RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/with_the_election_of_raisi_its_time_to_get_real_with_iran.html

If you thought that Iran could not get more extreme, think again. It just did. Remember the name Ebrahim Raisi. He is the new leader of Iran. 

His ambitions were clear for decades. He marks himself out from the rest by wearing a black turban. This is significant. It is a personal statement, as well as a commitment of faith, in which he declares himself (wrongly) as a descendent of the Prophet Mohammad. In other words, his words, his orders, come from Allah himself. 

Photo credit: khameni.ir

He is omnipotent.

He was there, as a student, demanding overthrow of the Shah of Persia in 1979 that led to the Islamic Revolution.

After the Revolution, he joined the judiciary and became the Deputy Prosecutor in Tehran at the age of 25. 

In that capacity, he sat as one of four judges in a secret tribunal set up in 1988 that became known as the “Death Committee.”

This committee of judges retried political prisoners who had already been sentenced, but instead of commuting their sentences they decreed death on what human rights groups have described as thousands of men and women.

After execution, they were buried in unmarked graves. 

After Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, considered a moderate, complained about the mass executions, calling them “the biggest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic” he lost his position as the successor of Khomeini. That went to hardliner Ayatollah Khamenei who became Supreme Leader after Khomeini’s death.

Raisi went on to serve as the chief prosecutor of Tehran before becoming the State Inspectorate Organization head and later in 2014 the Iranian Prosecutor General. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/no-remorse-china-now-says-the-wuhan-lab-deserves-a-nobel-prize/?utm_source=

The Chinese Foreign Ministry argues that the Wuhan Institute of Virology deserves to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine; a look at the blatant contradictions in China’s propaganda about vaccine diplomacy; a senator shrugs off his membership in an all-white private beach club; and apparently progressives can’t find anything to enjoy this summer.

China: The Wuhan Institute of Virology Deserves the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Late last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences nominated the Wuhan Institute of Virology for its Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize, specifically naming Shi Zhengli, a.k.a. “Bat Woman,” and Yuan Zhiming, director of the WIV’s Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory.

Chinese state-run media explained that, “The award is mainly given to individuals or research groups who have made or demonstrated significant achievements in the past five years . . . China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson stressed at Thursday’s press conference that scientists working at the WIV should be awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine, rather than being blamed for being the first to discover the gene sequence of the novel coronavirus.”

We must admit, the Institute’s work really has touched all of our lives, hasn’t it? And just think how many medical breakthroughs we’ve seen in the past 18 months from Pfizer and Moderna and Oxford and Johnson & Johnson that never would have occurred if hadn’t been for the earlier work of the Wuhan Institute of Virology? The WIV’s work literally brought the world to a screeching halt. It even made late-night television funny again.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/israel_is_worried_about_ebrahim_the_butcher_raisi_irans_new_president.html

In the last two days, three interesting stories have emerged from the Middle East. The first story is about Ebrahim “the Butcher” Raisi’s election as president in Iran; the second is Israel’s announcement that this election forces it to protect itself against this butcher; and the third is news that Iran’s sole nuclear power plant abruptly shut down. The first and second stories are quite obviously connected. The real question is whether the third story is a promise of things to come or is just a coincidence.

That Raisi was going to be president is no surprise to regular American Thinker readers. Both Hassan Mahmoudi and Hamid Enayat wrote that Ayatollah Khamenei, who is the ultimate power in Iran, was backing Raisi’s election, making it a done deal. They also wrote that the men (and women) on Iran’s streets are deeply distressed by Raisi’s elevation because he is known to be a mad butcher, who willingly turned his sadism on his own citizens.

This is not hyperbole. Even the New York Times has acknowledged that Raisi’s crimes against humanity are so bad that both the U.S. and the European Union have placed him on sanctions lists. The Times, though, is a bit shy about telling the details, simply noting that,

In 1988, when he was Tehran’s deputy prosecutor general, Mr. Raisi was implicated in one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of the Islamic Republic. He sat on a four-man committee that sent about 5,000 imprisoned government opponents to their deaths, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations. Many were executed in prison even though they had not been sentenced to death, according to rights groups and relatives of the dead.

