Swearing Is Actually a Sign of More Intelligence - Not Less - Say Scientists
You're damn right.
RICHARD STEPHENS, THE CONVERSATION
2 FEB 2017
The use of obscene or taboo language - or swearing, as it’s more
commonly known - is often seen as a sign that the speaker lacks
vocabulary, cannot express themselves in a less offensive way, or even
lacks intelligence.
Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language.
While swearing can become a habit, we choose to swear in different contexts and for different purposes: for linguistic effect, to convey emotion, for laughs, or perhaps even to be deliberately nasty.
Psychologists
interested in when and why people swear try to look past the stereotype
that swearing is the language of the unintelligent and illiterate.
The
former - verbal fluency - can be measured by asking volunteers to think
of as many words beginning with a certain letter of the alphabet as
they can in 1 minute.
People with greater language skills can
generally think of more examples in the allotted time. Based on this
approach, the researchers created the swearing fluency task. This task
requires volunteers to list as many different swear words as they can
think of in 1 minute.
By comparing scores from both the verbal and swearing fluency
tasks, it was found that the people who scored highest on the verbal
fluency test also tended to do best on the swearing fluency task. The
weakest in the verbal fluency test also did poorly on the swearing
fluency task.
What this correlation suggests is that swearing
isn’t simply a sign of language poverty, lack of general vocabulary, or
low intelligence.
Instead, swearing appears to be a feature of
language that an articulate speaker can use in order to communicate with
maximum effectiveness. And actually, some uses of swearing go beyond
just communication.
Natural pain relief
Research we conducted involved asking volunteers to hold their hand in iced water for as long as they could tolerate, while repeating a swear word.
The
same set of participants underwent the iced water test on a separate
occasion, but this time they repeated a neutral, non-swear word. The
heart rate of both sets of participants was monitored.
What we
found was that those who swore withstood the pain of the ice-cold water
for longer, rated it as less painful, and showed a greater increase in
heart rate when compared to those who repeated a neutral word.
This
suggests they had an emotional response to swearing and an activation
of the fight or flight response: a natural defence mechanism that not
only releases adrenalin and quickens the pulse, but also includes a
natural pain relief known as stress-induced analgesia.
This
research was inspired by the birth of my daughter when my wife swore
profusely during agonising contractions. The midwives were surprisingly
unfazed, and told us that swearing is a normal and common occurrence
during childbirth - perhaps for reasons similar to our iced water study.
Two-way emotional relationship
We wanted to further investigate how swearing and emotion are linked. Our most recent study
aimed to assess the opposite of the original research, so instead of
looking at whether swearing induced emotion in the speaker we examined
whether emotion could cause an increase in swearing fluency.
Participants
were asked to play a first person shooter video game in order to
generate emotional arousal in the laboratory. They played for ten
minutes, during which they explored a virtual environment and fought and
shot at a variety of enemies.
We found that this was a successful
way to arouse emotions, since the participants reported feeling more
aggressive afterwards when compared with those who played a golf video
game.
Next, the participants undertook the swearing fluency task.
As predicted, the participants who played the shooting game were able
to list a greater number of swear words than those who played the golf
game.
This confirms a two-way relationship between swearing and
emotion. Not only can swearing provoke an emotional response, as shown
with the iced water study, but emotional arousal can also facilitate
greater swearing fluency.
What this collection of studies shows is
that there is more to swearing than simply causing offence, or a lack
of verbal hygiene. Language is a sophisticated toolkit, and swearing is a
part of it.
Unsurprisingly, many of the final words of pilots killed in air-crashes
captured on the 'black box' flight recorder feature swearing. And this
emphasises a crucial point, that swearing must be important given its
prominence in matters of life and death.
The fact is that the size
of your vocabulary of swear words is linked with your overall
vocabulary, and swearing is inextricably linked to the experience and
expression of feelings and emotions.
It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest.
Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand, profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
It's
long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have
another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that
people who frequently curse are being more honest. Writing in the
journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of
researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report
that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with
lying and deception.
