Displaying posts published in

October 2019

The Ahmadis: A Peaceful Caliphate?

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/10/ahmadiyya-writing-camouflaged-anti-jewish-and-anti-american-propaganda-and-contributes-to-the-spread-of-hatred

“Love for all, hatred for none”?  Think again, as Ahmadi doctrine contains questionable aspects. 

“Islam is going to progress and triumph in the world and the banner of the Holy Prophet shall be raised all over the world,” stated in a February 10, 2006, sermon Hadrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the currently reigning Ahmadiyya “caliph.” As previously noted, this small, cultish Muslim sect enjoys disproportionate influence among world leaders with Ahmadi claims of Islamic enlightenment, yet such statements about ultimate Ahmadi goals are more disturbing.

Ahmad rejoiced that Islamic Sharia law “can solve problems of all time and era,” but other observers, such as the Social Democratic German academic Johannes Kandel, are far more critical. In a 2006 study of the Ahmadis for Germany’s main Lutheran church, he noted that the Ahmadis have a “pre-democratic, absolutist state understanding.” Thus the “Ahmadiyyas represent in view of human rights and democracy positions, which, measured against critical inner-Muslim discourses on these questions, are ultraorthodox, indeed fundamentalist.”

Pastor Andreas Volkmar of the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche) and the late (d. 2010) German scholar of Islam Hiltrud Schröter reached similar conclusions. In a 2017 study, Volkmar observed that the Ahmadis’ “vision is the implementation of the rule of Islam—worldwide—under the leadership of one of their future caliphs.” Schröter, author of a 2002 book on the Ahmadis, concurred that the Ahmadi community “perfectly sets itself in scene as a democratic Islam and veils its true goals: victory of Ahmadiyya Islam over all other religions.”

Crazy and Woke on the Western Front of Progressive Insanity Edward Ring

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/11/crazy-and-woke-on-the-western-front-of-progressive-insanity/

There are alternatives to destroying our cities and suburbs in order to feed profits to investors and power to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, but they will require a realignment that allows conservatives and liberals to join together to demand quick, decisive, cost-effective action.

The reason progressive extremism persists in America today is because progressives either are making money by embracing progressive policies, or because progressives are not living on the front lines of progressive insanity.

It is hard to imagine a place that would have an electorate any more progressive than Venice Beach. Located on the shores of West Los Angeles in California’s 33rd Congressional District, Venice Beach is represented by Democrat Ted Lieu, who was reelected in 2018 with 70 percent of the vote. But a revolution is brewing in Venice Beach, because Venice Beach is on the front lines of progressive insanity.

Thanks to progressive ideology as expressed in laws and court rulings, in California today you cannot arrest and hold vagrants for petty theft or possession of hard drugs; you cannot move them out of public spaces unless you can provide them with free and “permanent supportive housing;” you cannot commit demonstrably insane people to asylums; and publicly funded shelters must offer food and urgent care without any preconditions whatsoever.

The Streets of Venice Beach Are An Open Sewer

Testimonials from residents of Venice Beach provide ample evidence of what happens when you impose these progressive policies on an urban area bordered on the west by some of the most inviting beaches and agreeable weather in the world. An estimated 1,200 homeless people have set up permanent encampments in this three square mile beach town. They almost never use actual toilets.

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the average human produces one pound of feces per day. Simple math therefore tells us that every week, the homeless population deposits more than four tons of feces into the gutters and onto the sidewalks, driveways, and lawns of Venice Beach residents, where they are dutifully hosed into the sewers and eventually make their way into the ocean.

Victims of a Deluded Sanctimony Jack Weatheral ******

This week has seen globally co-ordinated protests by self-absorbed members of the privileged middle class, who have been by gluing themselves to pavements, trains, planes and automobiles when not splashing public buildings with faux blood, dangling from bridges and making general pests of themselves under the banner of Extinction Rebellion and its mendacious claims of imminent planetary doom. That’s the public face of this latest apocalyptic movement, of which over the centuries there have been many. Perhaps more interesting is the underlying inability of the protesters’ rational selves to examine and critique their emotive selves, to see in their collective antics what amounts to a mass escape from the prison of reason. With such a societal pathology now rampant, it is both timely and instructive to revisit one of the pioneers, and the casualties, of the naïve neo-romanticism whose disruptive rejection of modern life, its power sources and convenience, is the flame burning bright in so many preening hearts.

Long before Greta Thunberg denounced growth, modernity and the pursuit of wealth, there was Christopher Johnston McCandless, whose tragedy plumbs a central human struggle as visceral as it is cerebral. Captured in the considerate and compelling account by mountaineer and author Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild (1996) and the extraordinary film adaption of the same name by Sean Penn (2007), McCandless’s short life may be witnessed as an allegory for a quintessential malaise affecting the contemporary Western world. The book is now taught widely across US secondary schools, although his life and demise is likely to be approached through a romanticised prism that echoes Krakauer’s account and McCandless’s own personality.