Britain’s Sun is not so shy. And while there are doubts about whether Raisi was responsible for 5,000 deaths or as many as 30,000, the details about what he did seem clear. According to first-hand reports, in true Che Guevara fashion, Raisi and his fellow committee members lined men, women, and children up against walls and had them shot.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/canada-university-uses-critical-race-theory-fight-robert-spencer/

The Agassiz-Harrison Observer out in British Columbia reported Thursday that at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV), a vanguard academic institution if there ever was one, is striking a blow this week against one of the great evils of our time: “As part of the Peace and Reconciliation Centre’s (PARC) Peace Talks series, on June 23 the centre will host a webinar from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., addressing Islamophobia.” What a relief! And even better, in a meeting of academic fads that one day will look as dated as Nehru jackets and bell-bottom trousers, they’re hauling out Critical Race Theory to fight “Islamophobia.”

As if that weren’t enough modern academic street cred, the university’s website explains that the university is “situated on the unceded traditional territory of the Stó:lō peoples. The Stó:lōhave an intrinsic relationship with what they refer to as S’olhTemexw (Our Sacred Land); therefore, we express our gratitude and respect for the honour of living and working in this territory.”

Dr. Keith Carlson, director of UFV’s Peace and Reconciliation Centre, and his colleagues certainly would never dream of suggesting that the Stó:lō peoples practice “systemic Islamophobia” on their unceded traditional territory, but those evil white Canadians certainly do, apparently, and so the good Dr. Carlson is here to fix the problem. To do so, the upcomingwebinar offers a hodgepodge of the currently trendy academic shibboleths and superstitions.

The webinar will “draw on lived experience, post-colonial studies, and critical race theory to help understand the roots of Islamophobia and the structures that continue to sustain it.”

Islam is not a race, and Muslims are not all of one race. There are Muslims, and Islamic jihadis, of all races. To bring critical race theory into a discussion of “Islamophobia” is like a child who has a new toy and has to bring it everywhere, no matter how inappropriate the setting, and demonstrates the Left’s determination to racialize every issue and portray everyone who disagrees with their agenda as a “racist.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/honoring-jimmy-lai-11624248153?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

The Committee to Project Journalists was founded 40 years ago to fight for journalists who are “attacked, imprisoned or killed.” In this spirit, the CPJ on Monday announced it is honoring Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai with its 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. Mr. Lai, the founder, owner and contributor to the Apple Daily newspaper, won’t be able to accept the award in person because he sits in prison in Hong Kong.

The CPJ honor comes after another police raid on the newsroom last week. Five Apple Daily execs were arrested, and two—editor-in-chief Ryan Law and chief executive officer Cheung Kim-hung —were charged under the new national security law and thus denied bail. The CPJ notes that Mr. Lai “fights for the right of his Apple News organization to publish freely, even as China and its backers in Hong Kong use every tool to quash them.”

The grim news is that those who want Apple silenced may be succeeding. We have learned that Apple may be only days away from stopping its presses. This itself is a lesson in freedom. Instead of directly censoring the publication, Hong Kong authorities, backed by China, have targeted the lifeblood of any news organization, its business operations.

The lesson of Apple is that freedom of the press doesn’t exist in the abstract. It depends on property rights. By freezing Apple’s corporate accounts, by stopping Mr. Lai from voting his shares (he holds 72% of the company), and by scaring people from advertising in Apple or doing business with it, Hong Kong has been trying to deny the paper the wherewithal to continue. Lenin understood this more than a century ago, recommending that Communists control newsprint and advertising to bring the press to heel.

There’s a warning here for other Hong Kong business enterprises that may not think they have a stake in what happens to Mr. Lai or Apple. Hong Kong authorities are stealing Mr. Lai’s company because they don’t like his political views—and they have done it by police orders, without due process or judicial review. If they can do it to his company, does anyone really believe they won’t do it to a bank or tech company that offends China?