Profanity is
obscene language which, in some social settings is considered
inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that
contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's
usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration
or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over
audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact
has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the
memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone
with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays
our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for
the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are
often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand,
profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to
express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the
example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of
his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was
considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: debaird
It's long been associated with anger and
coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation.
Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being
more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science
a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong
Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be
associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is
obscene language which, in some social settings is considered
inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that
contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's
usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration
or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over
audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact
has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the
memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone
with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays
our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for
the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are
often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand,
profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to
express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the
example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of
his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was
considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: University of CambridgeDr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the
University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The
relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing
is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is
telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their
language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views
about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which
included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their
most commonly used and favourite swear words. They were also asked to
rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie
test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding
in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a
higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of swear words
in their online social interactions. The research found that those who
used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that
have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as
using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from
across the United States and their responses highlight the differing
views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For
example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut,
Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas
people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina,
Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
More information:
Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we
do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf
Credit: debaird
It's long been associated with anger and
coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation.
Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being
more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science
a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong
Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be
associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is
obscene language which, in some social settings is considered
inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that
contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's
usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration
or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over
audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact
has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the
memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone
with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays
our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for
the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are
often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand,
profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to
express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the
example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of
his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was
considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: University of CambridgeDr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the
University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The
relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing
is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is
telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their
language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views
about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which
included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their
most commonly used and favourite swear words. They were also asked to
rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie
test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding
in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a
higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of swear words
in their online social interactions. The research found that those who
used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that
have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as
using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from
across the United States and their responses highlight the differing
views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For
example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut,
Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas
people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina,
Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
More information:
Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we
do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf
Credit: debaird
It's long been associated with anger and
coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation.
Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being
more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science
a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong
Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be
associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is
obscene language which, in some social settings is considered
inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that
contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's
usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration
or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over
audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact
has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the
memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone
with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays
our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for
the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are
often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand,
profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to
express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the
example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of
his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was
considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: University of CambridgeDr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the
University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The
relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing
is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is
telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their
language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views
about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which
included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their
most commonly used and favourite swear words. They were also asked to
rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie
test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding
in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a
higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of swear words
in their online social interactions. The research found that those who
used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that
have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as
using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from
across the United States and their responses highlight the differing
views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For
example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut,
Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas
people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina,
Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
More information:
Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we
do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf
Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their most commonly used and favourite
swear words. They were also asked to rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of swear words in their online social interactions. The research found that those who used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from across the United States and their responses highlight the differing views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
New study shows that swearing is associated with honesty
Let’s start with the obvious: parents fucking swear. We swear in our
heads. We swear out loud. We swear when we’re out with friends, on
social media, and sometimes in front of our kids. We all do at some
point or another. In fact, if you’ve never uttered a profanity in your
shiny pristine life, you’re a lying liar. Sweary people are honest
people. Science says so.
Science already told us that swearing is a sign of intelligence, and we’re not fucking our kids up if we drop a dammit in front of them now and then. We’re tired of being told to talk like a lady, and our love for a well-placed eff bomb is just who we are.
We might not have needed another reason to embrace our sweary sides and
let go of some guilt, yet here we have it. Because science kicks ass.
In a two-part study titled
“Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and
honesty,” – which is just about the best name for a study ever – researchers
from the Universities of Hong Kong, Stanford, Cambridge and Maastricht
looked at the swearing habits of 276 participants and assessed how
honest they were in various situations. They found that while liars
typically prefer third-person pronouns and negative words in their
speech, honest people are more likely to swear. In other words, the most
honest people in the study also cussed the most.
The second part of the study involved testing these findings in a
real life social context. Enter Facebook. After looking at the Facebook
status updates of more than 73,000 people, they came to the same
conclusion: honesty was associated with swearing.
