RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17775/war-on-terror

According to the Global Index of Terrorism, more than 57% of terrorism in the first 15 years of the Global War on Terror happened in four countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. In Syria, since 2011, most of the deaths in that category were the work of state terrorism.

Most of the active terror groups are located in what is known as ungoverned territories. These include Syria, part of Iraq beyond the control of Baghdad, the Sahel region, parts of Horn of Africa and parts of Yemen.

The last terror attacks by Hezbollah in Western Europe and the seizing of Western hostages took place in the 1980s. Even occasional action taken against Israel comes at the behest of Tehran in the form of state-sponsored terrorism.

The crushing defeats suffered by Islamist parties, most recently in Morocco, indicate the end of an era in which reference to faith could justify the worst postures.

Has the war on international terrorism been lost? Have the US and its allies dropped out of the war on terror that they declared two decades ago? These are some of the questions raised by commentators across the globe last week as the US marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Many commentators answered both questions in the affirmative.

Yes, they said, terror groups are still operating in no fewer than 20 countries, while start-up terror outfits have been able to carry out attacks in a number of Western countries, including the United States. At the same time, the US has reduced its footprint in a number of countries that continue to shelter terrorist groups.

In some cases, the “yes” answer came from professional America-bashers who miss no opportunity to portray the “Great Satan” either as an earth-devouring monster or a wet mouse looking for shelter from a hailstorm of unpopularity.

A closer look, however, may offer a different picture.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17695/hinge-moment-history

I have lived in countries that have real domestic terrorism movements…. No country blessed enough not to have a domestic terrorism movement should be inventing one.

We are living in a blizzard of lies.

[W]e are more dependent on a handful of woke billionaires to tell us what reality is. They are far more open than ever that they get to determine what are the agreed facts. Google made an explicit announcement about this recently. They said that sometimes they would put warnings on things that are factually accurate because, even though they are true, they do not think it is in society’s interest for people to be seeing it.

[N]ow you will be banned or deleted or blocked or silenced simply for disagreeing with the official version of events. For example, the Great Barrington declaration, which was written by three of the most prominent epidemiologists in the world from Harvard, Oxford, and I think it was Stanford. That was basically deleted from YouTube, banned from Facebook, simply because it contradicted the WHO, CDC official version of events.

It is just groupthink enforced by a cabal of woke billionaires, who have more power than anyone else on the planet.

The other thing that emerged during this year very quickly is that we are at a hinge moment of history. We were told a generation or two back that, by doing trade with China, China would become more like us. Instead, on issues such as free speech, we are becoming more like China.

American companies are afraid of offending China. American officials are afraid of offending China. We are adopting Chinese norms on issues such as free speech and basic disagreements with the government of China.

We’re living in the early stages of a future that is the direct consequence of poor public policy over the last couple of generations. We are not even aware of that….

Right now, we are witnessing a non‑stop continuous transfer of power to a country that is serious about using that power. This is China’s moment. Take it as someone who grew up, in large part, in a great power in decline. There’s no real explicit handover day. People, in hindsight, expect to pinpoint the day that the baton was passed…. My great worry is that actually, the transfer to China has already happened. The baton has already been passed. We just haven’t formally acknowledged that yet.

I’ll say it straight out loud. I do not think that Joe Biden “won the election.” I don’t think it is a question of “widespread fraud.” I think the way the system works with the Electoral College, you only need actually to spread fraud in six key cities in six key states.

I would like some of these genius jurists, including [US Supreme Court Chief Justice] Mr. Roberts and his colleagues, to then give us a figure on what is the acceptable level of fraud in American elections. Denmark, in its history, has never actually had a plausible accusation of any kind of electoral fraud. As we know, in the United States, in cities like Philadelphia, this is a tradition that has long roots and goes back 150 years.

If you have no basic election integrity, essentially, all the other issues are irrelevant.

Big Tech has essentially wrecked the internet.

Now Facebook is working with state power. The first place these Big Tech guys learned to do this was with China…. I’m in favor of breaking these companies up as soon as we can.

