Displaying posts published in

2016

MATTHEW TYRMAND: POLISH DEMOCRACY IS IN EXCELLENT HEALTH

The reports of the death of Polish democracy, to paraphrase the oft told line of the eminent American writer, satirist, and political critic Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated.

Contrary to the alarmist media reports emanating from the media mandarins of the mainstream Western press, most Poles on the ground, constituting a silent majority as clearly indicated by the recent Presidential and Parliamentary elections, want to reassure those in the West that in Poland today the threats to democracy being “spun” by the global media complex are grossly mischaracterized and even wholly manufactured.

Democracy in Poland is the healthiest it has ever been in the post-1989, modern era.

The mainstream Western press apparatus however, taking its cues from the Polish mainstream press and those connected to the last government – freshly ejected from office due to its brazen, systemic corruption and its agenda of deeper EU integration – continues to criticise the recently and democratically elected new government and to deliver egregiously incomplete accounts of the actions on the ground; well parsed to ensure no inconvenient truths make it to the Western reader.

This active “spin” is meant to obfuscate the truth about the last eight years as well as to “poison the well” for those elected with the largest democratic mandate in modern Polish history, the former opposition party, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc– PiS).

Benjamin Weingarten: See No Islam, Hear No Islam New York’s document purge won’t alleviate the jihadist threat, but might increase it.

As part of a recently announced legal settlement with representatives of the Muslim community, the NYPD has agreed to purge materials critical to understanding the threat to New York City from domestic Islamic terrorism. The plaintiffs in Raza v. City of New York and Handschu v. Special Services Division charged that the NYPD had targeted Muslims for surveillance solely because of their religious affiliation. Among other things, the settlement stipulates that the NYPD must remove from its website a comprehensive 2007 report authored by senior analysts Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt.

Radicalization in the West identified homegrown Islamic terrorism as the primary extremist threat to New York City. As then-police commissioner Ray Kelly noted in a preface, the report’s aim was to assist policymakers and law enforcement officials around the country by providing a thorough understanding of the danger posed by domestic terrorists. It also sought to help intelligence and law enforcement agencies better understand the radicalization process. Based on a rigorous analysis of almost a dozen jihadist plots across the U.S. and Europe, the report identified the enemy’s ideology on its own terms. The report didn’t say that jihadism had nothing to do with Islam; nor did it suggest that Islam was a “religion of peace.” Its sole concern was assessing the jihadist threat, not undertaking an Islamic exegesis.

Hillary Clinton to Hispanic TV: American police are as dangerous as ISIS Jim-Kouri

While her lapdogs in the news media claim Hillary Clinton has changed her negative attitudes about the military and law enforcement, she has once again pandered to minority voters by attacking American police officers by comparing them with ISIS terrorists, according to officials with the National Association of Chiefs of Police. (See videos below.)

The Democrat’s presidential heir apparent Hillary Clinton participated in a Townhall event on Monday for Univision’s afilliated network Fusion where she answered questions about white privilege and terrorism. Hillary Clinton said “white terrorism” and “police violence” are just as big a threat today to blacks and Latinos as are the Islamist terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Question: “The danger of ISIS is clearly a major threat to American safety, but personally, I know many minorities who are much more concerned with racist attacks at the local level than radical Islamists, so just — question to put it plainly since often, issues of race are tiptoed, do you believe that white terrorism and extremism is as much a threat to some in this country as something like ISIS?”

Clinton’s Answer: “Yes, I believe there are all kinds of underground movements and efforts in our country that try to use violence or assert beliefs that I find often lead to violence,” Clinton said before outright accusing some police officers of being terrorists. I think that when you have police violence that terrorized communities, that doesn’t show the respect that you’re supposed to have from respecting people in your authority, that can feel, also, terrorizing.”

CAROLINE GLICK: IN PAKISTAN THEY TRUST

It is a testament to the precarious state of the world today that in a week that saw North Korea carry out a possible test of a hydrogen bomb, the most frightening statement uttered did not come from Pyongyang.

It came from Pakistan.

Speaking in the military garrison town of Rawalpindi, Pakistani Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif said that any Iranian threat to Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity will “wipe Iran off the map.”

Sharif made the statement following his meeting with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to media reports, Salman was the second senior Saudi official to visit Pakistan in the past week amid growing tensions between Iran and the kingdom.

