RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15045/trade-china-cheating

[I]t is especially difficult to trade with a thief, especially when the thief views commercial contact as an opportunity to steal more…. This crime is essential to the achievement of the extraordinarily ambitious Made in China 2025 initiative [to dominate 11 crucial technology sectors].

By his silence, Liu allowed Trump to think he had a deal when, in reality, he did not. So Trump made a real concession — the tariff deferral — for a promise that was not a promise.

[T]he “engagement” of China is Washington’s “greatest foreign policy failure.” – Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania.

If all this were not bad enough, Xi’s future plans are especially pernicious… Americans are going to have to make a choice: take Chinese money or maintain a free marketplace of ideas. The disengagement of the two economies is, of course, unfortunate, but it is necessary as China presses Americans and leaves them no choice if they are to defend freedoms and sovereignty.

On October 11th, Beijing harvested another big benefit. Trump agreed to defer a tariff increase scheduled for the following Tuesday. Having gotten what it wanted, China then began to play hardball. On October 17, Beijing denied it had made a commitment to buy $40 billion to $50 billion of American farm products.

Judging from Beijing’s breaking one more trade arrangement in recent days, it is evident the communist regime in China is not able to work with the United States — or any other country for that matter. So let’s not trade with a China that lies, cheats, and steals.

“This won’t revolutionize the U.S.-China relationship or the terms of trade between us, but it shows that the two countries can work together on an important issue,” said Clete Willems of Akin Gump to Bloomberg, referring to President Trump’s “phase one deal” announced October 11. “Learning to do so is critical to avoid a broad deterioration of all aspects of our relationship, which is not in anyone’s long-term interest.”

Despite what Willems said, it now is in the long-term interest of the United States to walk away from trade deals with the People’s Republic of China.

Why? Four reasons: First, communist China has never accepted the notion of comparative advantage, which underpins the global trading system. Yes, the mercantilist Chinese believe we should buy their products, but they, the masters of non-tariff barriers and other forms of predation, have worked hard to keep foreign goods out of their market. How can America trade with a state that does not believe in the benefits of trade?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-exciting-finish-in-canadas-election-11571599515

As Canadians head to a federal election on Monday, polls have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party and Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer in a dead heat.

Mr. Scheer has turned out to be a more serious contender than many, including many conservatives, expected. But Mr. Trudeau’s biggest headaches are on his left, where Jagmeet Singh, the personally engaging candidate of the New Democratic Party, and Bloc Quebecois candidate Yves-François Blanchet threaten to siphon off progressive votes from the Liberals. This has greatly increased Mr. Scheer’s chances of winning a minority government.

Voter surveys say the race is too close to call. As Darrell Bricker of the polling company Ipsos put on Oct. 15, the multiparty jockeying “points to an Election Night which could be full of surprises and close calls.”

Some meaningful number of Canadians appear ready to punish Mr. Trudeau for his performance since taking office in 2015. A carbon tax that wasn’t supposed to hurt a bit has harmed consumers in key provinces. Liberals promised fiscal discipline but Mr. Trudeau finishes four years with a C$20 billion deficit. The ruling party now counsels Canada not to expect a balanced budget until at least 2040.

The prime minister’s authenticity deficit is his bigger problem. The self-described champion of women and minorities took a hit when photos emerged last month showing that in years past, more than once, he darkened his face at costume parties.

Mr. Trudeau has apologized profusely and by most accounts Canadians don’t brand him a racist. For good measure he got President Obama to endorse him last week.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15028/sweden-church-hate

Although Good Shepherd’s Swedish School is marketed by the Swedish Jerusalem Society as a school that promotes peace, Tobias Petersson, Director of the think tank Perspective on Israel, has revealed that the textbooks used by Good Shepherd’s Swedish school have jihadi content that encourages holy war against the State of Israel. Also, in those textbooks, Jews are described as liars and corrupt.

Maps in the schoolbooks and on the walls of Good Shepherd’s Swedish School do not show the State of Israel; instead the outline of Israel had been displaced by the identical outline of the “State of Palestine”.

That such a large institution as the Church of Sweden gathers church collections throughout the country to support a school that spreads hatred and warmongering should doubtless be seen as enormously problematic.

The practice also shows that not only does Swedish aid go to organizations that spread hate, but also that large institutions in Sweden have opened back-channels to send millions of Swedish kronors every year to schools, such as Good Shepherd’s Swedish School, that also spread hate.

