Displaying posts published in

2016

DAVID SOLWAY: THE END OF THE UNIVERSITY

Anyone with a clear mind who has taught or studied at a university or whose children are currently enrolled in its troubled precincts knows that the academy has fallen on evil days. Preoccupied with “diversity,” “inclusiveness,” affirmative action, and equality of outcome regardless of input, universities have coddled students into a state of planular emotionalism — “you are loved” and “all your emotions are real,” goes the mantra at Virginia Tech — and rendered them incapable of grappling with anything that resembles an unfamiliar idea or an unanticipated event. Considering in addition the number of useless and cost-ineffective courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences (e.g., Gender Studies, Peace Studies, Fat Studies, Black Studies, Aboriginal Studies, Queer Studies, etc.), as well as the dilution of even the more respectable subjects in order to make them accessible to the unqualified, the future of the university looks increasingly bleak — a “strange Twilight Zone,” as Daniel Greenfield writes, where “none of the sane rules apply.”

In an exceptionally civil discourse on the need for civility in academia, Ashley Thorne, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, argues that the two animating principles of higher education are: (1) building student character in the interests of self-examination and growth, and (2) freedom to pursue truth in whatever direction it may lead. The university, however, has betrayed both its founding ideals. Thorne writes in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, which has teachers and administrators reeling with disbelief and students collapsing in paroxysms of despair, fear, anxiety, deep uncertainty, emotional trauma and cataclysmic grief, and in desperate need of “relaxing stations,” cry-ins, calming music, teddy bears, and coloring books. Students racked by electoral stress routinely wish to be exempted from taking their finals. A note saying “Suck it up,” posted by an intrepid student at Wisconsin’s Edgewood College, was deemed a hate crime by college authorities. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that an academy administered by a clade of invertebrates and thick with Pajama Boys and Julias does not elicit confidence in its future. Put one Hamas five-year-old in their midst and they’re goners.

The upshot is that practically the entire university culture is sick unto death: the vast majority of professors in lockstep leftism like an army of Star Trek Borgs marching toward an ever-receding progressivist Millennium, next to none with any real-world experience; hiring protocols based on gender credentials (i.e., women) rather than merit; systematic hostility to fair debate and the free exchange of ideas, however asunder the prevailing cultural consensus; Access Service personnel who regard the university as a field hospital or are simply unable to cope with the new and burgeoning category of disability claimants; and the students themselves, some “mismatched” (code for not possessing the academic wherewithal to succeed), others simply incapable of intellectual endeavor or serious application across the curricular spectrum, and, in short, a supine clientele intent on avoiding work, who consider the university as a daycare center when they are not turning it into a Jungle Gym.

ISIS in the Caribbean Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen? Joe Raedle and Simon Cottee

This summer, the so-called Islamic State published issue 15 of its online magazine Dabiq. In what has become a standard feature, it ran an interview with an ISIS foreign fighter. “When I was around twenty years old I would come to accept the religion of truth, Islam,” said Abu Sa’d at-Trinidadi, recalling how he had turned away from the Christian faith he was born into.

At-Trinidadi, as his nom de guerre suggests, is from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a country more readily associated with calypso and carnival than the “caliphate.” Asked if he had a message for “the Muslims of Trinidad,” he condemned his co-religionists at home for remaining in “a place where you have no honor and are forced to live in humiliation, subjugated by the disbelievers.” More chillingly, he urged Muslims in T&T to wage jihad against their fellow citizens: “Terrify the disbelievers in their own homes and make their streets run with their blood.”

For well over a year and a half now, Raqqa, the so-called stronghold of the Islamic State in Syria, has been subjected to sustained aerial bombardment by U.S., French, and Russian war planes. In recent months, the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition has reportedly killed more than 10,000 ISIS fighters, including key figures among ISIS’s leadership, most notably its senior strategist and spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. It has also launched an offensive, now in its second month, on the group’s Iraqi capital of Mosul. According to estimates by American officials, ISIS has lost about 45 percent of its territory in Syria and 20 percent in Iraq since it rose to prominence in the summer of 2014. At the same time, the flow of foreign fighters to the caliphate has plummeted, from a peak of 2,000 crossing the Turkey-Syria border each month in late 2014 to as few as 50 today. Yet still there are people making the long and precarious 6,000-mile journey from Trinidad to Syria in an effort to live there. Just three days before the release of Dabiq 15, eight were detained in southern Turkey, attempting to cross into ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. All were female, and they included children.

