RUTHFULLY YOURS

For the first time since it began operating in 2002, the International Criminal Court has put the U.S. in its sights. On Nov. 3, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda initiated an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan since mid-2003. This raises the alarming possibility that the court will seek to assert jurisdiction over American citizens.

Located in The Hague (alongside such dinosaurs as the International Court of Justice, which decides state-versus-state disputes), the ICC constitutes a direct assault on the concept of national sovereignty, especially that of constitutional, representative governments like the United States. The Trump administration should not respond to Ms. Bensouda in any way that acknowledges the ICC’s legitimacy. Even merely contesting its jurisdiction risks drawing the U.S. deeper into the quicksand.

The left will try to intimidate the White House by insisting that any resistance to the ICC aligns the U.S. with human-rights violators. But the administration’s real alignment should be with the U.S. Constitution, not the global elite. It would not be “pragmatic” to accept the ICC; it would be toxic to democratic sovereignty.

The U.S. is not party to the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the ICC’s authority. Bill Clinton signed it in 2000, when he was a lame duck. But fearing certain rejection, he did not submit it to the Senate. The Bush administration formally “unsigned” in 2002 before the Rome Statute entered into force. That same year, Congress passed supportive legislation protecting U.S. servicemembers from the ICC, a law that was decried by hysterical opponents as the “Hague Invasion Act.” The U.S. then entered into more than 100 bilateral agreements committing other nations not to deliver Americans into the ICC’s custody.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later weakened America’s opposition to the ICC. Barack Obama manifestly longed to join but nonetheless did not re-sign the Rome Statute. Thus the U.S. has never acknowledged the ICC’s jurisdiction, and it should not start now. America’s long-term security depends on refusing to recognize an iota of legitimacy in this brazen effort to subordinate democratic nations to the unaccountable melding of executive and judicial authority in the ICC.

Proponents of global governance have always wanted to turn the U.S. into just another pliant “member” of the United Nations General Assembly or the ICC. They know that America’s exceptionalism and commitment to its Constitution were among their biggest obstacles, but they hoped to cajole Washington into joining one day. The new Afghanistan investigation demonstrates why that vision needs to be confronted now and conclusively defeated.

Turkey has turned its back on the West. To be fair, we in the West didn’t do much to prevent it.https://amgreatness.com/2017/11/19/turkey-is-no-ally/

When Turkey sought entry into the European Union, other members balked and resisted—though not without reason. Many Europeans were alarmed by the rise of Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). The AKP sought to undo the reforms that made Turkey a modern, secular nation upon its independence in 1923. Up to that point, Turkey had been the seat of power for the Ottoman Empire—the last, great Islamic empire—and was dismantled after World War I. From 1923 onward, the country was ruled by a secular autocracy and became an integral component of NATO’s southern flank during the Cold War.

Now, Turkey is becoming fast friends with Russia and pushing the West away.

The move away from the West in Turkey began around 2002. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP Party burst onto the political scene, taking advantage of deep divisions within Turkish society. Erdogan supplanted the autocratic, secular junta that had ruled the country for decades.

Once firmly ensconced in power, Erdogan’s Islamists began methodically enacting “reforms” to make Turkey comport with traditional Islamic values. In the intervening years, Turkey has banned the sale of liquor, cracked down on any form of political opposition, and instituted a requirement for Turkish women to wear a headscarf—not exactly the stuff of European liberalism or Western freedom.

Today, Turkey is strengthening ties with China, as the Chinese carry out their One-Belt-One-Road-Initiative to link Eurasia as never before (under Beijing’s control, of course). In fact, President Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey’s future lies to its east, with the Turkish population in China and Central Asia, rather than in Europe and the West.

Turkey is currently purchasing Russian S-400 air defense batteries instead of Western-made systems, such as the U.S. Patriot missile, thereby complicating NATO’s collective defense measures. The Turkish government insists that it is only buying Russian-made air defense systems because Western governments balked at selling Patriot missiles to Ankara in 2015. That’s true. The reason is Turkey has a long history of doing illicit business with Iran and funding jihadist terror groups operating in Syria, including ISIS. The United States doesn’t want some of its best weapons falling into Iranian or jihadist hands.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clearly sees Turks living in the West as a spearhead of Islam.

“Yes, integrate yourselves into German society but don’t assimilate yourselves. No one has the right to deprive us of our culture and our identity”, Erdogan told Turks in Germany as early as in 2011.

This assessment of Milli Görüs, however, does not seem to bother Danish authorities, who appear to see no problems with their cities becoming Islamized by the Turks. How many more mosques will it take?

“Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on November 9. “Recently the concept of ‘moderate Islam’ has received attention. But the patent of this concept originated in the West… They are now trying to pump up this idea again. What they really want to do is weaken Islam…”

Erdogan is working on strengthening Islam in the West, something he does, among other ways, by building Turkish mosques in Western countries. It is hardly surprising that he does not want the West to “weaken Islam”, but at the moment there seems little risk of that happening. The establishment of Turkish mosques in Western countries appears to be proceeding apace with very little opposition. Conversely, building Western churches in Turkey is inconceivable.

