RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/mays-historic-defeat-and-swift-triumph/

Parliamentarians are risking No Deal or No Brexit.

Brexit has temporarily transformed the governing laws of parliamentarian democracy. Theresa May finally submitted her negotiated deal for withdrawal from the European Union to Parliament this week. This is the effort on which her entire premiership has been staked. It takes up nearly all the energy of her government. And Parliament delivered its verdict by voting it down 432 to 202. In other words, it told her: You have failed miserably at the one thing your government was supposed to do.

Historians are searching for some parallel example of the government’s business being so viciously rejected by Parliament. Losses by 60 votes or 90 votes have invariably caused prime ministers to resign, or triggered no-confidence votes that those PMs promptly lost. May’s loss also triggered a no-confidence vote. And even though the Parliament had utterly and viciously rejected her government’s main piece of legislation, the most important bill in decades, Theresa May won it easily.

So what in the world is going on in Westminster?

As I’ve outlined before, there are two crises at work. The first is a crisis of responsibility in Parliament. Theresa May’s deal may not be what hard Brexiteers wanted. But they have neither the votes nor the courage to oust May and expose their own Brexit to parliamentary and public criticism. And they certainly don’t have the votes in Parliament to pass their preferred terms. By shooting down a deal that has been negotiated with over two dozen other European heads of state, with the clock ticking down, their rejection of their party leader’s deal makes the possibility of crashing out of the EU without a deal at the end of March more likely, or it will provoke the rest of Parliament to delay or cancel Brexit altogether, possibly inflicting yet another national referendum on the issue.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13537/india-tolerance-terrorism

Engaging in “dialogue” with the separatists and the Taliban makes little sense. Neither group has demonstrated any faith in the values of modern civilization and democracy. Contrary to claims on the part of Jammu and Kashmir separatists and Pakistan — that India never offered “unconditional dialogue,” and has been rejecting Islamabad’s peace overtures — it is actually Pakistan’s propaganda against Indian society that is responsible for the violence in Kashmir.

In fact, according to a 2017 Indian Intelligence Bureau report, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence paid separatist leaders Rs 80,000,000 (approximately $1.2 million) to fuel unrest in Kashmir. These leaders include Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Asiya Andrabi, both of whom are reported to have links to Hizbul Mujahideen, a J&K separatist group that in August 2017 was designated by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

New Delhi’s soft approach to the J&K separatists can only serve to embolden extremist forces. The Modi government also needs to refrain from extending any goodwill gestures to the Taliban — a junior partner of Qaeda that aims to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Indian subcontinent, including in Jammu and Kashmir.

The current administration in Washington, like that in Jerusalem, grasps that all of the above radical groups have “common political targets — the United States, India and Israel.” Rather than risk being seduced by the false notion that it is possible to negotiate with terrorists, India would do well to reach out to its main democratic allies: the U.S. and Israel.

When the Narendra Modi-led government came to power in India with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in May 2014, the public hoped that a peaceful resolution would be reached over the strife-torn northern state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

A key element of the BJP’s platform had been a policy of “zero tolerance towards terrorism.” Yet, since Modi’s election, the situation in J&K — which has been the focus of a long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan, with minority Hindus fleeing Islamist violence in 1990 — has worsened. No Hindu has returned to the Kashmir Valley during Modi’s premiership, and the number of Indian civilians and security personnel killed in attacks by Pakistani militants has increased. In fact, during the four-year period between 2014 and 2018, 75 more Indian soldiers and other security personnel were killed in J&K than during the previous five years (219, compared to 144).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kenyan-forces-in-standoff-with-militants-after-attack-on-hotel-complex-11547620051

NAIROBI, Kenya—Islamist militants’ deadly 18-hour siege of an upscale complex here jolts a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism and raises questions over how the Somalia-based insurgents have survived more than a decade of international military campaigns.

On Tuesday afternoon, unmasked attackers carrying AK-47s and explosives shot their way into the 14 Riverside hotel and office complex in the capital—a favorite hangout for foreigners and upper-class Kenyans—detonated at least one suicide bomb and barricaded themselves in with hundreds of hostages overnight. It took until late Wednesday morning for Kenyan special forces to kill five gunmen and free the remaining captives.

By then, at least 20 people, among them a Kenyan accountant for Colgate-Palmolive Co. and an American who specialized in development finance, were dead. A police officer later succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

The foyer of the DusitD2 hotel, an emblem of Nairobi’s emergence as East Africa’s business hub, was covered in blood and debris; parked outside were the skeletons of several incinerated cars.

Al-Shabaab, a Somali extremist group affiliated with al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the assault. Kenyan police said it had arrested two people it believes helped facilitate the attack. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/16/15-killed-islamist-attack-kenya-hotel-complex-continues/

A member of the SAS helped save hundreds of lives when he charged into gunfire to rescue civilians trapped during a terrorist attack in Nairobi.

A mission mounted by Kenyan forces on Wednesday ended a 20-hour assault on 14 Riverside, a luxury hotel and office complex in one of the city’s most affluent districts, killing at least some of the perpetrators.

Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kenyan president, said that 14 civilians were killed before the attack was ended in one of the biggest military operations ever mounted in the capital.

At least one Briton was killed and one other badly wounded, amid fears that the true death toll could be higher after the Kenyan Red Cross disclosed that as many as 50 people remained unaccounted for.

The unidentified SAS soldier, reportedly in Kenya to train and mentor local special forces, often appeared to be at the forefront of the operation, frequently pictured bringing civilians to safety.

Although on non-combat deployment, he raced to the scene within the first hour of the attack, wearing body armour over civilian clothes and a balaclava to cover his face.

In one photograph from the scene, he carries the limp, bleeding body of a victim. Another shows the soldier bursting into the hotel complex with his special forces issue C8 Diemaco rifle drawn.

He reportedly worked with US Navy Seals, operating under Kenyan command, during the mission.

British special forces, who regularly train the equivalent troops of foreign nations, are not meant to engage in any direct combat on such missions.