RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20123/new-war-armenia-azerbaijan

After Azerbaijan besieged and starved 120,000 Christian Armenians in the Republic of Artsakh in the South Caucuses for nine months, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan bombed Artsakh’s communities.

Hundreds of civilians, including children, were murdered. Almost all the Armenians of Artsakh have fled: they know that after all military raids, Armenians who have fallen into the hands of the Azerbaijani military have been treated with maximum cruelty.

Beheading and mutilating Armenians appears to be a long-standing tradition of Azeri soldiers. These actions are promoted and rewarded by the State of Azerbaijan. Azeri soldiers who commit such ISIS-like war crimes not only escape accountability and are never prosecuted, rather they are treated as national heroes by their government.

During Azerbaijan’s military incursion into Armenia in September 2022, Azeri soldiers raped, mutilated and slaughtered a 36-year-old Armenian woman who served in the Armenian forces. They then posted a video demonstrating their war crime on social media. In it, the dead woman appears naked, with both of her arms and legs dismembered. One of her eyes is gouged out. A severed finger appears to be sticking out of her mouth, and another appears out of her private parts…. The Azeri soldiers videotaping can be heard laughing and joking in the background.

So, will the US finally hold the government of Azerbaijan to account? Will it cut US military aid to Azerbaijan? Will it once again watch as Turkey and Azerbaijan massacre more Armenians and invade more Armenian lands?

https://bit.ly/479MlfKThe Iran-Hamas-US connection

*National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said in an October 10, 2023 White House press briefing: “Iran is complicit in this attack in a broad sense because they have provided training, they have provided capabilities, they have provided support, and they have had engagement and contact with Hamas over years and years. And all of that has played a role in contributing to what we have seen [on October 7].”

*Iran’s Ayatollahs, who have been courted and appeased by the West, are committed to bring the West – and especially “the Great American Satan” – to submission. They are the chief architects and enablers of the Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah wars, determined to escalate them into a regional pandemonium, which would undermine Western interests.

*Iran considers its military and financial support of Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists – as well as many terror entities in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America – as a means to fueling instability, toppling pro-US regimes, and severely downgrading the US’ strategic posture. Therefore, Iran has been – since the 1980s – an epicenter of global, anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking and proliferation of advanced military systems. Iran’s rogue foreign and national security policy has been matched by its rogue domestic policy, which has been replete with ruthless oppression and suppression of the population, in general, and religious and ethnic minorities and especially women, in particular.

However, irrespective of this rogue policy, the US adheres to the diplomatic option, which has bolstered the Ayatollahs’ global posture since their ascension to power in 1979. Moreover, the US’ response to sustained Iranian attacks on US installations in the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Syria has been restrained, further eroding its posture of deterrence. Furthermore, the US has lifted most sanctions against the rogue Ayatollahs and is eagerly seeking another nuclear accord with Tehran.

*The lifting of most sanctions without Congressional consent – especially on the exportation of oil and natural gas – has enabled Iran to supply Hezbollah, Hamas and additional terror organizations and drug traffickers more advanced military systems (e.g., missiles, drones, electronics and explosives) to the detriment of the US and its allies, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-deadly-wages-of-western-secularism/

The Enlightenment project to diminish faith––or as the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, “to see God eradicated once and for all from the public life of humanity and shut up in the subjective sphere of cultural residues from the past”––has nearly succeeded in the West.

Even in the U.S., long mocked by Europeans as a hotbed of religious irrationality and bigotry, the younger generations are increasingly alienated from traditional religion. This estrangement, reinforced by the Christophobia and chronocentrism of schools and most of our culture, has gotten worse over the last two generations. According to an American Enterprise Institute report, 34% of Gen Z, and 29% of Millennials are unaffiliated with any religion, compared to 18% for Boomers, and 9% for the Silent Generation (1928-45).

The wages of this historical sea-change are legion, but nowhere more deadly than the long, profound misunderstanding of Islam, gruesomely obvious in the commentary and protests concerning the current savagery of Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel. One effect of our diminishment of faith is that our political leaders, charged with protecting the interests and security of we the people, have failed to understand or even know the doctrines of Islam, its history, and the intensity of its adherents’ faith that all inspire and motivate the attackers.