The men and women at Apple have been making a valiant stand to keep publishing despite the risk of arrest and imprisonment. They are an example of real journalistic courage that should educate an American media that likes to play up its bravery in challenging the government while living under the protection of the First Amendment and a free society. Mr. Lai and his journalists have put their freedom at risk to challenge a real tyranny.

The CPJ award is richly deserved, and it should put a global spotlight on what is happening to Mr. Lai and Apple. As China’s Communist Party seeks to expand its political control over critics world-wide, often with the acquiescence of Hollywood and U.S. tech companies, Jimmy Lai speaks for everyone fighting for the cause of liberty.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-sends-a-message-to-biden-11624130662?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Islamic Republic of Iran isn’t a real democracy. But the result of Friday’s presidential election still reveals important truths about the government that the U.S. and Europe are trying to appease on nuclear weapons.

Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s chief justice, won the presidency with about 62% of the vote, according to preliminary results published Saturday. Sometimes discussed as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei —who wields the real power in Iran, particularly over foreign affairs—Mr. Raisi had the race wrapped up before the polls opened.

The Guardian Council, Iran’s election watchdog, has long barred candidates not to the Supreme Leader’s liking. But past races have been competitive and even unpredictable, giving Iranians a small voice in deciding their future. Approved candidates are always loyal to the Islamic Republic and its revolutionary ideology. But some, like lame-duck President Hassan Rouhani, spoke the language of moderation and reform even as they followed the Khamenei line.

Iranians understand they live in a dictatorship but have often voted in high numbers to choose their least bad option. Initial results suggest this year’s race had turnout around 50%—down from more than 70% four years ago and the lowest of any vote since 1979. Millions decided to boycott this year’s election as the country’s already small spectrum of permissible views grew even smaller.

Last month the Guardian Council culled dozens of candidates, including many ostensible centrists or reformers. Of the seven candidates approved to run, three dropped out shortly before the contest—paving the way for Mr. Raisi, who is typically described as a hard-liner or ultraconservative cleric.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17469/china-and-russia

The actions of the Beijing government since the earliest days of concern about the disease have shown in stark relief how a closed, authoritarian society tries to deny and shift blame for its misdeeds. How it seeks to co-opt international health agencies. How it tries to bribe foreigners to do its bidding. How it has infected more than not just American bodies, but American society and its institutions at many levels.

Almost no one in American politics, on the Left or Right, has been hailing the Chinese communist government for its efforts to stem the fourth deadly pathogen to come from its shores and devastate the rest of the world. The Chinese government concealed all information about how the virus originated, encouraging speculation they did so intentionally. According to Gordon Chang, they may even be preparing to do so again, only worse…. By comparison, Russia’s crimes against the West, real and imagined, amount to a relative nuisance.

Foreign policy, however, is made towards nations, not individual leaders. In geo-political terms it asks: What is another country’s ability to help you, or harm you?

In the 1980s no one would have suggested that Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, or Muamar Qaddafi was America’s greatest enemy. They were obnoxious sideshows, annoying tinpot dictators with a flair for the microphone, but not existential threats on the order of the Soviet Union.

What this poll suggests is that threat assessment has somehow become a partisan issue, based on political grudges and perceptions that have little to do with a particular nation’s real capacity to damage American interests. The divide among Republicans and Democrats between China and Russia as our largest threat fails to account for a modern analysis of China’s power, influence, aggressiveness in action, and willingness to corrupt American political and cultural leaders. It should not be a partisan issue, no matter how obnoxious one nation’s current leader may be.

Putin loves to tweak America; Xi prefers quieter, more damaging forms of aggression.

It is vital for American voters to understand that bribery is a key part of doing business for both China and Russia.

No matter how much he might like to, Vladimir Putin cannot threaten the balance sheets of huge American companies such as Apple and Microsoft; China could do it tomorrow.

