RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16353/belarus-protests

“You speak about unfair elections and want fair ones? I have an answer for you. We had the elections. Unless you kill me, there will be no other elections.” — Alexander Lukashenko, Tass News Agency, August 17, 2020.

Lukashenko’s crackdown on the protests has been particularly severe: Some 6,700 have been detained since protests erupted in the evening of August 9, at least two people have died and many more have been wounded. Riot police have used rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of peaceful demonstrators.

“Crowds outside a detention centre in Minsk say the screams of torture victims are audible from outside, and video footage corroborates this. The evidence points to a campaign of widespread torture and other ill-treatment by the Belarusian authorities who are intent on crushing peaceful protests by any means…. These are people whose only ‘crime’ was to take to the streets in peaceful protest. What we are seeing in Belarus is a human rights catastrophe that demands urgent action.” — Marie Struthers, Amnesty International Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, August 13, 2020.

Unlike the murder of George Flynn in the US, the horrifying police brutality against thousands of peaceful demonstrators in Belarus has not caught the attention of Western activists, none of whom has taken to the streets in solidarity with innocent Belarussians.

The people of Belarus probably need a strong Western response, not just to counter Lukashenko and the rigged elections, but also to show Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who has been pushing for ever-closer “integration” with Belarus for many years, that Belarus will not be abandoned by the West.

Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which border Belarus, will be following developments closely. The West really needs to do the same: supporting Belarussian civil society, while deterring Russia’s designs on the country.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron grip since 1994, “won” his sixth presidential election on August 9 with a remarkable 80% of the vote. Both the US and the EU have described the election — much like the previous elections there — as neither free nor fair.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/are-unilateral-withdrawals-in-israels-interests-opinion-638593

The explosion in Beirut was only a warning. It was meant to take place in Israel, and yet few people have focused on this (understandably because of the tragedy). Hezbollah still has 150,000 precision-guided missiles intended to be used against Israel. That will be as devastating as the ammonia-nitrate explosion at the port. And Hezbollah remains the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon. Although Israel is not the cause of Hezbollah’s rise to power in Lebanon, it bears some responsibility.

One of the consequences of then-prime minister Ehud Barak’s irresponsible decision to leave Lebanon unilaterally in May 2000 was to give Hezbollah the opportunity to fill the vacuum left by the absence of the IDF and the collapse of the South Lebanese Army. Although controversial within the government and the IDF, the withdrawal was not hasty. It was planned and executed by the IDF. The withdrawal was seen by Arabs as a retreat under fire.

Barak’s attempts in July of that year to appease PLO chairman Arafat at a conference convened by US president Bill Clinton at Camp David failed, but the PLO saw this in the context of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Like Hezbollah, it too could be victorious. That led to a massive reign of terror led by the PLO, the Second Intifada, which claimed 1,100 Israeli lives and many thousands wounded.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/beirut-explosion-highlights-hezbollah%E2%80%99s-malevolence-167014

We may never know exactly why a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate sat dangerously at Beirut’s port for years, but the explosion that killed nearly 200, injured thousands, and left 300,000 homeless highlights the malignant influence of Hezbollah within a dysfunctional government and across Lebanese society.

The tragedy reminds us that Lebanon will never have a well-functioning government with the terrorist group in it, that the nation can never count on peace as long as Hezbollah preps for its next war with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border, and that global financial institutions and other would-be donors will continue to shun Lebanon due to Hezbollah’s illicit activities. It also reminds us that, for the region and world, much rides on the fate of Hezbollah’s sponsor, the radical regime in Iran, which arms and funds Hezbollah and other terrorist groups to expand its footprint beyond its borders.

That Hezbollah wields so much power in Beirut is partly a function of Lebanon’s governing structure and partly of its own designs. In Beirut – where a president, prime minister, and parliament preside – the constitution disburses proportional power among Christians, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and other religious groups. By tradition, the president is a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/11/the-lockdown-has-been-a-catastrophe/

For the past seven weeks, the number of excess deaths in Britain has been below the five-year average. The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen by 96 per cent since the peak of the pandemic, and deaths in hospitals have fallen by 99 per cent.