In a recent paper in the journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, John McCoy and W. Andy Knight posit that between 89-125 Trinidadians—or Trinis, to use the standard T&T idiom—have joined ISIS. Roodal Moonilal, an opposition Member of Parliament in T&T, insists that the total number is considerably higher, claiming that, according to a leaked security document passed on to him, over 400 have left since 2013. Even the figure of 125 would easily place Trinidad, with a population of 1.3 million, including 104,000 Muslims, top of the list of Western countries with the highest rates of foreign-fighter radicalization; it’s by far the largest recruitment hub in the Western Hemisphere, about a four and a half hour flight from the U.S. capital. How did this happen? CONTINUE AT SITE

The shocking treatment of Christians by Muslims in refugee camps across Europe. Anne Marie Waters

I recently met a woman who works with the International Christian Consulate (ICC), an organisation founded in 2015 to provide a “physical consulate” for Christians in the Middle East. As well as telling me about the sexual assaults (assaults, plural) she herself had endured at the hands of migrants on the streets of Athens, she pointed me to a report that the ICC has produced detailing the truly shocking treatment Christians are subjected to by Muslims in refugee camps across Europe.

The report is entitled ‘A Survey of Christian Refugees in Greece to Determine their Condition as a Minority Group within the Refugee Population’ and provides data taken from a sample group consisting of 65 Christian refugees at an un-named camp in Attica, Greece (60% male, 40% female). Respondents were 94% Iranian Christian, 6% Afghan Christian. Many were apostates who had lived covertly as Christians in their home countries. Their primary reason for leaving was persecution as a result of their faith.

This survey revealed many shocking realities, but the most shocking is this: Christians are terrified in refugee camps and try to hide their religion. This is solely due to violent attacks by Muslim refugees.

Conditions in the camps are generally dreadful and one doctor reported an increase in tuberculosis. Reports of ethnic gang-violence were also numerous. The UN, the report claims, is “notable by its absence. Not a single respondent .. had received any aid or support from the UN and laughed when asked how the UN had helped them since they left their home countries. One respondent answered by genuinely asking “what’s the UN?””

An American doctor working with Christian refugees said “these people are seriously threatened, because they are forthright about their faith, and that is extraordinarily dangerous in these camps”. He also claimed that the camp at which he worked “would have been fine if you were a Muslim. I wouldn’t even think of going there as a Christian trying to live there…. If you’re a Christian in there, you can forget about it – it would be really dangerous”. He added “unfortunately, they left Iran and showed up in Iran. These camps are like mini Iran or mini Afghanistan, with the same persecution as what they left in their home countries. I can see that even from what I’m looking at medically”.

Another volunteer testified that “Christian women had been raped by Afghan Islamists in the camps”. This anonymous witness also complained that the “use of Muslim Afghan translators by the UN and other agencies [was] making it difficult for Christian refugees to be open about their situations when applying for asylum”.

The report is littered with examples of Muslim violence against Christians, including testimony that Islamists in the camps warn that they will be killed. A staggering 87% of respondents had either witnessed this or experienced it first hand. Threats of death to apostates are common and Christians take these seriously. Gangs of Islamists were reported to have deliberately singled out Christians for violent attack: “We saw fanatic Muslims fighting against Christians. There were so many of them I couldn’t count how many there were – they purposefully came together to attack Christians”.

Schoolgirls in Nigeria Kill 56 in Suicide Bombings Girls volunteer for such missions as a way to end their horrific lives under captivity, which include relentless hunger and sexual abuse.

