RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18477/putin-gas-blackmail

Now, following Russia’s dramatic decision this week to cut gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, the West and its allies must give serious consideration to upgrading the level of military support they provide to Ukraine.

The real reason, though, [that Russia cut gas supplies] is that Russia is trying to blackmail Poland and Bulgaria, which have become high profile supporters of the Ukrainian war effort, to end their support for Kyiv.

“Russia is also proving that energy resources are a weapon. That is why the EU needs to be united and impose an embargo on energy resources, depriving the Russians of their energy weapons.” — Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, The Guardian, April 26, 2022.

It is also an excellent time for the European Union finally to green-light the EastMed gas pipeline, in the works for years, but also scuppered by the Biden administration in capitulation to Turkey. The EastMed, however, remains an ideal solution to diversify the supply of gas to Europe and only awaits the European Union’s approval.

The best way for the West to respond, therefore, is not to concede to the Russian demands to scale down its support for Kyiv.

It is to do the opposite, and provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs not just to defend itself against Russian aggression, but to go on the offensive and win the war. Putin is desperate and needs to understand that if he goes for the nuclear option, Russia will cease to exist.

With the conflict now entering its third month, and Mr Putin showing no inclination to stop his barbaric assault on the people of Ukraine, it is clear this policy of appeasement has failed.

Consequently, the West should now concentrate its efforts on providing Ukraine’s forces with the military equipment they require not only to defend their country from Russian aggression, but to defeat the Russians and liberate their country from Mr Putin’s tyranny.

As a top priority, the Biden administration must therefore reverse its decision to block the transfer of 70 MiG fighters to Ukraine. Supplying Ukraine with extra warplanes, together with tanks and other military hardware, is essential if Kyiv is to have any chance of inflicting a serious defeat against Russia.

Such a change in policy is certainly in the West’s long-term interests. If the Ukrainian forces can achieve victory over their Russian invaders, it will act as a strong deterrent to Mr Putin not to launch any more unprovoked attacks on European soil, as well as to other potential aggressors waiting in the wings.

The best way for the West to respond to Russia’s blatant attempt to blackmail Europe into dropping its support for Ukraine is to provide the Ukrainian forces with the military hardware they need to win the war.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/they-call-them-koran-riots-bruce-bawer/

It began on Easter weekend. In response to a rally in Örebro, Sweden, by Stram Kurs, a Danish party that opposes Islamic immigration and whose members threatened to burn copies of the Koran, mass violence broke out in Stockholm and several other Swedish cities, with scores of Muslims – mostly young men, both also women and children – throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at cops and setting cars, buses, dumpsters, and buildings on fire. Injuries resulting from these disturbances – widely dubbed the “Koran riots” – were in the mid two figures, with police officers the hardest hit. Further Stram Kurs events had been planned, but the party’s appropriately named leader, Rasmus Paludan, paladin of Denmark’s anti-Islamization movement, canceled them on the grounds that Swedish police had shown themselves to be “completely incapable of protecting themselves and me.” By the end of the month Swedish police had forbidden any further public gatherings by Stram Kurs.

Of course, the tumult didn’t spring from out of nowhere. Among young Muslims in Sweden, car-burning is old hat. But the scale of these events was new – and, to Swedes who still have their heads in the sand about this issue, alarming. Still, for many observers in Scandinavia, the real affront wasn’t the physical brutality but the very notion of harming a Koran. Hanan Abdelrahman, a college teacher in Norway, wrote a teary op-ed on the topic in which she asserted that Paludan and his ilk made her “feel a bit scared and unsafe.” She asked: “How many camels is one really supposed to swallow? To what degree and for how long should a group of people have to tolerate feeling unsafe and unwanted?” Yes, the danger to human safety that weekend wasn’t the savagery that sent people to the hospital – it was a peaceful rally. Abdelrahman charged that if Paludan and his friends had been “braver” and “smarter,” they’d have invited somebody like her to engage in a discussion of their differing views. A pretty weird proposal, given that if she’d actually read her beloved Koran, Abdelrahman would know that it tells her not to consort with infidels but to kill them – especially if they seek to talk her out of her beliefs.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18480/what-to-do-about-china

Since about 2018, Chinese officials have been talking about the moon and Mars as sovereign Chinese territory, part of the People’s Republic of China. This means that China considers those heavenly bodies to be like the South China Sea. This also means that China will exclude other nations from going to the moon and Mars if they have the capability to do so. We do not have to speculate about that: Chinese officials say this is what they are going to do.

