RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/10/locked-down-in-london/

Leaving the re-opened London Library (masks compulsory throughout, all borrowed books subject to sterilisation) in the late afternoon I walk through a West End so desolate it could be the set for an apocalyptic film. All but a handful of its scores of cafes, restaurants and drinking places have closed, many of them permanently. Not only are there no tourists or theatregoers, but most of the businesspeople have not come back, despite the end of lockdown. The staff in the Jermyn Street gentlemen’s shirtmakers, bootmakers and hairdressers try not to look like men and women contemplating unemployment and poverty. 

Other, more residential quarters of the capital have returned to busyness. But even on the busiest high streets there are bleak stretches of boarded-up shops and restaurants. Things were not good on the high street even before COVID-19. High rates—the business-destroying property taxes on which the English exchequer excessively relies—high rents, internet shopping, and the drift away from communal entertainment had all taken their toll. The lockdown turned the possible demise of thousands of enterprises into certainties. For most people, or at least most people over thirty-five, it is sad to see the end of so many pubs, butchers’ shops, newsagents, cinemas, grocery stores and the abundant cheerful cafes that enlivened British life and improved British coffee-drinking taste after the 1980s. For others, especially the sort of person who sees all technological or internet-related change as an unqualified good, or who prefers to communicate or be entertained while physically alone, none of this seems like a great loss.

Among the British political and journalistic class there seems to be remarkably little concern about the economic impact of the lockdown, the millions of jobs that have already been lost, or the likely political and psychological impact of mass unemployment and impoverishment.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16616/pasteur-noble-vision

It is Communist China the source of COVID-19, and a country that has, as its openly stated aim, global domination. Equally dangerous are those in league with Beijing. Their eyes are on cheap labor and a market of 1.5 billion consumers. These sympathizers wish, for their personal profit, to trade away the future of our democracy. They are collaborating with Marxist Communists and need to be exposed and held accountable for being accomplices to tyranny and the deaths of more than 1,000,000 people by the virus exported by China.

Pasteur’s Noble Vision stands in stark contrast to a Vision of Evil as he reminds us that, “It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes… (and)… It is in the power of man to cause all infectious diseases to disappear from the world.”

It is Communist China that will use anyone and any means to reduce America to a second rate power.

“It is not the germs we need worry about. It is our inner terrain,” Louis Pasteur put the world on notice.

One of the greatest microbiologist in history is still warning all of us about where the real danger lies in this era of politics and pandemic. It is important to look beyond COVID and see what really threatens our nation’s future.

It is Communist China, the source of COVID-19, and a country that has, as its openly stated aim, global domination. Equally dangerous are those in league with Beijing. Their eyes are on cheap labor and a market of 1.5 billion consumers. These sympathizers wish, for their personal profit, to trade away the future of our democracy. They are collaborating with Marxist Communists and need to be exposed and held accountable for being accomplices to tyranny and the deaths of more than 1,000,000 people by the virus exported by China. It is Communist China that will use anyone and any means to reduce America to a second rate power.

Pasteur’s Noble Vision stands in stark contrast to a Vision of Evil as he reminds us that, “It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes… (and)… It is in the power of man to cause all infectious diseases to disappear from the world.”

Every American patriot needs to heed Pasteur. Our central problem is not about germs. It is about those from China abroad and their Fifth Columnists at home who are trying to destroy our freedoms and control the Free World. The warning is clear for those wise enough to hear it. It is time to act.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16615/erdogan-armenia-azerbaijan

The emergence of Turkey as a key player in the latest eruption of violence in the disputed Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh needs to be seen within the context of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambition of recreating the Ottoman Empire.

As the bitter fighting intensifies between Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan over the disputed territory in the Caucasus Mountains, it has emerged that Mr Erdogan is supplying the Azeris with weapons and mercenaries in their campaign to reclaim control of the enclave.

Apart from supplying conventional weapons, there have been suggestions that Turkish-made cluster bombs — which are banned under international law — have been used in attacks on Armenian positions.

In addition, Ankara has been accused of sending Syrian rebels to Azerbaijan to help with its campaign to reclaim the enclave.

Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan, which could prove to be decisive in the conflict, stems from Mr Erdogan’s determination to recreate the glory of the Ottoman Empire, when Turkey formed the epicentre of the Muslim world.