As a consequence, policies and strategies are based on a materialist calculus that emphasizes Western goods like “national self-determination,” democracy, prosperity, or political rights like freedom and equality. Religion, a Freudian “illusion” or a Marxist “opiate,” is either ignored or, in the case of Islam, refashioned in terms that gratify the West’s parochial prejudices like identity politics based on a historical victim status.

As long ago as the Thirties, this historical amnesia and its dangers were pointed out by Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc:

Millions of modern people . . . have forgotten all about Islam. They have never come in contact with it. They take for granted that it is decaying, and that, anyway, it is just a foreign religion which will not concern them. It is, as a fact, the most formidable and persistent enemy which our civilization has had, and may at any moment become as large a menace in the future as it has been in the past. . . . The final fruit of this tenacity, the second period of Islamic power, may be delayed —but I doubt whether it can be permanently postponed.

Our ignorance and indifference reflect the long retreat of Islamic power and influence since the 17th century, and its increasing domination by the West. These have had two effects in our times: the West became uninterested in Islamic nations other than as Cold War allies and sources of the fossil fuels that have powered our rich economies; and the deep sense of grievance on the part of Muslim nations, especially after the “disaster,” as Osama bin Laden put it, of the 1923 dismantling of the Ottoman Caliphate.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20107/china-overwhelming-response

Biden meeting Xi at this time would be a mistake…. Anything Beijing wants cannot, by definition, be good for America.

How, exactly, can Biden “stabilize relations” with a militant regime that has declared America to be its enemy?

Worse, China’s regime thinks it is already at war with the U.S.

Now, therefore, is the time to use all the resources of the federal government. The Secretary of the Treasury, for instance, can designate, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Chinese banks to be of “primary money laundering concern.” Designated banks can no longer clear dollar transactions through New York, where every dollar transaction clears.

Such designations would put the large state banks out of business everywhere outside China. If large state banks were to fail, so would China’s state-dominated banking system. The failure of the banking system would undoubtedly mean the end of the Chinese economy and financial system. The end of the political system would soon follow.

On October 24, a Chinese J-11 fighter jet recklessly maneuvered within ten feet of a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flying in international airspace over the South China Sea, endangering the crew of the American plane. There have been provocative Chinese intercepts of U.S. planes and vessels in the global commons for decades, but now the pace of the belligerent actions has increased.

What was the response of the Biden administration?

President Joe Biden has desperately tried to arrange a meeting with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping. They have finally agreed in principle to meet next month in San Francisco during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The agreement came during the just-concluded visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Washington. Wang met with Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-fellow-traveler-in-mexico-city-obrador-latin-america-migration-3f551ffe?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

The high cost of declining American power in the world is being felt in the Middle East and Ukraine. But it doesn’t stop there. Iran is moving into the Western Hemisphere with no effective pushback from Washington. The latest trouble comes from the U.S.’s North American neighbor, Mexico.

In response to a U.S. request that Mexico set up migrant-processing centers funded by Washington, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said no earlier this month. Instead, he proposed a regional summit, excluding the U.S. and Canada, to discuss the migration crisis.

Last week, at the gathering with representatives of 10 Latin American governments, Mr. López Obrador gave President Biden the middle finger. Not literally, but the effect was the same.

A photo taken at the meeting features a smiling Mr. López Obrador with pro-Iranian dictators Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro alongside Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, a former terrorist and a card-carrying Israel hater.

Honduras’s President Xiomara Castro, a Cuba sympathizer and wife of Manuel Zelaya, the former Honduran president who famously tried to extend his elected term with help from Hugo Chávez, was also in the picture. So too was Haiti’s acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

This gang of six, according to the Spanish daily El Pais, were the heads of state who drafted the communique that emerged from the AMLO-organized conclave held in the state of Chiapas. It blames U.S. sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela for the migration crisis and demands they be lifted unconditionally. The group also wants debt restructuring. Mr. López Obrador used the event to complain that the U.S. spends too much on defense and not enough to help its neighbors.

https://twitter.com/clashreport/status%2Fworldisraelnews.com%2Fwatch-muslim-rioters-search-for-jews-at-russian-airport%2F

A lynch mob of Muslim rioters gathered at an airport in Makhachkala, in the Russian republic of Dagestan Sunday, with plans to assault Jewish passengers on an incoming flight.

