do so militarily. Hence, he set about building a new generation of intermediate-range, nuclear-capable missiles. Washington noticed. But what to do?

In a nutshell: Since Obama has no intention of forcing compliance with the treaty, or of neutralizing its flouting with countermeasures, his taking public note of Russia’s violation simply enhanced the effect of Putin’s assertion of power. By advertising American inaction, he brought international contempt on the United States.

The Times’ Michael R. Gordon reports:

Mr. Obama underscored his interest in a high-level dialogue with Moscow with the aim of preserving the 1987 treaty and discussing steps the Kremlin might take to come back into compliance.

Gordon adds that administration officials “say there are measures the Russians can take to ameliorate the problem.”  Since the Kremlin has shown that its aim is to transcend the treaty, why should it regard transcending it as “a problem” to be ameliorated? And with what attitude are Russian officials likely to listen to Obama’s suggestions about how they might bring Russia back into compliance? Under the circumstances, any Americans in such a dialogue, high-level or low, would have to know that those on the other side would be laughing at them.

Reportedly, however, Obama is as serious as he is capable of being (about non-domestic affairs): “A weapon capability that violates the I.N.F., that is introduced into the greater European land mass, is absolutely a tool that will have to be . . .

THEL/Theater High-Energy Laser: a scaled-down version of Reagan's star-wars technology. See NYT 1994: "Space-based laser almost ready to fly." I was intimately involved in the dvpt of this system up to 1985.  -  Israel almost adopted this instead of Iron Dome because it performs better in space than on Earth. This is not fantasy; can kick its tires in White Sands, New Mexico.  This actually protects us – it works.

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block D:  Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover, in re: Pres Obama as Icarus.  Also: The Un-Midas Touch  Everything that Barack Obama touches seems to turn to dross. Think of it for a minute. He inherited a quiet Iraq (no American combat deaths at all in December 2009). Joe Biden bragged of the calm that it would be the administration’s “greatest achievement.” But by pulling out all U.S. peacekeepers — mostly for a 2012 reelection talking point — Obama ensured an ISIS wasteland. He put his promised eye on Afghanistan at last, and we have lost more soldiers there than during the Bush administration and a Taliban victory seems likely after more than a decade of lost American blood and treasure. The message seems to be that it is better for Obama to have his eye off something than on it.

Remember those threats to Syria? After the U.S. threatened and backed off, the violence only escalated and spilled into Iraq.  Libya was no paradise under Gadhafi, but it is now Mogadishu on the Mediterranean. Not even the president’s supporters believe that he told the truth about Benghazi. Reset with Russia green-lighted Putin, as he sized up Barack Obama as a lamb waiting to be eaten. The Bowe Bergdahl-for-five-terrorists swap (likely illegal) is not headline news only because dozens of scandals since have eclipsed it, and the likely deserter is apparently still kept incommunicado, lest he speak in the fashion of his father at the earlier White House press conference. I don’t think Bergdahl is a model for future negotiations with the Taliban.

Israel? We never have been more estranged from the Jewish state. Open mic outbursts against Netanyahu define our true policies. The terrorist state run by Hamas is now a partner for peace – tunnels, missiles, syringes, handcuffs and all. Did outreach to Hamas lessen or spike violence? &   Gaza Crisis: Israel Outflanks the White House on Strategy  White House Now Scrutinizing Israeli Requests for Ammunition

Hour Two

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Michael Rubin, AEI, in re:  ISIS, Kurds, Iraq. Beyond bombing Iraq: Obama needs an ISIS strategy.     ISIS holds that either you agree with them in toto or you're not worthy of life.  It has momentum in part because the West  allowed them to operate on the open pain with no interference.  . . .  No coherence to the Obama policy: e.g., why act vs ISIS in Iraq but not vs Syria; and three other such questions. Yazidis are ethnically Kurdish and theologically pre-Islamic (Zoroastrian?).  ISIS revenue stream; $400 mil in deposits from Iraq; plus kidnap and behead and kidnap and ransom for a lot of money. In a mainstream Turkish medium:  shops selling ISIS memorabilia for ISIS profit.  Now control the Mosul dam, can collect a lot of money. It’s like a cancer diagnosed several years ago, where Dr Obama decided not to acknowledge it till it reached Stage 3, then treat it with an aspirin.  . . .  Yes, Baghdadi understands that the US has blinked, that he has a green light.

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: David Schenker, Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute; in re: Lebanon, Hezbollah, ISIS.  Pentagon OK'd sales and shipped; neglected to notify White House, which grew irate and withheld delivery of Hellfire missiles – which Israel had proposed to use for training purposes, not for actual warfighting. Seems to be a personal problem 'twixt administration, not between US and Israel; in a few years, these irritants will have ceased.  . . .  Israel may not have Washington on its side, but does have Egypt.  Hellfires: from drones, helos, F16s.  Can be antitank killer, or anti-personnel.  Precision attacks.  When the White House deprives Israel of precision attacks, that's a big help for Hamas, which claims that Israel kills civilians.