“The consistent findings across the studies suggest that the positive
relation between profanity and honesty is robust, and that the
relationship found at the individual level indeed translates to the
society level,” said the study.
According to The Independent,
the researchers also found that people were much more likely to swear
as a way of expressing themselves and their emotions, instead of
swearing to be anti-social or harmful to other people. In other words,
we swear because this is who are, not because we want to piss anyone
off.
Last year, science told us it’s okay if we swear in front of our kids. A few years ago, science also told us that swearing is a sign of intelligence,
and we all know swearing is the only appropriate response to the myriad
shitastrophes that come along with parenting and life in general.
Because when the shit hits the fan, a goshdarnit or jerkface just doesn’t come close to a dammit all to hell or douchey asshat. Not to mention swearing is empowering AF, and few mantras are as motivating as a boldly stated as Fuck. This. Shit.
We didn’t need another reason to give the pearl clutchers the middle
finger and embrace our sweary badassery. Swearing is reward enough. It
feels great and it’s fun as hell. A few weeks ago, my son asked me if he
could give me the middle finger “just to see how it feels.” Sure, I said, and he cautiously flipped me off.
“This feels so GOOD!” he giggled. Of course it does. I agreed with
him and our entire family spent ten minutes giving each other the middle
finger and laughing our asses off. It was the most fun we had all week,
because sometimes swearing is just what you need.
So while not everyone embraces their inner swearyness, those of us
who do cuss like a motherfucker can rest assured that it’s not only a
sign of intelligence, but also a sign of honesty.
And if you say otherwise, well, you’re probably lying.
More information:
Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we
do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf
If you had any doubt as to whether Robert Mueller’s “Russian interference investigation” was just a front for a coup against the U.S. government, wonder no more. Mueller threw a bone to the Russians with his meaningless indictments against a few of who are beyond U.S. reach and never will be prosecuted. With this accomplished, Mueller undertook the real reason he was appointed the special counsel — to carry out the coup. Very recent developments demonstrate that Mueller is now in a full-court press to tighten the noose around President Donald Trump’s neck.
Some have compared a federal prosecutor with his briefcase to a “thousand-pound gorilla with a loaded AR-15.” This is because of the tremendous power and endless resources of the federal government. A federal prosecutor can force someone to do whatever they want him to do by simply “grinding” him until he cooperates.
“Grinding” entails constant court motions, demands for documents, search warrants, and an assortment of legal machinations that forces the target into a likely loss of his employment, a fortune in legal bills and destruction of his reputation.
Those who have been hauled in by Mueller’s coup have learned this the hard way. Thinking they can hold out, many have mortgaged their houses and drained all their assets just to discover they are merely spinning their wheels while the government lawyers sit back and wait. And federal prosecutors can wait for as long as it takes to break their target.
Those who won’t give up pay dearly for it. Just ask Paul Manafort. Holding out not only ruined him, personally and financially, but put him in solitary confinement and within a single jury vote of possible life imprisonment. Trials like this serve as a warning to anyone considering not cooperating with federal prosecutors who have over a 90 percent conviction rate.
The coup has done this to a long line of people connected to Trump. Sooner or later, they agree to cooperate with the coup with a promise of immunity and, in some cases, a guilty plea to a much-reduced crime.
These chosen targets are getting closer and closer to Trump.
Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was put through the coup’s wringer before finally agreeing to a lesser plea in exchange for an agreement to cooperate with the coup. Those in his position will say anything the coup demands of them or the deal will be off and they’ll be crushed by the prosecutors. Very recently, the coup announced that Cohen has admitted that he and Trump both committed crimes under the Federal Election Laws.
A few days ago, Allen Weisselberg, the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization, agreed to cooperate with the coup in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Do you think Jeff Sessions made a deal with James Comey?
One target at a time the coup is turning Trump’s inner circle of trusted friends against him and stirring up serious impeachment talk.