[W]hen Biden says, “Oh, the Chinese just want to compete with us,” he is wrong. They do not want to “compete” within the international system. They do not even want to change that system… They want to overthrow it altogether, period.

Is Xi Jinping really that bold… to start another war? … First, China considers the United States to be its enemy. Second the United States is no longer deterring China. China feels it has a big green light to do whatever it wants.

We Americans don’t pay attention to propaganda… After all, these are just words. At this particular time, these words… [suggest] to me that China is laying the justification for a strike on the United States. We keep ignoring what Beijing is saying. We kept ignoring what Osama bin Laden was saying.

We have to remember that the Chinese regime, unlike the Japanese, always warn its adversaries about what it is going to do

The second reason war is coming is that America’s deterrence of China is breaking down.

Di’s message was that with cash, China can do anything it wants, and that all Americans would take cash. He mentioned two words in this regard: Hunter Biden.

In February, [Biden] had a two‑hour phone call with Xi Jinping. By Biden’s own admission, he didn’t raise the issue of the origins of COVID‑19 even once. If you are Xi Jinping, after you put down the receiver, your first thought is, “I just got away with killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.”

We have news that China is building something like 345 missile silos in three locations: in Gansu, Xinjiang, and in Inner Mongolia. These silos are clearly built to accommodate the DF‑41. The DF‑41 has a range of about 9,300 miles, which means that it can reach any part of the United States. The DF‑41 carries 10 warheads. This means that China could, in about two years…, have a bigger arsenal than ours. …we have to assume the worst because Chinese leaders and Chinese generals, on occasion, unprovoked, have made threats to nuke American cities.

In July, 2021 China tested a hypersonic glide warhead, which circled the world. This signals China intends to violate the Outer Space Treaty, to which China is a party.

As of today, more than eight million people have died outside China. What happened? No one imposed costs on China.

For at least a half‑decade, maybe a little bit longer, Chinese military researchers have been openly writing about a new type of biological warfare….They talk about a new type of biological warfare of “specific ethnic genetic attacks.” In other words, pathogens that will leave the Chinese immune but sicken and kill everybody else, which means that the next disease from China can be a civilization killer.

A lot of military analysts talk about how the first seconds of a war with China are going to be fought in outer space. They are going to blind our satellites, take them down, do all sorts of stuff. Those statements are wrong. The first day of war against the United States occurs about six months earlier, when they release pathogens in the United States. Then we are going to have that day in space. The war starts here, with a pathogen ‑‑ a virus, a microbe, a bug of some kind. That is where it begins.

The One‑China policy is something many people misunderstand. Probably because Beijing uses propaganda to try to fuzzy up the issue…. China has a One‑China principle: that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China, full stop. We have a One‑China policy…, that the status of Taiwan is unresolved…. that the resolution of the status of Taiwan must be with the consent of people on both sides of the Strait.

We need a policy of “strategic clarity,” where we tell China that we will defend Taiwan. We also say we will extend a mutual defense treaty to Taiwan if it wants it, and we will put American troops on the island as a tripwire.

We are Americans. We naturally assume that there are solutions, and good solutions, to every problem. After three decades of truly misguided China policy, there are no … solutions that are “undangerous.” …The current trend of policy is unsustainable. There will be no American republic if we continue to do what we are currently doing and if we continue to allow China to do what it does. I do not think that enforcing a trade deal will start World War III.

