Phony Gang Rape Story at UVA?

Like you, the Mighty Whig is busy.  He can't follow closely every news story.  So, when he saw a few weeks ago that an article had been published about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity, and that the university had acted swiftly to investigate and to suspend the fraternity, he thought, sounds like I can move along from this one: nothing more to see here.

Not so fast!  It seems now that some journalists are starting to dig into this story, suspecting another media "feeding frenzy" driven by false, or potentially false information.  Hmmm, time to read the original source of the frenzy and figure this out.

Here's the Rolling Stone article: Rape on Campus   I read it, and now suspect it is a hatchet job against a great university.  The relevant facts:

• The heart of it is about a girl "Jackie" who allegedly was gang raped by several men (boys?) at a frat party in September 2012. She supposedly is still trying to pursue justice, but she never went to the police and didn't approach the administration about the incident for months.
• She was beaten up, cut with glass, and raped, but her female friends urged her not to complain. 
• A dean in charge of investigating such complaints apparently slow-rolled the case.  The author of the piece suggests she part of a conspiracy of silence.
• Throughout the piece we learn that the University of Virgina (UVA) is a place of privelege where frats rule, with lots of permissive drinking and exploitative sex, and with an antiquated honor code that urges students to snitch.
• The piece brings up a lot of stories not necessarily relevant to this case, but meant to portray UVA in a negative light: like the lacrosse player who killed his girl friend and the medical worker who apparently killed a UVA student a few months ago.

Okay, a few of my objections:

• The main case seems implausible.  A freshman girl raped at a party for three hours by numerous young men.  Nine of them, all of whom have no moral compass whatsoever.  None of whom has gone to the police and confessed.  No one heard anything.  There was no light in the room so she can't identify anyone.  The one person she can identify the author never interviews.  Supposedly this was an initiation ritual. In September?
• She didn't report this for months.  Okay, I understand many women don't do that out of shame, or other reasons.  But many do report:  in fact tens of thousands do every year.  And the conviction rate is pretty high.  And why wouldn't any of her friends have reported it for her?  This was allegedly a horrible crime!
• She didn't even go to the hospital afterwards.  Why not? 
• No evidence that she told her parents.  (Didn't the author try to interview them?)  And she is still attending the university. Why on earth for?    Wouldn't a normal person want to leave, especially since her violators are still at large there?  Wouldn't her parents pull her out of there?  Wouldn't you??
• Why didn't the author try to interview anyone besides the victim?  Why not anyone from the fraternity?
• UVA is quite sensitive to sexual assault charges.   In 1993 or so, when I was enrolled there, I attended a town meeting on one that had allegedly occurred at a frat house back.  A young woman was accosed at a party and screamed.  That was enough to bring help to her.  The perpetrator (not a frat member) fled.  We had a big town hall over this event, with lots of hand wringing and accusations thrown around.  This was over a non-rape, by the way.
• The author of the piece really lays it on thick against the culture of the university.  Well, here's a news flash for her:  lots of universities "party hardy."  Check out the Princeton guide for the top ones: UVA isn't one of them.  Lots have a fraternity system.  Usually the university administration looks for ways to punish them.  (Except in this case, it would seem.)  Lots of universities have honor codes.   And lots of young people are outside the frat system and don't think they are the "be all and end all."   Lots of universities have rich kids.  UVA isn't even closed to being a rich kid haven like some Virginia universities are. 

I have sympathy for the young woman.  Something tramatic may have happened to her. I hope she finds justice and healing.  I hope we learn the truth about this case.  And I truly hope this all hasn't been a giant smear campaign by another Rolling Stone journalist on the make.

The concept of "face" among the Arabs

Arabs in large degree are motivated by preserving their public dignity and "face;" truth, or admittance of guilt, often is subordinate to this cultural imperative.   So argues an article from the CIA's Studies in Intelligence, published in 1964 and recently declassified.  Here's the full piece: face-among-the-arabs.pdf   This is the type of piece modern Arabists hate.  As with all articles that make a serious attempt at understanding culture as a driver, it probably relies too much on generalization.  And yet, we do notice significant cultural differences, don't we?  Keep in mind that we are dealing with ideal types here.  The Parson Weems story about George Washington is meant to express a cultural ideal about character that we may fail to live up to, but we Americans "get" the story.  The author maintains that's not a parable likely to resonate in Arab Muslim culture that defines personal dignity differently.  

I took this from the War-on-the-Rocks website, which often posts interesting stuff. 

