RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274737/syria-turkey-clash-joseph-puder

As if the civil war in Syria has not witnessed enough conflict and bloodshed, a new element has crept into the ongoing drama. Last week, Turkey dispatched a convoy to Northern Syria to aid the Sunni Islamist rebels holed up in the Idlib province, which has been under attack by Assad regime forces and Russian airpower. The convoy, which carried ammunition, and other military hardware was bombed by the Assad forces, with some casualties inflicted on the Turkish convoy. The Sunni Muslim rebel force – Gabhat al-Nusra (The Nusra Front), which is an affiliate of al-Qaida, has been actively counter-attacking the Assad forces.  Turkey’s primary agent in Syria is, however, the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The conflicting interests of Syria and Turkey could lead to a shooting war between the two dictators.

The Syrian dictator, Bashar el-Assad, seeks to consolidate his hold on all former Syrian territory, and especially the northwestern region of Syria, which is the home ground of the Alawite sect (sub-sect of Shiite Islam). The region has been the Assad family power base, which Bashar Assad wants to secure at all costs.  Given the revenge sought by the majority of the Sunni-Muslim Syrians, who have been the primary victims of the Assad’s Alawites, the northwest region is intended to be their refuge. With southwestern Syria now secured by the regime, and the country’s center as well, Idlib province remains a significant challenge for Assad. Of course, he and his Iranian allies have not yet subdued the northeastern portion of Syria, which is being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) a primarily Kurdish force, that is allied with the U.S. and other western states (primarily Britain and France). The SDF has been the major contributor to expelling the Islamic State (or ISIS) from its capital of Raqqa, and the wider region.

The Turkish dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s involvement in Syria is grounded on two principles. First, Erdogan has positioned Turkey as the protector of Sunni-Muslims. As he aspires to become the leader of the Sunni world, and being a leading supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, he is compelled to show support for the besieged Sunni-Muslim Arabs, and Turkmen rebels. Both his domestic constituency and the larger Sunni world expect Erdogan to defend the Sunni’s in Syria. The other, more important principle is Ankara’s fear of Kurdish self-determination in Syria. The Kurds are now in control of a large portion of northeastern Syria, which is their natural homeland with its capital, Qamishli.  An arbitrary border separating the large Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey from their brethren in northeast Syria has made the Turks nervous. Erdogan fears the creation of the Kurdish self-rule in Syria and envisions Turkey’s Kurds flocking to it, resulting in an eventual Kurdish state that might swallow a portion of southeastern Turkey.  Ankara, along with Tehran, both having large Kurdish populations, seek to deny the Kurds their self-determination. In January 2018, Erdogan’s Turkish military attacked the Kurds in Afrin, which was previously controlled by the Kurds.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274687/chinas-world-domination-gambit-john-glynn

President Trump has confirmed he is considering an attempt to buy Greenland for strategic reasons. No, this is not an out-of-season April fool’s joke.

Trump, it seems, hasn’t forgotten his old job. Remember, before he became the president of the free world, the septuagenarian was the world’s most-famous real estate developer. If the acquisition of the self-governed Danish territory comes to fruition, this would be a savvy piece of expansionism. Why? People can ridicule the president all they want, but Greenland is rich in natural resources, including iron ore, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, rare-earth elements, uranium and oil, according to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public-policy organization in Washington, D.C. 

Anyway, why not? After all, the US acquired Louisiana from France, Florida from Spain, Alaska from Russia and much of its southwest from Mexico. Furthermore, in the 1860s, the U.S. nearly bought Greenland and Iceland. The idea, we’re told, was to surround Canada with U.S. territory and thus persuade it to join the U.S. In 1946, the U.S. tried to buy Greenland again, but the offer was rejected. Maybe, just maybe, it will be third time lucky.

Whatever the outcome, when it comes to savvy expansionism, there is one country that appears to be far ahead of the United States. That country is China.

Emerging in 1999, Beijing’s Going Global strategy sought to bid farewell to the Mao-era mindset of self-reliance, urging Chinese firms to take advantage of booming world trade and to invest in global markets. The idea that one government could commandeer sub regions in Asia, Europe and Africa, which account for 64 percent of world population and 30 percent of world GDP, might sound ludicrous. But try telling this to the Chinese government.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274743/germany-muslim-migrants-start-brawl-over-short-robert-spencer

The principle is always and everywhere the same: in Muslim countries, one must conform one’s behavior to suit Islamic sensibilities. And in non-Muslim countries, one must conform one’s behavior to suit Islamic sensibilities. This was proven true again last Thursday in Duisberg, Germany, where a Muslim migrant thought a German woman’s skirt was too short, and started a brawl.

