RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/north_korean_military_proliferation_in_the_middle_east_and_africa.html

President Trump, to meet in late February with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a second attempt at ridding the dictatorship of nuclear weapons, maintains he is making historical progress and North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat to the U.S. Yet, earlier this week America’s top intelligence official, Dan Coats, rebutted that view. In a congressional hearing, Coats said North Korea wouldn’t completely give up nuclear weapons because its leaders view them as “critical to regime survival.”

Given today’s political urgency, a clear-eyed, comprehensive look at North Korea’s military capabilities and its long-standing and wide-ranging proliferation couldn’t be more timely and it is offered by retired Marine, author and political science professor, Bruce Bechtol. His new book, North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa: Enabling Violence and Instability (University Press of Kentucky, 2018), uses open-source intelligence reports, defectors’ testimony, field interviews and the work of fellow experts, to quantify the full extent of North Korea’s military capabilities and what it will take to stop the regime’s illicit activities.

Bechtol enumerates North Korea’s nuclear proliferation that includes weapons, capabilities, training, advice, assistance with fabricating facilities, equipment repairs and military backup. He profiles North Korea’s diversified capabilities that go beyond nuclear weapons programs to include myriad ballistic missile systems, maritime technology advances, airborne platforms, WMDs and cyber-warfare expertise. He lists the countries and non-state actors that benefit from their relationships with the rogue regime and details the country’s illicit financial networks and creative shipping arrangements that enable the regime to skirt sanctions and carry out global proliferation.

The Hermit Kingdom’s first nuclear weapons test occurred in 2006. By 2015, it had the capability to launch a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile that could hit the U.S. In 2016, it put a satellite into space using a missile with a range of 7,200 miles. Other tested ballistic missile systems, according to Bechtol, include a solid-fuel missile with an advanced GPS system for pinpoint guidance, a three-stage mobile ICBM able to carry a miniaturized nuclear warhead, and a two-state and a liquid-fueled mobile missile able to reach higher altitudes and distances than previous missiles.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13655/palestinians-lebanon

Protests by the Palestinians in Lebanon are unlikely to draw any attention from the international community, including so-called pro-Palestinian groups that are active especially on university campuses in the US and Canada, among other places.

The real “pro-Palestinian” groups are those who are willing to raise their voices against the mistreatment of Palestinians at the hands of their Arab brothers. The real “pro-Palestinian” groups are those who are prepared to defend the rights of women and gays living under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The real “pro-Palestinian” groups are those that are prepared to advocate for democracy and free speech for Palestinians living under the repressive regimes of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The real “pro-Palestinian” groups are those who are prepared to condemn Lebanon for its racist and discriminatory measures against Palestinians, living and dead.

Hiding at a university campus and spewing hatred against Israel does not make one “pro-Palestinian.” Rather, it makes one just an Israel-hater. Will the “pro-Palestinian” groups listen to the urgent messages coming from the people in Lebanon they claim to represent?

A Palestinian who tries to bring a bag of cement or other construction materials into a refugee camp to build a house is subjected to arrest, interrogation, trial by military court and a fine.

Is this happening in the Gaza Strip? No. Is it happening in the West Bank? No. This inhumane and unjust practice is taking place in an Arab country where more than 500,00 Palestinians live: Lebanon.

Moreover, this ban on the entry of construction material is punishing not only the living, but also the dead. Palestinians say that because of the prohibition, they cannot even find enough stones and cement to build graves.

The wretched condition of the Palestinians living in Lebanon is often ignored by both the international community and the Western main stream media. The only Palestinians the international community seems to care about are those residing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — those whose grievances can be blamed on Israel.