The rioters chanted “Allahu Akbar,” while waiting for a flight from Israel to land at the airport.

In the wake of the riot, however, airport officials rerouted the Israeli flight.

Total chaos at Makhachkala airport now in Dagestan, Russia. Angry crowd in search of Israeli citizens breaks into every room, frightened airport workers try to lock themselves.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20105/persecution-of-christians-september

[O]ne young seminarian, Brother Na’aman, 25, who was on the verge of completing his priesthood training, was burned alive. Police were contacted even before the attack, but came only after the terrorists had fled. — Morning Star News, September 8, 2023, Nigeria.

“They then proceeded to separate Christians from Muslims, apparently based on their names and ethnicity. They opened fire on the Christians, riddling them with bullets.” — acninternational.org, September 21, 2023, Mozambique.

“Today, I have nothing. I saw my house and my place of worship burn in front of my eyes. I was helpless. I saw my [Muslim] neighbours betray us. We have never done them any harm; we always respected them. Then why?” — Open Doors UK, September 6, 2023, Pakistan.

The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of September 2023.

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: As the genocide there of Christians continues, a Sept. 1 report found that “Of the 5,500 Christians who were killed last year because of their faith, 90 percent”—or about 4,950—”were Nigerian.”

On the night of Sept. 7, Muslims torched a Catholic seminary in Kaduna State. Although two priests managed to escape, one young seminarian, Brother Na’aman, 25, who was on the verge of completing his priesthood training, was burned alive. Police were contacted even before the attack, but came only after the terrorists had fled. “It is sad that killings and this type of evil against Christians are still going on in spite of our appeal and pleading to Nigerian government to take measures towards ending these attacks,” said the Rev. John Hayab, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Kaduna State Chapter Hayab. In a statement he elaborated:

“What is disheartening about this particular attack is the … Parish is located at the heart of Kamantan town…This causes us to wonder some more, ‘Where is the hope, how much more terrible could the situation get?…. [W]e invite the Governor of Kaduna State… [to]ensure that those responsible for the Kamantan evil night are apprehended and made to face the law. Security is everyone’s business; it is disappointing that this kind of unholy activity could be recorded at the heart of the… community, and the criminals will operate unchallenged.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20102/stronger-action-needed-against-iran

Removing even just one oil refinery might also “send a message” and persuade Iran’s ruling mullahs to rethink their plans.

The Biden administration, it appears, has been funding both sides of two wars: Hamas’s invasion of Israel, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

When the Iranian regime says, “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” they mean it. The US, by trying to bribe Iran not to carry out at least the American part of that threat, has, in reality, been financing Iran’s ability to do exactly that. Instead of neutralizing the avowed murderers of Americans, the US is bankrolling them.

The US needs to resume, even step up, enforcing sanctions to cut off the flow of funds to the Iranian regime. If not, the next war, when Iran has nuclear weapons, will make this one look like one of those five-star hotels in Qatar.

With the Biden administration’s deference towards the ruling mullahs of Iran, its regime — called the world’s “top state sponsor of terrorism” — is so far still the winner of Hamas’s barbaric massacre on October 7. The invaders from Gaza killed at least 1,400 people in Israel, including at least 31 Americans, wounded 4, 500 people, and abducted more than 222 people who were taken back to Gaza as hostages. Thirteen US citizens are still unaccounted for.

Iran has targeted US forces in Syria and Iraq 83 times since January 2021, when President Joe Biden took office.

When the US finally launched retaliatory strikes on Syria on October 26, Iran itself was carefully avoided.

One can only hope that a strong enough message was sent to the Iranian regime and its proxies — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, the Houthis in Yemen — many of whose leaders are tucked safely away in five-star hotels in Qatar.