Imagine yourself sitting at a poker table with one opponent who fingers his dwindling stack of chips while glowering at you and daring you to bump the pot. Meanwhile, your other opponent with more chips sits quietly behind his cards while his paid spies behind your chair signal him the contents of your hand.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17481/china-g7

While Obama looked the other way, China militarized a string of atolls in seas around it as part of a long-term plan to forge an aggressive profile against its neighbor and the United States.

The Chinese challenge can and must be met both in the global arena and inside the People’s Republic itself. Any move in that direction would require a realistic assessment of the People’s Republic in terms of hard and soft power.

China’s pursuit of global power and influence is modelled on the Western empire-buildings of the 19th century, which consisted of importing raw material, exporting manufactured goods, and weaving networks of trade with the help of a seemingly endless flow of settlers, gunboats and colonial outposts across the globe. China cannot fully adopt that model for a number of reasons. Its model is based on the assumption that capitalism can forever do without democracy, something that the experience of the Western imperial powers of the past proved to be fallacious.

At the G7 summit in Cornwall last weekend, US President Joe Biden warned his fellow-summiteers that unless something was done “China would eat our lunch.” Did Biden overegg the pudding with his colorful language or is the world ignoring the invisible chopsticks at work?

In a sense China, as the biggest trading partner of almost all the G7 members, is already eating part of their lunch while it is clear that without Western investment, technology and, of course, markets, China might have remained hungry and stuck between the madness of Maoism and the inertia of Ah-Quism.

Biden, of all people, should know all that. For it was during the Obama administration in which Biden was part of the décor that the “Asia-Pacific” cliché was launched as the principal future direction of the US global strategy. While Obama looked the other way, China militarized a string of atolls in seas around it as part of a long-term plan to forge an aggressive profile against its neighbor and the United States.

The Europeans saw the “Asia-Pacific” motif as a signal that China was the future and that they had better put as many chips on its number as they could.

Like his other grandiose schemes, Obama’s “Asia-Pacific” failed because his administration was unable to define China’s place in the global system and its relations with the United States. Unable to decide whether China was friend or foe, Obama, the quintessential ego-worshipper, believed his charm would be sufficient to coax China into the channel he desired.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/18/is-it-racist-to-confront-a-suicide-bomber/

The independent inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing of May 2017, in which 22 pop fans were killed by an Islamist extremist, has published the first volume of its report. It makes for chilling reading. The inquiry has found there were numerous ‘missed opportunities’ to confront Salman Abedi, the bomber, and potentially stop him from detonating the device in his rucksack. Most chilling of all is the reason given by one of the key security guards on patrol that evening as to why he failed to question Abedi. He was worried, he said, that asking a brown-skinned man why he was hanging around the arena might be construed as racist.

Take that in. There was a very shifty-looking young man around the foyer and mezzanine of the Manchester Arena towards the end of an Ariana Grande concert, carrying a ‘bulging’ rucksack so large he ‘struggled’ under the weight of it, and a security guard was reluctant to confront him lest he be accused of racism. In the words of the report, this was a significant ‘missed opportunity’. The ‘inadequacy’ of the security guard’s response to the presence of a highly suspicious individual was one of the many misjudgements made on that black, fateful night, the report says. Is it possible that the fear of being thought of as racist is screwing up everyday life, and even hindering sensible action in threatening situations?

To be clear, the security guard who was cagey about questioning Abedi is not responsible for the failure to stop Abedi from detonating his device. The first volume of the inquiry’s report – which covers security at and around the arena on the night of 22 May 2017 – criticises certain individuals, including the security guard, for not doing their jobs diligently enough. But it says that it was the organisations responsible for security at the arena – the arena’s own security firm and also the British Transport Police – that were ‘principally’ to blame for the ‘missed opportunities’. It also makes the reasonable point that it is impossible to know what would have happened if Abedi had been confronted. It proposes that there may still have been loss of life – if, for example, he had detonated his device while being questioned – but that it would have been less severe than the horrors that shortly unfolded.