RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274737/syria-turkey-clash-joseph-puder

As if the civil war in Syria has not witnessed enough conflict and bloodshed, a new element has crept into the ongoing drama. Last week, Turkey dispatched a convoy to Northern Syria to aid the Sunni Islamist rebels holed up in the Idlib province, which has been under attack by Assad regime forces and Russian airpower. The convoy, which carried ammunition, and other military hardware was bombed by the Assad forces, with some casualties inflicted on the Turkish convoy. The Sunni Muslim rebel force – Gabhat al-Nusra (The Nusra Front), which is an affiliate of al-Qaida, has been actively counter-attacking the Assad forces.  Turkey’s primary agent in Syria is, however, the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The conflicting interests of Syria and Turkey could lead to a shooting war between the two dictators.

The Syrian dictator, Bashar el-Assad, seeks to consolidate his hold on all former Syrian territory, and especially the northwestern region of Syria, which is the home ground of the Alawite sect (sub-sect of Shiite Islam). The region has been the Assad family power base, which Bashar Assad wants to secure at all costs.  Given the revenge sought by the majority of the Sunni-Muslim Syrians, who have been the primary victims of the Assad’s Alawites, the northwest region is intended to be their refuge. With southwestern Syria now secured by the regime, and the country’s center as well, Idlib province remains a significant challenge for Assad. Of course, he and his Iranian allies have not yet subdued the northeastern portion of Syria, which is being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) a primarily Kurdish force, that is allied with the U.S. and other western states (primarily Britain and France). The SDF has been the major contributor to expelling the Islamic State (or ISIS) from its capital of Raqqa, and the wider region.

The Turkish dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s involvement in Syria is grounded on two principles. First, Erdogan has positioned Turkey as the protector of Sunni-Muslims. As he aspires to become the leader of the Sunni world, and being a leading supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, he is compelled to show support for the besieged Sunni-Muslim Arabs, and Turkmen rebels. Both his domestic constituency and the larger Sunni world expect Erdogan to defend the Sunni’s in Syria. The other, more important principle is Ankara’s fear of Kurdish self-determination in Syria. The Kurds are now in control of a large portion of northeastern Syria, which is their natural homeland with its capital, Qamishli.  An arbitrary border separating the large Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey from their brethren in northeast Syria has made the Turks nervous. Erdogan fears the creation of the Kurdish self-rule in Syria and envisions Turkey’s Kurds flocking to it, resulting in an eventual Kurdish state that might swallow a portion of southeastern Turkey.  Ankara, along with Tehran, both having large Kurdish populations, seek to deny the Kurds their self-determination. In January 2018, Erdogan’s Turkish military attacked the Kurds in Afrin, which was previously controlled by the Kurds.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274687/chinas-world-domination-gambit-john-glynn

President Trump has confirmed he is considering an attempt to buy Greenland for strategic reasons. No, this is not an out-of-season April fool’s joke.

Trump, it seems, hasn’t forgotten his old job. Remember, before he became the president of the free world, the septuagenarian was the world’s most-famous real estate developer. If the acquisition of the self-governed Danish territory comes to fruition, this would be a savvy piece of expansionism. Why? People can ridicule the president all they want, but Greenland is rich in natural resources, including iron ore, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, rare-earth elements, uranium and oil, according to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public-policy organization in Washington, D.C. 

Anyway, why not? After all, the US acquired Louisiana from France, Florida from Spain, Alaska from Russia and much of its southwest from Mexico. Furthermore, in the 1860s, the U.S. nearly bought Greenland and Iceland. The idea, we’re told, was to surround Canada with U.S. territory and thus persuade it to join the U.S. In 1946, the U.S. tried to buy Greenland again, but the offer was rejected. Maybe, just maybe, it will be third time lucky.

Whatever the outcome, when it comes to savvy expansionism, there is one country that appears to be far ahead of the United States. That country is China.

Emerging in 1999, Beijing’s Going Global strategy sought to bid farewell to the Mao-era mindset of self-reliance, urging Chinese firms to take advantage of booming world trade and to invest in global markets. The idea that one government could commandeer sub regions in Asia, Europe and Africa, which account for 64 percent of world population and 30 percent of world GDP, might sound ludicrous. But try telling this to the Chinese government.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274743/germany-muslim-migrants-start-brawl-over-short-robert-spencer

The principle is always and everywhere the same: in Muslim countries, one must conform one’s behavior to suit Islamic sensibilities. And in non-Muslim countries, one must conform one’s behavior to suit Islamic sensibilities. This was proven true again last Thursday in Duisberg, Germany, where a Muslim migrant thought a German woman’s skirt was too short, and started a brawl.

