[View Article at Source]The Armenia–Azerbaijan peace has unpalatable lessons for everyone. The post Peace After Conquest appeared first on The American Conservative.

GPT-5 was supposed to get rid of all the complicated AI models to choose from in ChatGPT, but that's not how it's panned out.

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Politics Washington Really Is Israeli-Occupied Territory The American people have lost control of their government. During Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress in July 2024, the Israeli premier received dozens of long and loud standing ovations. The enthusiastic response to his triumphalist speech brought to mind the joyous welcome given to a Roman general returning from a victorious campaign that brought glory to the Empire. Yet this was the leader of a small foreign country whose aggression brings it—and us—a cloud of shame. Netanyahu, in the speech, boasted about the success of his nation’s campaign against Hamas. Of course, the Netanyahu regime has long indirectly supported Hamas, backing Qatar’s funding of the group. Hamas’s existence and continued rule over Gaza provides Israel a convenient excuse to divide, subjugate, and destroy the Palestinians instead of complying with any of the various “peace” deals it signed over the decades. Netanyahu, by the time of his oration before U.S. lawmakers, had spent the previous eight months mercilessly attacking Gaza with U.S.-provided munitions. Israel was (and still is) bombing hospitals, churches, schools, water plants, and other civilian infrastructure, rendering most of Gaza uninhabitable. At the time, the mainstream narrative was repeating the “40,000 civilians killed” mantra. Mostly children, women, and other plainly innocent civilians—“collateral damage.” The real number may be even higher than the official count, with corpses buried under the rubble, and with civilians dying from lack of medicine and other basic needs. As Netanyahu spoke, our congressional leaders enthusiastically applauded and cheered the perpetrator of this horror. Of course, July 2024 was the summer of an important election year, and they wanted to be seen demonstrating their fealty to the Israel lobby. Questions remain about the Netanyahu government’s lack of preparation for the October 7 terror attacks. Some, including concerned Jews in and out of Israel, have even questioned whether the Netanyahu government was truly caught off guard. The vaunted Israeli military/intelligence network has recently demonstrated its ability to infiltrate the Iranian government to shut off the Iranian missile defense and also, from inside Iran, to assassinate many leading military, scientific, and government officials. Does anyone seriously believe Mossad was unable to infiltrate Hamas, a ragtag group of fighters who live a short distance from Tel Aviv and are supported, in part, with Israel’s cynical acquiescence? There are voices from inside Israel who have called out the Netanyahu government for “ignoring” intelligence and relaxing the security cordon designed to protect from such an attack. The Hamas attack by light troops armed with small arms in no way indicates a strategic threat to Israel, but the brutality of the Israeli response is eroding support for Israel across the world, perhaps irreversibly.  Netanyahu has a history of seeing terror attacks as opportunities to exploit. When asked about the impact of 9/11 on U.S. relations with Israel, according to the New York Times, Netanyahu said of the traumatic event, “It is very good.” He then added, “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy,” meaning it will make Americans more sympathetic to Israelis. The Zionists had hoped for decades to use American military muscle to eliminate obstacles to the unfolding dream of a Greater Israel. (The First Gulf War had been insufficiently pursued by George H.W. Bush and was viewed as a missed opportunity.)  After 9/11, the American political/military/foreign policy establishment, driven by Zionist Christians and conservatives, proceeded to wreck Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon. Iran is a work in process. The other countries in the region have been bought off and/or subjugated in one way or another (a subject for another article). Only the impecunious Houthis in tiny Yemen have somehow withstood the U.S.-Israeli onslaught, though they have been degraded and their country wrecked. Many of these actions and policies are mostly hidden from the American people under a veil of propaganda dutifully maintained by the legacy media and political class. The American people have been kept in the dark about what our elites do in our name and with our money. The truth is probably uglier than we think. In Washington, corruption “investigations” are usually theater and opaque for “national security” reasons. After six decades, we recently learned that the so-called “lone gunman” who killed JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a CIA asset. How much of the really embarrassing information pertaining to that event ended up in burn bags, like the thousands of documents from the Russia collusion investigation, which were recently found in a secret room in the FBI Hoover Building? How many thousands of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and other controversies were stuffed into burn bags and incinerated?  