Although the territory that now constitutes modern Azerbaijan was never under direct Ottoman control, the local tribes came under the influence of Muslim Turks, to the extent that many Azeris today speak a form of Turkish dialect.

More recently the bond between Turkey and Azerbaijan has resulted in the two countries undertaking joint military exercises on a regular basis.

Never one to miss an opportunity to expand Turkey’s influence in the Muslim world, Mr Erdogan has been quick to lend his backing to Azerbaijan in its bid to reclaim control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Within hours of the conflict erupting, the Turkish president tweeted, “The Turkish people will support our Azerbaijani brothers with all our means as always,” adding for good measure that Armenia was “the biggest threat to regional peace.”

The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s when the territory, whose population is primarily Armenian, opted to break away from the control of neighbouring Azerbaijan, a country composed mainly of Shiite Muslims.

The decision prompted a bitter war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1992 after both countries gained independence from the Soviet Union, claiming the lives of an estimated 30,000 people.

Since then an uneasy truce has settled on the region as a result of a Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1994.

The latest outbreak of violence — the most serious to affect the region since the early 1990s — began at the end of last month, after Azerbaijan was accused of launching a full-scale assault against Armenian positions in the mountainous enclave, prompting a full-scale mobilisation of Armenian forces.

During the recent fighting, it is estimated that more than 300 people have been killed and thousands forced from their homes as the fighting has intensified.

On one level, Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan is not surprising in view of its long and troubled relationship with the Armenian people, with the Turks accused of being responsible the systematic mass murder and expulsion of around 1.5 million Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.

Even so, Mr Erdogan’s intervention in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute puts him at odds with another major power with aspirations to increase its influence in the region, namely Russia.

Russia regards Armenia as an important regional ally, and maintains an important military base at the country’s second largest city, Gyumri.

Consequently, Mr Erdogan needs to proceed with caution so far as his support for Azerbaijan is concerned. Otherwise he could find that Russian interest in the Caucasus presents a formidable obstacle to his plans to recreate Turkey’s Ottoman glory.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph’s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/02/the-end-of-the-age-of-insurgency/

This week marks 20 years since the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The years that followed witnessed bus and café bombings perpetrated by organizations wrapped in the banners of insurgent political Islam, most importantly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Their tactics—including suicide bombings and the deliberate targeting of civilians—were borrowed from an earlier generation of Islamists, the Shiite jihadis of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

The history of the past 20 years marks the rise of the revolutionary political idea of insurgent political Islam—but also its sudden decline. For a distinct period, bottom-up Islamism was the most vital political ideology in the Middle East, capturing the energy that was once invested in pan-Arab nationalism in an earlier era. Islamism’s ongoing eclipse is no less stark than the similar decline of its predecessor ideology.

The Second Intifada was the first eruption of political Islam in its insurgent form against a Western democracy (Sunni Islamism had already risen against and been defeated by the Syrian and Algerian regimes in the 1980s and ‘90s, respectively.) It felt unfamiliar at first, but would quickly become a harbinger. One year later, as Israel was still in the middle of its assault of suicide bombings, al Qaeda destroyed the twin towers in New York. That attack—together with subsequent ones in Madrid, London, and Paris—ushered in a global focus on the issue of insurgent political Islam.

https://www.newsweek.com/uns-human-rights-council-grows-more-odious-opinion-1537222

With freedom and democracy in retreat now for more than a decade around the world, the United Nations General Assembly is poised to take a step in coming days that, if anything, will make the problem worse.

In a vote scheduled for Tuesday, the General Assembly is expected to fill 15 openings on the UN’s 47-member Human Rights Council by approving new three-year terms for such leading human rights abusers as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Cuba—most of which will be returning members. Joining them will be such problematic countries as Bolivia, Cote d’Ivoire, Nepal, Malawi and Senegal. Rounding out the new 15 will be the only two countries that, while surely not perfect, unhesitatingly deserve membership—Britain and France.

“Electing these dictatorships as UN judges on human rights,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group, “is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade.”

To be clear, the new autocratic members will not be tarnishing an otherwise-effective, well-functioning body. Instead, they will be joining what is already an institution that does little to improve human rights around the world, choosing instead to focus overwhelming attention on Israel. Consequently, most of the new members will likely just take a bad situation and make it worse.