To understand how harmful this situation is, can you imagine what would happen if one of Israel’s — or another country’s — largest institutions were raising money to support a school that taught children to hate Sweden and celebrate terrorists who murdered Swedes? It would, of course, be a great scandal and totally unacceptable. But in Sweden, this is exactly what is happening now.

The Swedish Jerusalem Society, founded in 1900, has devoted its mission to charity work in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. For several decades, however, the Swedish Jerusalem Society has been hostile to the Jewish State of Israel. The association has three official goals in the Palestinian territories:

Strengthen the position of women
Contribute to peace and reconciliation
Strengthen the Christian minority

Despite these noble goals, the Swedish Jerusalem Society publishes a journal in which the content, although often about Israel, has a tone that is extremely hostile and biased. In the journal’s first issue of 2018, one can read an interview with a Palestinian school principal, in which she states:

“We have suffered for so many years, and may suffer for a few more years, but it is unfair to give our capital to anyone else. Why not share it?”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15043/turkey-kurdish-obsession

The end of First World War left the Kurds in an even worse situation than before. President Woodrow Wilson’s promise of “self-determination” was soon forgotten, leaving behind the dream of independence on the Kurdish side and the fear of Kurdish secession in the Ottoman camp as reconstituted as the Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal pasha (Ataturk).

In much of history, at least until recently, systems sustained by ultra-nationalist and/or nativist ideologies have always seen “otherness” as a threat rather than an opportunity of cultural and social enrichment.

In other words, one can commit genocide as long as one makes a speech in favor of Palestine and attends a Shi’ite chest-beating ceremony.

A classical dictum cited by Clausewitz, the father of war studies as an academic discipline, tells us that starting a war is often easy while ending it is always difficult. Does that dictum apply to the war that Turkey has started against the Kurds by invading Syria? Right now, the answer is that no one knows. What is certain, however, is that the best outcome that Turkey might expect, is to be extricated from that hornet’s nest with a minimum of damage.

While the war could be blamed on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s autocratic style of decision-making, the deeper roots of the conflict must be sought in Turkey’s centuries-old Kurdish obsession.

That obsession was present, albeit in embryonic form, even during the Ottoman era, when the Sultan-Caliphs harbored suspicions about their Kurdish subjects on ethnic and religious grounds. Even when drawn into military service, Ottoman Kurds could not, or would not, be assimilated into the dominant Ottoman-Turkish identity. Subscribing to a variety of religious beliefs and traditions, including Alawism, Zoroastrianism, Yazidism and a panoply of Sufi orders stretching from the Balkans to Central Asia, the Kurds would not fit into the official Islamic identity of the empire.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/when-the-dust-settles-in-syria/

The United States has left the Middle East numerous times under several American presidents. But it has consistently returned—for better or worse.

 To speak about Kurds has suddenly become a cry in favor of human rights and self-determination by the Western press, and rightly so: The assault they are suffering is lethal and may become genocidal. More frightening is that it is being perpetrated by the Turks, who are already stained by the Armenian genocide and are led by a leader who considers himself an almighty sultan. And it’s really odd that Europe is only now discovering who he really is.

How can this be? Didn’t Europe know that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during these last 16 years in power has been possessed by a vicious fundamentalist Islamic and imperialist dream, who has repeatedly displayed unprecedented arrogance (he has closed newspapers and thrown more than 150,000 dissidents in prison) and expressed extreme ideas that have systematically dismantled the precious Kemalist heritage that once made Turkey the hope of a bridge between the Islamic world and the West? Didn’t it see that he inundated the world with slogans and anti-Semitic standpoints corroborated by his friendship with Hamas, who supported former Egypt President Mohammad Morsi as leader of the Muslim Brotherhood—a man he praised being himself the greatest Muslim Brotherhood politician in office? Is it coincidence that Erdoğan allowed the passage from his country of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in possession of whatever passport to boost ISIS, which many claim he supported through trade and furnished with weapons?

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/rashida-tlaibs-hypocritical-stance/

The Democratic congresswoman, who claims to be a champion of human rights, supports Armenian aggression, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan.

First-term US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) supports occupation and ethnic cleansing.

Having a clear problem with Jews and the Jewish state, Tlaib often blames Israel for “occupying Palestine” and holds it responsible for the Palestinian refugee issue, which she regards as an example of “ethnic cleansing.”