Salman’s trip and Sharif’s nuclear threat make clear that following the US’s all-but-official abandonment of its role as protector of the world’s largest oil producer, the Saudis have cast their lots with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

When last October, the USS Harry Truman exited the Persian Gulf, the move marked the first time since 2007 that the US lacked an aircraft carrier in the region. Nine years ago, the US naval move was not viewed as a major statement of strategic withdrawal, given that back then the US had some one hundred thousand troops in Iraq.

While the USS Truman returned to the Gulf late last month, its return gave little solace to America’s frightened and spurned Arab allies. The Obama administration’s weak-kneed response to Iran’s live-fire exercises on December 26, during which an Iranian Revolutionary Guards vessel fired rockets a mere 1,370 meters from the aircraft carrier as it transited the Straits of Hormuz, signaled that the US is not even willing to make a show of force to deter Iranian aggression.

And so the Saudis have turned to Pakistan.

It would be foolish to view Sharif’s nuclear threat as mere bluster.

RUTHIE BLUM: TO HEALTH AND MARTYRDOM

To health and martyrdom

On Sunday, I reported for The Algemeiner on the Palestinian Authority’s honoring of the Tel Aviv pub terrorist.

The story, more precisely, was that the PA Health Ministry initially placed Nashat Milhem — who was killed Friday during a gun battle with Israeli security forces after a weeklong manhunt — on its official list of “martyrs” and shortly thereafter removed his name.

Jerusalem Post Palestinian affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh, who broke the story, told me that the probable reason for the deletion was that the PA figured paying such respect to the infamous shooter would not look good in the international arena.

This was merely an assessment. But what followed was fact.

Outrage promptly erupted on Arabic social media, with the Facebook pages and Twitter feeds of Palestinians calling the PA to task for not giving Milhem his proper due. Hashtags were created; Hamas and Fatah supporters alike chimed in on behalf of the 29-year-old from northern Israel who went on a shooting spree against innocent people and then escaped, leaving the residents of Tel Aviv fearing he might turn up at any moment to pull a repeat performance.

MY SAY: THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE DECEMBER 16, 1944 –JANUARY 25, 1945

On December 16, 1944 three German armies (more than a quarter-million troops) launched the deadliest and most desperate battle of the war in the west in the rugged, and freezing Ardennes. American units were caught unprepared and fought desperate battles to stem the German advances. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a “bulge” around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.

The Germans threw 250,000 soldiers into the initial assault, 14 German infantry divisions guarded by five panzer divisions-against a mere 80,000 Americans. Their assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest (the Allies simply believed the Ardennes too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive). Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.

One particularly effective German trick was the use of English-speaking German commandos who infiltrated American lines and, using captured U.S. uniforms, trucks, and jeeps, impersonated U.S. military and sabotaged communications. The ploy caused widespread chaos and suspicion among the American troops as to the identity of fellow soldiers–even after the ruse was discovered. Even General Omar Bradley himself had to prove his identity three times–by answering questions about football and Betty Grable–before being allowed to pass a sentry point.

The battle raged for three weeks, resulting in a massive loss of American and civilian life. Nazi atrocities abounded, including the murder of 72 American soldiers by SS soldiers in the Ardennes town of Malmedy. Historian Stephen Ambrose estimated that by war’s end, “Of the 600,000 GIs involved, almost 20,000 were killed, another 20,000 were captured, and 40,000 were wounded.” The United States also suffered its second-largest surrender of troops of the war: More than 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry Division capitulated at one time at Schnee Eifel. The devastating ferocity of the conflict also made desertion an issue for the American troops; General Eisenhower was forced to make an example of Private Eddie Slovik, the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War.

A crucial German shortage of fuel and the gallantry of American troops fighting in the frozen forests of the Ardennes thwarted Hitler’s ambitions. Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s remarkable feat of turning the Third Army ninety degrees from Lorraine to relieve the besieged town of Bastogne was the key to thwarting the German counteroffensive. The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties.

On January 12, 1045, the Nazis began their retreat and the battle ended on January 25,1945.

France: Muslim Shouting, “Allahu Akbar” Attacks Jewish Teacher w/Machette “I saw hatred in his eyes” Daniel Greenfield

There’s outrage when there’s even a rumor that a Koran was harmed. Here’s a full blown machete attack on a Jewish teacher carrying a Torah.

A Jewish teacher who went to work was attacked by a Turkish 15-year-old shouting, “Allahu Akbar” with a machete.

The teacher fell to the ground. The teenager attacked him with the machete, striking the Torah.

“I saw hatred in his eyes,” the teacher later described. “I told him to stop, but he continued to attack me.”

