RUTHFULLY YOURS

Welcome to an only-in-France controversy.

Marine Le Pen is, without a doubt, the most interesting figure on the French political stage today. Amid France’s persistent economic and cultural malaise and the unpopularity of Socialist president François Hollande, the rise of her National Front seems unstoppable.

This rise is based in part on Ms. Le Pen’s charisma and political skill, but also on a strategic realignment of the National Front. In part, this involves an embrace of populist economic policies to go with her populist social stances. And in part, this involves a repudiation of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and leader of the National Front, who built a ceiling of support for his movement thanks to a history of racist and anti-Semitic outbursts, a repudiation that has gone as far as her ousting her father from the party he founded.

While still calling for shutting down the borders, Ms. Le Pen has officially repudiated racism and has expelled, in addition to her father, any party official or activist caught making racist, or racist-sounding, remarks, whether in the media or on their Facebook pages. Her hostility to many forms of Muslim immigration, she insists, is driven by France’s secular value of laïcité, officially embraced by all French elites, rather than by any belief in any clash of civilizations.

For every chapter in the history of Palestinian violence against Israelis, there has been an emblematic image. For the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympians in Munich, the masked gunman on the balcony. In the first intifada of the late 1980s, the boys hurling rocks. In the second intifada of the early 2000s, the suicide bomber.

It’s too soon to say whether the current wave of Palestinian attacks amounts to a third intifada, or uprising. But the defining picture has already been set: the terrorist brandishing a knife. In the past two weeks Palestinian assailants have attacked more than 50 Jews, killing eight. Among the wounded: a 2-year-old toddler, a 13-year-old boy riding his bike, a 70-year-old woman boarding a bus.

This is terrorism in its most exact and repulsive form, a potential danger for anyone who steps out the front door. It also poses extraordinary challenges for the Israeli government, which must deploy thousands of security personnel, each on hair-trigger alert, while trying to minimize mistakes, prevent Israeli vigilantism and not resort to collective forms of punishment. If Israel’s perennial critics in the West think they could do better under similar circumstances, they ought to explain how.

A recent special operation in Grozny against suspected militants of the so-called Islamic State (IS) took Chechnya’s residents and analysts who follow the situation in the republic by surprise. Readers of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov’s Instagram postings were the first to learn about the incident. For several years now, Kadyrov has used Instagram to communicate with the public. An Instagram posting he published on October 8 said that “the forces of the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Terek special police unit have neutralized three terrorists at the edge of Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny. We had determined that three militants who had been trained in the camps of the ‘Iblis State’ arrived in the republic” (Ramzan Kadyrov calls the IS the “Devil State”) (Instagram.com, October 8).

The U.S. and China are headed for a showdown at sea. U.S. officials say that within days the U.S. military will conduct “freedom of navigation” patrols to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea’s strategic Spratly archipelago. That area lies more than 700 miles off China’s coast, between Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, but China’s government has warned that it is “seriously concerned” about U.S. action and “will absolutely not permit any country to infringe on China’s territorial waters.”

Now’s a good time, then, to clarify what’s going on. The U.S. and its Asian partners are trying to curb a Chinese campaign to conquer one of the world’s most vital international waterways. The South China Sea is home to rich natural resources and half of all global shipborne trade: some $5 trillion a year in oil, food, iPhones and more. By asserting “indisputable sovereignty” over its nearly 1.35 million square miles, including vast swaths of sea belonging to its neighbors, Beijing threatens to hold hostage—and to wage war over—the economic heart of East Asia.

If a “mere” 11.3% of Turks thought so generously of the Islamic State, it meant that there were nearly nine million Turks sympathetic to jihadists. Only 5% of that would mean an army of nearly 450,000.

Apparently, the people of Turkey did not “rise up and fight against these atheists [Kurds], these Crusaders and these traitors.” So they had to be killed by jihadists in suicide-bombing attacks. IS promised to attack, and it did.

450,000 minus two (suicide-bombers) leaves behind too big a number. Turkish cities are unsafe.

Davutoglu cannot admit that jihadists alone had simply murdered people en masse in a twin bomb attack.

