Author: victorhanson

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.

The Diversity of Illegal Immigration

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Victor Davis Hanson // Hoover Institution

I live on farm beside a rural avenue in central California, the fifth generation to reside in the same house. And after years of thefts, home break-ins, and dangerous encounters, I have concluded that it is no longer safe to live where I was born. I stay for a while longer because I am sixty-five years old and either too old to move or too worried about selling the final family parcel of what was homesteaded in the 1870s.

Rural Fresno County used to be one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the United States. I grew up with first-, second-, and third-generation farmers—agrarians of Armenian, German, Greek, Mexican, Japanese, Portuguese, Punjabi, and Scandinavian descent.

Race and ethnicity were richly diverse; yet assimilation was the collective shared goal—made easier because immigration was almost entirely a legal and measured enterprise. No one much carried for the superficial appearance of his neighbors. My own Swedish-American family has intermarried with those of Mexican heritage. My neighbor’s grandchildren are part white, Japanese, and Mexican. The creed growing up was that tribal affiliation was incidental, not essential, to character.

Read the full article here.

The Bombs of August

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Victor Davis Hanson // National Review

On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped a uranium-fueled atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, another U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 repeated the attack on Nagasaki, Japan, with an even more powerful plutonium bomb.

Less than a month after the second bombing, Imperial Japan agreed to formally surrender on September 2. That date marked the official end of World War II — the bloodiest human or natural catastrophe in history, accounting for more than 65 million dead.

Each August, Americans in hindsight ponder the need for, the morality of, and the strategic rationale behind the dropping of the two bombs. Yet President Harry Truman’s decision 73 years ago to use the novel, terrifying weapons was not considered particularly controversial, either right before or right after the attacks. Both cities were simply military targets.

Read the full article here.

The Reexamination of Security Clearances Was Long Overdue

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Victor Davis Hanson // National Review

Much has been written about former CIA and FBI official Philip Mudd’s recent unhinged outburst on CNN against Paris Dennard for the latter’s credible suggestion that many ex-officials have monetized the fact that they have retained their security clearances.

Dennard was suggesting that those with security clearances, with a wink and nod, sometimes bolster their partisan expertise by alluding to shadowy knowledge not supposedly known to the rest of us.

Oddly, Mudd himself seemed to have already proven that point, a year earlier, when he sounded “in the know” in expressing his confidence that President Trump was in some sort of physical danger from the intelligence community.

In August 2017, Mudd warned a stunned Jake Tapper on CNN that “the government is going to kill this guy [President Trump].”

Read the full article here.

Angry Reader 08-22-2018

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From An Angry Reader:

Subject: Treasonous Historians

You are liar like Trump and you and your fellow Comprotnik should be breaking rocks in Leavenworth… Trying to undermine Mueller won’t work, the report will be devastating. You will be shown just as treasonous, and obviously racist, as the Putin puppet….For memory, how long did the Clinton probes run? You are a liar, not a scholar. LEAVENWORTH CALLS OR IS IT RUSSIAN HOOKERS….

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Dear Angry Reader Owen Hall,

Is your angry reader letter serious or a caricature?

I ask only because in such a brief note, you score a 9 on the Angry Reader scale of 10: the anticipated slurs, the mindless repetition of nouns and adjectives, the silly charges of criminal activity, the pro forma capital letters, the incoherent grammar (what is it with the four-dot interruptions? and “you are liar”?), and the comical threats of federal imprisonment or torture (?) by Russian prostitutes.

To the degree that anything like your rant can be answered, let us just wait and let the dual processes of investigation continue. Either the long-delayed Mueller report will fulfill its mandate of investigating so-called Trump collusion and find culpability, and so the president will then be impeached, convicted, and indicted, or he won’t.