Two schoolgirls carried out simultaneous suicide bombings in the Nigerian town of Madagali. The attacks on a crowded market left at least 56 people killed and dozens wounded.

The attacks bore the marking of the Islamist terror organization Boko Haram, known for targeting civilians in northeast Nigeria as well as in neighboring Cameroon and Niger.

Although attacks by the group have been less frequent in recent months as the Nigerian army has been attempting a push back to its original stronghold in the enormous Sambia forest, this latest attack shows the group – which pledged its allegiance to Islamic State – is far from defeated.

Attacks by school girls are one of the group’s latest and most sinister operational surprises. The girls, many of them kidnapped by the group, will volunteer for such missions as a way to end their horrific lives under captivity, which include relentless hunger and sexual abuse.

One girl, 16, identified only as Fati, who was kidnapped from her village but managed to escape, told CNN, “They came to us to pick us. They would ask, ‘Who wants to be a suicide bomber?’ The girls would shout, ‘me, me, me.’ They were fighting to do the suicide bombings.

“It was just because they want to run away from Boko Haram. If they give them a suicide bomb, then maybe they would meet soldiers, tell them, ‘I have a bomb on me’ and they could remove the bomb. They can run away.”

At Least 38 Dead, 150 Wounded in Istanbul Two bombs exploded outside soccer stadium in major Turkish cityBy Margaret Coker

ISTANBUL—Turkey declared a day of mourning after two suicide bombers killed at least 38 civilians and police officers deployed to guard a Saturday evening match by Istanbul’s Besiktas soccer team.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts that occurred two hours after the game outside the team’s stadium on one of Istanbul’s major waterfront thoroughfares and urban parks. But Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Sunday that evidence suggested the blasts were the work of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Turkey, the U.S. and Europe deem a terrorist group.

Turkey has been rocked by several terrorist bombings this year by attackers believed to be members of Islamic State and by splinter groups of the PKK, which has been fighting for decades against Turkish security forces for autonomy in the country’s Kurdish-majority southeastern regions.

The Interior Ministry said early Sunday that at least 13 people had been detained in relation to the weekend bombings that also wounded more than 150.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the nation in a televised address that Turkey would fight “the scourge of terrorism to the end,” and promised that the attackers would pay a “heavy price.”

Most spectators had already left the sleek Vodafone Arena when the blasts occurred around 10:30 local time Saturday night. Large numbers of police routinely assigned to the normally sold-out matches remained in the area, however, as did many die-hard fans enjoying the unusually mild late autumn weather.

The force of the explosions shook buildings almost a half mile away from the stadium along the heavily traveled road that leads from Istanbul’s waterfront road to Taksim Square, and could be heard across the Bosporus, according to witnesses.

The first attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a group of riot police who had assembled on the west side of the stadium to wait for transport back to their barracks.

Bomb at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Compound Kills Dozens Largest attack on a Christian house of worship in Egypt since 2011 By Dahlia Kholaif and Tamer El-Ghobashy

CAIRO—A bomb exploded at Cairo’s main Coptic Christian cathedral compound on Sunday morning, killing at least 25 people and wounding another 49, in the largest attack on a Christian house of worship in Egypt since 2011.

The blast went off on the women’s side of the worshiping hall in the small church of St. Peter and St. Paul, attached to the Coptic cathedral in the capital’s Abassyia district, state media reported.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was quickly condemned by the Egyptian government and the head of Cairo’s Al-Azhar mosque, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning and one of the world’s oldest institutions of religious teaching.

Survivors described the church as being packed with worshipers during a national holiday to celebrate the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth. The blast shattered the silence of the hall as those gathered listened to a sermon partly honoring a deceased church member.

“The turnout was bigger than normal,” said Tahani Gabriel, 65 years old, who sat in the third row of the church. Her cousin Souad Atta, the widow of the man mourned, was in the first row and was killed, Ms. Gabriel said.

