RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-cricket-star-imran-khan-claims-victory-in-pakistan-election-1532609185

Former cricket star Imran Khan swept to power in a disputed Pakistani election, upending the political landscape in a fragile democracy that now stands to be led by a sharp critic of the U.S.

The scale of victory far exceeded expert predictions, based on near-final vote counts in much-delayed results from Wednesday’s election, which will likely allow his party to form a government on its own and to appoint him prime minister.

But his win, which many of his rivals denounced as being marred by irregularities and help from the powerful military, also involved political compromises that critics say could undercut his ambitious agenda.

“I will prove that we can fix our governance system,” Mr. Khan said in his victory speech on Thursday. “All our policies will be aimed to help the weakest members of our society.”

Mr. Khan called for a new, “mutually beneficial,” relationship with the U.S. that breaks with the antiterrorism partnership seen since 2001.

“Unfortunately up to now, our relationship has been one-way. America pays Pakistan for fighting its war, which has really damaged Pakistan,” he said.

Mr. Khan has said U.S. soldiers must leave Afghanistan as there is no military solution there. Washington may also be moving toward direct peace talks with the Taliban, and it will find Mr. Khan’s government helpful for exiting Afghanistan, the party says.

However, if the Trump administration continues with the policy, announced last year, of an enhanced military presence in Afghanistan, it could find Mr. Khan to be a stubborn thorn.

Washington considers Islamabad’s help vital in stabilizing Afghanistan, and U.S. military supply lines also pass through Pakistan. In addition, he is an implacable opponent of U.S. drone strikes inside Pakistan.

A U.S. official said it welcomes an opportunity to work with Pakistan’s new government “to advance our goals of security, stability, and prosperity in South Asia.”

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/06/revolutionary-transgenderism-march/
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/06/revolutionary-transgenderism-march/
Kathy Gyngell is co-editor of the Conservative Woman website (www.conservativewoman.co.uk ).

Gender has nothing to with biology, don’t you know — and should you beg to differ, if you cling to the view of there being only two sexes, brace for the sanctions various legislatures around the world are keen to impose on those who persist in thinking unacceptable thoughts.

Revolutionary transgenderism is on the march in Britain, with the blessing of a Conservative Prime Minister. The delayed consultations on proposed changes to the government’s new Gender Recognition Act that Theresa May promises are to go ahead. It is likely that, though opposed by traditional feminists as well as social conservatives, the Gender Recognition Act, backed by Labour, will pass through the Commons and into law.

Last October, in a speech to Pink News, an LGBT website, Mrs May reiterated her previous commitment to improving “trans” rights and to changing the current gender recognition law to make “self-identification” easier, something that had never featured in a Conservative election manifesto. (By contrast Labour’s manifesto had included specific commitments to tackling bullying of LGBT young people and to ensuring that the new guidance for relationships and sex education is LGBT inclusive. It also promised to bring the law on LGBT hate crimes into line with hate crimes based on race and faith, and most importantly to reform the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act 2010 to ensure they protect transgender people by changing the protected characteristic of “gender assignment” to “gender identity” and remove other supposedly outdated language such as “transsexual”.)

Mrs May explained to her hosts: “We’ve set out plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act, streamlining and de-medicalising the process for changing gender, because being trans is not an illness and it shouldn’t be treated as such.” Sex change would, she promised, become a matter of choice, rather than of diagnosis.

Earlier in the summer, Justine Greening (the Minister for Women and Equalities and Secretary of State for Education) had announced that gender could be legally changed without any medical diagnosis, and promised publication of a consultation on a new Gender Recognition Act. Medics have described her zeal in applying this thinking to policy as unscientific, dangerous and part of a wider social strategy. The implications of establishing such a “right” of self-identification in the law are profound. Yet there has been next to no debate on them in the Party.

In a stroke “gender” and “sex” would be treated as being the same, though in reality “sex” is what we are biologically born with as dictated by either XX or XY chromosomes, yet gender as a social construct simply reflects the roles we take on as a result of the sex we are born into (which themselves are increasingly subject to debate).

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/remembering-battle-of-belleau-wood-world-war-one/

The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia is a half hour drive from D.C. and has magnificent dioramas and narratives and pictures of the Great War…..rsk

The Doughboys at the Battle of Belleau Wood in France exemplified American valor and established the brilliant reputation of the U.S. Marine Corps.

This summer marks the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Belleau Wood, which changed the course of World War I and gained the U.S. Marines their honored reputation. With a few exceptions, major media outlets have neglected this centennial.

By contrast, the 74th anniversary of D-Day, falling during the same time period, was covered by broadcast, print, and online outlets across the country. It’s more than appropriate that we give the D-Day troops their due, but it’s a shame that the Doughboys who fought in the Great War have not been similarly remembered. They were part of one of the most heroic, innovative, and self-sacrificing generations of Americans. Their struggles and triumphs reshaped the world as we know it. To this day the consequences of World War I are still costing Americans their lives, and the efforts of the Doughboys at the Battle of Belleau Wood are emblematic of the war as a whole.