Everything described above happened because of one man — Jeff Sessions. Had he not mysteriously stepped aside in the Russian interference investigation and allowed Rod Rosenstein, a major player in the coup, to take over, none of this would have happened. Rosenstein made Mueller the special prosecutor in the Russian investigation and the rest is the history.
So how and why did Sessions do what he knew could spell the end of the Trump presidency? To explain, it must be understood that the coup relied on a wide range of people, including Russian citizens.
One particular Russian is central to not only Jeff Sessions but to Michael Flynn, Trump’s former NSA Director. The Russian figure is Sergei Kislyak. Kislyak has been considered the beltway’s go-to-guy for many years for anyone needing advice or information on matters pertaining to Russia. Kislyak held many important positions over the decades, including Russian ambassador to the United States. Some considered him a spy.
Kislyak was a player in every presidential administration since George W. Bush, including Obama and the Trump presidential campaign. At the time of the developing coup, Kislyak was at the center of Flynn losing his NSA job. Under pressure from the coup, Flynn pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of making false statements to the FBI in exchange for his agreement to cooperate with them.
All of this took place because Flynn failed to report having two conversations with Kislyak. These conversations came to light when “someone” planted the story with The Washington Post and it snowballed from there.
Then comes Jeff Sessions. In an almost identical set of circumstances, Sessions had a meeting with this very same Sergei Kislyak in 2016 when he was still a U.S. senator. And, identical to Flynn, he failed to report it.
It wasn’t until March 2017 that this became an issue when it came under James Comey’s scrutiny, another major coup player who was head of the FBI Russian interference investigation. Under pressure from Comey, Sessions “withdrew” from any involvement in the Russian investigation and handed it off Rosenstein, another major coup player.
Sessions has since very noticeably failed to undertake important investigations of many major coup players who have clearly committed crimes. These include Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Richard Steele, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Fusion GPS, and many others who have committed crimes under the direction of these players. Sessions also failed to turn over a plethora of documents pertaining to the activities of coup players.
It doesn’t take a large leap of faith to conclude that Sessions very likely made a deal with Comey and agreed to give the Russian investigation to Rosenstein in exchange for Comey not pursuing federal charges against him.
This would appear to be the most plausible explanation for the seemingly inexplicable behavior of Sessions as the head of the Department of Justice and it qualifies him to be considered a major player in the coup. Sessions recent all-out public attack against Trump for questioning his leadership of the Justice Department is begging Trump to fire him and that could catapult impeachment demands to a new high.
Terry Ray is a professor of law, Emeritus. He is now a full-time novelist for Sunbury Press.
HUGE: Rosenstein Moved Cohen Case to New York – Then Ordered Trump-Appointed US Attorney Geoffrey Berman to Recuse Himself
August 26, 2018 10:38 am
(Gateway Pundit) – Earlier this year Dirty Cop Rod Rosenstein made
the decision to turn over the Michael Cohen case to attorneys in the
Southern District of New York. Rosenstein did this to ensure that the
witch hunt against President Trump continued if President Trump shut
down the junk Mueller investigation.
Rosenstein signed the 4th FISA court request to spy on President
Trump despite knowing the request was based on a the Fusion-GPS dossier,
a Democrat-funded oppo research project that was NEVER fact-checked.
Trump appointed attorney Geoffrey Berman recused himself from the investigation into Michael Cohen.
Rod Rosenstein approved the early morning raid of Michael Cohen’s
residence. Geoffrey Berman was not involved in the decision to raid
Cohen’s residence.
JUST IN: Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein ordered
Trump-appointed US attorney Geoffrey Berman to recuse himself from
Michael Cohen case, letting Democrat holdovers of anti-Trump Preet
Bharara pursue the case – NYP
Rosenstein approved Mueller’s referral to Geoffrey Berman on Monday,
April 9th. Rosenstein ordered raids on Cohen’s residence the following
day. It is not clear why or when Berman recused himself from the
investigation.
Wired sources claims that Rosenstein ordered Berman to recuse himself.
Wired Sources got this information from a New York Post article by Michael Goodwin.
