Tunku Varadarajan

AEI Fellow/ Classical Liberal Inst@NYU Law/WSJ editpage writer/Cricket fan. Father. Fogey.

[Tunku Varadarajan @tunkuv]

Pete Hegseth was correct that Rep. Massie is distorting policy differences into high crimes, which is a spectacle that undermines U.S. power and security. https://t.co/mjLRWCT3Nk via @WSJopinion

[Tavleen Singh @tavleen_singh]

Sonia Gandhi’s memoir is fascinating. But the India she seeks to belong to in her early years is what she sees through a peephole in the prime minister’s house. 2) The whitewashing of the Congress role in the 1984 pogrom is unforgivable.

[Ralston College @RalstonCollege]

Could Ralston College be the place for you? There is no better way to find out than to visit.

On November 21 and January 9, we warmly invite you to spend some time with us on our historic campus in downtown Savannah. Tour our buildings and meet members of the faculty and admissions, as well as alumni and current students. Bring your questions, and begin to imagine what a year at Ralston might hold.

Both open houses will begin at 11:00 a.m.

Register through our website. We would be delighted to welcome you to Savannah.

https://t.co/d9RtoDsi22

[Nicholas Shakespeare @dolphinsands]

Cowardly, misguided, stupid, & something Vargas Llosa himself would never have endorsed. Plus only guaranteed to spur readers to decide for themselves. It’s a massive work, flawed, unwieldly, but unflinching - 15 years in the making; admiring & recoiling in equal measure.

[The Palace View @ThePalaceViewX]

His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II warmly acknowledges the presence of his son, the Okuapehene, Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo III, at GIMPA’s 65th Anniversary celebration. A special moment of royal recognition and fatherly affection.

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

“Russia’s violation of the principles of the European security order is a reason to enforce them, not to replace them with arrangements requiring Russian permission.”
Sound and sober analysis by Slawomir about the “ridiculous circus” presided by Kushner and Witkoff.

[Helle Lyng @HelleLyngSvends]

I got a visa to India and was supposed to leave this morning to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad. I had been invited as a panelist and speaker on the future of media and press freedom.

But «orders from above» in the Ministry of Home Affairs have cancelled my visa.

Here is my message for @AmitShah

[Tunku Varadarajan @tunkuv]

And then to Gaza next

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

Barely reported or noticed, the El Salvadorian army is now in the collapsed state of Haiti. Extraordinary development. I wonder if they can restore order there and how long they ll stay….

All guns blazing, strongman president goes after crime gangs overseas

https://t.co/q0ErNXZoYL

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

Barely reported or noticed, the El Salvadorian army is now in the collapsed state of Haiti. Extraordinary development. I wonder if they can restore order there and how long they ll stay….

All guns blazing, strongman president goes after crime gangs overseas

https://t.co/q0ErNXZoYL

[David Alandete @alandete]

Spain has officially entered the realm of political science fiction. This 11/11 unions are going on strike not against the government but against the opposition, just in case they win the 11/29 election. A preemptive strike against a government that doesn't even exist yet!

[Ralston College @RalstonCollege]

Have you ever heard of the beautiful land of Arcadia or read an Orphic or Homeric hymn to Pan in ancient Greek?

If the answer is no, this may be the lecture for you.

On Friday, November 13, at 5:00 p.m. EST, join Dr Joseph Conlon, Director of the Greek Program at Ralston College, for a virtual lecture on the significance of Arcadia. Drawing on the hymns to Pan alongside Plato’s Phaedrus, he will consider the place of Pan in the Greek imagination.

The talk will run for approximately 30–35 minutes, followed by a 15-minute live Q&A. We hope you will join us.

Register for free through our website.

https://t.co/0vtmYvG14B

[Joel Pollak @joelpollak]

Wonderful news from @Hillsdale: The nation's premier conservative academic institution has created a Judaism and Western Civilization Program. It will include the study of ancient and modern texts, and a study abroad program in Israel. Proud to be a donor. https://t.co/Fn1lzmcbx8

[Paul J. Batura @PaulBatura]

These concluding paragraphs in the @tunkuv review in today’s @WSJ of Bob Woodward’s new book are a thing of beauty:

In truth, Mr. Woodward has distorted the very meaning of “off the record” or “deep background.” He has gerrymandered the boundaries of confidentiality to sidestep established ethics. The journalistic generation following him will pay the price. They’ll have to tell their sources: “It’s off the record, non-Woodward rules.”