The death toll is expected to increase, and most casualties were women, Deputy Health Minister Sherief Wadee told state television. Egypt’s top prosecutor ordered all nearby surveillance cameras be reviewed as part of a criminal investigation, state media said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Living Off the Fat of Washington If Trump is going to ‘drain the swamp,’ he might start with wasteful ag subsidies. By James Bovard

President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington could begin with the Agriculture Department. Federal aid to farmers is forecast by the Congressional Budget Office to soar to $19 billion in 2017. Farmers will receive twice as much of their income from handouts (25%) this year as they did in 2013, according to the USDA. Whoever Mr. Trump names as his agriculture secretary should target wasteful farm programs for spending cuts.

Here are a few of the most egregious examples:

• Cotton. Incredibly, the U.S. government has paid $750 million to subsidize Brazilian cotton production since 2010. This is the result of a 2002 World Trade Organization complaint brought by the Brazilian government claiming that the U.S. unfairly subsidized cotton producers and depressed world cotton prices. The WTO justifiably ruled against the United States. To deter Brazil from imposing penalty tariffs on U.S. exports, the U.S. paid a king’s ransom to Brazil so it could perpetuate handouts to American farmers.

The federal cotton program was revised in 2014, but farmers continue reaping roughly $1.5 billion a year in aid—more than 40% of the market value of U.S. cotton production, according to a 2015 study by the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development. The same study estimated that the U.S. program suppresses world cotton prices by up to 7%, costing foreign cotton growers up to $3 billion a year.

• Sugar. The U.S. maintains a regime of import quotas and price supports that drive U.S. sugar prices to double or triple the world price. Since 1997 Washington’s sugar policy has zapped more than 120,000 U.S. jobs in food manufacturing, according to a 2013 study by Agralytica. More than 10 jobs have been lost in manufacturing for every remaining sugar grower in the U.S.

• Peanuts. In 2002 Congress abolished the quota system that required farmers to possess a federal license to grow peanuts. Yet rather than trust free markets, Congress created a new price-support program. In 2014 Congress sharply increased peanut subsidies. Federal peanut outlays are forecast by the USDA to increase eightfold between 2015 and 2017, reaching almost $1 billion a year. As a result, the USDA is drowning in a sea of surplus peanuts that farmers dump on the government. CONTINUE AT SITE

A Banner Terrorist Weekend ISIS retakes Palmyra in Syria and jihadists strike four other cities.

The Journal is reporting that the Pentagon is putting together options for the Trump Administration to intensify the campaign against Islamic State, and right on time. ISIS jihadists re-entered the ancient city of Palmyra on Sunday, driving out Syrian government troops despite Russian bombing. President Obama asserted last week that the campaign against Islamic State is making steady progress, but the militants have other ideas.

Meanwhile, terrorists struck no fewer than four cities around the world in an especially murderous weekend. The carnage began Saturday afternoon in the Yemeni port of Aden. A suicide bomber detonated his vest near a barracks where troops had gathered to pick up their paychecks, killing 48. A pair of suicide bombers attacked Istanbul’s Vodafone Arena in Turkey the same day after a soccer match. At least 38 died, most of them police officers guarding the arena. A pair of suicide bombers, almost certainly the work of ISIS’s Boko Haram affiliate, maimed 17 in Nigeria on Sunday. And in Egypt, a nail-bomb at Cairo’s St. Mark’s Cathedral killed at least 25 Coptic Christian worshippers. Though no one had taken credit as we went to press, Egypt is besieged by more than one Islamist group. The Trump Administration is inheriting a dangerous world.

Russian Hackers and American Hacks The CIA that misjudged Putin for years is now sure of his motives.

Somewhere in the Kremlin Vladimir Putin must be laughing. The Russian strongman almost certainly sought to undermine public confidence in American democracy this year, and as the Obama Administration leaves town it is playing into his hands.

That’s the real story behind the weekend reports that U.S. intelligence services have concluded that Russia intervened to assist Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The stories are attributed to “senior administration” officials who won’t go on the record but assert murky details that are impossible to verify without seeing the evidence.