Yet, she makes a U-turn when it comes to Armenia’s illegal military occupation and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region. She unabashedly supports this internationally condemned occupation, in opposition to 28 years of bipartisan US policy and four binding UN Security Council resolutions.

According to an October 8, 2019 article published by the Los Angeles-based Armenian newspaper Asbarez, the Armenian National Committee of Michigan recently met with Tlaib to discuss issues important to the American-Armenian community of Michigan and committed to co-sponsor two House resolutions aimed at improving relations between the US and Armenia.

The impression is that Tlaib has become a political prisoner the Michigan Armenian lobby that in all likelihood has been greasing her political career, helped her to gain a congressional seat.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-doctor-down-under-on-virus-of.html

Declares  Dr David Adler, chairman of the (politically incorrect, and all the better for that) Australian Jewish Association (AJA):

“It’s the world’s oldest bigotry and it’s on the rise again. Antisemitism is associated with the darkest chapters of human history when humanity abandons civilised moral codes. Societies and ideologies which embrace it typically suffer a major decline if not complete destruction. Examples span the latter years of the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, the suppression and pogroms of the old USSR, to the Nazi implemented Holocaust of the second world war….
Antisemitism in some ways has the characteristics of a virus which morphs. During the Inquisition it was hatred of the Jewish religion with forced conversions by torture. Under the USSR it was Jewish culture such as circumcision or teaching Torah which was banned. The Nazis took a racial approach with the objective to eliminate the Jewish race. In more recent years, it is hatred of the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, which has become the principal focus for antisemites. Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

And to combat this virulent virus in all its strains, clearly identified by Dr Adler in his diagnosis here, a strong antidote is required:

“All these components need to be vigorously called out and condemned. The most widely accepted definition of antisemitism is that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes working examples of what is unacceptable. Australia became a full member on 4 June 2019. At a minimum, all federal and state bodies, including schools and universities, should formally adopt the working definition of the IHRA. The Australian Jewish Association will be proposing that leadership commence with the federal parliament and we are asking the government to pass a resolution to that effect. While this does not solve antisemitism, it would be a powerful signal that Australia stands united against antisemitism”.

Meanwhile, AJA director Michael Burd secured an exclusive and special interview/discussion with that supreme realist and staunch friend of Israel Colonel Richard Kemp.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/19/separatist-chaos-streets-barcelona-protesters-lose-faith-divided/

On yet another night of smouldering barricades, billowing smoke and whistling projectiles on the streets of Barcelona, Elisenda Lluch couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her younger comrades turning to violence.

“I’m done preaching pacifism,” the 57-year-old told the Sunday Telegraph after attending a massive march in the city center, only a few hours before the city descended into chaos once again.

“We’ve been peaceful for years, and the verdict was 100 years in prison altogether,” said Ms Lluch, in reference to the long-awaited Spanish Supreme Court verdict that sealed the fate of nine Catalan leaders on Monday.

Since then, growing pockets of protests have turned to levels of violence not sees since the independence went mainstream more than a decade ago. Exasperated, demonstrators have lost faith in politicians – and politicians have lost control of the streets.

Chants of ‘fascists’ aimed at the Socialist government echo between alleyways and housing blocks. What little hope they held following the ill-fated 2017 referendum, when the more hardline conservatives were in power in Madrid, has all but vanished.

But it’s not just national politics that is losing touch with the younger people.

Regional politics too is struggling to offer the alternatives needed to pull demonstrators back from violence, with splits emerging and backroom infighting among the separatist Catalan governing coalition.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/19/crime-britains-affluent-areas-soaring-faster-rate-anywhere-else/

Crime in Britain’s most affluent areas is soaring at a faster rate than anywhere else in the country, a Telegraph analysis of official data has revealed.

Robbery, theft and drug offences in the wealthiest districts of England and Wales are outstripping the national average by up to four times, as criminal gangs deliberately target rural and suburban communities.

A detailed analysis of Home Office crime figures, broken down by neighbourhoods and household incomes, found a startling rise in certain offences in the least deprived areas over the last two years.

While theft has increased nationally by four per cent since 2018, in the top ten per cent of the country’s richest areas the figure is 16 per cent.

Similarly, drug offences in the least deprived communities are up 16 per cent, compared with 12 per cent across the rest of the country.

Robbery rose by more than a quarter in the wealthiest areas, compared with 11 per cent elsewhere.

The analysis also suggests that violent crime, robbery and theft are also increasing at a faster rate in rural communities than in urban areas.