RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/torching-canadian-coptic-church-unacceptable-raymond-ibrahim/

A Coptic Christian church was recently burned to the ground—not in Egypt, where the torching of Coptic churches is not an uncommon occurrence, but in Canada, also known as “the church-burning centre of the Western world.”

In the early morning hours of July 19, St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey, which served 500 families and provided food for the homeless, was set aflame and completely destroyed.  Only one charred wall remains standing.

According to the report, “The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but Surrey RCMP [police] said it is being treated as ‘suspicious.’ The St. George Coptic Orthodox Church was also the target of an attempted arson just last Wednesday, although authorities do not know if the two incidents are connected.”

What, exactly, do Canadian mounted police find “suspicious”?  The church was clearly targeted for arson, as evidenced by the fact that it was targeted for arson a few days earlier, and at the very same time (between 2:30-4:00 am).  On July 14, surveillance video captured a woman lighting a fire, one that failed to catch, at the church door.  That the “authorities do not know if the two incidents are connected” seems like wishful thinking.

What is deserving of the term “suspicious” is that, days after the church reported the first failed arson attempt to police—which should have led to better awareness and security for the church—another successful arson attempt took place.

After expressing its “immense sadness and pain” at the loss of the church, a statement from the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Mississauga called on Premier John Horgan and the authorities to expedite the investigation, correctly observing that “The timing of this fire … raises many questions about what the authorities did to protect our church, especially considering the attempt on the same church this past Wednesday.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17606/betraying-cuban-people

Everyone knows that Biden’s hollow platitudes are utterly meaningless. “The United States stands with…” what, exactly, does that mean? What does “stands with” look like?

Here is the ugly truth: Biden does not care a damn about the Cuban people throwing off 60+ years of communism. Cubans are holding the largest anti-government rallies in decades. American media coverage has been near zero. Half of Biden’s White House staff probably does not understand what the president means by “repression,” admires Fidel and Raul Castro, and can be found wearing Che Guevara T-shirts on the weekends.

Cuban President and First Secretary of the Communist Party Miguel Díaz-Canel could order the machine-gunning of every protestor on the streets of Havana and the Biden administration would do nothing. Well, perhaps they might take the “strong action” of two weeks ago and sanction ONE Cuban government official, followed by the “stunning” sanctioning of TWO additional Cuban police officials. Díaz-Canel actually condemned protestors looking for food, calling them “counter-revolutionary mercenaries.”

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad are advocating for programs and policies right out of the Cuban Communist Party’s playbook. They actually want the power outages, rationed medical care and food shortages ordinary Cubans are protesting against. Their militant ideology and policy proposals fit right into the anti-American, Marxist “Critical FILL-IN-THE-BLANK Theory” concepts taught from the Frankfurt School.

Under the Biden administration, the Cuban people will be ignored by the United States, again, as they have been for 60+ years. It is a horror for America — with brutal, bloody consequences for the innocent people that continue to hold out hope that America will finally help.

“Elections? What for?”
— Fidel Castro, January 1960

“The United States stands with the brave Cubans who have taken to the streets to oppose 62 years of repression under a communist regime.”
— President Biden, July 22, 2021

Take a look at the opening quotes to this essay, pause, and think about them. There is a long litany of American miscalculations, cowardice, gamesmanship, indifference, condescension, and exploitation centered on Cuba, the Cuban people, and Cuban-Americans. It has been a bipartisan problem for decades, with a lot of American political rhetoric; one double-crossed, failed invasion attempt; and brutal communist intransigence.

Everyone knows that President Biden’s hollow platitudes are utterly meaningless. “The United States stands with…” what, exactly, does that mean? What does “stands with” look like? Has Biden dispatched operational detachments from 7th Special Forces Group to parachute into Cuba, raise and train a partisan army to overthrow the Communist government, and establish a democratic republic? No? Why not? For that matter, why did President Trump fail to do that in Venezuela to Maduro? So much for the modern application of the Monroe Doctrine and the “American” Hemisphere.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/dr-charles-jacobs-video-arabs-and-muslims-have-frontpagemagcom/

This video is brought to you by a Freedom Center-Glazov Gang collaboration on a new exclusive webinar series, Teach-Ins for the Twenty-First Century. Join us as some of the leading thinkers and pundits on the scene today discuss key issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and its ongoing implications, confronting the Left, the jihad terror threat, and much, much more. And make sure to ask your own questions of our experts.

This new webinar features Dr. Charles Jacobs, the president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance who has been named by the Forward as one of America’s top 50 Jewish leaders.

Dr. Jacobs discusses Arabs and Muslims Have Black Slaves, exposing the outrage of modern-day Islamic enslavement of blacks in Africa — and why the Left doesn’t care about it.

He explains how this injustice arose and suggests things Americans can do to both combat the leftist abandonment of black slaves, and to help free the slaves.

