RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20018/erdogan-muslims-un-seat

In [Erdoğan’s] speech [at the UN General Assembly], greeted as a brave international challenge by the Turkish media (90% of which he controls), he called on the international community to collectively fight what he thinks is the greatest malady of mankind: Islamophobia. He wants, he said, to revolutionize the post-World War II international political order by giving Muslim nations a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. “The world is bigger than five” has been his dictum over the past several years. He wants Muslim nations, preferably Turkey, to have a veto power, via the UN, over a new world order.

That is not all. Erdoğan wants the world to recognize the breakaway Turkish statelet of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey. That statelet emerged after Turkey’s illegal invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Still not all. Erdoğan admitted he was holding NATO hostage. On September 26, he said that the Turkish parliament would abide by his pledge to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO if the US sticks to its commitments to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ankara.

Meanwhile, at home, a brave Turkish journalist broadcast a video showing Islamic State (IS) terrorists being detained in Turkey, then released and sent to government-run camps for military training.

[T]here are realistic politicians who understand the Western world’s Erdoğan problem better than many self-deceiving optimists. One is French member of parliament Thierry Mariani who in a September speech at the European Parliament put the diagnosis plainly: “Erdoğan gets his strength from two things: Our loss of strength and our (strategic) blindness.”

In Erdoğan’s worldview, Islamophobia is the greatest threat to humanity. Radical Islamist suicide bombers and torturers are not.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20032/khamenei-plan-israel

The book has received approval from Khamenei’s office and is thus the most authoritative document regarding his position on the issue.

Khamenei makes his position clear from the start: Israel has no right to exist as a state. He claims his strategy for the destruction of Israel is not based on anti-Semitism, which he describes as a European phenomenon. His position is based on “well-established Islamic principles.”

According to Khamenei, Israel, which he labels an “enemy” and “foe,” is a special case for three reasons. The first is that it is a loyal “ally of the American Great Satan” and a key element in its “evil scheme” to dominate “the heartland of the Ummah.”

Khamenei describes Israel as “a cancerous tumor” whose elimination would mean that “the West’s hegemony and threats will be discredited” in the Middle East. In its place, he boasts, “the hegemony of Iran will be promoted.”

Khamenei’s tears for “the sufferings of Palestinian Muslims” are also unconvincing. To start with, not all Palestinians are Muslims. And, if it were only Muslim sufferers who deserved sympathy, why doesn’t he beat his chest about the Burmese Rohingya and the Chechens massacred and enchained by Vladimir Putin, not to mention Muslims daily killed by fellow-Muslims across the globe?

In the early days of his mission, the Prophet Muhammad toyed with the idea of making Jerusalem the focal point of prayers for Islam. He soon abandoned the idea and adopted his hometown of Mecca. For that reason, some classical Muslim writers refer to Jerusalem as “the discarded one,” like a first wife who is replaced by a new favorite. In the 11th century the Shiite Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim even ordered the destruction of Jerusalem.

Dozens of maps circulate in the Muslim world, showing the extent of Muslim territories lost to the infidel that must be recovered. These include large parts of Russia and Europe, almost a third of China, the whole of India and parts of the Philippines and Thailand.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/elon-musk-justin-trudeau-is-trying-to-crush-free-speech-in-canada/

The biggest accomplishment of Justin Trudeau is that he managed to make Canada a focus of intense international media attention, but not for respectable reasons. Canada’s freedoms are being severely compromised, and it is drowning economically as well. The latest out of Canada: Elon Musk tweeted that Trudeau is “trying to crush free speech“ in Canada.

The proverbial ship has sailed. It has been a long, tough process for patriotic Canadians as they watch Trudeau strip away their freedoms. Musk was responding to a new law in Canada, Bill C-18, that requires social media and streaming services with revenues over $10 million to register with the government, starting in November 2023. Subscription television services which are available online, as well as Facebook, X, Netflix, and Disney, are also included, as are radio stations that livestream online, and podcast services. Individual podcasters need not worry, unless, of course, they make over $10 million in revenue.

The wing of the Canadian government overseeing Bill C-18 is the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Details of the requirements can be found here.