According to the German publication Waz, “Different views on the length of a skirt worn by a woman led to a fight between two groups in Duisburg. The police report a dispute over cultural differences, which began verbally and ended in a fistfight, in which a participant dislocated his shoulder.”

No establishment media source will ever dare to say what was really behind this kind of incident: not simply “cultural differences,” but religious beliefs.

A police spokeswoman, Jacqueline Grahl, explained: “The revealing style of clothing of a 50-year-old met with incomprehension in a 20-year-old.” Waz added: “According to information from our editorial team, the man who insulted the unknown woman and asked her why she had to present her legs in such a way is a Duisburger with Turkish roots. He was together with three other Duisburgers with Turkish roots in the Rheinpark.”

https://quadrant.org.au/

Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has some calm and soothing, matter-of-fact, trust-us-we’re-experts advice for the parents of boys who want to be girls and vice versa (emphasis added):

For others, living in their birth-assigned gender role is extremely distressing. In these cases, it is important for families to discuss with their child or teenager what they need to do to protect their physical and mental wellbeing, and consider seeking professional assistance.

For many transgender children and teenagers, the onset of puberty, with the development of secondary sex characteristics (e.g. breasts, changing voice) that don’t match their gender identity, is a particularly distressing time….

…. Once puberty has started, treatment options include the use of puberty blockers to stop the physical changes of puberty that the adolescent finds distressing.

1/ Known as Stage 1 treatment, puberty blockers are used mostly in early puberty. Stage 1 treatment is reversible.

2/ Stage 2 treatment involves using gender-affirming hormones (oestrogen or testosterone) to change the body to be more consistent with the teenager’s affirmed gender. Depending on the circumstances, this treatment can usually be started around the age of 16.

3/ Stage 3 treatment involves surgery, which is not commonly undertaken before adulthood.

According to US endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, the RCMH isn’t doing those kids any favours. Indeed, by his reckoning they are being made ill:

“I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease,” Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist associated with Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Rocklin, Calif., told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development.

“We’re talking about what in nature is a rare condition. In the United States, if someone has this condition it’s going to be recognized and treated so the long-term results are unknown,” the doctor explained. “It’s an area that needs to be explored further.”

While endocrinologists — doctors who specialize in hormones and the endocrine system — are familiar with the disease and gladly treat it when a patient has been diagnosed, many of them are effectively causing their patients to contract the same disease in an attempt to affirm gender identity, Laidlaw said. “An endocrinologist might treat a condition where a female’s testosterone levels are going to be outside the normal range. We’ll treat that and we’re aware of metabolic problems. At the same time, an endocrinologist may be giving high levels of testosterone to a female to ‘transition’ her.”

The result, according to Laidlaw:

When people are given far more of the opposite sex hormone than their bodies can handle, they are at “increased risk for cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular death, deep vein thrombosis. They’ve looked at adults taking these hormones and have seen already these cardiovascular risks.”

When these drugs are administered to children, “one would presume it’s the same or even worse, in the long run.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/the-impotence-of-the-g7/

What, at this point, does the high-profile diplomatic summit purport to do?

At this year’s G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, the summit’s host, President Emmanuel Macron, gave each of the other leaders in attendance a watch made of recycled fishing nets and powered by solar energy. The watches, he explained, symbolized the group’s collective commitment to global sustainability and ocean conservation — though actually, they symbolize the summit’s pointlessness.

Was it always so? In 1975, the leaders of the then-G6 — France, West Germany, Japan, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. — met outside of Paris to tackle that year’s oil-related financial crisis. The next year, they became the G7, as Canada joined under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (the father of the country’s current prime minister, Justin Trudeau). Soon after, the president of the European Commission was invited to attend, as were other countries. In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, then general secretary of the U.S.S.R.’s Communist party, came to observe the summit in London, where it was hoped he’d learn a thing or two about democracy, liberty, and how to make friends and influence people.

Of course, the summit never had any real political or legal force behind it. But the idea was that — given the overwhelming economic clout of the G7, which originally made up almost 70 percent of the global economy, at least in nominal terms, though that has now fallen to around 50 percent — greater transparency on macroeconomics would better prepare and coordinate international markets.

Perhaps inevitably, the scope of the enterprise was soon extended beyond economics. It became a political power show, a festival of diplomacy, and a field day for journalists and political cartoonists around the world. In 1998, Bill Clinton allowed Russia into the club, where it remained until 2014, when it was booted for annexing the Crimea from Ukraine. The idea behind this was, presumably, to humiliate President Putin into changing his ways, which he evidently still hasn’t.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/08/aiding-and-comforting-the-wests-enemies/

Had I been born in Australia, the content of Paul Monk’s well-argued article (“Chinese Spies and Our National Interest”) would’ve shocked and amazed me. However, since I was born in the USSR, it came as a bit of an anti-climax.  ‘Someone is surprised that the Soviets and the Chinese spy on Australia? Really? Surprised? You’re kidding, right?’ Of course they spy on us.