During his arrest, the Muslim teenager said he was acting in the name of Allah and ISIS.

But, as you’ve probably already guessed, he must have misunderstood Islam.

The MSA Defeats New York The most influential Islamic “student organization” unveils its Islamist colors. John Perazzo

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police commissioner have agreed to settle a federal lawsuit that the Muslim Students Association (MSA)—along with a few other plaintiffs—filed against the New York Police Department in 2012. In its complaint, the MSA charged that the civil rights of Muslims were being violated by the NYPD’s use of informants and plainclothes detectives to monitor various Islamic institutions—particularly MSA chapters—in the New York/New Jersey area. The de Blasio settlement explicitly bans police from basing any future law-enforcement investigations on race, ethnicity, or, as in the case of the MSA, religion.

Is this good public policy? Was there any legitimate reason for the police to conduct surveillance on the MSA? To answer these questions, let’s recall exactly what the MSA is, and what its foremost objectives are.

Currently the most influential Islamic student organization in North America, the MSA was founded in 1963 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological forebear of Hamas and al Qaeda. The MSA’s purpose, for more than half a century, has been to spread fundamentalist Islamist ideology across the globe. The group’s enduring ties to the Brotherhood are demonstrated by the fact that the MSA’s organizational “Pledge of Allegiance”—which vows unwavering loyalty to Allah, the Koran, jihad, and martyrdom—is essentially an adaptation of the famous Brotherhood credo: “God is our objective, the Koran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle [jihad] is our way, and death for the sake of God [martyrdom] is the highest of our aspirations.”

The MSA’s activities are guided at all times by a desire to advance Islam’s influence in the United States, one campus at a time. Toward that end, the Association once published A Guide on How to Run a Successful MSA, which states: “It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university.” This same objective, explains a former MSA member from UCLA, should serve as a model for the organization’s pursuit of its larger “end goal,” which is “the establishment of [an] Islamic form of government” across the entire globe.

Why Feminism Failed Cologne’s Women A feminism in thrall to the left is one of the biggest threats to women. Daniel Greenfield

Big Feminism, fresh from fighting pitched battles against swimsuit posters in European subways and other phantoms of “rape culture”, failed the women who were attacked by violent Muslim migrant mobs in Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg who were the products of an actual rape culture dating back to Mohammed’s injunction to his men that Muslim women must wear burqas to avoid being “molested” while non-Muslim women captured in the House of War could be raped by Muslim Jihadis at will.

Big Feminism has a great deal of interest in rape as an abstract idea that can be unpacked to represent everything the left hates from Valentine’s Day to environmental degradation to the college frat, but it has little interest in rape as a crime or rape victims as people. Eve Ensler exploited the idea of rape to build up her brand while her PR was being handled by Trevor FitzGibbon, a progressive sexual predator who was also representing Julian Assange, another progressive rapist. Eve Ensler had a great deal of interest in rape as an ideological tool, but none in the women who were raped by her allies.

Feminism is only another of the many manipulative masks that the left wears. Its acolytes cannot see rape as a personal crime, only as an ideological one. To the left, rape, like racism, is a form of institutional oppression practiced by the stronger white male against everyone else. Sexual assaults that don’t fit this structural template won’t be acknowledged and when they become so public that they must be acknowledged, it will be only to change the conversation.

Leaders of Designated Terrorist Group Invited to State of the Union Guess who gets a front row seat to watch the President? Joe Kaufman

When President Barack Obama takes the stage tonight for his State of the Union address to the American people, he will be doing so with at least two individuals associated with terrorism seated in front of him. The individuals, Nezar Hamze and Sameena Usman, are leaders of CAIR and have involvement with Islamic Relief, two groups that have been named terrorist organizations by the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Nezar Hamze is the CEO and Regional Operations Director of the Florida statewide chapter of CAIR. Hamze is attending the State of the Union (SOTU) at the behest of United States Congressman Alcee Hastings, Democrat from Florida. Sameena Usman is the Government Relations Coordinator of the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) chapter of CAIR. Usman is attending SOTU at the behest of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Democrat from California.

CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was created in June 1994 as a part of a terrorist umbrella organization led by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named a co-conspirator by the US Justice Department for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. In November 2014, along with ISIS and al-Qaeda, the UAE government named CAIR to its list of terrorist organizations.

CAIR-Florida reflects the same extremism as its parent organization. In July 2014, CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers shouted, “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas.” Following the rally, the event organizer, Sofian Zakkout, wrote, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!” In August 2014, CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly wrote, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of God…”