Don’t miss it!

https://www.jns.org/opinion/how-do-you-say-deja-vu-in-farsi/

Protesters screaming “Death to the Dictator” began taking to the streets of Tehran on Monday, after rallies elsewhere in Iran erupted a earlier this month over severe water and electricity shortages in the drought-afflicted Islamic Republic.

The response to the very real plight of the Iranian people—whose latest rigged “election” ushered in President-elect Ebrahim (“The Butcher”) Raisi—was to send in militias to gun down the thirsty and disgruntled demonstrators.
Though the death toll is unclear, cellphone footage of security-force brutality has emerged on social media. It’s a familiar scenario.

The only wonder is that there are any citizens left in Iran who are brave enough to risk their lives in such an open fashion. Previous attempts at toppling the regime all have led to the same sorry result: the arrests, torture and murder of “dissidents,” and a subsequent enhanced crackdown on the public.

No surprise there.

Nor is the rejection by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council of the points of agreement reportedly reached in Vienna during the three months of negotiations towards a return to or improvement on the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. With Raisi slated to officially assume his role next month, and with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden having been so transparent about its desire to re-enter the nuclear deal, Iran’s master puppeteer would be foolish not to keep up the pressure on the P5+1 signatories to the JCPOA to succumb to his demands.

Chief among these, of course, is a lifting of all international sanctions. But there are other conditions, as well, which have to do with the level of monitoring of nuclear facilities and allowances for the build-up of ballistic missiles.
According to multiple news analyses, if the talks in Vienna are postponed until after Raisi enters office, the whole process could be put on hold for months. Rather than applauding this development, however, the fantasists in America and Europe are worried.

Naturally.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17487/china-digital-currency

The real purpose of the new digital currency… seems to be… to challenge the long-standing global reign of the US dollar.

The new digital currency is part of the CCP’s ambition, as laid out in its new Five-Year Plan for the years 2021-2025, to digitalize China. The digitalization, in turn, is part of China’s ambition to become technologically independent of the West and to dominate global tech, and overtake the US as the world’s dominant power by 2049,” the 100th anniversary of China’s Communist Revolution.

Crucially, China’s new digital currency, in addition to increasing state control and surveillance in China.. .could affect the ability of the US, and other countries, to level sanctions at the Chinese government for its human rights abuses and other breaches of international law.

The US, on its part, does not appear ready for China’s challenge over the future of money.

“Not only are the American monetary authorities underestimating the threat posed to dollar dominance by China’s pioneering combination of digital currency and electronic payments. They are also treating the blockchain-based financial innovations that offer the best alternative to China’s e-yuan like gatecrashers at their own exclusive party.” — Niall Ferguson, historian, Bloomberg, April 4, 2021.

Communist China is adding another element to its toolbox of surveilling and controlling its population. Already known as the country in the world with the most pervasive surveillance and social credit system, China has now created a digital currency, the digital renminbi or yuan — also known as Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) — to ensure that hardly any transaction goes unregistered.

Unlike cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which are not issued by governments and therefore cannot be used as means of payment in most daily transactions, China’s digital currency is issued and controlled by China’s central bank.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the currency “is expected to give China’s government vast new tools to monitor both its economy and its people. By design, the digital yuan will negate one of bitcoin’s major draws: anonymity for the user.”

“DCEP is the antithesis of Bitcoin. The ultimate goal of a cryptocurrency is the separation of money and state,” said Stewart Mackenzie, a cryptocurrency expert based in Hong Kong. “It’s easy for them to say that it’s like Bitcoin when it’s worlds apart.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17580/bangladesh-passport-israel

Whatever the public perception and the explanations by cabinet members are regarding the passport issue, the government of Bangladesh has taken a big step forward by removing the clause. At least, from now on, the state will not be able to prosecute someone for visiting Israel. As an extra benefit, the country’s declared foreign policy of “friendship to all and malice towards none” will be more meaningful as well.

Recently, the government of Bangladesh dropped the infamous phrase “this passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel” from its new passports. Those words had been prominently inscribed since the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. Six months ago, when Bangladeshi government introduced a new machine-readable passport with an electronic chip, the “except Israel” clause was quietly erased with no public announcement. The change was, in a sense, classified.

In early May, a man went to the passport department headquarters to collect the passports of his mother and brother, when he noticed that the clause had been omitted. Through social media, the news went viral. Now it has become a national issue of debate.

Having been informed of the news, the deputy Director-General for Asia and the Pacific with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Gilad Cohen, joyfully tweeted: “Great news! #Bangladesh has removed travel ban to Israel. This is a welcome step & I call on the Bangladeshi government to move forward and establish diplomatic ties with #Israel so both our peoples could benefit & prosper.” The reactionary comments to his tweet from Muslims are notable.

The Jerusalem Post wrote: “Bangladesh has reportedly lifted its travel ban in an unexpected move….” In Bangladesh, however, several cabinet members, especially the home minister and the foreign minister, apparently felt pressure. The reaction had been enormous.