Briefly, for those unfamiliar with the story, McCandless abandoned his car, burnt his money, rejected society and made his way by hitchhiker’s thumb and boxcar to the wilds of Alaska, where he died slowly and painfully. Encompassed within the sweeping trajectory of McCandless’s twenty-four years is the human story of a young, disaffected Anglo-America and introverted ideologue. It is within this narrative that we encounter him as the unwitting flag-bearer for much of contemporary progressives’ — more accurately regressives — war on the very cradle of their nurtured existence.

DOUGLAS MURRAY ON GRETA THUNBERG VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDk0CAfdALw

The whole construction of the Greta phenomenon is to make her impossible to oppose. Clearly it’s a way to smuggle a particular type of extreme green ideology in most successfully.

It’s something like ‘I dare you’ — I dare you to oppose a 16-year-old autistic girl

What exactly are the rules here?

Let’s say I find a 14-year-old badly disabled Danish boy who loves fossil fuels, does he win?

ISIS’s Turkish Homecoming by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14992/isis-turkish-homecoming

It is, therefore, the epitome of hypocrisy for Mr Erdogan to offer to take responsibility for the ISIS fighters being held in Kurdish-run detention camps… If that really were to happen, and the ISIS captives were repatriated to Turkey, it would, for some, be more like a homecoming.

The far more worrying prospect is that the captives may be able to escape, and return to the ranks of ISIS’s terrorist infrastructure….

The ISIS caliphate might no longer exist, but the terrorist organisation itself still continues to operate. Indeed, the latest intelligence assessments are that ISIS is regrouping in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, with the aim of launching a fresh wave of terror attacks against Western targets.

Mr Trump’s claim that the war against ISIS is over may prove to be short-lived.

One of the more ludicrous suggestions to have been made during Turkey’s military offensive against the Syrian Kurds is that, in return for Washington’s approval, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would take responsibility for the estimated 90,000 ISIS fighters and their dependents, currently languishing in Kurdish-controlled detention centres.

It is one of the worst kept secrets in Western intelligence circles that, for long periods during the brutal Syrian conflict, Mr Erdogan’s regime supported a number of groups that enjoyed close affiliation with ISIS, as well as other Islamist terror groups such as Al-Qaeda.

It is, therefore, the epitome of hypocrisy for Mr Erdogan to offer to take responsibility for the ISIS fighters being held in Kurdish-run detention camps such as the al-Hol complex in eastern Syria. If that really were to happen, and the ISIS captives were repatriated to Turkey, it would, for some, be more like a homecoming.

There is, fortunately, only a remote likelihood that captured ISIS fighters will be making their way to Turkey anytime soon, for most of the detention camps are located well away from the 30 km buffer zone on Syria’s northern border, the main target of the Turkish offensive.

Ukrainians vs. the Swamp Encouraging signs that someday the country might not even tolerate a Hunter Biden deal. By James Freeman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainians-vs-the-swamp-11570831102

Call this column optimistic. But there’s reason to believe that indefensible deals like paying fortunes to unqualified sons of foreign politicians will someday be just as difficult to pull off in Ukraine as they are in the United States. In fact, recent developments suggest that Ukrainian leaders may help us improve American government even as they improve their own national governance.

Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelensky, the alleged victim in the Trump impeachment case advocated by Democrats in the U.S. House, is still saying he wasn’t victimized.

And at least according to the declassified transcript of his famous phone call with President Donald Trump, he’s eager to help root out corruption. On the July call Mr. Zelensky said, “we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government.”

The Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov reports that despite Ukraine’s many challenges—Russian aggression, for starters—Mr. Zelensky is leading an increasingly tolerant and prosperous society:

Ukraine’s economy, which recently began expanding again, posted 4.6% annualized growth in the second quarter of 2019. The currency has become one of the few in the world to strengthen against the dollar.

Whistleblowers and the Real Deep State Civil servants too often forget they work for the people and seek to impose their own policy agendas. By Kimberley A. Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whistleblowers-and-the-real-deep-state-11570832622

House Democrats are plowing ahead with an impeachment effort inspired by accusations from an anonymous “whistleblower.” The lawmakers may allow the witness to testify anonymously, sources who themselves remained anonymous told the Washington Post this week. It’s as if the whole effort is designed to confirm President Trump’s complaint that the “deep state” is determined to sabotage his presidency.

By “deep state,” Mr. Trump seems to mean any current or former federal employee who works to undermine him. I find that definition too broad, and it misses an important distinction. Officials like James Comey and John Brennan, respectively former directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, were appointed by politicians and are subject to some public scrutiny and political accountability.

The “deep state”—if we are to use the term—is better defined as consisting of career civil servants, who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows. As government grows, so do the challenges of supervising a bureaucracy swelling in both size and power. Emboldened by employment rules that make it all but impossible to fire career employees, this internal civil “resistance” has proved willing to take ever more outrageous actions against the president and his policies, using the tools of both traditional and social media.

