RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15465/turkey-christians-kidnapped

Since January 11, an elderly Assyrian Christian couple, Hurmuz Diril (71) and his wife Şimoni (65), have been missing from the Assyrian village of Mehr, Kovankaya in the province of Şırnak, in Turkey’s southeast.
If the kidnapping of the Diril couple were to terrorize the remaining Assyrian community in Turkey into fleeing the country, it would mark the complete annihilation of yet another native community in the region. Such a tragedy should not be allowed to happen.
Western governments should help to find this elderly couple and see to it that those responsible are held to account.

Since January 11, an elderly Assyrian Christian couple, Hurmuz Diril (71) and his wife Şimoni (65), have been missing from the Assyrian village of Mehr, Kovankaya in the province of Sirnak, in Turkey’s southeast. In wintry, sub-zero conditions, their children, followed by military special units, have been searching for them.

“We found out that my parents were missing when I and my relatives… went to our village on January 12. My father’s uncle last saw them in the morning of January 11…. And my brother last spoke to them on January 7,” the couple’s son, Father Adday Remzi Diril told the newspaper Cumhuriyet.

Father Diril is an Assyrian-Chaldean priest in Istanbul and well known for his life of service to more than 7,000 Iraqi Christian refugees displaced throughout Turkey.

“A neighbor of ours in the village initially did not tell us my parents were kidnapped because he was scared,” Diril told the Mesopotamia News Agency, “but later said they had been kidnapped by armed men.”

An investigation concerning the missing couple is underway; the prosecutor’s office in Sirnak has issued a gag order regarding the matter. The Turkish authorities, Diril said, are in touch with the family. The weather conditions, though, have been treacherous and the search so far unsuccessful.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/britain-commits-su

The UK’s Mailonline reported Friday that according to a “damning” new report, “sex attacks on young girls by Asian grooming gangs were ignored by police fear of stoking racial tensions, a damning report has ruled.” “Asian” is British media code for “Muslim.”

The Mail added that “a chief inspector from Rotherham was found to have admitted South Yorkshire Police force turned a blind eye to the harrowing cases of abuse…The unnamed senior police officer said: ‘With it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to come out.’” The father of one of the victims recounted: “She’d been missing for weeks and he [the chief inspector] was talking as though she was an adult doing it of her own free will. He said it had been going on for 30 years and that in his day they used to call them ‘P*** shaggers’. I told him she was a child and this was child abuse.”

Indeed it was. But Muslims were a protected class in Britain, and could break laws with impunity, as authorities were too worried about charges of “racism” and “Islamophobia” to go after them.

In just one city, Rotherham, British officials “described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/whitewashing-swedish-nightmare-bruce-bawer/

Poking around YouTube the other day, I stumbled across a 2018 documentary that was written and hosted by Johan Norberg, a 46-year-old Swedish economist who is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank in Washington, and who is one of his country’s leading boosters of free trade and free markets. This was hardly Norberg’s first venture into the documentary form: in 2003, Britain’s Channel 4 aired Globalisation is Good, in which Norberg celebrated the prosperity created in Taiwan and Vietnam through the outsourcing of factory jobs from the U.S. – but neglected to breathe a word about the catastrophic impact of that outsourcing on millions of American workers.

Norberg’s 2018 documentary is entitled Sweden: Lessons for America? In it, he traces Sweden’s economic ups and downs over the last couple of centuries: once a dirt-poor land in the grip of guilds and regulations, Sweden embraced the free market and low taxes – resulting in a century of burgeoning prosperity – only to “screw it up” in the 1960s by introducing a big-government welfare state that charged Pippi Longstocking author Astrid Lindgren a 102% income rate and Ingmar Bergman 139%. (He fled to Germany.) From 1976 to 1995, Sweden went downhill; interest rates hit 500%; IKEA moved its headquarters abroad. But the story, as Norberg tells it, has a happy ending: the 1990s brought reforms – deregulation, lower taxes, school vouchers, widespread privatization of public services, no minimum wage – that resulted in a first-rate climate for entrepreneurship and innovation and a “very productive private economy” that yields enough wealth to fund generous welfare benefits and pensions. America, we’re urged in Norberg’s conclusion, should look to Sweden as a model.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15464/iranian-women-western-feminists

Before 1979, Iranian women had freedom. They want it back.

If Iranian feminists who refuse to wear the hijab are brave, their Western counterparts, who wear pink hats, have wretchedly abandoned them.

Why is Iranian barbarism so easily condoned in the West?