But first, a little trip down memory lane: the David Combe affair. This ALP functionary was befriended by the well-known Russian intelligence agent Valeriy Ivanov and, socially lubricated, tutored the KGB man about the ALP, the workings of the Australian government and his own political ambitions. Needless to say, Ivanov was all ears. Unsurprisingly, the conversation was taped by ASIO, which had bugged the Russian’s residence. Surprisingly, their exchange was broadcast on national TV some time later. The consequences for our David were to be kicked sideways and more than somewhat down, appointed Australia’s chief salesman of wine to Canada. Mighty powerful slap on the wrist, if you ask me. Kevin must’ve winced at least a couple of times, I bet.

In this sense, I appreciate and share Paul Monk’s frustration, and his politely restrained fury (“Treason Will Go Unpunished“), that those betraying the nation’s interests seem to suffer no stern and genuine consequences. Achievements of the Soviet and the Chinese intelligence services are many, varied and impressive. Monk picked up on the subtle differences which distinguish these predators. The Soviets, for starters, were quite angry with the Russian-speaking diaspora, considering them traitors to the cause. By contrast, the pragmatic China regards its expat populations as inexhaustible sources of intelligence. However, and this is the crucial point, both relied on similar principles. The fundamental, shared principle was and remains the use of liberal democracies’ resources, law, openness and freedoms against these very same democracies. The second common principle is the collaboration of democratic societies in the transfer of technology, know-how and expertise.

One has only to look to the history of Soviet industrialisation, which was promoted with the blessing of US government by the industrial architect Albert Kahn, whose firm kick-started the construction of  Soviet industrial enterprises. The long list includes steel mills that produced howitzers, locomotives factories that churned out T-34 tanks, hydroelectric power stations to supply energy for the aluminum production for planes — the list of the dual-purpose and readily switchable projects goes on and on. Many of those factories were built by prisoners. Foreign specialists knew all about it. How did the impoverished Soviets pay for all this expertise and equipment, you might ask? That is where the socialist principle of communal property came in — the peasants were herded into kolkhozes (collective farms), their grain was seized and, despite the resulting famine, sold overseas. Moscow-sanctioned starvation killed millions in the Ukraine alone.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14772/biarritz-g7-summit

In one of those delicious ironies that add flavor to history, as the G7, which ended up including Russia after the fall of the USSR, saw its real power to affect global trends decline while its ambitions to rule the world spiraled. The group could do nothing about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the disintegration of the USSR, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the seizure of power by the mullahs in Iran, China shifting gears towards a capitalist system, the wars triggered by Saddam Hussein and the rise of international terrorism in the name of religion. More importantly, perhaps, the “global politburo” had no role in the dramatic technological changes that dragged the world into something bigger than the Industrial Revolution.

By the mid-1990s the G8 summit, as it was before Russia was kicked out, had morphed into a talking shop and a photo-op for political leaders in search of relevance in a new world they could no longer control. In one of the summits, hosted in Lyon by France, the participants made “decisions” on almost everything under the sun, knowing all along that they had neither the intention nor the power to act on any of them.

Well, how relevant is the G7 today? The short answer is: not very much.

Journalists across the globe have always regarded this time of the year, the heart of the summer, as the silly season in which nothing of much interest happens, at least on the political front. The silly season is filled with news of the birth of double-headed sheep in New Zealand, the discovery of the remains of Atlantis, the lost continent, in the Algerian Sahara or, to add a bit of spice, the suicide of a pedophile billionaire in a high-security prison in America.

Thus, one might say that the G7 summit in the French resort town of Biarritz, starting Saturday, is an exception to the silly season rule. Or is it?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14766/persecution-of-christians-june

Three men and one woman robbed, beat, and poisoned Sagheer Masih, a 35-year-old Christian auto-rickshaw driver. “He was well-mannered, polite and very friendly. Knowing he had the responsibility of taking care of three younger siblings… he ensured that he always got to work early and left late in order to gather as much money as he could to care for them…. Instead of killing him in on the spot, they forced him to drink poison and acid and left him there to die….” — International Christian Concern, June 20, 2019, Pakistan.

“Their tactic is to befriend someone when they come in [to prison]. If they don’t convert, they will then start spreading rumours about them, that the person is a snitch, so that they will be ostracised. Then the beatings follow.” — An inmate, according to a Ministry of Justice report; The Times, June 7, 2019, United Kingdom.

