RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/belarus-on-the-brink-11596756409?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is facing the most serious challenge to his quarter-century rule, but he won’t leave without a fight. Instability in the country of 9.5 million could open another front for Russian aggression along the European Union’s border.

Mr. Lukashenko prevented several rivals from running in this Sunday’s presidential election. But Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wife of a banned candidate, has presented a surprisingly robust challenge. Tens of thousands have attended rallies to support Ms. Tikhanovskaya, who is running on pro-democratic reforms that would bring Belarus closer to the West. She also promises to resign after six months and order a fresh election.

Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Mr. Lukashenko rules as an authoritarian but tries to derive legitimacy from unfair elections. Both men have seen their once genuine popularity decline thanks to economic mismanagement, frustration with curtailed political freedom, and especially a bungled response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Like his Russian counterpart, Mr. Lukashenko won’t accept any outcome but victory in rigged elections.

Independent observers have been detained while documenting thousands of election-law violations in early voting. If opposition supporters feel they’ve been robbed, as they almost certainly will, expect protests. Mr. Lukashenko won’t hesitate to violently suppress dissent, but the depth of public disdain means the demonstrators won’t back down easily.

https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/HJS-British-Muslim-An

Dear friends,
 

I am delighted to launch HJS’ latest work on the scourge of anti-Semitism in the UK, authored by Dr Rakib Ehsan.  We have focussed specifically on anti-Semitism within the Muslim community.  Sadly, the results are by no means reassuring.
 
The research finds that 44% of British Muslims admit to believing that British Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the UK  – a common form of anti-Semitism.  Just 13% could bring themselves to say that Jews were more loyal to the UK than Israel.

These shocking findings are not limited to so-called ‘dual loyalty’.  More British Muslims believe that Jews have too much control over the global banking system (34%) than do not (23%).  The same is true for politics, entertainment, the arms industry, and the media.  

There is no category of enterprise, that we polled, in which more British Muslims disagreed with the statement that Jews had too much control than agreed with it.  Similar polling of the public at large reveals that these levels of belief are far in excess of the wider population’s views.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/05/polands-geopolitical-future-and-americas-role-in-it/

The greatest significance of the recent victory of President Andrzej Duda of Poland in the presidential election over his liberal and pro-German opponent is international, not domestic. Poland is where the clash of geopolitical futures is occurring right now among the top world powers.

Russia dominated Poland until the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and it is trying to preserve remnants of its influence. Germany acquired a position of dominance in the early 1990s. It made many business investments in Poland to produce inputs for German industry, and 28 percent of Polish trade is with Germany. It also invested in the politics of Poland with numerous grants to Polish organizations, scholarships, and cultural programs. This symbiosis was agreeable to both countries and peaked with Poland’s 2004 admittance to the European Union. It was a great boon to Poland’s economic development but now the EU increasingly is regarded as a heavy-handed tool of Germany. 

The biggest disagreement between Poland and Germany concerns Russia. This conflict demonstrates itself in numerous issues such as NATO, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and many others. Poland pays its 2 percent of GDP NATO requirement, loves America, and is positive about the presence of U.S. troops, while Germany spends little on defense, has an army that is far from fighting status, and fosters anti-Americanism. Germany is constructing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to become a distribution hub of Russian natural gas in Europe, which will increase its vulnerability to Russian blackmail. Poland is constructing pipelines and LNG terminals within the Three Seas Initiative to free Eastern Europe of the Russian natural gas monopoly and to import it from elsewhere, mainly the United States.

Polish people also remember the 1981 German support for the imposition of martial law in Poland and its lack of contribution to overcoming communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. 

/https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/slaying-and-being-slain-islams-heavenly-whores-raymond-ibrahim/

According to a July 22, 2020 article on PMW:

Since the Palestinian Authority started its terror campaign—the second Intifada—in 2000, it has been promising terrorist Martyrs that as Muslims they will be rewarded in Paradise with 72 Dark-Eyed Virgins. The promises are given in religious lessons, statements by political figures, and poems and music videos, while funeral notices are worded as “wedding” announcements.

As a recent example, the article cites a Palestinian music video that “reminds viewers that death as a ‘Martyr’ is really a ‘wedding’ to the 72 Virgins of Paradise.”  Another video shows a Palestinian cleric brainwashing young children with dreams of “martyrdom” and subsequent “marriage to the Dark Eyed Virgins of Paradise”—even as the children, who appear oblivious to his words, scream “Allahu Akbar!”

Who are these “dark-eyed virgins in paradise” that “yearn”—as another Palestinian figure phrased it—for martyrs, for those Muslims who, in the Koran’s words, “slay and are slain” (9:111)?

The proper Arabic term for these entities is hour al-‘ayn, commonly known by the English transliteration houri(s) [pronounced who-ree].  They are supernatural, celestial women—“wide-eyed” and “big-bosomed,” says the Koran (56:22, 78:33)—created by Allah for the express purpose of sexually gratifying his favorites in perpetuity.  (Whether or not the English word “whore” is etymologically connected to the Arabic houri (who-ree) appears a moot point as they both seem to serve the same function.)

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/britains-first-test-case-under-covid-laws-katie-hopkins/

Meet Fiona.

She’s a lovely English lady with a happy family, hard-working parents and a firm belief that as long as you aren’t hurting anyone else and resect the law, you should be free to live your life as you please.

Whether you choose to work like a demon, live off-grid, or identify as a cocktail sausage on a Wednesday, frankly, Fiona couldn’t care less, as long as you pay your way and mind your own business. 

Fiona is also a test case in the UK.