Erdogan clearly sees Turks living in the West as a spearhead of Islam. “Yes, integrate yourselves into German society but don’t assimilate yourselves. No one has the right to deprive us of our culture and our identity”, Erdogan told Turks in Germany as early as 2011. This year, he told Turks living in the West:

“Go live in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the best houses. Make not three, but five children. Because you are the future of Europe. That will be the best response to the injustices against you.”

At a recent luncheon promoting his new book, Victor Davis Hanson spoke of Russia’s decisive battles and losses in World War 2. Read Victors Davis Hanson-The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won rsk
Three quarters of a century ago, the most famous battle of the Second World War [2] began. More than four million combatants fought in the gargantuan struggle at Stalingrad between the Nazi and Soviet armies. Over 1.8 million became casualties. More Soviet soldiers died in the five-month battle than Americans in the entire war. But by February 2, 1943, when the Germans trapped in the city surrendered, it was clear that the momentum on the Eastern Front had shifted. The Germans would never fully recover.

Fourteen months before Stalingrad began, Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military offensive in human history. After two years of decisive victories over France, Poland and others, Hitler and the German High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH), were confident that the Soviet Union would fall within six weeks. At first, their prediction seemed correct: the attack in June 1941 caught Stalin [4]unawares, and the Red Army unprepared. By December, the Red Army had suffered nearly five million casualties.

But despite enduring staggering losses, the Red Army continued to resist. In August 1941, senior members of the Wehrmacht began growing increasingly uneasy. The Chief of the OKH staff, General Franz Halder, noted in his diary that ““It is becoming ever more apparent that the Russian colossus…. Has been underestimated by us…. At the start of the war we reckoned with about 200 enemy divisions. Now we have already counted 360… When a dozen have been smashed, then the Russian puts up another dozen.”

In October, the Wehrmacht launched Operation Typhoon, the effort to take Moscow and end the war by Christmas. But as the weather grew bitterly cold, the German offensive ground to a halt, and was then pushed back by a Soviet counteroffensive. The front line froze in place some two hundred kilometers west of Moscow – and 1400 kilometers east of Berlin.

During the bitter winter months, the OKH began planning for a renewed counteroffensive in the spring, hoping to achieve the decisive victory that had evaded them in 1941. Thus was born Operation Blue, an attack to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus, and then drive on to the Volga. Launched in June 1942, it caught the Red Army off-guard, as they had expected a renewed push towards Moscow. Within two weeks, the Wehrmacht advanced more than 300 miles.

Hitler, increasingly directing military operations in Berlin, decided to shift his offensive in early August. For both symbolic and strategic reasons, he ordered the Sixth Army under General Friedrich von Paulus to advance towards the city of Stalingrad. By August 23, the Germans were in the suburbs, where fighting turned ferocious. Bombed into rubble by German aircraft and artillery, the city became impassable to tanks and ideal terrain for defenders.

As the Germans approached Stalingrad, Stalin issued Order No. 227, with its famous command: “Ni Shagu Nazad!” [Not One Step Backwards!]. This meant a horrific price for the Soviet defenders within the city of Stalingrad. Outnumbered and without air cover, the 62nd and 64th Soviet Armies suffered enormous losses: the 13th Guards Division, entering the battle with over 10,000 men, virtually ceased to exist; it suffered 80% casualties in its first week in the city alone.

In September, Stalin sent General Vasily Chuikov to take command of the embattled survivors of the 62nd Army in the city itself. They were tenaciously clinging to rubble on the west bank of the Volga, with only a few hundred meters between its front lines and the river to its back.

Our media and intelligentsia are always on alert to defend everything coming from Islam, from women’s veils to the “right not be offended” by cartoons. The same establishment, however, lies in a coma when it comes to Christian symbols under attack.

The West today keeps on hiding its deepest secret: that there is an Islamic war going on against our own Judeo-Christian civilization.

“They want Christianity eradicated, and they want to convert all Muslims to their crusade… They want it to be a holy war. And they want Christians gone. And I don’t think that narrative is getting the attention it should get…” — Piers Morgan, Daily Mail.

There are pictures one cannot forget — for instance, of Russian troops hoisting their flag over burning Berlin in 1945. It was the end of Nazism but the rise of Communism. Another photo is of U.S. Marines raising the American flag over the battle-scarred Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

Today the West faces another totalitarianism: radical Islam. One place that witnessed the new horror is Mount Sinjar in the Nineveh province of Iraq, once a home to religious minorities, especially Christians and Yazidis. Thousands of years of history changed when the jihadists of ISIS invaded Sinjar in August of 2014. They slaughtered men and enslaved girls and women. Christian churches were razed to the ground, and houses of worship, looted.

In 2016 alone, 90,000 Christians around the world were murdered for their faith, according to a report from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Between 2005 and 2015, 900,000 Christians were martyred. According to Open Doors, another Christian advocacy group, one out of every 12 Christians today experiences extreme persecution for their faith; the total comes to 215 million around the world.