The US attorney Trump appointed for that outpost,
Geoffrey Berman, reportedly was ordered to recuse himself by Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, leaving the office staffed mostly by
holdovers from Preet Bharara’s tenure.
Bloomberg reported on the latest tactics to get Trump in the Southern District of New York.
Bloomberg reported:
Khuzami was put in charge of the Cohen investigation
after the U.S. attorney who Trump appointed to lead the office, Geoffrey
Berman, recused himself. It’s unclear why Berman did so, but he
previously worked in the law firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP, which also
employed Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump campaign supporter who’s now his
personal lawyer.
Berman was appointed by Trump after the president fired prosecutor
Preet Bharara in March 2017.Bharara, who was appointed by President
Barack Obama and won fame for prosecuting insider-trading cases, has
become a scathing critic of Trump on social media and a podcast…
…And while New York prosecutors are required to notify the Justice
Department’s Public Integrity Section if they want to pursue election
fraud cases, there haven’t been any signs of tension between the office
and Justice Department headquarters with regard to the Cohen
investigation, the person said.
Rosenstein made the decision to give the Cohen case to SDNY following
a referral from Mueller.That also ensured the investigation could
continue even if Trump somehow managed to fire the special counsel, a
politically dangerous move that many Republicans have warned the
president to avoid.
On this date, August 20, in 636, the first major military clash between Islam and the West was fought. The Battle of Yarmuk is now little remembered, but its outcome forever changed the face of the world, with ripples felt even today.
Four years earlier, in 632, the prophet of Islam had died. During his lifetime, he had managed to rally the Arabs under the banner of Islam. On his death, some tribes that sought to break away remained Muslim but refused to pay taxes, or zakat, to the caliph, Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s successor. Branding them all apostates, the caliph initiated the Ridda (“apostasy”) Wars, which saw tens of thousands of Arabs beheaded, crucified, or burned alive. In 633, these wars were over; in 634, so was the life of Abu Bakr. It would fall to the second caliph, Omar bin al-Khattab (r. 634–44), to direct the full might of the once feuding Arabs — now one tribe, one umma — against “the other.”
Almost instantly, thousands of Arabs flooded into Christian Syria, slaughtering and pillaging. According to Muslim historians, they did that in the name of jihad — to spread Allah’s rule on earth. Emperor Heraclius, who had just experienced a decade of war against the Persians, proceeded to muster his legions and direct them to Syria, to quash these latest upstarts. Roman forces engaged the invaders in at least two significant battles, Ajnadayn (in modern-day Israel, in 634) and Marj al-Saffar (south of Damascus, 635). But “by Allah’s help,” writes Muslim chronicler al-Baladhuri (d. 892), “the enemies of Allah were routed and shattered into pieces, a great many being slaughtered.”
Heraclius had no intention of forsaking Syria, for centuries an integral part of the Roman Empire. He had recently recovered it from the Persians and was not about to abandon it to the despised Saracens, So, by spring 636, the emperor had managed to raise a large multiethnic army, recruited from all over Christendom, according to al-Waqidi (747–823), a Muslim chronicler and the author of Futuh al-Sham, the only detailed (though often suspect) account of the Arab conquest of Syria. (Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotes that follow are from Futuh and translated by me.) Some 30,000 Christian fighters began their march south. Muslim forces, numbering approximately 24,000 — with women, slaves, children, camels, and tents in tow — withdrew from their recently conquered territories and congregated by the banks of the Yarmuk River in Syria. The landscape was dominated by two ravines, one along the Yarmuk and the other along the Wadi Ruqqad, each with a vertical drop of 100 to 200 feet — a deadly prospect for anyone fleeing in haste.
The Arabs dispatched a hurried message to Caliph Omar, complaining that “the dog of the Romans, Heraclius, has called on us all who bear the cross, and they have come against us like a swarm of locusts.” Given that “to see Christendom fall” was Omar’s “delight,” to quote from the Shahnameh, that “his meat was their humiliation,” and that “his very breathing was their destruction,” reinforcements were forthcoming.
