Just as 9/11 and the space shuttle disasters showed failures at the relevant agencies, the 10/7 pogrom has exposed a failure of leadership at all levels of government and society.
Derek Hunter often writes to the effect that when one thinks that Democrats could not go any lower, they whip out their shovels and keep digging deeper and deeper. I was reminded of his insight when I saw a headline this morning. It’s not enough that the US chose not to send ammunition to Israel during a hot war. It was still not enough to threaten not to send certain critical weapons if Israel chooses to destroy Hamas over saving Joe Biden’s presidency. This morning’s headline claims that the US would offer Israel information on the location of Hamas’ leaders in exchange for the Jewish state scotching the Rafah conquest.
One always has to be careful drawing too many conclusions from headlines. But let’s assume that the article is correct. However badly US intelligence has failed in the past, it is not impossible that the US has information that Israel lacks. My sons and I watched on a flight tracker website U2 and other US electronic listening planes doing circles off of Israel’s coast. Shouldn’t the US be sharing whatever information it has with Israel with no strings attached? If Israel knew where Bin Laden was hiding after 9/11, wouldn’t Israel send the information pronto in order to help an ally? Those leaders of Hamas are the moral equivalent of Hitler, Himmler, and Goering. Would any of the Allies have not shared with each other the location of Nazi leadership, if exchanging the information would lead to the speedy arrest of the leaders of wartime Germany? If the US is conditioning key intel on Israel standing down, then Biden and his administration should be ashamed of themselves, and will look impotent when Israel necessarily pushes on.
The 10/7 barbaric attack was an incredible shock to the system. And as such shocks generally shake things around, we learn what is solid and what is not. And what we have learned is that we have a critical failure at all levels of leadership, formal or otherwise. For example:
*Parents. Yes, the lunatic college kids are old enough to vote and drive. But they got where they are through the failure of their parents to bring them up properly. Sure, there are non-student organizers and funders of the campus mayhem, but shouldn’t students have the moral compass to ask their new Palestinian friends about, as Eli Beer described it, so many kids’ heads cut off that he, as a first responder on 10/7, could not tell which head went with which body? They were brought up without any religious or moral values. Their parents spent 18 years telling them how wonderful and right they always were. And the result is that they have no moral knowledge to protest rape and murder with 1/100th the intensity that they protest a nonexistent genocide in Gaza. They have no historical knowledge and they lack any ability to make moral judgments or weigh competing pieces of information.
*University Administrators. President Eliot of Harvard was asked about 100 years ago what his job was. His response was, “To put fear into the heart of the faculty.” There was a time when university leaders were exactly that: they led by example, they enforced proper rules, however unpopular. But today, campus presidents and their flunkies do not have the internal fortitude to simply start expelling students who a) violate university rules after ample warning, and b) participate in racist, antisemitic activities. They begrudgingly have them removed from campus, without any threat that they will be barred from returning next Fall. On Capitol Hill, leaders of top schools could not really conclude that people demanding the mass murder of Jews—as opposed to blacks, Hispanics, gays, or trans—might actually be violating university policy. My dad was a professor of chemistry for 42 years. He always said, “What is the definition of an assistant dean? A mouse studying to become a rat.”
*Joe Biden and the Obama Leftovers. One of the many problems with the Biden administration is that they always try to have it both ways. They openly claim that the border is closed while reporters show thousands streaming daily into the US. They tell Israel that they will not send certain weapons; then they backpedal and claim that because Hamas is “depleted”, this is really no big deal. Robert Gates said that Joe Biden has been wrong on every foreign policy and national security issue for the past 40 years. Remember, he was against the raid to capture Bin Laden. Thus, when he said that Israel will not succeed in wiping out Hamas, I felt much better that they will do exactly that.
A few weeks ago, I asked if you could name four current US generals or admirals. There are no more MacArthurs, or Nimitzes or Bradleys in America’s armed forces. Leadership takes conviction in values and the willingness to do unpopular things because you believe that they are right. Leadership means setting an example for others to follow. General Curits LeMay often flew in the lead B-17 over Europe, so that his men would know exactly where he was when they went into battle. Leadership means the possibility of failure and the need to own it. We have no leaders; we just have people who want to keep their jobs and don’t wish to be unpopular with their children, students, soldiers or fellow citizens.
The polls show that the Americans are tired of Biden’s failures on the economy, the border, and in the realm of foreign affairs. The US needs a leadership revolution from the family through to Washington. There can be no leadership without solid values. So many areas of American society have been harmed by the retreat of religion in daily life. The loss of leadership is simply one more.