We were already aware of small-scale destruction of sensitive materials, such as when President Bill Clinton’s national security aide, Sandy Berger, was caught removing and scissor-cutting copies of a classified document related to terror threats at the turn of the millennium. He received a slap on the wrist. Now, after the latest Russiagate revelation, unaccountable bureaucrats shoveling thousands of important documents into burn bags isn’t unthinkable. These concerns increase the gravity of the unreleased Epstein files and other significant documents which have been withheld. Truly our government does not act as we the people wish it would. For the past century, Americans have voted over and over again to stop the forever wars, and every time a new president takes office he is confronted with some “emergency” requiring military action. Last month the House of Representatives approved another $500 million dollars in aid for Israel’s military. Shortly after that, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recessed the House early to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Johnson then led a large congressional delegation to Israel. Remember, he has to raise millions of dollars for the house elections next year. Americans feel betrayed and demand to know whose interests our government serves. It is certainly not the American people’s. The post Washington Really Is Israeli-Occupied Territory appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Are ‘Heritage Americans’ Real? The term has caused controversy and confusion, but seems to have better legs than the alternatives. There’s a new “nativist slogan” gaining popularity on the Right. It’s “Heritage American,” and it’s meant to describe the core population of America. Mainstream outlets, such as POLITICO and the New York Times, have investigated the term as another sign of the right’s apparent “racism.”  “Heritage Americans” isn’t just a term limited to anons on social media. Government agencies now indulge it with posts celebrating American heritage and the people who settled the frontier. Of course, liberal journalists see something nefarious here, but who’s really out of touch with normal Americans: The DHS account celebrating American heritage, or the journalist saying that’s racist? It’s easy to come up with terminology and ideas on the internet. Does the term Heritage American actually describe something that’s real and that could become a serious social force? While it’s a concept that can appeal to many conservatives, it may struggle to make headway in modern America. What exactly is a Heritage American? POLITICO’s Ian Ward offered a decent definition in his article on the topic: In its most basic sense, the phrase refers to present-day Americans who trace their ancestral roots to the colonial period, or shortly thereafter. Depending on whom you ask, the category also includes the offspring of Indigenous Americans and the ADOS, or “American descendants of slavery.” But at its most fundamental, said Engel, “heritage American” refers to the offspring of the Anglo-Protestant and Scotch-Irish settlers — in other words, the white people — who populated the original colonies before heading west to settle the American frontier. Ward notes that J.D. Vance and prominent conservatives now allude to the concept, and wonders whether this picture of a “vanishing America” is rooted in reality: “Critics of the term have pointed out that the early American colonists, far from sharing a well-defined cultural inheritance, were actually bitterly divided along religious and political lines…. To the degree that a distinctive American identity did emerge out of westward expansion, they add, it drew on various Indigenous and immigrant cultures the settlers encountered along the way — or at least the cultures that those settlers didn’t suppress or exterminate.” This is idiotic. Ward links to an asinine article claiming America has always been “multicultural” because various people from the British isles settled here in the colonial days. That author, Leighton Woodhouse, bases his argument on a poor reading of David Hackett Fisher’s Albion’s Seed. The book asserts certain British folkways and cultures shaped America. Woodhouse assumes the differences between Puritans and Cavaliers made America extremely diverse at the beginning—so Little Mogadishu in Minneapolis is the natural extension of our colonial ancestry. Certainly those who settled New England and those who settled Tidewater Virginia weren’t identical. But these settlers, no matter where, had an Anglo-Protestant cultural identity. They spoke English, saw themselves as Protestant, traced their heritage back to the British Isles, and shared many of the same traditions and political values. The early colonies were not the Balkans. The Revolution was based on the colonists’ common sense that their rights as Englishmen had been violated. This indicates a core ethno-cultural identity that was present at the Founding. Throughout American history, the core population stressed its distinctiveness in response to perceived foreign threats. Nativism expressed the fear that new arrivals would wipe out the real America and animated millions of Americans to demand immigration restriction in the early 20th century.  