Heraclius appointed Vahan, an Armenian and a hero of the Persian Wars, as supreme commander of his united forces. The supreme leader of the Arabs was Abu Ubaida, but Khalid bin al-Walid, whom Muhammad had dubbed the “Sword of Allah,” commanded thousands of horsemen and camel riders behind the infantry and influenced military decisions.
Before battle, Vahan and Khalid met under a flag of truce to negotiate. The Armenian commander began by diplomatically blaming Arabia’s harsh conditions and impoverished economy for giving the Arabs no choice but to raid Roman lands. Accordingly, the empire was pleased to provide them with food and coin on condition that they return home. “It was not hunger that brought us here,” Khalid responded coolly, “but we Arabs are in the habit of drinking blood, and we are told the blood of the Romans is the sweetest of its kind, so we came to shed your blood and drink it.
Vahan’s diplomatic mask instantly dropped and he launched into a tirade against the insolent Arab: “So, we thought you came seeking what your brethren always sought” — plunder, extortion, or mercenary work. “But, alas, we were wrong. You came killing men, enslaving women, plundering wealth, destroying buildings, and seeking to drive us from our own lands.” Better people had tried to do the same but always ended up defeated, added Vahan in reference to the recent Persian Wars, before continuing:
As for you, there is no lower and more despicable people — wretched, impoverished Bedouins. . . . You commit injustices in your own nation and now ours. . . . What havoc you have created! You ride horses not your own and wear clothes not your own. You pleasure yourselves with the young white girls of Rome and enslave them. You eat food not your own, and fill your hands with gold, silver, and valuable goods [not your own]. Now we find you with all our possessions and the plunder you took from our coreligionists — and we leave it all to you, neither asking for its return nor rebuking you. All we ask is that you leave our lands. But if you refuse, we will annihilate you!
The Sword of Allah was not impressed. He began reciting the Koran and talking about one Muhammad. Vahan listened in quiet exasperation. Khalid proceeded to call on the Christian general to proclaim the shahada and thereby embrace Islam, in exchange for peace, adding: “You must also pray, pay zakat, perform hajj at the sacred house [in Mecca], wage jihad against those who refuse Allah, . . . befriend those who befriend Allah and oppose those who oppose Allah,” a reference to the divisive doctrine of al-wala’ wa al-bara’. “If you refuse, there can only be war between us. . . . And you will face men who love death as you love life.”
“Do what you like,” responded Vahan. “We will never forsake our religion or pay you jizya.” Negotiations were over.
Things came to a head, quite literally, when 8,000 Muslims marching before the Roman camp carried the severed heads of 4,000 Christians mounted atop their spears. These were the remains of 5,000 reinforcements who had come from Amman to join the main army at Yarmuk. The Muslims had ambushed and slaughtered them. Then, as resounding cries of “Allahu akbar” filled the Muslim camp, those Muslims standing behind the remaining 1,000 Christian captives knocked them over and proceeded to carve off their heads before the eyes of their co-religionists, whom Arabic sources describe as looking on in “utter bewilderment.”
*****
So it would be war. On the eve of battle, writes historian A. I. Akram, “the Muslims spent the night in prayer and recitation of the Quran, and reminded each other of the two blessings that awaited them: either victory and life or martyrdom and paradise.”
No such titillation awaited the Christians. They were fighting for life, family, and faith. During his pre-battle speech, Vahan explained that “these Arabs who stand before you seek to . . . enslave your children and women.” Another general warned the men to fight hard or else the Arabs “shall conquer your lands and ravish your women.” Such fears were not unwarranted. Even as the Romans were kneeling in pre-battle prayer, Arab general Abu Sufyan was prancing on his war steed, waving his spear, and exhorting the Muslims to “jihad in the way of Allah,” so that they might seize the Christians’ “lands and cities, and enslave their children and women.”
