RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/10/virtuous-fantasies-of-fascism/

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/10/virtuous-fantasies-of-fascism/

“The doctrinaires entering our education systems are as termites in a wooden building, peddling the view that if you do not ‘celebrate’ some proclivity or other, or publicly expatiate on its virtues, then you must be keen on persecuting those who exhibit it. It is simple notion for the simple minds of those who find the world just too complex to grasp.”

When I mentioned to some friends that I was about to pay a short trip to Hungary, they were all duly horrified. It was as if I had announced in late August 1939 that I was going on holiday in Germany.

I readily confess that my knowledge of current Hungarian politics is very limited. I know four words in the language: please, thank you, water and national. This does not entitle me to pose as an expert, even though I know infinitely more Hungarian than did my horrified friends.

There was something formulaic about their horror, if I may so put it, a bit like the sign of the cross for those who do not truly believe but yet are attached to ancient customs. They had heard that Hungary was a fascist country, the kind of country that, according to the Dutch Prime Minister, should have no place in the European Union. Of course, he took that to mean that it was not virtuous, or not virtuous enough.

I had been to Budapest several times before: it is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant capitals in Europe, grand and dignified but not overwhelmingly large. I first went in 1970, when no one was horrified by my proposed journey: it was merely a communist state, that was all, and therefore not the object of obloquy.

Even then, the food was better than in other communist countries, but the greyness and dilapidation were evident. For the first and only time in my life I had difficulty in spending all the money that I had. One had to change irrevocably a certain amount of money to be allowed to enter Hungary, and by the end of my stay I was left with a bundle of forints that I could neither change nor take out of the country (not that anyone outside the country would have wanted them).

When I mentioned to some friends that I was about to pay a short trip to Hungary, they were all duly horrified. It was as if I had announced in late August 1939 that I was going on holiday in Germany.

I readily confess that my knowledge of current Hungarian politics is very limited. I know four words in the language: please, thank you, water and national. This does not entitle me to pose as an expert, even though I know infinitely more Hungarian than did my horrified friends.

There was something formulaic about their horror, if I may so put it, a bit like the sign of the cross for those who do not truly believe but yet are attached to ancient customs. They had heard that Hungary was a fascist country, the kind of country that, according to the Dutch Prime Minister, should have no place in the European Union. Of course, he took that to mean that it was not virtuous, or not virtuous enough.

I had been to Budapest several times before: it is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant capitals in Europe, grand and dignified but not overwhelmingly large. I first went in 1970, when no one was horrified by my proposed journey: it was merely a communist state, that was all, and therefore not the object of obloquy.

Even then, the food was better than in other communist countries, but the greyness and dilapidation were evident. For the first and only time in my life I had difficulty in spending all the money that I had. One had to change irrevocably a certain amount of money to be allowed to enter Hungary, and by the end of my stay I was left with a bundle of forints that I could neither change nor take out of the country (not that anyone outside the country would have wanted them).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17798/arabs-annoyed-with-europeans

The European Parliament… has enraged many Arabs by calling for boycotting Expo 2020 Dubai…

The timing of the resolution is problematic. It implies that the European Parliament is seeking to punish the UAE for signing a peace treaty with Israel. The resolution coincided with the first anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, the term used to refer to peace agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.

By singling out the UAE, the European Parliament has chosen to side with the enemies of peace, cooperation and normalization between Israelis and Arabs.

Worse, the European Parliament saw no reason to call out Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for their daily human rights violations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Resolutions such as the one taken by the European Parliament are the kind that give the enemies of peace in the Middle East — evidently now including the European Parliament — ammunition to keep fighting to achieve their goal of destroying Israel.

They are opposed to the existence of Israel. They do not want to see Israel in the Middle East. Most of them want to replace Israel….

“[The decision] raises a question mark about the real reasons that led to this hostility practiced by the European Parliament towards a country that has achieved a lot on human rights issues…. The European Parliament is supposed to support these issues, not the exact opposite.” — Mona Ali Al Motawa, prominent writer from Bahrain, Al-Watan, September 21, 2021.

[T]he UAE does not need “a certificate [of honor] from malicious entities and will not be affected by desperate attempts to disrupt its achievements.” — Saudi columnist Dr. Ali Al-Kheshaiban, Al-Ain, September 22, 2021.

Some very vocal Arabs, in short, are loudly telling the Europeans to mind their own business.

The Arabs are also telling the Europeans that if they have to meddle in the internal affairs of the Arab countries, they should at least support those states, such as the UAE, that have made real strides in human rights, rather than supporting and emboldening terrorists through calls for the boycott of global cooperation events.

The European Parliament, one of three legislative branches of the European Union, has enraged many Arabs by calling for a boycott of Expo 2020 Dubai, taking place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between October 2021 and March 2022.