Mr. Trump is denouncing the claims with his usual subtlety, but he has a point about their timing and nature. “I don’t want anyone hacking us,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News Sunday, while blaming the leaks on Democrats. “I think it’s ridiculous” and “I don’t believe it.”

Democrats are still in shock from their defeat, and many want to add the Kremlin to FBI Director James Comey, fake news and the Electoral College as excuses that cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.

Israel’s economy defies BDS Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

1. In December, 2016, Israel is unprecedentedly integrated into the global economy, highlighting the successful battle against BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), while rejecting pessimism and fatalism.

2. According to a Bloomberg study: “An examination of foreign capital flow into Israel shows a near tripling from 2005 when the so-called BDS was started…. Israel’s economy is expected to grow 2.8% in 2016, compared with 1.8% for the US and the EU. In 2015, Israel’s industrial high-tech exports rose 13%, from 2014, to $23.7BN….”

3. 2016 is already a record year for total (mostly foreign) investments in Israel’s young high tech companies, exceeding the $4.4BN invested in 2015. For instance, Israel’s NeuroDerm, which develops drugs for central nervous system diseases, is expected to raise $75MN, on NASDAQ, by December 12, 2016. Some of the recent investments were made by the US-based Johnson & Johnson’s Development Corporation, the Australian Stock Exchange, the German medical equipment giant B. Braun Melsungen AG, China’s Internet giant Alibaba and Japan’s Sun Corporation.

4. A trilateral cooperation agreement has been concluded between Israel’s Mobileye – a collision avoidance sensor developer – Delphi Automotive, the UK-based global automotive parts manufacturer and the Silicon Valley-based Intel, aiming to manufacture a self-driving car by 2019. A similar partnership was struck between Mobileye, Intel and the German car giant, BMW.

5. A wave of acquisitions of Israeli companies by global giants persists, as evidenced by the November, 2016 acquisition of Israel’s valve repair device company, Valtech Cardio Ltd., by the Irvine, California-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp., for $340MN in stock and cash, in addition to $350MN in milestone payments over ten years and $300MN for Valtech’s research and development program. Just like 200-250 other (mostly US) major global hightech companies, Edwards has leveraged Israel’s brain-power by operating a research and development center in Israel, since the 2004 acquisition of Israel’s PVT for $90MN and milestone payments.

6. The London-based mega-billion-dollar Chinese/European XIO Group has acquired Israel’s Meitav-Dash Investment House for $400MN. In 2015, XIO acquired Israel’s medical device company, Lumenis, for $510MN. China’s telecommunications giant, Xinwei, is negotiating the acquisition of Israel’s Spacecom Satellite Communications for $190MN, reflecting the surging Chinese interest in the Israeli market and the significantly expanding Israel-China trade balance from $50MN in 1990 to $11BN in 2015, in addition to $15BN in acquisition of Israeli companies. The Hong Kong-based Rightleder Holding Group aims to acquire Israel’s sewage recycling (water purification) company, Advanced Membrane Separation. Also two Chinese capital funds, CDH and ZZ explore the acquisition of ironSource, Israel’s largest Internet company, for $1BN.

7. The Israel-India trade balance surged from $200MN in 1992 – when diplomatic relations were normalized – to $3BN in 2009 and $5BN in 2015, accompanied by a rise in two-way-tourism, paving the road to a negotiated free-trade-agreement, and highlighting India as one of Israel’s fastest growing trade partners in the commercial and defense areas. New Delhi has become the top customer for Israel’s defense industries, in addition to a series of co-development and co-production initiatives with Israel – in the face of joint economic and national security challenges – while Israel has become the number two/three exporter of military systems to India, following Russia and the USA.

8. On November 16, 2016, India signed $1.4BN contracts with the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), purchasing two additional Phalcon/IL-76 Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems and ten Heron unmanned aerial vehicles. IAI has submitted a proposal for the co-development, in India, of an advanced version of the Heron. The growing Israel-India defense ties are demonstrated by the recent Indian procurement of Rafael’s Gil anti-tank missiles, upgrades of Indian tanks by Elbit Systems and a joint development of the Barak-8 surface-to-air missile.