And similarly, the cast of characters at the Obama DOJ, FBI, CIA, and NSC will be shown either to have used their own offices and power to have weaponized their bureaus to undermine, first, a presidential campaign, and, second, a sitting president, or they will be exonerated from any wrongdoing—such as conspiring to deceive a FISA judge, illegally leaking unmasked names to the press of those found on surveillance reports, implanting informants into a political campaign, using the CIA to help conduct domestic surveillance, lying under oath to Congress and to federal investigators, improperly spying on U.S. citizens, leaking confidential and classified U.S. documents, and massaging and curtailing FBI investigations due to political pressures.

As a preliminary note, however, given the firings, retirements, and reassignments at the FBI and DOJ thus far, and the absence of any indictment involving “collusion,” it may be that those who sought to warp a U.S. election by destroying the Trump campaign face the greater criminal exposure.

From One Psychodrama to Another

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Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness

Michael Wolff and his media-hyped blockbuster—that supposedly game-changing landmark of a book Fire and Fury—are now ancient history.

Fading similarly is Karen McDougal, Playboy‘s 1998 Playmate of the Year, and her National Enquirer grifter lawsuit that was also supposed to destroy the Trump presidency.

We are by now mostly tired with Stormy Daniels and her unhinged lawyer Michael Avenatti, who at least proved more entertaining than his porn-star client.

Consiglieri Michael Cohen, the Trump attorney who secretly taped his own client and apparently has been flipped to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s side in his veritable war against Trump, is also sliding into the netherworld of no-news coverage and a legal morass.

Read the full article here.

Was the Pre-Trump World Normal or Abnormal?

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Victor Davis Hanson // National Review

Much of the controversy that surrounds the policies of Donald Trump can be explained as a reaction to the past. He was either clumsily disrupting the sacrosanct or trying to resurrect what was lost.

In other words, what you feel about Trump is inseparable from what you think of the world before Trump.

Was the status quo, especially in the years between 2009 and 2017, normal or abnormal — at least compared with the prior half century?

Take the challenge of China. We are now locked in a veritable trade war with the Chinese. Each side escalates with a threatened new round of tariffs. The subtexts of the conflict range from Chinese military ascendency to patronage of nuclear North Korea.

Read the full article here.

The Double Standards of Postmodern Justice

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Victor Davis Hanson // National Review

Our institutions offer no principles to explain why some people’s lives are harmed or destroyed, and others’ lives are not.

The New York Times recently hired as a writer and board member Sarah Jeong. The Times knew that in recent years Jeong had posted a series of unapologetically racist anti-white tweets. She had offered wisdom such as “#CancelWhitePeople” and expressed hatred for males.

Yet when the Times discovered less graphic versions of such tweets from newly hired technology writer Quinn Norton earlier this year, the newspaper immediately fired Norton.

The message of disparate treatment was that what bothers the New York Times is not racism per se, but who is the racist and who are her targets.

Read the full article here.

John Brennan’s Security Clearance

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Victor Davis Hanson // National Review

Scarier than former CIA chief John Brennan losing his security clearance is the idea that he ever had one in the first place.

Perhaps to avoid the appearance of partisanship in pulling the security clearances of former intelligence chiefs, the Trump administration should now abide by some sort of universal nonpartisan standard. I suggest that the following sort of improper conduct, either during or after one’s tenure, might result in the loss of a security clearance:

1) Lying to Congress. Brennan lied to Congress on at least two occasions (cf. his denial of CIA surveillance of Senate staffer computers and the claim of an absence of collateral damage in drone attacks), and perhaps three (his absurd denial of knowledge of the seeding of the Steele dossier among government agencies). Democrats used to be outraged by Brennan’s deceit, and a few in the past had called for his resignation. Note that James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence, has also misled Congress, concerning NSA surveillance of American citizens. Clapper has admitted such (e.g., “the least untruthful” answer). Not lying to Congress is a pretty low bar to meet.

Read the full article here.

Chinese Foreign Investment: A Perspective

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Please read the following editorial by my college James D. Jameson.

It is hard to understate the impact that foreign investment has played in transforming China into the world’s second largest economy.  While direct investment might have peaked, China is still moving toward opening its stock markets to draw in foreign capital.  Policymakers in Beijing hope that international investors might keep China economy from slowing and thereby avoiding the middle-income trap.