It’s necessary to take another short break from the endless coverage of the 2016 election. There are a lot of things of more immediate importance going on in the world, and they demand our undivided attention for at least a few minutes.

Those of us who of skeptical mind wonder why so little attention is being paid to the story out of Moldova (where?) about smugglers trying to sell nuclear material to ISIS. And to the statement of FBI Director Jay Comey about the problem his agency is having with the Syrian refugees coming to America.

Even though Cold War 2 has been going on for about ten years, it didn’t take nearly that long for the Russians to re-learn old habits. We haven’t kept pace with our abilities to spot anomalies in their behavior. We’d better re-learn our abilities not only to spot anomalies but to connect them to Russian capabilities and intents when they fit.

Moldova – now that you’re wondering – is a very poor nation of 3.5 million people on the Black Sea wedged in between Ukraine and Romania. Its government is enthusiastically corrupt and its economy is agricultural except for the part that’s supported by smuggling.

The United Nations is dedicated to the notion that men and women of good will can do much to promote peace. Alas, something must have been garbled in translation, as the global body’s legions of grafters and grifters keep their focus on pocketing a piece of the action
“To dismantle corruption’s high walls, I urge every nation to ratify and implement the UN Convention against Corruption. Its ground breaking measure have made important inroads, but there is much more to do.”

— UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

In 2003 the United Nations declared that December 9 would be “International Anti-Corruption” Day. The global body’s celebrations this year will be muted. The 2013-14 president of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, is now accused by US prosecutors of successfully soliciting bribes of some $US1.3m from Chinese tycoons and understating his income by the same amount. Free after posting $US1million bail on the tax charges, he denies wrong-doing.

Ashe can’t possibly be guilty! His priority is saving the planet from CO2 emissions, not taking bribes. Look what he says on his UN website by way of “summing up his philosophy”:

Guided by a passion for sustainable development, Mr. Ashe has been in the forefront of international efforts to address the adverse effects of climate change and the fight to eradicate poverty… We only have the planet we live on, and if we are to leave it in a reasonable state for the next generation, the quest for a safer, cleaner, and more equitable world is one that should consume us all.

Some innocents are still starry-eyed about saving the planet from CO2 hell. They want the UN’s minions and members to start the job in the Paris, where the world’s warmists will convene in December, the latest confab in the long series of global parleys intended to mandate expensive energy for rich and poor alike. They also hope that First World taxpayers will pony up $US100 billion a year as a climate-compensatory present for the Third-World’s kleptocrats.

These Paris-bound carbonphobics might profitably ponder the allegations against ex-UN President Ashe. He’s been a standard-bearer in the UN climate campaign since way back in 1995. He represented the Group of Latin and American States (GRULAC) as vice-president of the first and fourth climate conferences (1995 and 1998), and in the next few years chaired the Subsidiary Bureau for Implementation (SBI) five times. In 2009 he chaired the Kyoto Protocol Negotiating Track, preparing groundwork for the Copenhagen conference. His bright idea was First World emissions cuts in the near term of 25-40%, because that is what “the science is telling us”, he said. After Copenhagen’s debacle, he chaired the Negotiating Track again in 2010, preparing draft decisions for the Cancun round of talks, including “carbon market mechanisms”.

The remarkable crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, donated land for the Hindu temple, to foster cultural and religious tolerance, and bring diversity to Abu Dhabi. The temple also fit newly passed UAE legislation establishing religious freedom.

As the prince explained, a “civilized, advanced” Abu Dhabi with sustainable development requires “concerted efforts from all sectors of the community” — Hindus included.

“This is a huge leap from medieval ways of thinking. Humanity is against aggression and stopping others from practicing their faith.” — Saleh Al Turigee of Saudi Arabia, who has 143,000 Twitter followers.

Positive voices from the UAE and elsewhere in the Middle East, especially Egypt, supported the temple. It shows that the non-extremist segment not only exists, but is ready to take on the extremists.

“Religion is for Allah only. All Imams agree that building temples for idol worshipping is a blasphemy.” — Waseem Yousef, imam of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi. He quickly found his television show canceled.