The Power Doctor: James Burnham

Dan McCarthy in the American Conservative offers a nice write up on the work and overlooked ideas of James Burnham here:  American Machiavelli  At least three of Burnham's books stand up well adn are worth reading today:  "The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom,"  "The Suicide of the West" and "The Managerial Revolution."   "The Machiavellians" is the best introduction to elite theory I've ever read, and the best way to navigate through Pareto's social thought.   I re-read it every few years.  Dan is right in pointing out that China today demonstrates the relevance of Burnham's insights on how "management" overrides other governing forms.  But I think he's wrong to dismiss "Suicide" as just a Cold War tome; it offers a brutal dissection of liberalism's soppy rhetoric and logic.  The threat of a free society being pulled down by liberalism's soft-headedness is still alive.

Our Media Obeys the Government

Yet another story of how the media is losing its credibility in the United States: an award-winning reporter silenced by her editors for running stories critical of the Obama administration. See  Liberal media protects Obama  I like the description about how the news editors really control journalism and how their personal biases determine which stories run.  Note, for example, how the media has played up marginal successes of the already-struggling Obamacare program.  Hard to believe that no one in the administration lost their job over "Fast and Furious" or the Benghazi Debacle, but, sad to say, the mainstream media thought these stories were the domain of right-wing loonies.   Anyway, read the link.

Fight Ebola by Restricting Travel

Washington and the head of the World Bank have been pressing the argument on NOT restricting travel from West African countries impacted by Ebola.  But closing the border and flight bans work.  Note how many countries in Africa still have bans in effect.  Travel Bans in Africa    Ivory Coast has had no reported cases and borders Liberia.  Why?  It shut down flights and border crossings.   Nigeria initially shut down flights, until the airlines go up to speed on prescreening passengers for Ebola symptoms.  We need to prohibit travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea until this virus burns itself out. 

Is the Next Economic Crisis Coming?

We get an economic crisis every six or seven years.  The last one was in 2008, so that means....

The mistake is to think this happen naturally, like meteorological events.  These crises are a result of policy. This summer the Fed started slowing down its inflationary "quantitative easing" policy, and now we are seeing the end of the bull market.  Market down, world growth slowing, oil prices headed south.  The Saudis will not ease back on production in order to capture more market share.  This will really hurt our unconventional oil production in North Dakota and Texas.

Jim Rickards, the Wall Street guru who wrote "Currency Wars" explains the current dynamic here: The Death of Money   Sooner or later, we will have to stabilize our money supply to preserve the dollar's status as the international reserve currency.  I'll vote for any politician who forces attention on this matter.

A Common Sense Strategy on ISIS

Should the US commit "ground troops" to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS)?  Or should we continue the current, limited policy of backing up the Kurds, conducting air strikes, and advising the Iraqi security forces? 

ISIS is entrenched in Iraq, and still carrying on an agressive fight against the Iraqi state.  It overran an Iraqi Army base in Anbar this week.   Iraq has three divisions in that province, but it continues to lose ground.

So, we are reaching a decision point.  Only a stronger commitment will be decisive.  Only the US can do this.  So, should we?

If we look at ISIS as a terrorist group bent on attacking the West, perhaps we should.  If ISIS consolidates, it could launch attacks against western cities.  That wouldn't be good.

But if we look at ISIS as a manifestation of the Sunni/Shia regional war, then maybe we shouldn't.  ISIS wants to kill Iraqi Shia.   It has the support of Sunni Arabs in the areas it controls, or it never would have gotten this far.  The only other regional power commiting ground troops to stoping ISIS is Iran.   Turkey won't.  Saudi Arabia won't.   That's telling.

Last week VP Joe Biden told an audience that Turkey and the United Arab Emirates had been supporting ISIS against Bashar Assad in Syria.  Just so.  He had to apologize for saying what everyone believes is true. 

To destroy ISIS, we have to side with Iran, Shia-controlled Iraq, and implicitly, Assad-controlled Syria.  Do we want to do that?  

Senators McCain and Graham want to square this circle.   Destroy ISIS by overthrowing Assad, they say.   Does this argument make sense to anyone?

Here's what we should do:  As long as ISIS remains committed to holding territory and fighting all enemies--Alawites, Kurds, Shia Arab, Persians, etc--it poses no direct threat to the West.  We should provide the limited support we currently are, mindful that only the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga have a real interest in eliminating this problem.  Go get' em boys!  Commiting ground forces will put us in another bloody fight with Iraqi Sunni Arabs, for no good reason.

Buchanan probably is right: this is another thirty years war we need to stay out of.  See his strong column here: can_america_fight_a_thirty_years_war

We need to think strategically about this problem.  It really isn't about terrorism.