The theme of this year’s Expo 2020 Dubai, one of the world’s biggest events, is “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.” The sub-themes are “Sustainability, Opportunity and Mobility” with a focus on industries, financial capital, governance, employment, education, and technology.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17830/china-growing-maritime-empire

While on the face of it, China’s acquisitions of ports looks like mere commercial transactions based on an economically driven agenda — the rhetoric China is employing — several analysts have pointed out that geopolitical concerns seem to be what are actually driving China’s port investments.

“A deliberate military and strategic functionality seems clearly entrenched in the initiative [acquisition of ports] ….there is abundant evidence it is developing a network of strategic strongpoints that can significantly raise the costs of any U.S. military intervention and lower the willingness of BRI [port] host governments to offer access or assistance to the United States.” — Daniel R. Russell and Blake H. Berger, “Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative,” Asia Society Policy Institute, September 2020.

“U.S. naval vessels might not be able to call regularly at ports under Chinese management because of the risk that commercial port information-technology (IT) systems could be used to monitor or interfere with military systems and jeopardize U.S. information and cybersecurity.” — Admiral Gary Roughead, US Navy Chief of Naval Operations, Naval War College Review, Winter 2019.

For that reason, the US warned Israel that China’s management of the new Haifa port terminal could potentially damage US-Israeli security cooperation, as it might lead to US Navy ships refraining from docking there.

“By creating a global port network for ostensibly commercial purposes, China has gained the ability to project power through the increased physical presence of its naval vessels—turning the oceans that historically have protected the United States from foreign threats into a venue in which China can challenge U.S. interests.” — Christopher R. O’Dea, Naval War College Review, Winter 2019.

Another grave concern is that Chinese port investments create economic and political leverage for the CCP that can affect local policy and decision making… After China invested in and acquired much of the port of Piraeus, Greece blocked an EU statement criticizing China’s human rights record…. prevented a unified EU statement against China’s behavior in the South China Sea… and opposed tougher screenings of Chinese investments in Europe — a predictable move for all nations that become beholden to Chinese investments.

China, through investments in and ownership of ports, is expanding its global maritime reach, and its appetite for ports shows no signs of diminishing. As of July 2020, Chinese firms reportedly “(partly) owned or operated some ninety-five ports across the globe.”

Out of the 95 ports, 22 are in Europe, 20 in the Middle East and North Africa, 18 in the Americas, 18 in South and Southeast Asia, and nine in sub-Saharan Africa. Just three Chinese companies, among them COSCO Shipping Ports and China Merchants Port, two central state-owned enterprises (SOE), account for the operations of 81% of those ports.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17829/afghanistan-taliban-terroris

The most worrying concerns, though, about the Taliban’s ability to rein in the activities of Islamist terror groups stem from the composition of the new Afghan government which, far from reflecting the Taliban’s claim that it is pursuing a “moderate” agenda, is packed with hardliners and includes no women, minorities or opposition members.

In particular, the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a prominent member of the infamous Haqqani network who is on the FBI’s most wanted list and is a designated global terrorist, completely undermines the Taliban’s claim that it wants to curb the activities of Islamist terrorists.

More recently the group has been building ties with ISIS-K. As Sajjan Gohel, international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, wrote in a recent article for Foreign Policy magazine, “There has, in fact, been a tactical and strategic convergence between the Islamic State-Khorasan and the Haqqanis, if not the entirety of the Taliban.”

At the time of the Taliban takeover, Pakistan’s pro-Islamist Prime Minister Imran Khan rejoiced at America’s humiliating defeat in Afghanistan. Now he finds himself facing a battle for survival in Islamabad as militant supporters of the so-called “Pakistani Taliban” seek to emulate the achievements of their Afghan neighbours by overthrowing the Pakistani government.

As seen this morning with the bombing of the Eidgah Mosque in Kabul, leaving a reported 8 people killed and 20 wounded, the prospects of Afghanistan once more becoming a safe haven that can be used by Islamist terrorist groups to launch deadly attacks against the West have risen dramatically in the wake of US President Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to withdraw American forces from the country. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday through its Nasheer news agency on Telegram.

Part of Mr Biden’s justification for ending America’s 20-year-old involvement in the conflict was that the Taliban had learnt the lessons of its past involvement with Islamist terror groups like al-Qaeda, and would therefore be unlikely to allow them to operate freely in territory under Taliban control.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17826/prowler-preaching-neighborliness

Raisi has not managed to impose some discipline on the few hundred mullahs and brigadier-generals who form the core of the ramshackle regime. Thus the mullah from back of the beyond and the brigadier-general who has never seen a battle except on television, continue to make foreign policy comments mostly to threaten the very neighbors that the Dr. Ayatollah hopes to seduce.