It is shameful that the Biden administration continues to deny that Iran had any role in Hamas’s attempted genocide, while the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have themselves confessed that their paymaster, Iran’s regime, helped plan the attack.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20103/europe-facing-civil-war

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained in an interview recently that Europe had made a serious mistake by creating within itself, through mass immigration, populations that reject all its norms, values and a “constitutional basis”.

Finally, Europeans will have to do the unthinkable: actually apply their laws. If anyone — Muslim or non-Muslim — wants to celebrate the jihadist pogroms against the Jews, well, they can go and rejoice in Iran or Qatar. Not in Europe.

Every “Death to the Jews” or “Death to Israel” uttered in Europe… is an insult not only to Jews, but to us, what we are, our laws, our democracies and the will of the people.

In Vienna, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and dozens of other European cities, demonstrations “in support of Palestine” were organised even before the Israelis responded the jihadist pogrom perpetrated by Iran-backed Hamas on October 7, while the corpses of more than 1,400 Israeli victims — tortured, raped, murdered and mutilated, babies decapitated or burned alive — were still warm. According to a JNS report:

“[T]he IDF on Monday [Oct 23] published two segments from the interrogation of Hamas terrorists who participated in the massacre..

“‘The purpose of entering Israeli territory… was to kidnap civilians; they want as many hostages as possible,’ one of the terrorists revealed. He added, ‘They [Hamas] promised us that whoever brings a kidnapped person will receive an apartment and $10,000.'”

All the same, each and every one of these demonstrations in Europe was the scene of hate-filled slogans against Israel and Jews.

In Brussels, those slogans were shouted, and the atmosphere of violence and blood-lust was everywhere. Around me, surrounded by about 2,000 hate-filled demonstrators, a group of a dozen young Arabs were shouting “Death to the Jews” and “Death to Israel”, all the while exchanging knowing smiles and a few jokes. One of them ordered me to stop filming. I did.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained in an interview recently that Europe had made a serious mistake by creating within itself, through mass immigration, populations that reject all its norms, values and a “constitutional basis”. He deplored the fact that in Berlin in 2023, 80 years after the Holocaust, people, with complete impunity, are shouting “Death to the Jews” in the streets.

In the hours following the revelation of the butchery committed by Hamas, a wave of racist violence and attacks began in Europe, especially in France. Against Arabs or Muslims? Not at all. Against Jews, of course. In Europe, Jews are still the victims of hatred and violence. Apparently it is a way for our local pro-Hamas Europeans to celebrate the jihad pogrom of October 7.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20098/qatar-master-double-dealer

The hundreds of millions of dollars the Qataris have given Hamas during the past decade have been instrumental in helping the terrorist group to develop the infrastructure that enabled it to carry out its murderous assault on Israel in the first place.

Qatar would like the world to believe that it is acting as an honest broker with its efforts to secure the release of the Gaza captives. But the reality is that it deserves to be condemned by the West as a state that sponsors global terrorism, so long as it maintains its indefensible support for Hamas.Bin Khalifa Al-Thani at a ceremony in Doha, Qatar on February 6, 2012. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

There is a very good reason why the tiny Gulf state of Qatar finds itself so well-placed to play a central role in negotiating the release of Israeli hostages taken captive by Hamas during its barbaric assault against Israel.

The hundreds of millions of dollars the Qataris have given Hamas during the past decade have been instrumental in helping the terrorist group to develop the infrastructure that enabled it to carry out its murderous assault on Israel in the first place.

Qatar would like the world to believe that it is acting as an honest broker with its efforts to secure the release of the Gaza captives. But the reality is that it deserves to be condemned by the West as a state that sponsors global terrorism, so long as it maintains its indefensible support for Hamas.

Without the substantial financial backing Hamas has received from both Qatar and Iran, whose support for the terror group is estimated at $100 million a year, it is questionable whether Hamas would even be able to survive.

The extent of Qatar’s involvement with Hamas was laid bare during the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians on October 7, when Ismail Haniyeh, the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks, was seen cheering for joy in front of the television in his exclusive hotel suite in Doha, the Qatari capital, as the horrific events unfolded.