In the spring of 1918, the United States was still sending troops to Europe and organizing them into the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Germany, then led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, saw a narrow window of opportunity to annihilate the Allies before the U.S. could fully deploy. Following the revolution, Russia ceded the Eastern Front, leaving the Germans free to concentrate nearly all their military might on the Western Front.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12765/a-month-of-multiculturalism-in-france-june-2018

“Cultural anti-Judaism from the Maghreb has been imported in the luggage of some immigrants…. It has often been aggravated by… the image of the man and the father, at the bottom of the social ladder… From there, a focus of resentment on ‘France’ and ‘the Jews,’ whose success, real or imagined, appeared to some as an additional ‘injustice’ and an affront to the ancient hierarchies.” — Georges Bensoussan, Causeur.

The Christianophobia Observatory, a Paris-based Roman Catholic non-profit organization that tracks attacks against Christians, reported 128 incidents of church vandalism or other anti-Christian attacks in France during the first five months of 2018.

“I am opposed to the institutionalization of an Islam of France. If the state interferes with religion, then it is an infringement of the 1905 law on the separation of church and state.” — Bruno Retaillea, Chairman of the Republicans in the Senate, opposing the creation of a French Islam.

June 1. In an interview with the magazine L’Obs, Marwan Muhammad, one of the leading Muslim activists in France, vowed to oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to reorganize Islam in France: “Macron can do his own thing, we do ours. He can name a great imam, he can even to pray behind him if he wants to. That does not mean that he will receive the approval of the people.”

June 2. In an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, the chief chaplain of the Muslim faith in the French armed forces, Abdelkader Arbi, called for the establishment of a military seminary to train the next generation of Muslim chaplains. The course of study would be at the undergraduate level and would be full-time for a period of three years.

June 3. The managers of a Carrefour hypermarket in Chambourcy complied with Muslim demands to remove Israeli dates from the store’s “Ramadan department.” Customers complained that the presence of Israeli products at the store was “an affront to Muslim customers.”

June 4. Police in Paris evacuated around 1,000 migrants from two makeshift camps in the city, five days after another 1,000 were taken to temporary lodgings. The operation began at dawn at a camp along the Canal St Martin northeast of the city center where an estimated 550 mainly Afghan migrants were staying. Another 450 people were evacuated from a camp to the north at Porte de la Chapelle. The St Martin Canal is near the site of a sprawling former camp by the Stalingrad Metro stop, which was cleared, only to spring up again several times last year.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12749/portugal-marxism

It is time for the people of Portugal to take a break from their concern over soccer scores to wake up to the dangerous attempt — within their own parliament — to turn their lovely sunny country into a bastion of neo-Marxism.

Since the dramatic October 4, 2015 legislative election in Portugal, which resulted in the fall of the newly-formed conservative government after less than two weeks, the country has been run by a far-left coalition.

On one hand, this is not surprising, given Portugal’s long-standing socialist tradition; like many European countries, it has managed to balance a free-market economy with heavy government taxation and powerful labor unions.

On the other hand, the ruling coalition now has the contribution of a toxic partner — the “Bloco de Esquerda” (“Left Bloc”) — which has been demanding implementation of its extreme social, economic and foreign policy agenda in exchange for political support. Since its formation in 1999, through the convergence of the neo-Marxists, Trotskyists, feminists and environmentalists, this bloc entered the scene like a political Trojan Horse, and gradually took root in academia and other cultural institutions, to the point at which it now wields actual parliamentary power.

This power has taken the form of an intensification of a neo-Marxist agenda, ranging from a near-successful attempt to legalize euthanasia, disproportional defense of animal rights, gender modification for anyone 16 and older, and a series of draconian anti-private-sector measures. Yet, not a word from Portuguese media platforms.

While other European countries are at a crossroads, seeking to regain control of their social structure and borders following years of extreme liberalism, Portugal is backtracking — falling prey to a group that organizes youth camps with indoctrination seminars, and holds conferences on topics such as: “Private Property is Theft: The Need for the Socialization of Productive Assets,” and “Boycott Israel; Free Palestine.”

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/26/reforming-nato-is-the-only-way

Donald Trump recently ignited yet another firestorm by hedging when asked whether protecting the newest NATO member, tiny Montenegro, might be worth risking a war.

Of course, the keystone of NATO was always the idea that all members, strong and weak, are in theory equal. A military attack against one member, under Article V of the NATO charter, meant an attack on all members.

Such mutual defense is the essence of collective deterrence. An aggressor backs off when he realizes his intended target has lots of powerful friends willing to defend it.

But what happens when an alliance becomes so large and so diverse that not all of its members still share similar traditions, values, agendas or national security threats?

NATO’s original European members considered themselves kindred neighbors under the nuclear umbrella of the United States.

With the inclusion of West Germany in 1955, NATO’s original mission was altered somewhat. It was no longer tasked just with keeping the United States in and the Soviet Union out, but also with raising Germany up rather than keeping it down.

NATO collective defense was designed to offer breathing space against the superior forces of the Soviet Red Army—until the United States could bring in reinforcements or threaten to use its superior nuclear forces against would-be aggressors.