“We cannot allow the Christians… to allege that Jesus is the Son of God,” explained one mosque leader; “this [is] a serious blasphemy to Muslims.” — Morning Star News, June 3, 2019, Uganda.

Slaughter of Christians

Mali: On June 9, Islamic Fulani gunmen massacred at least 95 Christians — including women and children. During their rampage of a Christian village, they it set ablaze before leaving; several of the slain were burned alive. “About 50 heavily armed men arrived on motorbikes and pickups,” a survivor recalled. “They first surrounded the village and then attacked — anyone who tried to escape was killed…. No one was spared — women, children, elderly people.” Security sources confirmed that the raiders also randomly killed domestic animals in the village. It was “virtually wiped out.”

Burkina Faso: Islamic terrorists slaughtered 29 Christians over the course of two separate raids. The first took place on Sunday, June 9, in the town of Arbinda; 19 Christians were slaughtered. The next day, another ten Christians were murdered in a nearby town. An additional 11,000 Christians fled the region and were left displaced; they feared if they were to remain in their villages they would be next. “There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda],” said a local contact. He added that “It’s proven that they [terrorists] were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are [also] killed. Arbinda had now lost in total no less than 100 people within six months.” These June attacks follow a string of Islamic terror attacks in the West African nation over the preceding six weeks that left at least another 20 Christians dead.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/trade-wars-the-empire-strikes-back/

Wars happen because the opposing sides have different views of the likely outcome. In the case of wars between Asians and the West, the West chronically underestimates the Asians. The Romanov Dynasty fell in large part because it lost its entire fleet in two catastrophic engagements with Japan’s Imperial Navy, at Port Arthur in 1904 and the Tsushima Strait in 1905. Britain would have lost the whole of its Asian Empire to Japan after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, except for the United States. Just before Singapore fell, Churchill told a journalist (as Andrew Roberts reports in his new Churchill book) that the Japanese were “the wops of Asia” and would fold like the Italians. Never before in the course of human events did such a smart man say anything so stupid.

So at the risk of spending the next month dodging rotten eggs and ripe tomatoes, I’ll say it: The way things stand, we’re going to get our heads handed to us, and President Trump’s chances of re-election will drop considerably. I’m a Trump supporter, and I want him to be re-elected, but I think he’s walking into a Chinese trap. Remember, Xi Jinping doesn’t have an election in 2020.

Today’s announcement of Chinese tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. goods and President Trump’s promise of retaliation may mark a turning point. China has taken the offensive. In fact, it did so August 6 when it allowed the RMB to depreciate to less than 7 RMB per U.S. dollar, as I explained in an Asia Times analysis at the time (below).

China appears to believe that it can win a trade war against the United States. Of course, no-one wins. Both sides lose. The question is how each side deals with the consequences of losing. For the past year, I’ve argued that the time is long past when the U.S. can inflict sufficient pain on China to impose our will. Since the 2008 crisis, China has been shifting its economy toward the home market and away from exports. Only 5% of its manufacturing now goes to the U.S., and most of that is on the low end of the value-added spectrum. When President Trump tweets that we don’t need China, by contrast, he appears unaware of the vast network of specialized manufacturers, skilled engineers and workers, and suppliers that produce the computers and consumer electronics we buy from China. You can’t wave a magic wand and replace twenty years’ worth of investment and training.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/hong-kong-crisis-taiwan-defense/

The future of democracy in the Indo-Pacific depends on our reinforcing Taiwan.

In October 1950 the People’s Liberation Army entered Tibet. The Communists made short work of the Tibetan military. The following year, representatives of the Dalai Lama signed a treaty with the People’s Republic of China (then all of two years old). The “Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet,” or the “Seventeen-Point Agreement” for short, promised that Beijing would uphold Tibetan autonomy, refrain from interfering with Tibetan politics or with the affairs of the Dalai Lama, and respect the religious freedom of Tibetan Buddhists.

These were words on a page. Before long, the Chinese Communists began to exert pressure over the Tibetan people. Occupation forces spread throughout the region. The authorities collectivized agriculture and broke down institutions of civil society. Farmers and militia rebelled. The resistance was quashed, and the Dalai Lama began an exile that continues today. Tibet, like Xinjiang province to its north, is a cantonment of the People’s Republic.

The Seventeen-Point Agreement is the model for Chinese territorial acquisitions. Verbal pledges of freedom are meaningless. What matters is the correlation of forces and facts on the ground. Communists have no trouble speaking of autonomy and local control. Until the moment Beijing dominates the councils of government and independent power centers have been crushed.