Government-employed resisters received a call to action within weeks of the new administration. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates became acting attorney general on Mr. Trump’s inauguration and Loretta Lynch’s resignation. A week later, the president signed an executive order restricting travel from seven Middle Eastern and African countries. Ms. Yates instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the order in court on the grounds that she was not convinced it was “consistent” with the department’s “responsibilities” or even “lawful.” She decreed: “For as long as I am Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order.”

Mr. Trump fired her that day, but he shouldn’t have had to. Her obligation was to defend the executive order, or to resign if she felt she couldn’t. Nobody elected Sally Yates.  CONTINUE AT SITE

Trump comes out swinging By J.R. Dunn

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/trump_comes_out_swinging.html

As he did Thursday night in Minnesota, President Trump came out swinging in Lake Charles, Louisiana on Friday.

“The Democrats’ policies are crazy, their politicians are corrupt, their candidates are terrible, and they know they can’t win on election day, so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bullsh*t impeachment.”

The President was ostensibly in town to support two Republican candidates running in a typically oddball Louisiana gubernatorial election featuring Republicans U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham and businessman Eddie Rispone against incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards. But in truth it was Donald Trump vs. the political establishment, the media, and the Deep State.

“This is the witch hunt,” Trump said. “They’ve been trying to stop us for three years with a lot of crap.”

“All of our nation’s gains are put at risk by a rage-filled Democrat party that has gone completely insane. The Democrats are fighting to restore the wretched political class that… surrendered our sovereignty, flooded our cities with drugs and crimes and bogged us down in one foreign war after another.”

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had been raked over the coals on Thursday. Last night it was Nancy Pelosi’s turn.

“I used to think she loved the country. She hates the country. Nancy Pelosi hates the United States of America, because she wouldn’t be doing this.”

Joe Biden, not to forget Hunter, also came in for a beating: “Can you imagine if Don Jr. or Eric Trump, or if our beautiful Ivanka… if they walked out with $1.5 billion? They would be saying, ‘Where’s the nearest cell?’”

Missing the Bigger Picture in Kurdish Syria By Lt. Col. Robert L. Maginnis, US Army Ret.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/missing_the_bigger_picture_in_kurdish_syria.html

President Trump’s decision to withdraw our few troops from the Syria-Turkey border area earned him considerable criticism from allies.  Senator Lindsey Graham said the decision is “a catastrophe in the making.” Representative Liz Cheney said it’s “a catastrophic mistake.”  Former UN Secretary Nikki Haley said, “We must always have the backs of our allies.” 

President Trump has answered these critics.  The Kurds were engaged in a contractual relationship fighting the Islamic State (ISIS).  They were well paid and equipped for their fighting, much like any mercenary group.  Further, they were given three years to consolidate eastern Syria to feed their long-held desire to form an independent Kurdistan with other Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.  They failed. 

The Kurds’ problem, and by association that of the U.S., is that regional powers like Turkey and to a lesser extent Iran and Syria have long held the Kurds in disdain.  In fact, Turkey considers the Syrian Kurds to be allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or (PKK), which are Turkish Kurds and terrorists fighting for independence for the last 35 years.   

Basically, the Kurds hijacked our fight with ISIS to feed their regional civil war to earn independence.

President Trump is aware of that agenda and is also trying to constrain American hawks who want to use our military willy-nilly across the world.  Remember that Trump frequently said during his 2016 campaign that he wants to escape from endless wars and bring our fighters home.   

New National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien Makes Promising Progress By Jim Talent

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-national-security-adviser-robert-obrien-makes-promising-progress/

The Trump administration’s national security policy has, on the whole and especially at a strategic level, been quite good, and now Robert O’Brien, the new national security adviser, is implementing a promising reorganization of the NSC staff.

In its first two and a half years, the administration has:

Made great power competition, and especially the competition with China, the top priority of American foreign policy. The process of shifting attention to Asia began in the Obama administration, but President Trump catalyzed it in the National Security Strategy, which was completed within a year after he took office;
Energized the various agencies of the Executive Branch to inventory, adapt, and vigorously use the tools at their command to prosecute the administration’s policy towards China and build a national security architecture structured for that purpose. In particular Trump has recognized and realized the potential of American economic power to put adversaries off balance and on the defensive.
Refocused our Middle East policy on the greatest threat — Iran — and reassembled the formal and informal partnerships with Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Gulf States that for forty years had been the foundation of American policy in the Middle East.
Succeeded in lifting the defense sequester and injecting more money into the defense budget. That hasn’t accomplished as much, in practical terms, as the White House claims, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I also like the administration’s top national security personnel going forward. Mike Pompeo has been a consistent force and effective messenger for good policy and Gina Haspel is a top professional at the CIA, where professionalism is essential. It took too long for the Administration to settle on Mark Esper as Defense Secretary to replace Jim Mattis, but it was an outstanding choice that will continue to pay dividends as the DOD realigns its priorities to deal with China.