Thirty years ago, the Berlin Wall was torn down by ordinary citizens who wanted to reclaim their freedom of movement. Today, the wall of the Iranian regime could be torn down by these ordinary women who want to reclaim the freedom to wear what they like. They are bravely refusing to walk on flags of Israel and the U.S. — and enjoying the wind in their hair again.

In October 1979, in a rare interview with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci charged that the veil was symbolic of the segregation into which the Islamic revolution women had cast women. “Our customs,” Khomeini answered, “are none of your business. If you do not like Islamic dress, you’re not obliged to wear it because Islamic dress is for good and proper young women.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Fallaci replied. “And since you said so, I’m going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now.” Fallaci removed her veil and left the room without saying another word. Iranian women, emulating Fallaci, are now leading protests against the regime.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15457/persecution-of-christians-october

In another incident, Fulani herdsmen intentionally maimed Grace… , a Christian woman, by cutting her hand off. She was alone on her farmstead when the terrorists invaded the village. According to a source, “her attackers told her to place her hand on a log of wood before cutting it off.” — Punch; October 16, 2019; Nigeria.

“Saudi citizens who convert to Christianity face risk of execution by the state for apostasy if their conversion becomes known.” — Barnabas Fund, October 14, 2019; Saudi Arabia.

“If the West strikes against Muslims anywhere in the world, enraged fundamentalists in Pakistan often attack the churches…. Muslims believe that converting one person to Islam earns them eternal life. If an initial effort fails, people turn to kidnapping…” — Aid to the Church in Need; October 4, 2019; Pakistan.

The Slaughter of Christians

Uganda: A Muslim mob set fire to the home of former Muslim, Ali Nakabale, 36, for converting to Christianity. Four of his family members—including his two children, a six-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter—were burned to death in the blaze. His wife, apparently enraged to learn that Ali had become a Christian, reportedly prompted the arson attack. “I had just visited my aunt only to receive sad news of the burning of our house,” Nakabale said. “Upon arriving home, I found the house destroyed by fire that burned my four family members, including my two children.” His mother and stepfather were also killed in the blaze. “On reaching the mortuary, I found their bodies burned beyond recognition.”

“We saw fire emanating from the house of Hamidah with loud chants from Muslims saying, ‘Allah Akbar [Allah is greater],'” reported a neighbor. Earlier, when his wife learned that his son and he had become Christian, she had beated the boy. On “[t]he same day my wife walked out of the marriage and left the home,” said Ali. “We got scared because we knew that our lives were in danger.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15463/iran-old-recipe

The latest protests, however, are clearly focused on a demand for regime change, even by some former “reform-seekers”. All this means that the regime’s classical recipe for survival isn’t working as before.

For the first time, more and more Iranians are beginning to contemplate regime change not as merely a desirable slogan but as a practical strategy to lead the nation out of the impasse created by Khomeinism.

No matter what gloss the ruling clerics might try to put on current events in Iran, one point is clear: their Islamic Republic is in trouble. Deep trouble.

This is, of course, not the first time that the system hastily put together by a bunch of mullahs and their leftist allies hits a bump on its road to nowhere. Even in its first year the Islamic Republic faced huge protest movements in Tehran and other major cities and had to use force to crush rebellions by Iranian-Kurdish and Turcoman communities.

According to best estimates, to remain in place the Islamic Republic has executed more than 15,000 people and driven more than 8 million Iranians into exile. And all that not to mention the eight-year war that the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini provoked with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Despite all that the regime managed to survive, thanks to a number of factors.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/harry_and_meghan_the_royal_couple_who_made_history_now_are_history.html

The Royal Divorce – that is, Prince Harry’s and Megan Markle’s breakup from the royal family — is now final. After sparking a crisis in the House of Windsor, the young Sussexes (Harry, Megan, and wee Archie) are off to make it on their own.

On Saturday, Queen Elizabeth issued a short statement saying she will always love them, Meghan did a great job during her short stint as a royal, and there’s an agreement for them to go away:

Following many months of conversations and more recent discussions, I am pleased that together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family.

Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family.

I recognise the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life.

I want to thank them for all their dedicated work across this country, the Commonwealth and beyond, and am particularly proud of how Meghan has so quickly become one of the family.

It is my whole family’s hope that today’s agreement allows them to start building a happy and peaceful new life.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15256/hate-speech-laws

There is a tendency, to censor certain viewpoints because they might “offend” others. The problem is, it is not the inoffensive things that need protecting; it is only the offensive things that do…. Freedom of speech exists precisely to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

“[T]he freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” — US President George Washington, 1783.

How come it is all right to publish the original source, prescribing murder, but that it is “hate speech” to point out that quote?