The battle took place over the course of six days. (For a more detailed examination of Yarmuk, see my master’s thesis, 2002, The Battle of Yarmuk: An Assessment of the Immediate Factors behind the Islamic Conquests.) The Roman forces initially broke through the Muslim lines and, according to colorful Muslim sources, would have routed the Arabs if not for their women. Prior to battle, Abu Sufyan had told these female Arabs that, although “the prophet said women are lacking in brains and religion” (a reference to a hadith), they could still help by striking “in the face with stones and tent poles” any Arab men who retreated from the battle to camp. The women were urged to persist until the men returned to battle “in shame.”
Sure enough, whenever broken ranks of Muslims fell back, Arab women hurled stones at them, struck them, and their horses and camels, with poles, taunting them: “May Allah curse those who run from the enemy! Do you wish to give us to the Christians? . . . If you do not kill, then you are not our men.” Abu Sufyan’s wife, Hind, is said to have fought the advancing Romans while screaming “Cut the extremities [i.e., phalluses] of the uncircumcised ones!” On witnessing her boldness, the Arab men are said to have turned and driven back the advancing Romans to their original position.
On the fourth day, the Muslims managed to reverse the tables and advance against a broken line of retreating Christians. No women were present to chastise the retreating Romans, and a multitude of archers unleashed volley after volley on the rushing Arabs. “The arrows rained down on the Muslims. . . . All one could hear was ‘Ah! My eye!’ In heavy confusion, they grabbed hold of their reins and retreated.” Some 700 Muslims lost an eye on that day.
Concerning the sixth and final day of battle, Muslim sources make much of the heavy infantry of the Roman army’s right flank, referring to its soldiers as the “mightiest.” These warriors reportedly tied themselves together with chains, as a show of determination, and swore by “Christ and the Cross” to fight to the last man. (The Arabs may have mistaken the remarkably tight Roman phalanx for fetters.) Even Khalid expressed concern at their show of determination. He ordered the Muslims at the center and left of the Arab army to bog down the Christians, while he led thousands of horsemen and camel-fighters round to the Roman left faction, which had become separated from its cavalry (possibly during an attempt at one of the complicated “mixed formation” maneuvers recommended in the Strategikon, a Byzantine military manual).
To make matters worse, a dust storm — something Arabs were accustomed to, their opponents less so — erupted around this time and caused mass chaos. The Romans’ large numbers proved counterproductive under such crowded and chaotic conditions. Now the fiercest and most desperate fighting of the war ensued. Everywhere, steel clashed, men yelled, horses neighed, camels bellowed, and sand blew in the face of the confused mass. Unable to maneuver, most of the Roman cavalry, carrying along a protesting Vahan, broke off and withdrew to the north.
Realizing that they were alone, the Christian infantry, including the “chained men,” maintained formation and withdrew westward, to the only space open to them. They were soon trapped between an Islamic hammer and anvil: A crescent of Arabs spreading from north to south continued closing in on them from the east, while a semicircle of the Wadi Ruqqad’s precipitous ravines lay before the Christians to the west. (Khalid had already captured the only bridge across the wadi.)
As darkness descended on this volatile corner of the world, the final phase of war played out on the evening of August 20. The Arabs, whose night vision was honed by desert life, charged the trapped Romans, who, according to al-Waqidi and other Muslim historians, fought valiantly. The historian Antonio Santosuosso writes that
soon the terrain echoed with the terrifying din of Muslim shouts and battle cries. Shadows suddenly changed into blades that penetrated flesh. The wind brought the cries of comrades as the enemy stealthily penetrated the ranks among the infernal noise of cymbals, drums, and battle cries. It must have been even more terrifying because they had not expected the Muslims to attack by dark.