But the core population has long struggled to figure out what to call themselves. Sometimes they went with Native Americans, which fell out of use and now only refers to American Indians. For a time, Anglo-Saxon became the preferred term. But it’s now an anachronism only used as a pejorative by the likes of Vladimir Putin and other non-Americans.  Hence, the demand for a new term like “Heritage Americans.” There have been a number of terms proposed for this group over the years. Legacy Americans came to prominence thanks to Tucker Carlson, but it’s no longer used much. Some pushed for “Founding Stock” or “Old Stock,” but those haven’t caught on. Your humble writer suggested “Settlers” three years ago. Not even I use that anymore. Heritage American won out. It has its merits. It evokes a term–heritage—with mostly positive connotations. Liberals look stupid when they freak out over such an anodyne term. People like the idea of American heritage, which the Trump administration likes to trumpet. The ambiguity of the term also adds to its value. Ian Ward notes that the term could just be a euphemism for white people and critics charge that it is a way to “to launder white nationalism with facially neutral language.” Liberals will always claim that but its advocates can dismiss it by simply saying they prize our national heritage and its culture. Heritage American is more palatable to the public than “white.” But there are issues with it. One is that the Heritage Americans don’t know that they are Heritage Americans. This is an online term and not coming from the people themselves. They might not be offended by the term, but it’s not how the heartlanders see themselves. They simply call themselves Americans. Millions of Anglo-Saxons simply list their ethnicity as “American” for the census. There is some instinctual idea of what constitutes a “real American,” such as speaking English and standing for the national anthem. But there is not an explicit understanding of group identity among these people. Many think anyone can be a true American just like them, so long as they follow a few rules and norms. It’s also debatable whether the Dissident Right/New Right/Online Right or whatever you want to call it is truly Heritage American itself. It’s a remarkably diverse contingent. While the New Right is certainly majority white, there are plenty of people who are far from the settlers within it. The person who claims to have coined “Heritage Americans” is an Indian anon monikered Indian Bronson. He’s not an outlier in this sphere, as many are recent immigrants and Ellis Islanders.  Even if some New Rightists are Heritage Americans, they often appear as “Dissenting Americans” rather than as representatives of generic Americans. The favored religions are traditional Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, not low-church Protestantism. These right-wingers aren’t as enthusiastic about “all men are created equal” and American victory in the Second World War as the average Heritage American. Many Dissident Rightists are critical of Middle America’s cultural libertarianism that encourages people to “live and let live.” The Online Right certainly isn’t so devoted to sports fandom as generic Americans are. Online Heritage Americans care way more about their heritage than offline Heritage Americans. The actual Heritage Americans do have their own culture, but it might not meet the ideal of what its online advocates imagine. Sorority rush videos, Morgan Wallen, country clubs, Hilton Head vacations, college football tailgates, NASCAR, and many other things are beloved by Heritage Americans. In their mind, these things define the individual Heritage American more than their ancestral lineage.  The New Right would like to awaken a sense of group consciousness among the generic Americans. It hopes it can do so through social media posting. It could be possible—only the future can tell. But even if Heritage American might be a creature of the online world, it still makes for good political aesthetics; Heritage Americana offers bright young people a compelling right-wing framework to champion immigration restriction, hostility to DEI, and genuine patriotism. Heritage American identity may not be real outside of the internet just yet, but it’s real enough to youthful conservative activists and content creators. The post Are ‘Heritage Americans’ Real? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Peace After Conquest The Armenia–Azerbaijan peace has unpalatable lessons for everyone. The Armenia–Azerbaijan peace summit can be claimed as the most significant achievement of President Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy. As his administration constantly reminds us, Trump, a man chasing the ever-elusive Nobel Peace Prize, is the “peace president”—so much so that he is seeking peace in the badlands of Eastern Europe/Western Asia, where three Huntingtonian civilizational blocs (Western, Islamic, and Orthodox) clash, and in the chronically bloody Middle East. The admin also reminds us that he has settled wars between Thailand and Cambodia (true), India and Pakistan (debatable), and a variety of African ethnic groups (partially true).  