Tehran’s disregard for Iraqi sovereignty came in other forms as well. The official media threatened Baghdad and Erbil with “consequences” unless those who had organized a private seminar on normalization with Israel were “dealt with”. The fact that the seminar in question was in conformity with Iraq’s constitution and law, guaranteeing freedom of opinion and expression, was conveniently ignored.

However, the biggest show of “good neighborliness” promised by Raisi came inside the (former Soviet) Republic of Azerbaijan and along its borders with Iran and Armenia.

What Tehran media described as “a multi-faceted task force” consisting of helicopter gunships, tanks, armored vehicles and elite Special Units under the personal command of IRGC’s Chief of Land Forces Gen. Pakpur was assembled on full alert within sight of Azerbaijani troops and their Russian “advisers”.

In his first statements on foreign policy, Islamic Republic’s new President Dr. Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi made two claims: First that he would be the ultimate arbiter of Tehran’s foreign relations and, second, that his top priority is to “establish close ties with neighbors and promote peace and stability in West Asia.

(The ruling mullahs now use the term West Asia, which was circulated by the Soviet Union, instead of the Middle East, which they regard as a term coined by “Infidel powers.”)

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17825/nuclear-armed-iran

General Hossein Salami, the chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the Iranian regime’s plans vehemently clear: “Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map,” he stated on Iran’s state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019. Supreme Leader Khamenei, in 2015, also published a 416-page guidebook, titled “Palestine”, about destroying Israel.

“The mission of the constitution is to create conditions conducive to the development of man in accordance with the noble and universal values of (Shiite) Islam.” The regime’s constitution goes on to say that it “provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad.”

There is the dangerous likelihood of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Iran’s proxy and militia groups, or that the Iranian regime will share its nuclear technology with its proxies and allies such as the Syrian regime or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

If this is how Iran’s leadership treats its own citizens, what makes anyone think they would treat their perceived adversaries any better? As others have asked: If Hitler had acquired a nuclear weapon, do you think he would have hesitated to use it?

Once such leaders have weapons of mass destruction, it is far more costly in life and treasure to try and stop them. Iran might not even need to use its nuclear weapons; the threat should be more than enough.

The Iranian regime is nearing an atomic milestone in acquiring nuclear weapons. In the meantime, the Biden administration does not seem to have a clear agenda to prevent the mullahs from going nuclear. Even the New York Times reported that the Islamic Republic is “within roughly a month of having enough material to fuel a single nuclear weapon”.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/mitchpicasso/2021/09/30/kabul-university-shuts-down-as-taliban-ban-women-n1520839

All women have been banned from studying or teaching in any public university in Afghanistan, and the students from Kabul University have been sent home, according to the Washington Post.

Kabul University, which is normally very active, was quiet today. Classes were suspended and all students, male and female, were sent home until the two genders can be segregated.

In a message to the Washington Post, Taliban official Bilal Karimi stated that they are “working on a comprehensive plan to ensure a peaceful environment for female students.” He said that when  this is done “[women] would be allowed to continue their education.”

Ironically, the women in Afghanistan were already in a generally “peaceful environment” until the Taliban seized power after Biden pulled out U.S. troops.

The Taliban’s new minister of higher education, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, stated that Afghanistan under the Taliban “will not allow boys and girls to study together.” Haqqani said that the country “will not allow coeducation,” according to The Hill.

Not to worry. Haqqani assured the public that things will not be the way they were the last time the Taliban was in charge 20 years ago, saying, “We will start building on what’s today.”

So far, they are off to bad start.

Not only are women not allowed to study, but they are not even allowed to work at the university “until an Islamic environment is created,” said the school’s new Taliban-appointed chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat.

https://www.newsweek.com/irans-sco-entry-could-complicate-us-israeli-strategic-options-opinion-1633488

Iran’s impending entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Eurasian bloc that China and Russia lead, has great potential to limit U.S., Israeli and Western leeway in confronting Tehran’s nuclear and hegemonic aspirations, sponsorship of international terrorism and efforts at regional de-stabilization.

Iran’s SCO entry comes as the Institute for Science and International Security, a leading nonproliferation think tank, reported that due to its aggressive nuclear enrichment of recent months, the Islamic Republic now has enough enriched nuclear fuel to produce a single nuclear weapon within no more than about a month – if it chooses to do so.

Iran’s entry also comes amid mounting evidence that it continues to impose roadblocks to international monitoring of its nuclear activities. Tehran admitted recently that it removed surveillance cameras that the International Atomic Energy Agency had previously installed at a key centrifuge manufacturing site in the city of Karaj.

Nuclear experts have cautioned that, in advancing its nuclear program, Tehran may be seeking to pressure Washington to quickly resurrect the 2015 global nuclear deal with Iran, from which former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in 2018, prompting Iran to surpass the deal’s limits on its nuclear activity.