Trudeau is beyond “trying to crush free speech” in Canada, as Musk observed. He has already largely succeeded, and has trampled not only the freedom of speech. Other examples of Trudeau’s infringement of the freedom of Canadians include:

his treatment of the truckers during the peaceful convoy protests; his Cabinet discussion about “crushing the Freedom Convoy with tanks“; and his freezing of the bank accounts of those who supported the trucker protest (and not just corporate accounts, either). Trudeau’s COVID overreach even prompted the Ohio State House to pass a resolution urging that Canada be added to the watch list of countries that restrict religious freedom. Trudeau made Amazon’s bestseller list, in a children’s book called How the Prime Minster Stole Freedom. Yet he got away with it all.
his gun ban.
his historic dealings with China.
his appointment of an “Islamophobia” czar.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20020/putin-erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to get the most from Turkey’s theoretical Western allies while in reality allying with Russian President Vladimir Putin – like sort of a Muslim Fidel Castro.

“[A]ny sense of a significant change in Mr. Erdoğan’s balancing act between Russia and the West appeared to evaporate on Monday, when he and Mr. Putin stood side by side after a meeting in the Russian resort town of Sochi and spoke of expanding cooperation.” — Editorial, The New York Times, September 4, 2023.

Erdoğan returned home [from Sochi] with an agenda to convince Western parties to the [grain corridor] deal on whatever terms Moscow insists should be in any new agreement.

Erdoğan needs Western money to prevent Turkey’s economic suicide. He needs U.S.-made fighter jets to maintain a delicate power balance over the Aegean skies. He needs Western pats on the shoulder to win legitimacy for his undemocratic one-man rule. But he wants all of these cookies without having to give up Russia. Over the past years, Erdoğan has made Turkey addicted to Russia, like a junkie to a dealer.

[I]t was appalling to hear an EU ambassador in Ankara tell me that he was appalled that Erdoğan said that a) he trusts Russia as much as he trusts the West, and that b) Ankara could “part ways” with the European Union if necessary. Erdogan’s ultranationalist ally, Devlet Bahçeli, immediately endorsed the cheap bluff: “We’re done with the EU.”

That is the way Erdoğan does horse trading. Sadly, each time, the gullible West gets cheated.

Erdoğan’s Turkey is one of the countries breaking Western sanctions on Russia. Earlier in September, the US State Department imposed sanctions on five Turkish shipping and trade companies for repairing Russian Defense Ministry vessels, transporting Russian military goods, and helping Russia to evade sanctions.

Perhaps Erdoğan is right. Turkey should part ways with the EU – and NATO too.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20017/ukraine-western-security

The slow rate of [Ukrainian] progress has also prompted politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to question whether it is worth continuing to support Ukraine’s military effort or instead concentrate their efforts on negotiating a peace settlement between the warring countries.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 US presidential election… calling for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia as part of a peace package that would also commit Moscow to end its military alliance with Beijing.

Ramaswamy’s fundamental argument, which is attracting support in some Republican circles, is that by supporting Ukraine’s war effort, the US and its allies risk forcing Moscow to align itself more closely with Beijing, thereby creating a powerful bloc to confront the West.

[T]he notion that Western support for Ukraine will force Moscow to forge closer ties with China is also overstated. Chinese President Xi Jinping may have given his tacit backing for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last year, but Beijing regards Moscow as being very much the poor relation in their alliance, and sees Russia as being little more than a gas station to be used to fuel the Chinese economy. If Russia seriously thinks its interests would be better served by developing close ties with China, it should think again.

If Putin were to succeed in capturing large swathes of Ukrainian territory through force of arms, China would conclude that it could use similar tactics to achieve its own aims, such as launching an invasion of Taiwan. If Putin is defeated, though, China’s Communist rulers will have to think twice before launching an unprovoked military assault.

Had it not been for the surrender of the US to Afghanistan in August of 2021, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine. Putin only started slowly sending troops to its border a few weeks later in September. Recently, China has begun sending ships and fighter jets toward Taiwan in the same slowly escalating way, to “normalize” troop movements and avoid raising alarm. The US simply cannot afford another defeat, this time in Ukraine. The surrender of any Ukrainian territory in some “deal” to end the war will be seen by the international community as a victory for Putin and another feckless American cut-and-run.

Still another factor that risks undermining Western support for Ukraine is the unreliability of the Biden administration’s approach to the conflict. On one level, the White House remains committed to supporting the Ukrainian cause. On another, it appears confused about defining its ultimate objectives in the conflict. As retired US General Jack Keane recently commented in an interview with Fox News, the Biden administration’s current track record suggests that it still does not have a strategic goal in the conflict.