However, as China’s seeks to attract more foreign capital, one might wonder why wealthy individuals from China are ‘stashing’ their money abroad.  Chinese buyers have been snapping up real estate from Cyprus to Vancouver for the last decade, and Chinese firms go on exuberant buying sprees every time Beijing loosens controls of capital outflows. Why do rich, and even upper middle class, Chinese have different expectations about future outcomes of investing in China?

Most seasoned investors are aware of the risks of investing in China.  These risks include the possibility of corruption, fraud and outright expropriations.  However, most investors understanding these complications would find few recourses in a legal system with little claim to transparency or impartiality.  One such recourse is the fragile system of ‘guanxi,’ a mutual assurance of interests driven by political, social and familial relationships.

But what protections do investors have when “guanxi” goes south? I was one of the first investors in China’s e-commerce boom in 1998.  My Chinese partner had founded a grey market publisher working with state publishing houses to co publish business books – a niche that the state-owned houses overlooked. My ambitious and very entrepreneurial Chinese partner tracked the emergence Amazon.com. “We can do the same thing in China,” he and his new wife said.

The e-commerce company was a momentary hit.  It went public in 2010 on the NYSE with a market valuation of $1.2 billion.  For the shareholders, it was a great but temporary success.  The company’s stock price declined precipitously after the lock up period.  As a foreign investor who sold at the original IPO date, the transfer of our proceeds from the sale were temporarily blocked by the controlling Chinese shareholder who wished to extort a payment to cure past employee bonus awards, a company obligation and not a shareholder obligation.  A threatened lawsuit in USA courts against the Chinese controlling shareholder of this NYSE company unblocked the funds.  The US rule of law worked!

However, the group of early investors of which I was one came under a dispute with the company’s founders over the dissolution of predecessor publishing company. The board resolved to unwind the company which had a significant amount of cash on its balance sheet. As 30% minority shareholders, I watched our Chinese partners withdraw the cash for personal purposes and investments. These actions were a clear violation against the statutes of the company.

We filed a suit in the Chinese courts in Beijing for embezzlement.   In the United States or Europe, it would have been an open and shut case. Though the amount in dispute was small, we had a desire to test ‘rule of law’ in China. As we have found out over the past three years, the lack of appropriate rule of law has stymied us.  The Chinese legal system prevents discovery, subpoena, and enforcement of a legally filed shareholders’ agreement. Foreigner plaintiffs come last in line in the court docket and often find their causes stonewalled by these arcane prohibitions. There were times when the defendants never actually showed up before the judge in the court, an affront that would not have been taken lightly by a judge in the West.

So as China tries to draw in foreign capital, its legal system still offers few protections for investors. Those risks are likely well understood by the “smart” capital flowing out of China. Therefore, it would only be prudent for foreign investors to ask:  if insiders are selling and moving money out, should we be moving money in and buying?

James D. Jameson

Assistant Secretary of Commerce – Trade Development :  George HW Bush Administration

Ex Officio Member: Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States:  1992/3

The Legacies of Robert Mueller’s Investigations

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Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness

Some 450 days ago we were treated to melodramatic announcements from the media about the start-up of Robert Mueller’s “dream” and “all-star” team.

Reporters gushed in the general hysteria of the times that Mueller would no doubt soon indict President Trump, some of his family, and almost anyone else in his campaign—and therefore end the Trump aberration.

Press puff pieces highlighted the résumés of his superstars—of Lisa Page (no comment needed), Peter Strzok (less than no comment needed), Jeannie Rhee (a former attorney for the Clinton Foundation, Ben Rhodes, and for a bit Hillary Clinton), Andrew Weissman (Clinton zealot, Obama and DNC donor, and the cheerleader to Sally Yates’s refusal to carry out a presidential order), Aaron Zebley (the former attorney for Clinton staffer Justin Cooper who set up the infamous Clinton home server and smashed to bits her mobile devices), and a host of other pros, who were all shortly to prove Trump-Russian “collusion.”

Read the full article here.