Despite the summer heatwave, nearly three times as many people are currently dying in Britain from pneumonia and flu than from Covid-19. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that at any given time between 27 July and 2 August, just 0.05 per cent of the population not in hospitals or care homes were likely to test positive for Covid.

Barring the possibility of a second wave, the actual Covid epidemic seems to be behind us. But the broader disaster, sadly, is not. A newly released government report from the ONS and other government departments suggests that in the past two months, for every three excess Covid deaths, two more were caused by lockdown. The report is an update of a previous SAGE paper which, back in April, estimated that 200,000 could die from the cost of lockdown.

That the lockdown is contributing to deaths is an important thing to establish. Many have tried to argue that the disparity between the official Covid death toll of around 45,000 and the number of excess deaths of around 65,000 is due to undercounting Covid deaths. Excess deaths should be used to consider ‘the true cost of the pandemic’, especially given the different reporting standards of Covid by different health bodies. Reports like this are important in disaggregating non-Covid deaths from the total, so we can see where our response went wrong.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16265/modern-slavery-britain

According to the report, despite the scale of the crimes, prosecutions have barely increased…

“This is a systemic issue that is borne out of poor regulation, poor legislation and exploitation at every level. You have to ask yourself who actually has the power to change this? And that buck stops with government”. — Adam Clarke, deputy mayor of Leicester, Sky News, July 13, 2020.

The protesters of historical slavery could well be wearing clothes produced by the marginalized, victimized modern slaves who have no access to the justice and equality for which the protesters claim to be fighting.

It is telling that both public and private resources, as well as endless media coverage, are being dedicated to the issue of “racist statues” and historical slavery, while the plight of living, suffering modern slaves — an issue that needs tremendous effort to be tackled to even some degree — barely interests anyone.

A new British report, “It Still Happens Here: Fighting UK Slavery in the 2020s”, by The Modern Slavery Policy Unit, a joint initiative led by the anti-slavery charity Justice and Care and The Centre for Social Justice, has estimated that “there could be at least 100,000 victims [of modern slavery] in the UK, with the actual number likely to be even greater”.

According to the report:

“Many thousands of children, women and men of all nationalities and backgrounds — including a growing number of British citizens — continue to be trafficked and exploited for profit by ruthless criminal networks. They are tricked, taken and coerced into sexual slavery, crime, hard labour and domestic servitude. Forced addictions are increasingly used as methods of control”.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285179

Jewish MP responds to anti-Semitic attack in elevator in Paris. ‘It is increasingly difficult to be a Jew in France.’
A young Jewish father arrived to pick up his seven-month daughter from his parents’ apartment in the 19th district of Paris when he was attacked by two men of African descent.

The man had entered his parents’ apartment building when two men he had never seen before followed him into the elevator. When it arrived at its destination, the two physically assaulted him.

While hitting him, the assailants yelled “You dirty Jew, you’re going to die!” The man said he was saved by his parents who came to his rescue when they realized what was going on after becoming worried their son had yet to arrive.

“I came to pick up my seven-month-old daughter who was with my parents,” says David. “Two young guys, complete foreigners, dressed relatively nicely, in their 20s, came up behind me. When I typed in the entry code to the building they came with me into the elevator. When I got to my parents’ floor, they jumped and grabbed my throat. I tried to scream. I was only a few meters from their door but they could not hear because the doors are massive,” the young man said.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/10/crucial-vote-on-iran-looms-at-u-n/

The United Nations is preparing to vote on a resolution that would extend an arms embargo against the Islamic dictatorship of Iran, which is seen as a major test of President Donald Trump’s hardline policy on the rogue state, The Hill newspaper reports.

The vote comes as a top State Department official prepares to exit the administration and a once-vocal critic of President Trump prepares to assume a higher profile.  

The proposed resolution marks the latest tough action taken against Iran by the United States under President Trump, who famously withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, back in 2018. 