If that is the case, then in the interests of Western security, the administration needs to agree on an endgame for the Ukraine conflict, one where Russia’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Western backed Ukrainian forces becomes the central objective.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20004/whenever-they-want-to-kill-they-kill

Muslims surrounded and murdered a Christian man. — newsintervention.com, August 22, 2023, Pakistan

Around 2 a.m., Muslim Fulani herdsmen launched a raid—the third of its kind on the same Christian majority village where people were sleeping after a long day’s work. They slaughtered 21 villagers. – Report, persecution.org, August 10, Nigeria

“Nigeria’s Middle Belt region that has been rocked by violence with tens of thousands of Christians killed over the past 20 years.” – Report, persecution.org, August 10, Nigeria

Muslims began yelling “Away with him!” Others grabbed the microphone from the pastor and “started tearing off pages of the Bible and Christian literature.” Now, gathered together, the Muslims began stoning him. – morningstarnews,org., August 1, 2023, Uganda

“Others were saying that Allah has granted to them authority to kill all infidels. Another Muslim sprayed what looked like acid [on Pastor Robert], while another hit him with a thorny object and stepped on the evangelist’s back and the stomach.” – Eyewitness, morningstarnews,org., August 23, 2023, Uganda

“[I]nfidels” cannot “preach in this town or come and mislead our people here… We are going to fight in the cause of Allah to kill all of you.” – Sheikh Hiisa Mubaraka, morningstarnews,org., August 23, 2023, Uganda

“There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.

The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.'” — Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, concerning Artsakh, an ancient Christian region under Azerbaijani control, luismorenoocampo.com, August 4, 2023, Azerbaijan

“Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.” — Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, concerning Artsakh, an ancient Christian region under Azerbaijani control, luismorenoocampo.com, August 4, 2023, Azerbaijan

“[T]he neighbors told her that they should let her [teenage] daughter marry their son so that she could convert to Islam and be led from the ‘delusion of their faith to the true religion,’ but if she refuses to convert, they have the right to do whatever they wish to her daughter.” – Report, pesecution.org, August 11, 2023, Egypt

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

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20003/oligarchs-plutocrats

The disastrous consequences of oligarchs meddling in politics are too well known to need more attention here. But what about the plutocrats’ record? The question merits attention, because right now two American plutocrats are engaged in erratic attempts at solving two of the hottest international problems. Elon Musk, the owner of X (Twitter), Tesla and SpaceX, and reputed to be the richest on the man planet, says he has a plan to end the Russian war in Ukraine. For his part, George Soros, now operating through his son Alexander, is busy campaigning for a deal between Tehran and Washington to give President Joe Biden’s forthcoming election campaign the boost it badly needs.

George Soros has been engaged in his grand plan for bringing the Islamic Republic of Iran into the fold for almost three decades.

The scheme reached the peak of its success when the so-called “New York Boys” seized control of the executive branch of government in Tehran under President Hassan Rouhani, a British-educated junior cleric dreaming of leading the Islamic Republic into the “modern world”.

However, as might have been expected, the Soros scenario ultimately failed because “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has bigger dreams for the Islamic Republic. Khamenei believes that the West is heading south to decline while China, Russia and Iran have emerged as leaders for a “New World Order”. Now, however, we know that Khamenei’s leadership troika exists only in his fantasies. China and Russia treat Iran as an untouchable to be kept at arm’s length.

Will the plutocrat’s peace scenario work? I doubt it. Being anti-American and anti-Israel form the Iranian regime’s core identity.

In the 1920s, the American plutocrat Armand Hammer orchestrated a similar scenario with the newly-born Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin. He persuaded Washington to give the Bolsheviks a chance to learn the beauty of getting rich through capitalism and trade. Hammer won the argument and Lenin won the civil war that without the “Great Satan ” pumping money into his war machine, he would have lost.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19988/belgian-f16s-ukraine

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, the most advanced Free World circles have been calling for Belgian F-16s to be delivered to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian pilots to be trained as quickly as possible. The fact is that by giving the Russians control of the skies, they are almost automatically guaranteed to keep their troops in the Donbass.