“The persecution of Christians is real. It is global in scope, brutal in its nature, daily in its occurrence, and growing worse than ever”, said University of Notre Dame Professor Dan Philpott. A recent report by the World Council of Churches put the number of Christians left in Iraq at fewer than 250,000. “Christianity is finished”, said Canon Andrew White, the great vicar of Baghdad.

Last week, two events injected energy and excitement into what was beginning to look like an anemic end of the year in the Middle East as far as political developments are concerned.

The first event was the decision by the Saudi leadership to create a new mechanism to deal with alleged cases of corruption, embezzlement and influence-peddling.

The sheer number of cases referred to a special court on those charges was enough to capture the headlines. The fact that the 208 people under investigation included princes, prominent bureaucrats, and business tycoons intensified the event’s headline-grabbing potential.

But what really attracted world attention was the unexpectedness of the Saudi move.

Few, even among genuine or self-styled experts on Saudi Arabia, expected Riyadh to go right to the heart of the matter rather than dance around the issues as had been the norm in the past. Some observers, including many in Western think-tanks, warned of the danger of instability inherent in departure from old patterns of behavior.

However, the latest move is in accordance with the kingdom’s new strategy aimed at recruiting the concept of change as an ally rather than a threat.

It is possible to argue that because old methods didn’t produce the desired results, stability, which had been a key asset of the kingdom for decades, had morphed into stagnation. Thus, the new strategy is designed to end stagnation and prepare the path for a new form of stability capable of reflecting changed social, economic and political circumstances of the kingdom.

If Saudi Arabia is genuine in its declared desire to become an active member of the global system, the first thing it has to do is to offer the rule of law in the sense understood by most people around the world.

Trying to build an economy beyond oil, Saudi Arabia needs to attract massive foreign investment in both financial and technological domains. And that won’t be possible without a strong legal system backed by transparency, competition and equality of opportunities.

“While outside the mosque there is constant talk of integration, the opposite is preached inside. Only in rare instances are parts of the sermon — or even more rarely, all of the sermon — translated into German… [fostering] social integration into an internal ethnic environment, and thus ethnic segmentation.” — Constantin Schreiber, author of Inside Islam: What Is Being Preached in Germany’s Mosques.

“Politicians who repeatedly emphasize their intention of cooperating with the mosques, who invite them to conferences on Islam, have no idea who is preaching what there.” — Necla Kelek, human rights activist and critic of Islam, human rights activist, in the Allgemeine Zeitung.

In the debate on migrants in Germany and Austria, no other term is used more often than “integration.” But the institution that is most important for many Muslim migrants does not generally contribute much to this effort — and often actively fights it: the mosque. That is the finding of an official Austrian study as well as private research conducted by a German journalist.

In late September, the Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF), a department of the foreign ministry published a study, “The role of the mosque in the integration process”. For the purposes of the study, employees of the ÖIF visited 16 mosques in Vienna, attended several Friday sermons and spoke with the individual imams — that is, if the imams were willing to have a conversation, which was often not the case. The result of this, according to the ÖIF, is that only two of the mosque associations foster the integration of their members. The report applauds a Bosnian mosque association that also runs a soccer club. During the discussion, its imam said: “Every country, as with Austria, has its rules and laws and — something I always stress — it is our religious duty to comply with these standards and to integrate accordingly.”

With regard to gender roles, in all of the mosques they visited, the authors were struck by the almost complete absence of women at Friday prayers:

“Only three of the mosques… provide women with their own space, which is reserved for them and actually used by them. If they exist at all, most of the mosques make the women’s areas on Fridays available to men, too.”

Just a few days after circulating a propaganda poster depicting a jihadist driving toward the Vatican, a pro-ISIS media group today released another poster depicting Pope Francis beheaded.

In the image from the Wafa’ Media Foundation, a jihadist stands over the orange-jumpsuited body of a prisoner with his hands behind his back, chest-down on the ground on a dirt street. The terrorist, clad in khaki with a white scarf covering his face, holds a knife in one hand and touches the head that looks like Pope Francis — propped on the back of the body — with his other hand.

“Jorge Mario Bergoglio,” the pope’s name, is written next to the head.

In the background is an indistinguishable cityscape and a pickup with jihadists flying an ISIS flag from the bed.

Earlier this week, Wafa’ circulated a poster depicting a vehicle moving toward the Vatican with a cache of weapons, vowing “Christmas blood.”

“So wait…” were the only other words on the image, an illustration showing the point of view of an unseen driver as his BMW approached St. Peter’s Basilica in the evening with an unobstructed view driving down Via della Conciliazione. In the passenger seat: a rifle, a handgun and a backpack. In the rearview mirror, a masked face.

ISIS followers have favored attacks during the holiday season, with the 2015 attack on a San Bernardino County Christmas party by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik as well as last December’s truck attack on the Berlin Christmas market by Anis Amri.