By focusing on U.S.-Iranian maneuvering over the nuclear deal, however, policymakers and pundits may miss the strategic forest for the trees. That’s because whether the issue is Iran’s nuclear progress or its regional behavior, its entry into the SCO will raise increasingly serious strategic issues for Washington, Jerusalem and the West.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17810/aukus-security-alliance

“If an authoritarian nation, such as China, displaces America as the dominant global power, then democracies all over the world will feel the consequences.” — Gideon Rachman, columnist, Financial Times.

“Too many European elites still do not want to admit that democracies are in a systemic rivalry with autocracies. Refusing to acknowledge reality is convenient for them since it justifies their inaction. But we need to do the opposite and double down in our defense of democracies.” — Andreas Fulda, China expert, University of Nottingham.

“The US thinks about how to contain China. And Australia too is in the position of thinking about how one contains, as opposed to how one accommodates; that’s the fundamental difference with France. As a consequence, the US looks like the better partner.” — Richard Whitman, professor of politics and international relations, University of Kent.

“I think it was the only option for Australia because the French were not going to annoy or unnecessarily irritate Beijing. They wanted trade, economic, and investment relations. Now, Australia will have the capability to sink the Chinese navy in 72 hours; that’s what this is all about. The Chinese know they have been outmaneuvered, and they’re very angry. In a very short period of time, Australia has gone from a doormat to something very considerable — it’s an extraordinary development.” — Joseph Siracusa, geopolitical analyst, Sky News Australia.

“The lesson of the past few weeks is that the world does not run on Brussels time, with its long periods for consultation, courteous attention to the electoral cycles of 27 countries, and sacrosanct weekends, evenings, and lunch breaks.” — Edward Lucas, Europe analyst, Center for European Policy Analysis.

“France underestimated how China’s naked military ambition, chronic disregard for international order, and barely concealed aspirations to control the deep Pacific and Antarctica pushed Australia to make tough decisions about the future.” — Craig Hooper, geopolitical analyst, Forbes.

“It is hard to overstate the importance of the so-called Aukus alliance between the US, the UK and Australia — and the implicit geopolitical disaster for the EU.” — Wolfgang Münchau, commentator, The Spectator.

“The extent of Emmanuel Macron’s fury is absurd, and only shows the sublime lack of self-awareness that has come to characterize Europe’s myopic political elites…. The European establishment has a long history of treating its geopolitical partners abysmally while wearing a mask of moral superiority.” — Editorial board, The Telegraph.

“The EU continues to decline to take any serious responsibility for global peace and security, preferring to see the economic and commercial opportunities in the relationship with China, rather than the threat the Chinese Communist Party represents.” — Gerard Baker, columnist, The Wall Street Journal.

Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have announced a new tripartite strategic alliance aimed at countering China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. The AUKUS defense agreement, under which Australia will acquire American-designed nuclear-powered submarines, is a welcome paradigm shift intended to enhance the projection of Western military power in the region.

http://dev.ruthinstitute.org/

A recent United Kingdom Appeals Court decision to allow puberty blockers for children was “ill-considered and dangerous,” said Ruth Institute President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.

The court reversed a 2020 ruling that those under 16 lack the capacity to give informed consent to potentially life-changing drugs, which stop the onset of puberty.

The court, while acknowledging “the difficulties and complexities” of the issue, nevertheless held that “it is for the clinicians to exercise their judgement knowing how important it is that consent [from a minor] is properly obtained according to the individual circumstances.”

Morse called this absurd. “You’re going to rely on a ‘gender-identity’ clinic, which makes money from dispensing these drugs, to assure that consent is properly obtained from a child?”

Morse noted that Keira Bell, the original plaintiff, was given hormone blockers at age 16 after just three one-hour sessions at the Tavistock clinic. She was later prescribed testosterone and had a double mastectomy at 20. Now, at 23, she is in the process of de-transitioning.

Bell said that when she began trying to reverse the process, “it was heartbreaking to realize I’d gone down the wrong path.” The drugs she started taking at 16 “irreparably damaged” her body and likely left her sterile.

“This ruling doesn’t address the fact that the previous court described these so-called gender affirmation treatments as ‘experimental,’” Morse noted. “This court ignored the seriously under-studied, long-term consequences of puberty blockers. If adults don’t fully know what these powerful hormonal interventions do to a young person’s body, how do we expect someone under age 16 to know?

“You can’t drive, vote, or enlist in the military in the United Kingdom when you’re under 16. But, according to ‘trans’ activists, minors have the maturity and discernment to take drugs that could radically alter their body chemistry in preparation for chemical castration and surgical alteration in the future. Something is clearly wrong here.”

The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.