RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-brexit-knot/Britain now faces a great political and constitutional crisis

Being a classicist, Boris Johnson would be familiar with the Gordian knot. But for anybody whose schoolroom memories need refreshing, the knot in question was put in place by Gordius, king of Phrygia. Reputedly only a ruler of Asia would be able to untie the knot — making it a slightly less glamorous version of King Arthur’s sword in the stone. In any case, when confronted by the knot, Alexander the Great is said to have spotted the fast way to undo the problem and simply whacked at it with his sword, so proving that he should become the king of Asia.

If ever there was a fearsome knot in modern politics it is the question of Brexit. Not that the knot was as completely tied in 2016, when the British people were given a straightforward choice. The question the public was then asked was whether it wanted to “remain” in or “leave” the European Union. The public voted by a majority (52 percent to 48 percent) to leave, though it has since appeared that for those who set the question this was the wrong answer. Or at least not the answer that the political class expected the public to select. And so the knot tightened and became ever more knotty with each resulting effort to untie it.

The civil service, it turned out, had not been instructed to prepare for the eventuality of a “leave” vote. Then–prime minister David Cameron and his colleagues may simply have expected the “remain” side to win. Or they may have feared that if word had got out that the civil servants were preparing for the possibility of a “leave” vote then that would have bolstered that side of the campaign. Whatever the reason, on June 24, 2016, Whitehall turned out to be unprepared for what was one of only two possible results.

With Cameron having resigned just hours after that vote, the stunned victors plunged into a bout of fratricide. The lead Brexiteer — Boris Johnson — was politically assassinated by his own leadership-campaign chief, the second most prominent Brexiteer — Michael Gove — who then made an unsuccessful bid for the leadership himself. Unsuccessful because, with the victors in disarray, a path through the middle of the Conservative-party membership (who vote in leadership elections) was created for Theresa May. And so the former home secretary who had given a single half-hearted speech in favor of Remain ended up becoming the Conservative-party leader, the prime minister, and the person responsible for making sure that Britain exited the European Union.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/10/ahmadiyya-writing-camouflaged-anti-jewish-and-anti-american-propaganda-and-contributes-to-the-spread-of-hatred

“Love for all, hatred for none”?  Think again, as Ahmadi doctrine contains questionable aspects. 

“Islam is going to progress and triumph in the world and the banner of the Holy Prophet shall be raised all over the world,” stated in a February 10, 2006, sermon Hadrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the currently reigning Ahmadiyya “caliph.” As previously noted, this small, cultish Muslim sect enjoys disproportionate influence among world leaders with Ahmadi claims of Islamic enlightenment, yet such statements about ultimate Ahmadi goals are more disturbing.

Ahmad rejoiced that Islamic Sharia law “can solve problems of all time and era,” but other observers, such as the Social Democratic German academic Johannes Kandel, are far more critical. In a 2006 study of the Ahmadis for Germany’s main Lutheran church, he noted that the Ahmadis have a “pre-democratic, absolutist state understanding.” Thus the “Ahmadiyyas represent in view of human rights and democracy positions, which, measured against critical inner-Muslim discourses on these questions, are ultraorthodox, indeed fundamentalist.”

Pastor Andreas Volkmar of the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche) and the late (d. 2010) German scholar of Islam Hiltrud Schröter reached similar conclusions. In a 2017 study, Volkmar observed that the Ahmadis’ “vision is the implementation of the rule of Islam—worldwide—under the leadership of one of their future caliphs.” Schröter, author of a 2002 book on the Ahmadis, concurred that the Ahmadi community “perfectly sets itself in scene as a democratic Islam and veils its true goals: victory of Ahmadiyya Islam over all other religions.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14992/isis-turkish-homecoming

It is, therefore, the epitome of hypocrisy for Mr Erdogan to offer to take responsibility for the ISIS fighters being held in Kurdish-run detention camps… If that really were to happen, and the ISIS captives were repatriated to Turkey, it would, for some, be more like a homecoming.

The far more worrying prospect is that the captives may be able to escape, and return to the ranks of ISIS’s terrorist infrastructure….

The ISIS caliphate might no longer exist, but the terrorist organisation itself still continues to operate. Indeed, the latest intelligence assessments are that ISIS is regrouping in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, with the aim of launching a fresh wave of terror attacks against Western targets.