Standard Oil was broken up because of its control over the oil business. Facebook and Google and Apple have far more control over their business than Standard Oil did 110 years ago. The difference is that their business is knowledge and the access to knowledge, which is more important even than oil.

At some point, if we’re not prepared to stand up… My whole thing, in all the years, is that Western civilization is sliding off a cliff and most citizens of most Western nations are not even aware of it.

There is a moral component that we are overlooking. We live in an insane world where moral narcissism attaches to whether or not you rampage around some statue of a Confederate general who died 150 years ago. The fact that you’re rampaging around the Confederate general while wearing shoes made by child labor somehow does not impact on your moral virtue at all.

We are the civilization that built the modern world. If you do not like us, we can go back to what it was 500 years ago. Basically, the world functions because of the world we built.

I take Iran seriously. Not so much because of the Iranians, but because of the promises and the expectations in places like Sudan that Iranian nuclear technology will basically be shared with some of the most lethal basket-case states on Earth. Iran is in some sense like Russia and China. These are all, in a certain sense, great civilizations that have become perversions of themselves in a relatively short time.

What we ought to be trying to do is connect the Iranian people with their great glorious past, which actually is a platform on which you can build a future.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17754/britain-migrants-english-channel

More than 14,500 migrants have crossed the Channel in around 600 small boats so far in 2021, surpassing the 8,713 arrivals (in 650 boats) during all of 2020, according to Migration Watch, which notes that the actual number of arrivals is probably far higher than what has been recorded in official statistics. Since the beginning of 2021, not a single migrant has been deported to the safe European countries they traveled through.

“The incentives are skewed so that they encourage, rather than discourage, illegal (and dangerous) trips that often lead to asylum abuse.” — Migration Watch UK.

“They want to go to England because they can expect better conditions on arrival there than anywhere else in Europe or even internationally. There are no ID cards. They can easily find work outside the formal economy, which is not really controlled.” — Mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart.

“Both traffickers and migrants know that ‘no civilized country can allow people to drown at sea’; this is why people get on overcrowded vessels. ‘And this is why Britain is about to be plunged into a similar crisis to the one Italy faced three years ago, albeit on a reduced scale.'” — British news magazine, The Week, quoting James Forsyth in The Times.

“Instead of the United Kingdom being able to choose the children and families most in need, illegal immigration instead allows those who pay people smugglers, or who are strong, to push their way to the front of the queue…. Our legal system needs reform. It is open to abuse.” — Immigration Control Minister Chris Philip.

“First it was a few, then hundreds, and now 1,000 in a day, the French just waving them through with a cheery ‘Bon Voyage.’ If the French won’t stop the small boats then we need to by turning them back, making returns and taking firm control of our borders.” — Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover.

Nearly a thousand migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East have attempted to cross the English Channel on small boats in just one day to illegally get into the United Kingdom. The record-breaking surge in illegal crossings is being facilitated by warm weather and calm seas.

The British government is struggling to stop the crossings — partly because of its need for cooperation from France. British authorities have repeatedly accused their French counterparts of not doing enough to stop small boats from leaving French territorial waters.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17735/china-belt-road-human-rights

Findings about BRI’s negative impact on human rights in Cambodia and Guinea raise the much wider issue of how China’s Belt and Road Initiative affects human rights worldwide. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, around 139 countries — more than half the countries in the world — have now joined BRI.

China has also invested in multiple large-scale BRI projects in Iran, which has reportedly been leasing out its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf to Chinese industrial ships for more than a decade. This arrangement has led to a situation… where Chinese fishing vessels are “illegally cleaning out fish resources in the Persian Gulf” while “Iranian fishermen are forced to pay ten thousand dollars in bribes to Somalian pirates to let them fish on the African shores”.

Such a compromise of locals’ food-and-income security is a measure of China’s influence in the country — and a practice coupled with the Iranian government’s disregard for the living conditions of its own citizens. Scant regard for human rights is presumably also one of the reasons why China prefers to deal with autocratic regimes.