President Trump had been a frequent critic of the deal, which was the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy. The deal eased restrictions on the Islamic nation and made it easier for the oil-rich Iranians to pursue the development of nuclear weapons.

But other member-states of the United Nations have remained more sympathetic to the regime and continue to support the idea of the Iran deal, even as the deal itself has all but collapsed following the U.S. withdrawal.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his case for the resolution, and reminded others that the United States would ultimately ensure some sort of arms embargo against Iran. 

“The proposal we put forward is entirely reasonable,” Pompeo told reporters last week. “One way or another, we will do the right thing,” he added. “We will ensure that the arms embargo is extended.” 

In the event the resolution fails, Pompeo suggested the United States could impose a “snapback” of all sanctions that the Obama Administration levied on Iran prior to the conclusion of the deal.

State Department official Brian Hook, who had been traveling to various allied countries to convince them to vote in favor of the resolution but was increasingly seen as ineffective, resigned from the department on Thursday. Hook was named as Pompeo’s special representative to Iran in 2018. Previously, he was a top advisor to former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/11/why-is-desperately-poor-india-beating-new-yorks-covid-19-response/

For some reason, Andrew Cuomo and Anthony Fauci have become the faces of responsible COVID-19 policy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

New York spends more money per capita on healthcare than any other state in the Union. It ranks third in the country in physicians per 100,000 population at 375.1. In terms of raw infrastructure and medical resources, New York should have been one of the best places in the world to receive treatment for COVID-19.

Yet analysis of New York’s COVID-19 statistics reveal it to be one of the most deadly places in the world for a COVID-19 patient. Consider that the tiny country of San Marino reports the worst “deaths per 1 million population” for COVID-19 at 1,238 per million. Belgium, which is the second worst, reports 852. New York is a disaster compared to even those grim numbers. New York is second in the nation at 1,688 deaths per million. If it were a country, it would lead the world. 

The numbers don’t lie. New York should be the poster child of what not to do. Because whatever it’s doing to respond to COVID-19, it’s not saving lives. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci somehow learned the opposite lesson from these morbid statistics. He said, “Many parts of the United States didn’t do enough to combat the coronavirus—but New York state did . . . New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly by doing things [that are recommended to fight the disease].” One of those recommendations was to ban or severely restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. This ban came quickly in response to President Trump endorsing the drug.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16336/china-military-war

Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S. presidential election, speculating that “stirring up external frictions, especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for his re-election campaign.”

The leaders of China’s Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by anyone, including the U.S., to stop China’s grab of Hong Kong this year — 37 years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green light to keep on grabbing.

China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a “fishing fleet” of 250 vessels showing up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25 through August 2.

If China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.

Chinese military journalists are publicly urging the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. One expert at Zhejiang University’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Shi Xiaoqin, claims that the U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke China. They also suggest the regime reinforce Chinese installations on reefs claimed by China.

If this analysis gains traction by Chinese political and military leaders, U.S. military commanders in the South China Sea should plan for the possibility that China might initiate hostilities in keeping with its doctrine of preemptive retaliation, a seeming attempt falsely to claim “self-defense.”

One writer suggests that the PLA should immediately move fighter aircraft to Chinese air bases in the Spratly Islands at Fiery Cross, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef. He also boldly claims that the augmented presence of U.S. naval and air assets in the South China Sea is no longer just a show of force by America.

Chen Hu, a Chinese military journalist, also asserts that the U.S. is now intent on provoking a conflict and is preparing for battle. Chen claims that the return of B1 bombers to Guam and continued deployment of two U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the South China Sea, despite the conclusion of military exercises, is supposedly a sign of Washington’s aggressive intent. Chen suggests that recent U.S. “Freedom of Navigation” maneuvers and the high number of U.S. surveillance collection missions along the Chinese coast is additional proof of American attack planning. Former PLA officer Wang Yunfei and naval equipment expert suggests that flights by American RC-135, E-8c, and RC-12X surveillance aircraft equate to “pre-battle strategic technical surveillance.” As the joke goes from the children’s playground: “It all started when he hit me back.”