"Brokering Peace"

Conrad Black writes as only he can.

In any event, Barack Obama is not trusted by Israel. His chief initiative in the area to date has been to deny the existence of the agreement George W. Bush made with Ariel Sharon, whereby Israel would vacate Gaza, would dismantle some West Bank settlements, and would confine extensions of other settlements in contested areas to natural population growth. (The world’s obsession with settlement abandonment as the key to peace — which Obama seems to share — is foolish: If Israel dismantled every settlement, or even turned them over for occupation by returning Palestinians, a new pretext to keep the pot boiling would be devised.)

Truman's showdown with the Fed during the Korean War

Truman lost.

I just read this account of how the Federal Reserve wrested its independence from the Treasury at the height of the Korean War and I found it absolutely riveting.

I'm sure you will, too... nah, I'm lying'. I'm not sure any of you will find it riveting. Fifty fifty anyone even reads it - no worries!

But right before Truman fired MacArthur, he was engaged in a contest of wills with the Federal Reserve - in essence, he demanded they should stand ready to print enough money to monetize the entire Federal debt, if necessary.

They refused, believing the inevitable inflationary fire would basically burn the country down.

Obviously, given this is a research publication of the Fed, their narrative might be expected to be colored - even allowing for this, it is a telling and well researched narrative.

Our own monetary and fiscal predicament is different, but the issues and arguments remain relevant, and our drama is every bit as existential.

Who Goes Nazi?

Via Instapundit and The Anchoress, I stumbled on this astonishing and prescient Harper's article from August 1941: Who goes Nazi?

Walter Russell Mead: Don't Blame the Jews

Or Canada, for that matter.

Interesting and provocative take on the history of America's support for the State of Israel, and the role of American Jews and Christians in that history.

This, I think, is the heart of the matter: American Jews didn’t drag reluctant American gentiles into the Middle East; it’s much more accurate to say that American gentiles pushed reluctant American Jews into the Zionist movement. If American Jews had the power to shape American policy towards the Jews through the twentieth century, most likely there would be no state of Israel today. This is an inconvenient truth. Zionist myths about the Jewish past and gentile myths about American innocence are both challenged by this history.

He asks for feedback and help in the comments - I think he's got an interesting narrative here, but he's certainly using a pretty broad brush. This is the kind of blog post that needs a book to back it up - which WRM working on...