Muslim cavalrymen continued pressing on the crowded and blinded Roman infantry, using the hooves and knees of their steeds to knock down the wearied fighters. Pushed finally to the edge of the ravine, rank after rank of the remaining forces of the imperial army, including all of the “chained men,” fell down the steep precipices to their death. Other soldiers knelt, uttered a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and waited for the onrushing Muslims to strike them down. No prisoners were taken on that day. “The Byzantine army, which Heraclius had spent a year of immense exertion to collect, had entirely ceased to exist,” writes British lieutenant-general and historian John Bagot Glubb. “There was no withdrawal, no rearguard action, no nucleus of survivors. There was nothing left.”
As the moon filled the night sky and the victors stripped the slain, cries of “Allahu akbar!” and “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger” rang throughout the Yarmuk valley.
*****
Following this decisive Muslim victory, the way was left wide open for the domino-like Arab conquests of the seventh century. “Such a revolution had never been,” remarks historian Hilaire Belloc. “No earlier attack had been so sudden, so violent, or so permanently successful. Within a score of years from the first assault in 634 [at the Battle of Ajnadayn], the Christian Levant had gone: Syria, the cradle of the Faith, and Egypt with Alexandria, the mighty Christian See.”
Without the power of hindsight afforded to historians living more than a millennium after the fact, even Anastasius of Sinai, who witnessed Muslim forces overrun his Egyptian homeland four years after Yarmuk, testified to the decisiveness of the battle by referring to it as “the first terrible and incurable fall of the Roman army.” “I am speaking of the bloodshed at Yarmuk, . . . after which occurred the capture and burning of the cities of Palestine, even Caesarea and Jerusalem. After the destruction of Egypt there followed the enslavement and incurable devastation of the Mediterranean lands and islands.”
Indeed, mere decades after Yarmuk, all ancient Christian lands between Greater Syria to the east and Mauretania (encompassing parts of present-day Algeria and Morocco) to the west — nearly 4,000 miles — had been conquered by Islam. Put differently: Two-thirds of Christendom’s original, older, and wealthier territory was permanently swallowed up by Islam. (Eventually, and thanks to the later Turks, “Muslim armies conquered three-quarters of the Christian world,” to quote historian Thomas Madden.)
But unlike the Germanic barbarians who invaded and conquered Europe in the preceding centuries, only to assimilate into the Christian religion, culture, and civilization and adopt its languages, Latin and Greek, the Arabs imposed their creed and language onto the conquered peoples so that, whereas the “Arabs” were once limited to the Arabian Peninsula, today the “Arab world” consists of some 22 nations across the Middle East and North Africa.
This would not be the case, and the world would have developed in a radically different way, had the Eastern Roman Empire defeated the invaders and sent them reeling back to Arabia. Little wonder that historians such as Francesco Gabrieli hold that “the battle of the Yarmuk had, without doubt, more important consequences than almost any other in all world history.”
It bears noting that if most Westerners today are ignorant of that encounter and its ramifications, they are even more oblivious as to how Yarmuk continues to serve as a model of inspiration for modern-day jihadis (who, we are regularly informed, are “psychotic criminals” who have “nothing to do with Islam”). As the alert reader may have noticed, the continuity between the words and deeds of the Islamic State (ISIS) and those of its predecessors from nearly 1,400 years ago are eerily similar. This of course is intentional. When ISIS proclaims that “American blood is best and we will taste it soon,” or “We love death as you love life,” or “We will break your crosses and enslave your women,” they are quoting verbatim — and thereby placing themselves in the footsteps of — Khalid bin al-Walid and his companions, the original Islamic conquerors of Syria.
Indeed, the cultivated parallels are many. ISIS’s black flag is intentionally patterned after Khalid’s black flag. Its invocation of the houris, Islam’s celestial sex-slaves promised to martyrs, is based on anecdotes of Muslims dying by the Yarmuk River and being welcomed into paradise by the houris. And the choreographed ritual slaughter of “infidels,” most infamously of 21 Coptic Christians on the shores of Libya, is patterned after the ritual slaughter of 1,000 captured Roman soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Yarmuk.
Here, then, is a reminder that, when it comes to the military history of Islam and the West, the lessons imparted are far from academic and have relevance to this day — at least for the jihadis.
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