But there is no denying that this one is different. Armenia and Azerbaijan were locked in what seemed to be an intractable conflict, but those countries’ respective heads of state sat with Trump, grinning and signing a paper that made the U.S. a quasi-guarantor of amity in the region—albeit with a heavy dose of American corporate involvement at a junction on the historic trade route that might once again alter the balance of power in that theater.  The American-brokered and -guaranteed peace hands over a 20-mile corridor to be developed by the U.S. “The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” otherwise known in Azerbaijan as the “Zangezur corridor” and in Armenia as “Syunik road,” links Azerbaijan with Turkey through Armenia. It will be operated ostensibly by an American company, thus guaranteeing peace and profit. The route will restart a route historically used by Armenian merchants connecting Turkey (and by virtue, Europe) with Asia without having to cross through either Iran or Russia.  The idea is that, once this route is established, it would allow Turkey to reopen its border with Armenia, closed since the 1993 Armenian–Azeri conflict. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was instrumental in convincing Trump to make this deal, as well as helping bring the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides together. Both Moscow and Tehran are circumspect about the project, but powerless to do anything about it. They do, however, read the writing on the wall. This deal, while bestowing profit to America, also strengthens Turkish regional preponderance over its historic rivals of Russia and Persia.  One of the first references to Armenian commerce connecting Asia and Europe through this route is found in Marco Polo’s 13th-century chronicles; Venetian merchants like Polo were trying out new trade routes and partners connecting India to Italy, seeking Asian wealth, silk, ivory, jewels, rugs and spices. The route only gained even more importance after Mehmed conquered Constantinople, establishing Turkish supremacy around the Bosporus and making the Ottomans guarantors of order by both land and the sea. The Ottomans, in turn, settled many Armenians from eastern Turkey and Crimea in Istanbul. Armenian migration and trade continued to gain momentum as the Ottomans mellowed and became more and more (for lack of better word) multicultural throughout the 16th century.  The pressure of imperialism naturally liberalized trade routes and encouraged more cultural dilution. There was another geopolitical angle. The Ottomans had to be good to the traders to demonstrate that they were better than the Safavid Persian and Russian Empires, both of which were rivals to Ottoman power. In one of the earliest examples of borderless trade, this network connected Surat, Madras, Calcutta, Constantinople, Izmir, Moscow, Krakov, Lviv, Venice, and Amsterdam; all over it were significant Armenian and Turkish diasporas and cultural imprints. The total volume of goods circulated through this network was immense, and was eclipsed only by the eventual rise of the British imperial sea routes through Aden and Suez.  The current dynamic echoes the past, with the rapid shift of balance of power in the Caucasus towards Turkey and the West, as opposed to any Russian- or Iranian-led bloc. As Russia got busy with Ukraine, Azerbaijan decisively routed Armenia with Turkish backing and reconquered the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Between 2020 and 2023, Turkish drones changed the battlescape in Armenia and Syria (and bogged down Russia in Ukraine). More importantly, Armenia realized that there’s no Russian or Iranian cavalry coming to save them, so they have effectively discarded its deep-rooted alliance with Russia and rivalry with Turkey.  The discipline of international relations is all about power, where neither ethnicity nor religion are so important. This new, hegemonic peace will have unpalatable lessons for all sides and prompt a reevaluation within liberal history and the academy. As every generation before us has known, conquest is at times a more stable guarantor of hegemonic peace than continuous and futile war to reimpose a broken balance; small powers without a great power backing will do better to accommodate a regional balance than to rebel against the impending order. Sometimes hard power brings about a greater imperial equilibrium for all actors involved, often overtaking divisive forces of ideology, or religious and ethnic kinship. The post Peace After Conquest appeared first on The American Conservative.

Where it all started going right. The post The album that made Paul McCartney proud to be in Wings: “Really pleased” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Gavin Newsom's Misguided Redistricting Initiative