If the overall Western policy is just “not to let Ukraine lose” rather than to defeat an unprovoked attack against a democracy, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be emboldened to continue his aggression, and China will read the weakness as a green light to invade Taiwan… The US cannot afford another display of weakness or surrender. Putin sent his troops to the Ukraine in September of 2021, just a few weeks after the US abandoned Afghanistan. He got the message that “the coast was clear.” Unless there is a clear strategy to defeat Russia, anything short of that will look globally like Afghanistan, the sequel; another example of US fecklessness, and a good reason not to be an ally.

The environmentalists do not want to hear about the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine — first because they are pacifists, in the most ideological, surrendering sense of the word, and second because they know what the European environmental movement owes to Russia. The Russian government has massively financed German environmental foundations, and in addition, the Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten (Groen/Ecolo Party), was a 50% partner in a law firm called BLIXT, one of whose main clients was Gazprom — in other words, the Russian government.

These are just two of many examples of European environmentalists effectively becoming a fifth column in Europe of the Russian Federation….

There is also a technical obstacle: the F-35 fighter jets intended to replace Belgium’s F-16s will be delivered late, and the country cannot do without fighter jets. Its air force is the last sector in which the Belgian military is credible in the eyes of its partners.

According to sources who asked not to be named, the solution Belgium is heading for is the initial delivery of four F-16s to Ukraine, then progressively more when Belgium’s F-16s are replaced by F-35s.

However, a movement has recently emerged within the Belgian military, which considers that the Belgian interest is that on the one hand the Russians do not sweep away the Ukrainians and on the other hand that the Belgians regain the respect of their NATO allies.

Belgium’s reputation with its NATO partners is on the line. There needs to a delivery of at least a limited number of Belgian F-16s to Ukraine, and their Ukrainian pilots trained at once.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20000/danger-to-western-lives-takes-off-thanks-to

Even though the current Iranian government is a party to the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, Tehran has long violated it, as it has other commitments, by taken foreign hostages as pawns to extract economic concessions and achieve geopolitical and financial gains.

We can now expect the ruling mullahs of Iran to attempt to target, detain, capture, arrest, and kidnap more Americans anywhere they can. Collecting hostages is now Big Business. Other hostile governments will most likely be tempted to capture Americans, as well.

Secret attempts by the Biden administration to reach an interim deal with the mullahs have threatened to add not only an estimated $100 billion into the treasury of the Iranian regime’s economy, but also, worse, to catapult an Iranian nuclear menace onto the world.

“This exchange operation is in fact one of the most successful and effective negotiation [efforts] ever to happen to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In essence, we released a few Iranian prisoners in exchange for some prisoners whose sentences were about to end, and, on the other hand, we succeeded in releasing billions of dollars of our blocked resources without committing to anything else.” — Anonymous senior Iranian security source, interview with the Fars news agency, August 12, 2023, reported by MEMRI on September 6, 2023

After Obama transferred this $1.7 billion to the Iranian regime to release five Iranian-American prisoners, the theocratic establishment became more emboldened than ever.

“The Trump administration secured prisoner releases without ransom payments….” — Saeed Ghasseminejad, Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Foxnews.com, September 18, 2023

Increased revenues will also allow the IRGC to crush more easily any domestic protests against the government. Other priorities of Iran’s regime are to “export the revolution,” and military domination. Targeted for this project are Yemen, Syria, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Latin America, Lebanon and Iraq — and strengthening the regime’s militias and terror groups. America and Israel are presumably being fattened up for eventual extermination.

That is what $6 billion has bought us. And the “Iran Deal” that will enable the Iranian regime to have as many nuclear weapons as it likes, is not even dead.

The Iranian regime has lately been collecting hostages: Topher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray from New Zealand, detained in July 2022, Johan Floderus, a European diplomat from Sweden detained in April 2022, and Bernard Phelan from France detained in October 2022.

This escalation in hostage-taking of Europeans by Iran’s regime should not come as a surprise: the Belgian government last year proposed and ratified legislation that paved the way to transfer terrorists who have been convicted abroad back to Iran. The so-called treaty between the Belgian government and the Iranian regime was designed to secure the release of Iranian diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi.

Assadi was arrested in 2018 for plotting to bomb a huge rally held outside Paris, organized by an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Last year, Assadi was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Belgian court for masterminding the terror plot. Had it been successful, it could well have been the worst terrorist incident in modern European history.