China has not met its obligations. As of a few months ago, China had met about 62% of its commitments….. We should be increasing the tariffs that President Trump imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Remember, those tariffs are meant to be a remedy for the theft of US intellectual property. China has continued to steal US IP. As matter of fact, it has gotten worse…

I do not think that we should be trying to foster integration of Wall Street into China’s markets…. Do not take it from me, just look at their failure to comply with very simple, easy‑to‑comply-with requirements. It was a mistake.

The best response would be if we hit them with everything at once because China right now is weak. If we were going to pick the number one thing to do, I would think trade.

China now has a debt crisis, so they are not going to invest their way out of this crisis, which means the only way they can save their economy is net exports. We should stop buying their stuff.

China has bought the political establishment in the Solomon Islands, except for one brave man named David Suidani. Recently, somebody got the bright idea of publishing all of the specific payments that Beijing has made to Solomon Islands politicians…. We should be doing this with payments to American politicians, we should be doing this across the board.

What bothers me is that, although their assumptions about China have demonstrably been proven wrong, American policymakers still continue with the same policies. There is, in some people’s mind, an unbreakable view that we have to cooperate with China…. This is what people learn in international relations school when they go to Georgetown, and they become totally stupid.

Clearly, Nike and Apple and other companies are now, at this very moment, trying to prevent Congress from enacting toughened rules on the importation of forced‑labor products into our country.

Moreover, the Chinese regime is even more casualty‑averse than we are. Even if Beijing thinks it can take Taiwan by force, it is probably not going to invade because it knows an invasion would be unpopular with most people in China. It is not going to risk hundreds of thousands of casualties that would result from an invasion.

Unfortunately…, we taught the Chinese that they can without cost engage in these dangerous maneuvers of intercepting our planes and our ships. That is the problem: because as we have taught the Chinese to be more aggressive, they have been.

[W]e should have made it clear to the Chinese leadership that they cannot kill Americans without cost. Hundreds of thousands Americans have been killed by a disease that China deliberately spread. From October 2020 to October 2021, more than 105,000 Americans died from fentanyl — which China has purposefully, as a matter of state and Communist Party policy — sold to Americans… we have to change course.

I would close China’s four remaining consulates. I would also strip the Chinese embassy down to the ambassador and his personal staff. The thousands who are in Washington, DC, they would be out.

I would also raise tariffs to 3,600%, or whatever. This is a good time to do it. We have supply chain disruptions. We are not getting products from China anyway. We can actually start to do this sort of stuff.

I would… just hammer those guys all the time verbally. People may think, “Those are just words.” For communists, words are really important, because they are an insecure regime where propaganda is absolutely critical.

I would be going after the Communists on human rights, I would be going after them on occupying the South China Sea, on Taiwan, unrelentingly — because I would want to show the world that the United States is no longer afraid of China…. State Department people, they are frightened. We need to say to the Chinese regime, like Dulles, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m going after you, and I’m going to win.”

All the conditions for history’s next great war are in place. Jim Holmes, the Wiley Professor at the Naval War College, actually talks about this period as being 1937.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18478/french-elections-not-so-bad

At the other end of the spectrum, Macron’s camp branded Le Pen as “extreme-right” or even “fascist”, labels that may suit juvenile student politics but need to be used with care by adults. The millions who voted for Le Pen could not be branded as “fascist”. Many with whom I talked turned out to be responsible citizens in a justified or unjustified angry mood for various reasons. Instead of dismissing them with a label, Macron and the governing elite must identify and try to address the sources of that anger.

Democracy is a substitute for civil war. In it, ballots replace bullets. But they must also replace hurtful words and arrogant gestures.

“Like the remake of a bad movie,” says a voter in Sarcelles, one of Paris’s many “underprivileged” suburbs that, having formed the “red belt” of the French capital for decades, have now shifted to far-right populism.