Mr Trump’s claim that the war against ISIS is over may prove to be short-lived.

One of the more ludicrous suggestions to have been made during Turkey’s military offensive against the Syrian Kurds is that, in return for Washington’s approval, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would take responsibility for the estimated 90,000 ISIS fighters and their dependents, currently languishing in Kurdish-controlled detention centres.

It is one of the worst kept secrets in Western intelligence circles that, for long periods during the brutal Syrian conflict, Mr Erdogan’s regime supported a number of groups that enjoyed close affiliation with ISIS, as well as other Islamist terror groups such as Al-Qaeda.

It is, therefore, the epitome of hypocrisy for Mr Erdogan to offer to take responsibility for the ISIS fighters being held in Kurdish-run detention camps such as the al-Hol complex in eastern Syria. If that really were to happen, and the ISIS captives were repatriated to Turkey, it would, for some, be more like a homecoming.

There is, fortunately, only a remote likelihood that captured ISIS fighters will be making their way to Turkey anytime soon, for most of the detention camps are located well away from the 30 km buffer zone on Syria’s northern border, the main target of the Turkish offensive.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainians-vs-the-swamp-11570831102

Call this column optimistic. But there’s reason to believe that indefensible deals like paying fortunes to unqualified sons of foreign politicians will someday be just as difficult to pull off in Ukraine as they are in the United States. In fact, recent developments suggest that Ukrainian leaders may help us improve American government even as they improve their own national governance.

Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelensky, the alleged victim in the Trump impeachment case advocated by Democrats in the U.S. House, is still saying he wasn’t victimized.

And at least according to the declassified transcript of his famous phone call with President Donald Trump, he’s eager to help root out corruption. On the July call Mr. Zelensky said, “we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government.”

The Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov reports that despite Ukraine’s many challenges—Russian aggression, for starters—Mr. Zelensky is leading an increasingly tolerant and prosperous society:

Ukraine’s economy, which recently began expanding again, posted 4.6% annualized growth in the second quarter of 2019. The currency has become one of the few in the world to strengthen against the dollar.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/missing_the_bigger_picture_in_kurdish_syria.html

President Trump’s decision to withdraw our few troops from the Syria-Turkey border area earned him considerable criticism from allies.  Senator Lindsey Graham said the decision is “a catastrophe in the making.” Representative Liz Cheney said it’s “a catastrophic mistake.”  Former UN Secretary Nikki Haley said, “We must always have the backs of our allies.” 

President Trump has answered these critics.  The Kurds were engaged in a contractual relationship fighting the Islamic State (ISIS).  They were well paid and equipped for their fighting, much like any mercenary group.  Further, they were given three years to consolidate eastern Syria to feed their long-held desire to form an independent Kurdistan with other Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.  They failed. 

The Kurds’ problem, and by association that of the U.S., is that regional powers like Turkey and to a lesser extent Iran and Syria have long held the Kurds in disdain.  In fact, Turkey considers the Syrian Kurds to be allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or (PKK), which are Turkish Kurds and terrorists fighting for independence for the last 35 years.   

Basically, the Kurds hijacked our fight with ISIS to feed their regional civil war to earn independence.

President Trump is aware of that agenda and is also trying to constrain American hawks who want to use our military willy-nilly across the world.  Remember that Trump frequently said during his 2016 campaign that he wants to escape from endless wars and bring our fighters home.   

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-china-said-reach-partial-190854141.html

The U.S. and China agreed on the outlines of a partial trade accord Friday that President Donald Trump said he and his counterpart Xi Jinping could sign as soon as next month.

As part of the deal, China would significantly step up purchases of U.S. agricultural commodities, agree to certain intellectual-property measures and concessions related to financial services and currency, Trump said Friday at the White House. In exchange, the U.S. will delay a tariff increase due next week as the deal is finalized, though new levies scheduled for December haven’t yet been called off.

The agreement marks the largest breakthrough in the 18-month trade war that has hurt the economies of both nations. Importantly, Trump said the deal was the first phase of a broader agreement. The president indicated he could sign a deal with Xi at an upcoming November summit in Chile.

While the limited agreement may resolve some short-term issues, several of the thorniest disputes remain outstanding. U.S. goals in the trade war center around accusations of intellectual-property theft, forced technology transfer and complaints about Chinese industrial subsidies.