She is due to appear in Westminster Magistrates Court in London on 19 August and her charge sheet reads as follows:

‘On 16th May 2020 at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, London W1, without reasonable excuse, during the emergency period, other than as permitted by Regulations, you participated in a gathering in public place of more than 2 people’.

https://bit.ly/3i9VE5O

Western misreading yields devastating consequences

The Libyan turmoil is, mostly, the outcome of the 2011 reckless toppling of the Qaddafi regime by a US-led NATO offensive.  The offensive was launched despite the fact that the ruthless Qaddafi had become a fervent warrior against Islamic terrorism in Libya, North and Central Africa.  Moreover, the offensive was initiated in spite of Qaddafi’s dismantling of the Libyan nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range ballistic missile infrastructures.

The stated goal of the US-led NATO onslaught was to stop the Libyan civil war, minimize the loss of civilian lives and promote democracy and peace, as was stated during the 2003 war against Saddam Hussein…. However, the authority vacuum created by the demise of the Qaddafi regime has intensified the intrinsic fragmentation and disintegration of Libya, tribally, geographically, ideologically and religiously.  

The demise of Qaddafi yielded systematic eruptions of volcanic civil wars in Libya, intensified by a heightened presence of Islamic terror organizations, which operate globally, from Central Asia, through the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Latin America, with sleeper cells in the US. 

In defiance of the architects of the assault on Qaddafi, Libya has joined Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen as a leading epicenter of international Islamic terrorism. The Libyan pandemonium has stimulated Islamic terrorism in Europe, as well as in neighboring Egypt, the Sudan, Chad, Niger, Algeria and Tunisia, in addition to Morocco, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.

https://asiatimes.com/author/spengler-david-p-goldman/

Recent reports of a possible US$400 billion Iran-China trade deal took Washington by surprise, prompting US Secretary of State Pompeo to threaten China with comprehensive economic sanctions.

If the deal is signed, Pompeo said, “We will be sure to enforce all the provisions we have – all the sanctions we have on the Islamic Republic of Iran – applied to the Chinese Communist Party and their businesses and state-owned enterprises as well.”

That would seem to imply a complete shutdown of economic relations between the US and China, which is unlikely because China’s exports to the US comprise about a quarter of its manufacturing GDP.

Inveighing against Beijing Sunday on Fox News, Pompeo warned that “China’s entry into Iran will destabilize the Middle East. It will put Israel at risk. It will put the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates at risk as well. Iran remains the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and to have access to weapons systems and commerce and money flowing from the Chinese Communist Party only compounds that risk for that region.”

Earlier, two senior State Department officials offered a more cautious assessment of reports that Iran and China will sign a $400 billion investment deal. “The scale and feasibility of the deal deserve healthy skepticism,” Keith J Krach and Brian H Hook wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lebanon-struck-by-blast-at-beirut-port-11596556605?mod=hp_lead_pos5

BEIRUT—Dozens of people were confirmed dead and thousands more injured after a massive explosion caused by a warehouse fire rocked Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut.

The warehouse held highly explosive material, said an official with Lebanon’s army who added that the blast was likely caused by a fire and wasn’t an attack. President Trump, however, on Tuesday evening called it a “terrible attack” and said U.S. military leaders believe the explosion was caused by “a bomb of some kind.”

The explosive material, which Lebanese officials identified as ammonium nitrate, had been kept at the warehouse for the past six years, according to Prime Minister Hassan Diab. “All those responsible for this catastrophe will pay the price,” Mr. Diab said.

The explosion, which produced a giant orange mushroom cloud over the city, was yet another trauma for Beirut residents who have survived wars and numerous bombings in the past. They now face the challenge of rebuilding at a time of strained resources due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The blast is the latest blow for Lebanon, a country already reeling from multiple crises in recent months, ranging from large street protests over government corruption to an economy on the brink of collapse after years of mismanagement. Before the explosion, which shook the whole of Beirut, Lebanon’s economy was in free fall and ordinary Lebanese citizens were struggling with soaring prices of food and other goods, as well as long daily power cuts.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/china-rising-superpower-crumbling-totalitarian-machine/

To the West, the country may appear to be a rising global superpower. In truth, it’s an aging, dysfunctional, slowly crumbling totalitarian machine.

 T he national-security law that the Chinese Communist Party is using to complete its takeover of democratic Hong Kong has pretty much everyone agreeing that the era of the “One Country, Two Systems” framework developed for Hong Kong’s handover from the British to the PRC is over. From the time of the 1997 handover until now, the framework has allowed Hong Kong to exist as a semi-autonomous administrative region that has its own economic and political system but is technically a part of the PRC. But since Beijing unilaterally imposed the national-security law in June, Hong Kong elections have been canceled, pro-freedom professors have been fired or arrested, and democrats have been banned from politics. For Hong Kong, “one country, two systems” is finished.

On the mainland, though, “one country, two systems” isn’t a framework so much as an accurate description of the status quo. Ironically, Beijing is all too happy for the world to focus on the demise of the official “one country, two systems” policy in Hong Kong if it distracts from the decay and systemic weakness that plague the mainland. The CCP’s crackdown on Hong Kong, its trade standoff with the U.S., its growing militarism in the Pacific, and other ostentatious public displays of Chinese strength are meant to hide the rot underneath.

For in truth, on the mainland today, there are two Chinas. There is the China of densely populated, modern urban centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, and there is the China of everywhere else. The China of everywhere else is dollars-a-day poor, uneducated, and aging. It is also vast, containing some 600–700 million people, or about half of the total Chinese population.