The second and final round of the French presidential election last Sunday was, indeed, a remake of the contest five years ago when a then little known Emmanuel Macron handily defeated the far-right champion Marine Le Pen on her second bid for supreme power. But whether or not it was a bad remake remains to be seen.

https://www.jns.org/in-groundbreaking-step-muslim-delegation-participates-in-2022-march-of-the-living/

A Muslim group including participants from across the Arab world took part for the first time in the International March of the Living, the annual 1.9-mile walk from the concentration camp at Auschwitz to the extermination camp of Birkenau in Poland to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. The precedent-setting move was the brainchild of Sharaka, an organization of young Israeli and Gulf State leaders formed in the wake of the Abraham Accords.

The 18-member delegation, including social influencers, professors and journalists, came from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey and Israel, said Amit Deri, founder and CEO of Sharaka.

Deri said the idea to participate in the March of the Living, which takes place annually on Israel’s Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, came to fruition gradually, starting with a trip in December 2020 for young Arab influencers to Israel, in which they visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust.

“After that visit, they said they wanted to listen to a Holocaust survivor, who would tell them the story. So last year, we held a Zoom event with more than 250 people from all over the Arab world. It was during COVID-19, and we couldn’t come here,” Deri told JNS on the grounds of Auschwitz.

“We promised that the next time it would be possible to be here on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we would come,” he said.

Deri attributes the timing of the visit to the Abraham Accords agreements signed between Israel and several Muslim states in the fall of 2020. “It has allowed people to express themselves. They feel more comfortable than they did three or four years ago,” he said, adding that the Muslim participants are “definitely” taking a risk and could face backlash in their home countries. “They’re brave to do it, and we appreciate them for doing so.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18474/putin-genocide-on-holocaust-memorial-day

If there are aliens who have taken a road trip to our remote part of the Milky Way they must be deeply appalled at what they continue to find here – most recently the calculated campaign by Putin’s Russian Army to murder civilians in Ukraine.

If those aliens have conquered time and space they would have found that their periodic visits have witnessed one form of genocide or another through virtually every century of human “civilization” on this globe.

Before going any further, it would be wise to define the term. Wikipedia says “Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people — usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group — in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944,[1][2] combining the Greek word γένος (genos, “race, people”) with the Latin suffix -caedo (“act of killing”).[3]”

Historians suggest that they can chronicle the first act of genocide, Rome’s march against Carthage, with Marcus Cato quoted as justifying the coming massacre by asking his fellow Roman Senators, “Who are the ones who have waged war most cruelly? … Who are the ones who have ravaged Italy? The Carthaginians.”

In the Roman Legion siege that followed, historians say that at least 150,000 Carthaginians perished, many of them civilians, with one Roman remarking that “the number of deaths was incredibly high…”

The tyrants that followed throughout history would probably describe that butcher’s bill as just one day’s worth of work: there would be much worse to follow. Historians say we still do not appreciate the ruthless brutality of Genghis Khan.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18476/eu-china-relations

“For us Ukraine is the defining moment on whether we live in a world governed by rules or by force. We condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine and support this country’s sovereignty, democracy, not because we follow the US blindly, as sometimes China’s suggests, but because it is our position. This was an important message for the Chinese leadership to hear.” — EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“We underlined that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not only a defining moment for our continent, but also for our relationship with the rest of the world. There must be respect for international law, as well as for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” — President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

“At the EU-China summit last Friday, the differences between Brussels and Beijing were palpable. The summit had no deliverables, no joint statement, and no joint press conference. Beijing would not clarify that it would not circumvent sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine. The distance between the EU and China seems to be increasing, with no turnaround in sight.” — Theresa Fallon, Director, Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies.

“What we’re observing now is an ongoing process by China and Russia to attempt to demolish the economic, security and normative order in Europe and beyond. This leads to the conclusion that China is neither a partner nor an economic competitor.” — Justyna Szczudlik, China analyst, Polish Institute of International Affairs.