“Sometimes, when one points out these rules, people will respond: ‘Well, the Bible says such-and-such.’ The point is not that these things are written in Islamic scripture, but that people still live by them.” — Bruce Bawer, February 8, 2018.

Restrictions against “hate speech” often do not really ban hate speech; instead they may actually be protecting certain forms of hate speech against legitimate inquiry.

In November 2019, Germans celebrated the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany 30 years earlier. That same month, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech to the German federal parliament (Bundestag), advocated more restrictions on free speech for all Germans. She warned that free speech has limits:

“Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated. This house will and must oppose extreme speech. Otherwise, our society will no longer be the free society that it was.”

Merkel received great applause.

Critics, however, would claim that curtailing freedom in order to protect freedom sounds a bit Orwellian. One of the first acts of any tyrant or repressive regime is usually to abolish freedom of speech. Merkel should know this: she lived under a repressive regime — in the communist dictatorship of East Germany, where she studied at Karl Marx University.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech, specifically speech critical of the government, and prohibits the state from limiting free speech. The First Amendment was placed first in the Bill of Rights because the American Founding Fathers realized that freedom of speech is fundamental to a free society. US President George Washington said:

“For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences… reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15456/sahel-region-islamic-state

Even if violent attacks are now mostly concentrated around the border of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the unstable area subject to terrorism covers a huge area — equivalent to half of Europe or the United States — and is spread over five countries…. Because it involves such a huge territory, and because Europeans simply do not have the air support and intelligence capabilities of the United States, American support in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel is critical.

US President Donald J. Trump would understandably like the Europeans to do more to fight the Islamic State in the Middle East and Africa. He is right. Europe is more directly concerned by the destabilization of these regions than the United States. The continent is still dependent on the Persian Gulf for its energy supply, and a destabilization of the Sahel countries would lead to vast new migratory pressures on Europe. Most European Union countries, however, starting with Germany, refuse to draw conclusions about the consequences of the situation and increase their military spending and involvement in operations abroad.

In the short term, an American withdrawal would have disastrous consequences. US air support is absolutely crucial in the fight against terrorism…. The ideal would be for these five African countries to be able to fend for themselves in the fight against terrorism with Western material and logistical support, but without deploying troops from outside the African continent. I am a fervent advocate of letting Africa solve its problems as much as possible within an African framework, but it must be acknowledged that in several conflicts, this is still not realistic and possible.

On January 13, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a summit of the G5 Sahel, a group of five Sahelian countries (Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Mauritania) that are affected by Islamist terrorism. The location of the summit, the small city of Pau in the south of France, was not chosen at random: it hosts the base of France’s 5th Combat Helicopter Regiment. Seven of the thirteen French soldiers who died in a November 25, 2019 helicopter accident in Mali belonged to this unit. Since 2013, France has lost 44 soldiers in the Sahel.

According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies:

“The Sahel has experienced the most rapid increase in militant Islamist group activity of any region in Africa in recent years. Violent events involving extremist groups in the region have doubled every year since 2015. In 2019, there have been more than 700 such violent episodes. Fatalities linked to these events have increased from 225 to 2,000 during the same period. This surge in violence has uprooted more than 900,000 people, including 500,000 in Burkina Faso in 2019 alone.”

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/16/mendacity-hubris-and-the-tragedy-of-afghanistan/

The very same collection of intelligence, national security, military, diplomatic, and political experts rubbing their hands in eager anticipation of Trump’s ouster is responsible for mismanaging our longest war, a debacle that continues to cost American lives.

A cynic might start to suspect that the current impeachment fervor roiling Capitol Hill is nothing more than a ruse by Washington’s aristocracy to camouflage revelations about their own incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power over the past few decades.

Could it be, a cynic might wonder, that all the accusations leveled against President Trump merely are projections to deflect from the bad behavior of Beltway royalty?

After all, Trump lies, we are told. Trump is clueless when it comes to the delicate affairs of war and diplomacy, we are warned. His recklessness jeopardizes national security and World War III, we are cautioned, is just around the corner.

State Department snobs, supremely confident in their own skills and irreplaceable value to the nation, demeaned the president during the House’s impeachment inquiry. Former and current inhabitants of the intelligence community are key accomplices in the attempt to oust Trump from the White House. Opinion columns authored by former national security officials routinely describe the president as the world’s biggest threat to world peace. (More on that next week.)

And they ease any fears about the president’s instinctive approach to foreign relations with promises that these very stable geniuses on both sides of the aisle will be back in business once Donald Trump vacates the Oval Office.