Here’s Mr. Woodward’s most nakedly specious argument: The sources he discloses, he says, were notable figures in the history of this country. “They are disclosed here to illustrate the extremely important contributions they made during their lifetimes as public servants and as sources—helping to explain what goes on inside our government and bring the public into the room where the most consequential decisions are debated and made.” This is breach of confidence masquerading as a civics lesson, betrayal dressed up as public service.

Laid bare in all of this is Mr. Woodward’s pomposity and his boundless conceit as a journalist who operates—as he sees it—in the eye of History. The public is invited to join, but only as secondary witness, peeping through the keyhole. For his is an Olympian dialogue, not so much between a writer and his sources, as between a lordly oracle and the gods of our inheritance.

[Tunku Varadarajan @tunkuv]

Hispanics Swing Back to Democrats—For Now https://t.co/6rt0heJaHb

[Dr Robert Lyman 🇺🇦 @robert_lyman]

Hey Jack, military historian here. India raised the largest all volunteer army in human history for the Second World, over 2.5m by 1945, defeating the Japanese in two of their greatest defeats. 78% of Allied armies in the Far East were Indian. Don’t believe me? Try reading a book. https://t.co/OGTQPom2i8

[KSR @KShriniwasRao]

This is how you issue a quality statement. Say a lot without any of it having to mean anything.

Compliments.

[Owusu @SeedorfBT621]

Otumfuo Prempeh I, born Prince Agyeman Prempeh, ruled as the 13th Asantehene of the Asante Empire from 1888 to 1931. His 43 year tenure was one of the most remarkable, courageous, and dramatic eras in African history. Ascending the Golden Stool as a 16 year old monarch in

[StopAntisemitism @StopAntisemites]

Update: antisemite Hala Asraf, host of this past Sunday’s boycott bike ride in Philadelphia, is no longer employed with Trek bikes.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The Haitian gang leader who hijacked a bus full of American missionaries in 2021, an 8-month-old baby on board, and swore on camera he'd put a bullet in every one of their heads unless he got $17 million is now writing letters to the UN asking for peace talks.

He finally ran into somebody who won't pay.

His name is Wilson Joseph, and his gang is called 400 Mawozo. On October 18, four Salvadoran air force technicians got ambushed out on the same plain east of Port-au-Prince that his letter came from. Nobody has claimed it, and the four haven't been seen since.

Bukele's answer went out three days later, written in Haitian Creole and aimed straight at the gang bosses. If those four came back hurt, he'd finish Haiti's gangs the same way he finished the ones back home. Then he laid out the other side of the deal. Bring them back alive and every Salvadoran soldier leaves Haiti that same day.

About a week later he had 2,000 troops on the ground, with El Salvador picking up 90% of the tab.

Kidnapping down there works like a business. A hostage is worth whatever the other side will give up to get him back, and the people who track Haitian gangs read this ambush as a play for exactly that, a way to force talks and keep troops out of gang neighborhoods. Bukele took that leverage off the table in public, on day three.

Which is how you get the letter. It's dated November 1 and addressed to the UN Secretary-General, and it calls 400 Mawozo a "rebel group" that "officially raised the white flag" back on August 20. That would be two full months before the ambush.

The letter also spends a good chunk of its two pages worrying about the safety of children. His UN sanctions listing cites recruiting kids.

A few days later somebody tagged Bukele in a post that supposedly showed Joseph's house, and Bukele replied asking for the exact address so they could destroy it. The gang's next letter called that house a symbol of peace.

Think about how big a swing this is for El Salvador. It's a country of about 6 million people with an army of roughly 20,500, so it sent close to one out of every ten soldiers it has to go get four guys. The UN-backed gang force the rest of the world has spent a year building has about 2,000 of the 5,500 troops it was promised, and El Salvador matched that in a week. The UN's history in Haiti makes the comparison sting even more. Its last big mission there ran 13 years and cost more than $7 billion, and its own peacekeepers brought in a cholera outbreak that killed close to 10,000 Haitians.

The UN says receiving the letter doesn't mean it recognizes or endorses anything. Joseph is still under UN and US sanctions, and now his gang has gone to Haiti's own disarmament commission too, asking for military operations to stop in some areas.

Those four technicians still haven't been found three weeks in, and none of this is a win until they come home. Kidnapping only pays when somebody on the other side is willing to deal, though. Joseph built a whole career on that, and right now he's the one waiting by the phone.

[Mike Pence @Mike_Pence]

So Well Said! Thank You @CliffordAsness!🇺🇸