Created in 2006, the Human Rights Council has merely picked up where its justifiably maligned predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, left off. It has made Israel its only permanent agenda item, meaning that it discusses the Jewish state at each of its three meetings a year. It has focused its investigations and resolutions overwhelmingly on Israel while ignoring far more egregious problems elsewhere. And it has created a “blacklist” of companies that do business with companies in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16598/netherlands-free-speech-geert-wilders

“[T]his is not just about my freedom of speech, but about everyone’s…” — Geert Wilders.

“But for all of us it was absolutely obvious that we all wanted to live in a society where people can…. present their views… and not to be punished for this. It is called the town square test, where every person can go in the center of the town, say what he or she thinks, what she believes, to insist on their right to promote these views, and will not be arrested and will not be punished for this. And if that is possible, that is a free society. If it is not permitted it is a fear society. And there is nothing in between.” — Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident, November 30, 2004.

The Netherlands is a party to the European Convention of Human Rights, article 10 of which states the following: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers…”

In its case law, the European Court of Human Rights has stated that Article 10 protects not only “the information or ideas that are regarded as inoffensive but also those that offend, shock or disturb; such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness without which there is no democratic society. Opinions expressed in strong or exaggerated language are also protected.”

What seems offensive is often extremely subjective…. Speech with which everyone agrees does not need protection.

In the light of the case law of the European Human Rights Court, which specifically protects the political speech of political actors and political campaigns, it is difficult to see how the question Wilders posed could legitimately be limited in accordance with article 10 (2). Wilders did not incite to violence, nor did he jeopardize national security or public safety or any of the other concerns noted as relevant to limiting free speech.

A Dutch appeals court recently upheld the conviction of Dutch politician Geert Wilders for supposedly insulting Moroccans in comments he made at an election rally in 2014. At the same time, however, the appeals court overturned Wilders’ conviction for inciting hatred or discrimination against Moroccans.

At an election rally in The Hague in March 2014, as leader of the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom), reportedly the country’s most popular opposition party today, Wilders asked those present, whether they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans?” After the crowd chanted “fewer, fewer” Wilders said, “We’re going to organize that.”

Wilders was prosecuted and convicted in December 2016 on two counts: First for “deliberately insulting a group of people because of their race.” Second, for “inciting hatred or discrimination against these people.” Wilders did not receive any punishment then, nor will he now: Judge Jan Maarten Reinking stated, “The accused has already for years paid a high price for expressing his opinion,” referring to the fact that Wilders has lived under constant police protection for more than a decade and still receives constant threats. Most recently, Al Qaeda issued a threat against Geert Wilders, among others. “Terrible news,” Wilders called the threat.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16611/afghanistan-women

That the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February promised a U.S. withdrawal of troops by May 2021, but did not address women’s rights, may signal a bad start.

Over the past 19 years and three administrations, U.S. support has made an undeniably significant contribution to improving the lives of Afghan women and girls. There is abundant evidence across the board — in women’s political participation, economic opportunities, education, and health.

Despite the “lessons learned” of the Promote boondoggle, the fact that women have gained a stronger voice and attained the remarkable progress they did, was due in large part to programs supported by the United States and our allies.

A great example is how Afghanistan has been able to rebuild an education system that had basically stopped functioning. In 2001, about 900,000 students were in primary school — almost all of them male. Today, more than 8 million students are in school, and though more must be done, nearly 40 percent of them are girls. The statistics tell the story. According to leading economist Larry Summers, educating girls “may well be the highest return investment available in the developing world.”

Some might regard these women as “exceptions to the rule” but in reality they are exceptional women who — thanks to US support — have worked long and hard to change the rules. And when they move forward, the rest of the world moves with them.

Continued U.S. investment in Afghan women and their families is the right and strategic thing to do — not just for Afghanistan but for our own national interests, those of our new allies in the region and for all of the Free World.

While the world watches the Afghan government peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar, the Trump Administration continues to roll out its signature initiative to advance the role of women in peace negotiations. Ironically, for the U.S. government and its noteworthy agenda on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), Afghanistan is where, as they say, the rubber meets the road. The world will know how serious the U.S. is about implementing WPS when we see how Afghan women fare in the coming months. That the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February promised a U.S. withdrawal of troops by May 2021, but did not address women’s rights, may signal a bad start.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/07/the-chinese-gutting-of-america/

Just as China has gutted America’s manufacturing base, it has gutted most of our nation’s foundational institutions.