“China does not want Brussels to coordinate its China strategy with Washington. But in its constant repetition of this theme, Beijing misses the point: Europe has its own concerns about China, independently of the United States… If Beijing continues to back Russia, the EU’s most direct security threat, how deep can the China-EU partnership really be?” — Shannon Tiezzi, Editor-in-Chief, The Diplomat.

“Mr. Putin is trying to redraw Europe’s borders by force, and Mr. Xi will not condemn him…. Mr. Putin has shown Europe that it needs a new China policy.” — The Economist.

A much-anticipated EU-China Summit, the first since 2020, has ended as both a failure and a success: a failure because the two sides were unable to agree on anything of bilateral importance; a success because after years of kowtowing to China, European officials finally stood their ground. EU-China relations are now on a new footing: Beijing no longer calls the shots.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18451/china-russia-space-war

“Evidence of both nations’ intent to undercut the United States and allied leadership in the space domain can be seen in the growth of combined in-orbit assets of China and Russia, which grew approximately 70% in just two years.” — Kevin Ryder, senior analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for space and counterspace, Air Force Magazine April 12, 2022.

Space has already become the scene of an ongoing “shadow war” in which China and Russia conduct attacks against U.S. satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber-attacks every day, according to General David Thompson, the U.S. Space Force’s first vice chief of space operations.

“The threats are really growing and expanding every single day…. We’re really at a point now where there’s a whole host of ways that our space systems can be threatened…. Hostile action toward our space-based assets is not a question of ‘if,’ but instead, ‘when.'” — General David Thompson, Washington Post, November 30, 2021.

“Fifteen years after China’s ASAT strike, we still lack the ability to defeat an attack on our space systems or launch an offensive strike if circumstances warrant.” — US Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton (Ret.), former commander of U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command, The Hill, April 12, 2022.

“The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] will continue to integrate space services… to erode the U.S. military’s information advantage.” — Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2022.

“If deterrence were to fail, we would face an adversary that has integrated space into all aspects of their military operations…. Space provides the foundation of everything we do as a joint force, from delivering humanitarian assistance to combat on the ground, in the air, and at sea…. We cannot afford to lose space; without it we will fail.” — General John W. Raymond, U.S. Chief of Space Operations, Space Force News, April 5, 2022.

Space-based threats from China and Russia have grown exponentially in recent years, according to a new report on the issue by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), published April 12.

“Evidence of both nations’ intent to undercut the United States and allied leadership in the space domain can be seen in the growth of combined in-orbit assets of China and Russia, which grew approximately 70% in just two years,” noted Kevin Ryder, DIA senior analyst for space and counterspace. “This recent and continuing expansion follows a more than 200% increase between 2015 and 2018.”

https://dianebederman.com/russia-ukraine-look-over-there-but-wait-shanghai/

While our attention has been drawn to Russia/Ukraine: look over there! 24/7, Covid is back.  Shanghai is under assault.  On China’s central coast, Shanghai is the country’s biggest city and a global financial hub. Let me repeat, Shanghai is a global financial hub and major port – as in supply chain. To put it simply, Shanghai is one of only four port-cities in the world to be categorized as a large-port Megacity, due to its high volumes of port traffic and large urban population. One would think it would be important to pay attention when a major port city…in China…is shut down. But we are overwhelmed by news from Ukraine. There are 44 million people in the entire country of Ukraine – or there were before the war. There is an expectation that 8 million Ukrainians will flee. There are 26 million people in the city of Shanghai. We care about the people in Ukraine but not in Shanghai – why is that? We are watching people starve and cruelty to animals and don’t seem to care.

Right now, anyone with a positive Covid result is held in an isolation centre, some of which have been newly created from converted gymnasiums and exhibition halls. Authorities have installed fences to restrict the population’s movement. Green barriers have appeared without warning outside buildings where those inside are forbidden from leaving.  There are metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes

Oh, like a ghetto, but not.

If that isn’t good enough, Shanghai city officials said infected patients and close contacts will be transferred to government-run centralized quarantine. Can’t begin to imagine how Trudeau would handle this in Canada!