A new report, “Underwater: Human Rights Impacts of a China Belt and Road Project in Cambodia,” has found that one of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Cambodia — a hydroelectric dam known as the Lower Sesan 2, completed in 2018 — resulted in severe human rights violations. The project displaced nearly 5,000 mainly indigenous people and ethnic minorities, who had lived in villages along the Sesan and Srepok Rivers for generations, earning a living from fishing and agriculture. The project, the report estimates, negatively affected the lives of tens of thousands of other locals, who depend on fishing in the rivers for food and income. The project compromised locals’ food security, and their losses were either inadequately compensated or not compensated at all. The Lower Sesan 2 is just one out of seven BRI hydroelectric projects in Cambodia.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-north-korea-nuclear-temptation-kim-jong-un-joe-biden-missile-tests-11631548034?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

A pattern has emerged in President Biden’s dealings with weaker adversaries: He opens with tough talk but fails to follow through. This has been most conspicuous with Iran, Russia and the Taliban, but North Korea could be next.

Pyongyang fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan Wednesday, its second major set of tests in a week and third this year. The country launched new long-range cruise missiles over the weekend and short-range ballistic missiles in March. More provocations will follow as Kim Jong Un tests President Biden’s resolve.

South Korea tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile Wednesday. And last month the U.S. and South Korea held joint military drills despite a North Korean official calling them an “act of self-destruction for which a dear price should be paid as they threaten the safety of our people and further imperil the situation on the Korean peninsula.” The State Department also approved a $258 million sale of precision-guided weapons to the South in August.

Expect more histrionics as Pyongyang continues to use military provocations to coax the U.S. into new negotiations. The North’s patron, China, is already calling for resuming talks with the North, as Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on a visit to Seoul this week.

North Korea has pursued a predictable negotiating strategy for decades. First, misbehave and issue exaggerated threats. Second, tone down the rhetoric and agree to talks. Finally, pocket concessions before returning to the status quo ante. This happened under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Barack Obama simply rebranded “do nothing” as “strategic patience.” Mr. Trump’s “grand bargain” summits were a diplomatic embarrassment but didn’t provide many concrete benefits to Pyongyang.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17734/why-arabs-do-not-trust-the-biden-administration

The main concern for the Arabs is that the “humiliating” manner in which the US ended its presence in Afghanistan has sent a message to Iran and its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — that the Americans are not only weak, but that they cannot be trusted to support or defend their allies.

The Iran-backed Houthis appear to be be telling themselves: If the US is so weak and has no problem betraying its allies and friends, perhaps this is the right time to step up the attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The past few days have witnessed a significant escalation in the attacks of the Houthi militia in Yemen against civilian areas in Saudi Arabia.

[T]he Biden administration had already sent another message to Iran and its proxies when it removed the Houthi militia from the list of terrorist organizations.

“[T]here is no indication that the Houthis will stop their aggressive policy aimed at imposing a fait accompli [Iranian control] on the Arab Peninsula,” which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, as well as the southern portions of Iraq and Jordan.” — Kheirallah Kheirallah, veteran Lebanese journalist and political analyst, Al-Araby.co.uk, September 3, 2021.

“Iran… is working to perpetuate a reality in Yemen that resembles the reality of Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip since 2007.” — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Al-Araby.co.uk, September 3, 2021.

Yemeni journalist Zakaria Al-Kamali expressed fear of what he called “the Afghanization of Yemen.” — Al-Araby.co.uk, September 7, 2021.

What the Arabs find most disturbing is that the Biden administration has failed to take a tough stance against the increased Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. So far, the Biden administration has responded to the attacks by issuing laconic statements describing the drone and missile attacks on civilian targets in Saudi Arabia as “unacceptable.”

Iran… is leveraging the weakness and confusion in the Biden administration to extend its control more widely.

Is there a connection between the hasty and disorganized US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the increased attacks on Saudi Arabia by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen?

Many Arabs political analysts and writers are convinced that the Biden administration’s flawed handling of the crisis in Afghanistan, which resulted in the Taliban takeover of the whole country, has emboldened various extremist Islamic groups, including the Houthis, who are now threatening Washington’s Arab friends and allies.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-guards-physically-harassed-female-u-n-nuclear-inspectors-diplomats-say-11631626649

Iranian security guards have physically harassed several female United Nations atomic agency inspectors at a nuclear facility over the past few months, diplomats say, and the U.S. has demanded that Iran stop the behavior immediately.