When President Trump imposed import duties on a wide range of Chinese goods, we discovered just how reliant our nation had become on the communist People’s Republic of China for a wide array of manufactured and finished goods.  

A parade of American businesses petitioned the U.S. government to exempt some 13,000 different items from tariffs.

We are by now familiar with the empty factories across the country that once turned out auto parts, appliances, and consumer electronics, all shuttered by cheap imports from China. 

But who knew that the officially atheist nation whose regime persecutes people of faith prints most of the Bibles we read at home and in church? Our worship services depend on China.

Or that China produces the specialized drill bits used to extract oil and gas from the ground? Our energy industries depend on China.

And of course, the Chinese virus revealed just how dependent our health care had become on China.

But more than just these hard industries have been hollowed out. We see the same pattern repeated in academia, finance, media and government.

We have long regarded our institutions of higher education as the crown jewels of America, shrines of academic freedom and free inquiry as well as technical expertise. When they returned home, the story was that students from across the globe would carry the bedrock Western values inculcated by our universities and liberalize the world.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/turkish-president-erdogan-declares-jerusalem-has-hugh-fitzgerald/

Erdogan addressed the opening of the Turkish Parliament on October 1 with a ringing declaration that “Jerusalem Has Been Our City For Thousands of Years.” The “our” in “our city” seemed to refer now to the Turks, and now to the “Palestinian people.” The story is here.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday implied that Jerusalem belongs to Turkey, referring to the Ottoman Empire’s control over the city for much of the modern era.

In this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance. So Jerusalem is our city, a city from us,” he told Turkish lawmakers during a major policy speech in Ankara. “Our first qibla [direction of prayer in Islam] al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem are the symbolic mosques of our faith. In addition, this city is home to the holy places of Christianity and Judaism.”

The Turks were the colonial masters of Jerusalem for 400 years, from 1516 to 1917, ruling over Muslim Arabs, Jews, and Christians too. If those 400 years of rule means that “Jerusalem is our [Turkish] city,” then what should we say about Istanbul, which as Constantinople was for more than a thousand years the richest and most important city in Christendom? Jerusalem has been lived in continuously by Jews for the last 3500 years; the archaeological evidence of that Jewish presence in the city has been found at thousands of sites – ancient synagogues, homes, tombstones, wine-presses, oil lamps, pottery – much of it with Hebrew inscriptions, with more such evidence being uncovered by archaeologists every year. Does President Erdogan expect the Western world to overlook all that? When Jerusalem was the first qibla, for just a few years before 624 A.D., when Muhammad replaced it with Mecca, Jews had already been living in Jerusalem for more than 2000 years.

The Ottoman Empire ruled over Jerusalem from 1516 to 1917. Modern Turkey, its successor state, has long stressed its enduring connection to the holy city, regularly condemning Israel’s alleged efforts to “judaize” it and the US administration’s December 2017 recognition of it as Israel’s capital. Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since the country’s founding, and the Jewish people have thousands of years of history in the city, backed up by extensive archaeological finds.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/big-promises-macron-bruce-bawer/

Beset by Communist riots, the China plague, and a campaign-season spike in Trump Derangement Syndrome, Americans have rarely been so disinclined to look abroad. But despite our stateside navel-gazing, life in Europe goes on, for better or worse. Take France.

Last Friday, French president Emmanuel Macron delivered what, on the face of it, seemed to be a remarkable speech on Islam. Macron, it will be recalled, has played both sides of the fence on this one. In 2015, while serving as Minister of the Economy, he described mass immigration as “an economic opportunity” – this at a time when French suburbs were packed with Muslims who were quite obviously a huge economic liability. Macron pointedly dismissed French voters’ concern about the nation’s failure to integrate newcomers: “This is not a subject on which we must govern by the polls,” he said. “History has shown that when we sometimes follow the will of the people, especially in difficult times, we are wrong.” Of course, immigration policy in Western Europe has never have anything whatsoever to do with the will of the people.   

Two years later, Macron remained sanguine, chiding those who “confuse terrorists with asylum seekers and refugees” – as if terrorism were the only problem created by the influx of Muslims into Europe.