On May 30, the Islamic Movement Bangladesh, a religious party, demanded reinstatement of the clause and a judicial investigation against “the culprits involved in the misdeed”. The leftist parties’ alliance of Bangladesh insisted on revoking the decision. The Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to Dhaka, Yousef Ramadan, told local media that he was “saddened” by Bangladesh’s move not to single out Israel in its passport.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/25/chinas-greater-east-asia-co-prosperity-sphere/

Stonewalling investigations into the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan? A hundred new hardened intercontinental nuclear missiles silos? Dressing down U.S. diplomats on purported American racism? 

Braggadocio about nuking non-nuclear and once-nuked Japan, if need be? Winks and nods that Taiwan will soon be Hong-Kongized?  

Hacking into Western institutions?  

No apologies for lying about the origins, nature, and transmissibility of the gain-of-function, virology-lab-engineered Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 virus? Or rather, an attitude of maybe/maybe not the virus leaked from a military-related lab, “So what are you going to do about it—this time or next”? 

Recently China has sought to ramp up its now accustomed bullying and intimidation of the Western world, still reeling from a Chinese-born coronavirus.  

Yet its new global badgering is as much predicated on its potential as it is on its actual power, at least in classical terms of a global hegemon. Even in our postmodern electronic age, the real stuff of an ascendant civilization remains constitutional stability, fuel, food, economic strength, defense, strategic security, and education. In all those areas, is China really on course to overtake us?

Beneath the Veneer of Strength 

A good indicator of the demographic advantage of large nations is not absolute numbers (otherwise India and China would have been sharing world power decades ago) but median age. Even in our increasing era of shrinking Western families, by 2050 the median age in America will be 44 years, but 56 in China. Indeed, China may already have 150 million residents over 65, nearly half the current population of the United States—at the very time the Chinese family is becoming Westernized, and the elderly increasingly dependent on the state. 

There are currently more smokers in China than there are people in the United States. And Beijing is on a collision course with all sorts of costly expenditures for a population that might be characterized as excessively elderly and unhealthy, and yet never more expectant of quality state health and long-term care.  

China’s population density is almost five times greater than that of the United States, in a country in which the effects on its cramped population from natural and man-made disasters—floods, draughts, earthquakes, unclean air, industrial waste, and polluted water—resemble more an early 20th-century than a 21st-century nation.  

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17600/lebanon-fall-iran

There is growing concern among the Lebanese and other Arabs that Iran is planning to exploit the severe political, economic and financial crisis in Lebanon to complete its takeover of the country.

Iran already has a political and military presence in Lebanon through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The current crisis, however, is likely to facilitate Iran’s mission of adding Lebanon to the list of countries it already occupies: Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

“Iran is already very dangerous without a nuclear bomb. The region is witnessing a state of chaos and agitation by fundamentalist forces, which threaten all Arab countries without exception.” — Mishary Dhayidi, Saudi writer, Al-Arabiya, July 21, 2021

The Arabs appear clearly worried about the perceived apathy of the US and other Western powers towards Iran’s scheme to extend its control to Lebanon. They seem particularly alarmed that Lebanon will meet the same fate as Iraq, Syria and Yemen…. thanks to Iran’s continuous efforts to export terrorism and the “Islamic Revolution” to the Arab countries.

[T]he mullahs in Tehran are doubly dangerous: they aspire not only to develop nuclear weapons, but also to occupy Arab states.

There is growing concern among the Lebanese and other Arabs that Iran is planning to exploit the severe political, economic and financial crisis in Lebanon to complete its takeover of the country.

Iran already has a political and military presence in Lebanon through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The current crisis, however, is likely to facilitate Iran’s mission of adding Lebanon to the list of countries it already occupies: Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/07/theyre-your-problem-now-mr-putin/

Having spent two years of my life on the border between the contemporary Uzbekistan and Afghanistan as a Soviet Army conscript medic many years ago, my take on the Western withdrawal from this sad place is quite different from what might be called the op-ed page consensus. It was painfully obvious that the Western attempt to help Afghans build a modern state had no chance of success because it never gained popular support. The long-term presence of a Western military coalition in Afghanistan was a grievous political miscalculation, not least because it allowed an increasingly aggressive Russia to direct its resources towards achieving its expansionist goals instead of defending its southern borders. Astonishingly, Western governments persisted with this folly for 20 years, the result being no gain whatsoever. In reality, Western forces were protecting Russia and China from radical Islam’s penetration instead of looking after its members’ own best interests.

At last the penny dropped! The ‘sudden’ withdrawal of Western forces has nothing to do with abandonment of the Afghani people to the Taliban’s less-than-tender mercies as it never won hearts and minds — quite the opposite. What we’re about to see is the beginning of the pushback by the West against Russia and China, the beginning of the America’s embrace of asymmetrical war. The fact of the matter is that this withdrawal has created a political vacuum and the related need for it to be filled.  In one  stroke the US has created a pressure point for the Russians to contain and on which they will be obliged to spend their limited resources. What
goes around, as they say, comes around.