The previously unreported incidents at Iran’s main nuclear facility, Natanz, allegedly included inappropriate touching of female inspectors by male security guards and orders to remove some clothing, the diplomats said.

One of the diplomats said there had been at least four separate incidents of harassment. A second diplomat said there had been five to seven.

A paper circulated by the U.S. among International Atomic Energy Agency members ahead of its member states’ board meeting this week, seen by The Wall Street Journal, demanded an end to such conduct.

“Harassment of IAEA inspectors is absolutely unacceptable, and we strongly urge you to make clear in your national statement at the Board meeting that such conduct is deplorable and must end immediately, and that the Board should take appropriate action if further incidents are reported,” the U.S. paper says.

The first incident was in early June and the most recent was in the past few weeks, the diplomats said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/north-korea-fires-ballistic-missiles-into-waters-between-japan-and-korean-peninsula_3998321.html

North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into waters off its eastern coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) has confirmed.

JCS said the missiles were launched from central North Korea and that South Korea, along with U.S. intelligence authorities, is currently analyzing more details about the launches.

Japan’s coast guard said it believes the two missiles were launched five minutes apart, at 12:38 p.m. and 12:43 p.m. local time (11:38 p.m. and 11:43 p.m. ET) and that they landed outside its exclusive economic zone in the waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, CNN reports.

Coast guards confirmed that no ships or aircraft were damaged by the missiles.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga called the firings “absolutely outrageous” and said they “threaten the peace and safety of Japan and the region.”

“The government of Japan is determined to further step up our vigilance and surveillance to be prepared for any contingencies,” Suga said.

The firings come just two days after North Korea claimed to have tested a newly developed missile, the first time it has resumed weapons tests in six months. In a multi-day operation, North Korea tested a long-range cruise missile capable of hitting targets 930 miles away, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Officials and scientists of the Academy of National Defense Science, who took part in the testing of the cruise missiles launched Sept. 11 and Sept. 12, declared the operation a “success,” reported KCNA.

The missile, dubbed “a strategic weapon of great significance,” had been in development for two years.

U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions have barred North Korea from testing ballistic missiles, and the country has been heavily sanctioned over its missile and nuclear weapons programs.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/the-taliban-cut-off-the-heads-of-two-boys-who-were-nine-and-ten/

A veteran desperately trying to get Afghan allies out of the country shares hellacious accounts.

I n normal times, Jean Marie Thrower would be running Supplier Development Systems, her Birmingham, Ala.–based automotive consulting firm. But since the fall of Kabul, and the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan, Thrower, who served in the U.S. Army’s 82 Airborne Division as a transportation officer with support of operations in Haiti and Bosnia, has put the rest of her life on hold, working with the Afghan Rescue Crew. The ARC describes itself as a private group of U.S. veterans and civilians volunteering to save as many vetted at-risk Americans and Afghan allies left behind in Afghanistan as possible.

ARC is one of several private groups attempting to get Americans, green-card holders, and Afghan allies out of the country; others include No One Left Behind, Digital Dunkirk, Allied Airlift 21, Hearts and Homes for Refugees, Samaritan’s Purse, the “Pineapple Express,” and more.

The good news for ARC is that they have so far rescued “hundreds” and transported them to third countries safely. The bad news is that the organization says that it has a list of thousands of at-risk Afghan allies still in its system. Thrower disputes the U.S. State Department’s characterization of about 100 Americans being left on the ground; she said that as of a few days ago, the figure her group had was closer to 1,000 — although she noted that every group making a rescue effort has its own list, potentially leading to overlap with one another in certain cases. The 1,000 figure may include U.S. green-card holders, too, which the State Department is putting in a separate category.

Thrower describes herself as immensely frustrated and angered by the U.S. government’s actions, or lack thereof, so far — but said that ARC remains open to working with any U.S. government efforts to get desperate Americans and Afghans out. She said that she doesn’t care who gets the credit, as long as those at risk figure out a way to escape Afghanistan.