Xi told Trump in a letter — which the White House distributed on Friday — that it’s important the countries work together to address each others’ concerns. “I hope the two sides will act in the principle and direction you and I have agreed to, and work to advance China-U.S. relations based on coordination, cooperation and stability,” the letter said.

http://carolineglick.com/trump-did-not-betray-the-kurds/

The near consensus view of President Donald Trump’s decision to remove US special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey is that Trump is enabling a Turkish invasion and double crossing the Syrian Kurds who have fought with the Americans for five years against ISIS. Trump’s move, the thinking goes, harms US credibility and undermines US power in the region and throughout the world.

There are several problems with this narrative. The first is that it assumes that until this week, the US had power and influence in Syria when in fact, by design, the US went to great lengths to limit its ability to influence events in Syria.

The war in Syria broke out in 2011 as a popular insurrection by Syrian Sunnis against the Iranian-sponsored regime of President Bashar al Assad. The Obama administration responded by declaring US support for Assad’s overthrow. But the declaration was empty. The administration sat on its thumbs as the regime’s atrocities mounted. They supported a feckless Turkish effort to raise a resistance army dominated by jihadist elements aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama infamously issued his “redline” regarding the use of chemical weapons against civilians by Assad, which he repudiated the moment it was crossed.

As ISIS forces gathered in Iraq and Syria, Obama shrugged them off as a “jayvee squad.” When the jayvees in ISIS took over a third of Iraqi and Syrian territory, Obama did nothing.

As Lee Smith recalled in January in the New York Post, Obama only decided to do something about ISIS in late 2014 after the group beheaded a number of American journalists and posted their decapitations on social media.

The timing was problematic for Obama.

The threatened Turkish assault and invasion of heavily Kurdish northern Syria, which prompted President Trump to withdraw American forces, has begun.

Try as one may to paint a nicer picture, this brings back repeated bad memories…

Unfortunately, for at least a half century, America has replaced Great Britain as primary “outside” user and abuser of the Kurds. 

Inside, Kurds have let internal divisions and shortsightedness to allow Arab and Turk conquerors of their own millennially geographical majority territory to do this to themselves as well. Some Kurds even allied with Saddam Hussein, responsible for Operation Anfal and other Arab genocidal actions, which ultimately took some 200,000 Kurdish lives–including many gassed to death.

I had hoped that this time, in Syria, it would be different.

Yes, I knew of President Trump’s promise to disengage from the region militarily during his election campaign. However, I also hoped, with his own “thinking out of the box” moves already having a positive impact elsewhere, that he would rethink the nasty State Department-driven policies towards our loyal friends and allies, who suffered tens of thousands of dead and wounded fighting for America’s own causes as well. The late great William Safire of The New York Times wrote a series of articles about this Henry Kissinger-led disgrace in the ‘70shttps://kurdistantribune.com/henry-kissinger-realpolitik-genocide/.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14980/france-homegrown-terrorism

French police investigating a woman for suspected ties to ISIS discovered a USB drive that contained personal details, including home addresses, of thousands of French police officials. Who provided that information?

“In the street, veiled women and men wearing jellabas are de facto propaganda, an Islamization of the street, just as the uniforms of an occupying army remind the defeated of their submission.” – French journalist Eric Zemmour, September 28, 2019.

Le Monde, France’s most prestigious newspaper, ran an op-ed after the recent attack, charging the country with “Islamophobic McCarthysm.” Harpon, the terrorist who murdered his colleagues at police headquarters, would have agreed.

The problem is that France has, for years, been in a state of denial about the proliferation of radical Islam.

This time, the terrorist did not use firearms; his victims were not unarmed children, cartoonists or Jews but policemen.

The site of the October 3 attack was also striking: “The interior of the Paris police headquarters is supposed to be a stronghold; it is the symbol of public order in France and of the anti-jihadist struggle that has been shaken,” the French scholar Gilles Kepel told Le Figaro.

“We have entered a… terrorism made in France… with a mixture of Friday preaching by extremist imams, social networks and the instrumentalization of fragile individuals. It is about creating a new panic in society by targeting iconic … places… The attack is a major turning point in Islamist terrorism.”