The alliance worked because the United States accepted that Europe needed American help to deter enemies in order to avoid repeats of the disasters of 1914 and 1939. With the exception of Turkey, the older members of NATO were generally seen as sharing the geographical space of Western Europe.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270848/french-judge-protects-muslim-killer-elderly-woman-daniel-greenfield

Vichy lives.

ONE NIGHT IN APRIL last year, in the largely working-class neighbourhood of Belleville in Paris, a 27-year old man stole into the apartment of a neighbour, Sarah Halimi, the 65-year old retired director of a Jewish kindergarten, an orthodox Jewish widow with three adult children.

Malian-born Kobili Traoré brutally attacked the sleeping woman before throwing her from the window of her third-floor apartment. Witnesses heard him cry, “Allahu akbar” as he pushed her body onto the balcony, and then, “I killed the devil” as she fell.

The police, who had been called earlier by another family in the building, did not attempt to enter the apartment; afraid that this was a terrorist attack they waited outside the building for reinforcements. By the time reinforcements arrived, Halimi was dead. She had been tortured for an hour before she was killed; the living room was covered in blood.

The usual excuse for the Muslim killer was mental illness.

Yes, he hit her screaming ” Allahu akbar ” and suras of the Koran: first with the phone’s handset, then with his fists. Yes, he threw it well over his third floor balcony. But, he assures, he remains unable to explain why he has committed such an act of barbarism. “I do not know, I do not remember,” slips the young man with each question asked on the motive of the murder. He repeats: “I can not describe what was going on in my head.”

Maybe the suras of the Koran can help. Or his attempt to cover up his crime by shouting that the victim had committed suicide.

But don’t worry, the judge will protect the poor killer.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/death-of-the-romanovs-first-victims-of-soviet-ideology/One hundred years on, it’s worth remembering the first victims of the evil Soviet ideology.

‘What? What?” were the last words of Tsar Nicholas II, according to his murderer.

On July 17, 1918, at 2:15 a.m., the recently abdicated tsar; his wife Alexandra; their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia; their 12-year-old son Alexey; their doctor Evgeniy Botkin; chambermaid Anna Demidova; valet Alexey Trupp; and cook Ivan Kharitonov were roused from their sleep in their tightly guarded house in Ekaterinberg and led by Bolsheviks into the basement.

There, Iakov Iurovskii, under orders from Vladimir Lenin, told the Romanovs that because their relatives continued their offensive against Soviet Russia, the Executive Committee of the Ural Soviet had decided to shoot them. According to Iurovskii’s diary, Nicholas turned to face his family. Then, “as if collecting himself,” he turned around and asked, “Kакие? Какие?”

By 1917, Russia was ripe for revolution. The tsar’s slow-moving parliamentary reform and the 1905 revolution had shattered the unity of “the people.” War and food scarcity compounded the problem. In February 1917, riots broke out in Petrograd; in March the tsar was forced to abdicate. The provisional government was weak and short-lived, and the Bolsheviks came to power via a coup in October.

Who knows what one’s final thoughts are when faced with certain, murderous death. But this former emperor and current husband and father’s pain was surely tempered by his Christian faith. Days before, on July 14th, the Romanovs were paid an unexpected visit by a priest who had noted their astonishing forbearance and composure. Perhaps they had already accepted that their hope was in heaven, not earth.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12759/iran-khamenei-poem

However, one cannot ignore the fact that the man currently ruling Iran appears unsure of his impact on life, feels he is the victim of some unspecified injustice and sees a schizophrenic “id” (in the Freudian sense) that is “sometimes pure wine, sometimes deadly poison.”

“I wish I could get out of self-absorption that
Pulls me this way and that like a straw”
— Iran’s Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“From whom can I seek redress for the injustice done to me?” — Iran’s Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The annual poetry congress in Tehran, held at the beginning of July, included what state-owned or controlled media have described as an “historic literary event,” which, according to one establishment literary commentator, Muhammad-Ali Mujahedi, electrified those present.

The “event” was the public reading of a new ghazal (sonnet) by “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose poetical ambitions date back to his early youth more than 60 years ago. He has often said that he wished he had spent more time and energy on his poetry rather than on politics, and in anecdotal accounts of his life has cast himself as a disciple of such great contemporary classicist Persian poets as Amiri Firuzkuhi and Muhammad Qahreman, not to mention the great Mohammad-Hussein Shahriar and Rahi Mo’ayyeri.

However, still unsure of how his poetry might be received, Khamenei — who uses “Amin” as his literary sobriquet (takhallos in Arabic) — has always shied away from publishing a diwan or even reciting his poems in public. But because few poets could resist the temptation of reading their work to others, the “Supreme Guide” holds occasional private recitals of his poetry for a handful of confidants who have sworn never to reveal to others what they have heard or try to put it into print.

Thus, the event was a rare occasion, when Khamenei overcame his fear of not pleasing an audience and agreed to have his latest work recited to a group of fellow poets and aspiring poets.