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Charles Schumer, senior Senator from New York; in re:  (60,000 Palestinians came into Israel this year.) There is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.  Moral equivalency:  Hamas is a terrorists group that starts wars, while Israel defends herself in a more humane way than almost any other nation does.  Imputing the same level of misdeeds to both helps Hamas. Hamas hides weapons among civilians; then it starts a war by firing rockets; then when Israel responds, Hamas demands that Gazans stand on roofs – a violation of Geneva; e.g., if you put a machine-gun nest among civilians, that's illegal.  Friends of Israel worry too much about world opinion. One of the best things to happen to Israel is Sisi – isis backwards.  Note WSJ article: reports of another layer of bureaucracy. Congress is extremely strong in favor of Israel – for example, before Congress adjourned it replenished the Iron Dome supply.  The greatest existential danger to Israel is not Hamas but a nuclear Iran.  Israel will get what it needs from the US as long as it never asks for troops on the ground – which it doesn’t want.   Don’t get caught p in occasional bumps in relations.  Is Congress ready to examine UNRWA positions?  Yes – it’s almost a Palestinian front: three or four reports of Hamas missile emplacements in UNRWA buildings.  I'm quite leery of the new fellow assigned ton investigate and report. The UN has lost all credibility in the Middle East.  Clearly not a fair investigator.  The FAA saw a potential danger in Israel airspace and overreacted; the White House responded quickly. 

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Michael Doran, senior Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy, in re: the Obama Administration, unlike all previous ones, does not see Iran as a grave threat. Some advisors are starting to see Iran as an ally against ISIS.  Can the US and Iran come to understandings when its goals are clear? Could any deal emerge that'd be better than no deal?  Not: none is better than anything on the horizon.  Forget a coalition to solve the ISSI problem Iran has a hand in every camp – makes itself the regional hegemon; r is the US pulling out and things pop up?  Iranians build up positions of strength – in a power vacuum, pick up any players it can. Basic model is Hezbollah: Iran allied itself with all the Shia clans, merged them all to create Hezbollah, now the single largest power n Lebanon, Doing same thing with Palestinians.  Khamenei and Suleimani make the decisions; Zarif and others are front-men.

Hour Three

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Village 70 miles south of Paris: La Mort aux Juifs ("death to the Jews"). Simon Wiesenthal Center asks, What's this?  Town's mayor says, "Oh don’t worry, It's had this name since the XIVe siècle; no need to change it now."  Same thing in Spain, although there the town voted to change its name.  In Syria 1,800 Europeans fighting, of which 80 are French.  "Reckless and untrustworthy" are what he White House called Netanyahu.  US is giving 5,000 Hellfires to Iraq but withholding many fewer from Israel.  How does this look to the neighbors?  Recall that 300 missiles hit Israel before Israel responded.  Tonight, 15,000 people in a demo demanding that Jerusalem do more to protect its citizens.  Israel could have carpet-bombed and didn't; found terrorists's tunnels going a mile into Israel – no other country in the world would have responded as mildly.   With 200,000 dead in Syria, Christians and others persecuted widely – and all the UN does is condemn Israel. New chair into inquiry has a sullied past. UNRWA: how did its facilities become the locus of multiple Hamas missile emplacements?  UN agencies have been highjacked by terrorist groups. Who's running this?  Good question – SG yesterday cited pressure from Qataris and Turks to oppose Israel.  Now 32 reporters from around the world publicly say that they were heavily pressured by Hamas to lie about what's going on in Gaza.  The Arab Bank: transfers of money to Hamas-connected individuals; being sued by victims of terrorism. 

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block B:  Amb. Alan Baker, Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, in re: Israel, Cairo, Hamas.  Ongoing negotiations, will continue for five days.  Palestinians and Egyptians negotiating among themselves, and Islamic Jihad is in there. We hope ha this will come to some definitive resolution where all sides feel comfortable living quietly. "Proportionality" and "distinction" – heavily-laden terms in intl law.  Accusations from Ban Ki-moon are baseless: Israel has very carefully acted in accord with intl [regulations] whereas Hamas uses schools and hospitals.  Proportionality now said t mean that there should be the same numbers dead on both sides, but what it means in intl law is that the levels of force be similar.  Hamas has successfully propagated this misdefinition; good to ask the BBC, for example: Would you be happier if more Israelis died?  Then the Beeb gets it.  Egypt under Sisi wants Hamas dead and gone.  However, Egypt has taken on the task of mediator in this, and has an interest as being adjacent to the Gaza Strip, thus protecting its own interest. IDF: every battalion commander is accompanied by a lawyer who vets each target as legally-justified.  Israel can explain till its blue in the face but the enabling resolution of the UN Human Rights Council says that Israel has committed war crimes. 

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law (1 of 2), in re: intl order

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law (2 of 2), in re: intl order

Hour Four

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Seb Gorka, FDD, Natl Defense University, in re: al Shebaab

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Rosetta Stone space

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block C:  Donald McNeil, NYT, in re: Ebola

Thursday  14 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block D:  Caroline Chen, Bloomberg, in re: Ebola

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China dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng 'destroyed by jail'

As well as losing many teeth, Mr Gao's daily ration of cabbage and a single slice of bread had caused him to lose 20 kg in weight, according to a statement by US-based advocacy group, Freedom Now.  The group said he had been confined to a cramped cell, with very little light, and had been largely deprived of human contact until his release.

Freedom Now said Mr Gao's wife, Geng He, had spoken to her husband and was "completely devastated" by what the Chinese government had done to him. "The only thing I feared more than him being killed was his suffering relentless and horrific torture and being kept alive," she is quoted as saying. Ms He has urged the Chinese government to allow Mr Gao to seek treatment in the United States, where she and their two children have been living since 2009.