According to the German publication Waz, “Different views on the length of a skirt worn by a woman led to a fight between two groups in Duisburg. The police report a dispute over cultural differences, which began verbally and ended in a fistfight, in which a participant dislocated his shoulder.”

No establishment media source will ever dare to say what was really behind this kind of incident: not simply “cultural differences,” but religious beliefs.

A police spokeswoman, Jacqueline Grahl, explained: “The revealing style of clothing of a 50-year-old met with incomprehension in a 20-year-old.” Waz added: “According to information from our editorial team, the man who insulted the unknown woman and asked her why she had to present her legs in such a way is a Duisburger with Turkish roots. He was together with three other Duisburgers with Turkish roots in the Rheinpark.”

https://quadrant.org.au/

Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has some calm and soothing, matter-of-fact, trust-us-we’re-experts advice for the parents of boys who want to be girls and vice versa (emphasis added):

For others, living in their birth-assigned gender role is extremely distressing. In these cases, it is important for families to discuss with their child or teenager what they need to do to protect their physical and mental wellbeing, and consider seeking professional assistance.

For many transgender children and teenagers, the onset of puberty, with the development of secondary sex characteristics (e.g. breasts, changing voice) that don’t match their gender identity, is a particularly distressing time….

…. Once puberty has started, treatment options include the use of puberty blockers to stop the physical changes of puberty that the adolescent finds distressing.

1/ Known as Stage 1 treatment, puberty blockers are used mostly in early puberty. Stage 1 treatment is reversible.

2/ Stage 2 treatment involves using gender-affirming hormones (oestrogen or testosterone) to change the body to be more consistent with the teenager’s affirmed gender. Depending on the circumstances, this treatment can usually be started around the age of 16.

3/ Stage 3 treatment involves surgery, which is not commonly undertaken before adulthood.

According to US endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, the RCMH isn’t doing those kids any favours. Indeed, by his reckoning they are being made ill:

“I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease,” Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist associated with Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Rocklin, Calif., told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development.

“We’re talking about what in nature is a rare condition. In the United States, if someone has this condition it’s going to be recognized and treated so the long-term results are unknown,” the doctor explained. “It’s an area that needs to be explored further.”

While endocrinologists — doctors who specialize in hormones and the endocrine system — are familiar with the disease and gladly treat it when a patient has been diagnosed, many of them are effectively causing their patients to contract the same disease in an attempt to affirm gender identity, Laidlaw said. “An endocrinologist might treat a condition where a female’s testosterone levels are going to be outside the normal range. We’ll treat that and we’re aware of metabolic problems. At the same time, an endocrinologist may be giving high levels of testosterone to a female to ‘transition’ her.”

The result, according to Laidlaw:

When people are given far more of the opposite sex hormone than their bodies can handle, they are at “increased risk for cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular death, deep vein thrombosis. They’ve looked at adults taking these hormones and have seen already these cardiovascular risks.”

When these drugs are administered to children, “one would presume it’s the same or even worse, in the long run.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/the-impotence-of-the-g7/

What, at this point, does the high-profile diplomatic summit purport to do?

At this year’s G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, the summit’s host, President Emmanuel Macron, gave each of the other leaders in attendance a watch made of recycled fishing nets and powered by solar energy. The watches, he explained, symbolized the group’s collective commitment to global sustainability and ocean conservation — though actually, they symbolize the summit’s pointlessness.

Was it always so? In 1975, the leaders of the then-G6 — France, West Germany, Japan, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. — met outside of Paris to tackle that year’s oil-related financial crisis. The next year, they became the G7, as Canada joined under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (the father of the country’s current prime minister, Justin Trudeau). Soon after, the president of the European Commission was invited to attend, as were other countries. In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, then general secretary of the U.S.S.R.’s Communist party, came to observe the summit in London, where it was hoped he’d learn a thing or two about democracy, liberty, and how to make friends and influence people.

Of course, the summit never had any real political or legal force behind it. But the idea was that — given the overwhelming economic clout of the G7, which originally made up almost 70 percent of the global economy, at least in nominal terms, though that has now fallen to around 50 percent — greater transparency on macroeconomics would better prepare and coordinate international markets.

Perhaps inevitably, the scope of the enterprise was soon extended beyond economics. It became a political power show, a festival of diplomacy, and a field day for journalists and political cartoonists around the world. In 1998, Bill Clinton allowed Russia into the club, where it remained until 2014, when it was booted for annexing the Crimea from Ukraine. The idea behind this was, presumably, to humiliate President Putin into changing his ways, which he evidently still hasn’t.