RUTHFULLY YOURS

As President Trump wrestles with America’s role in Afghanistan, he should first decide what our objectives are today compared to what we wanted immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.

Initially, the United States overthrew the Taliban regime but failed to destroy it completely. Regime supporters, allied tribal forces and opportunistic warlords escaped (or returned) to Pakistan’s frontier regions to establish sanctuaries.

Similarly, while the Taliban’s ouster also forced al-Qaida into exile in Pakistan and elsewhere, al-Qaida nonetheless continued and expanded its terrorist activities. In Iraq and Syria, al-Qaida morphed into the even more virulent ISIS, which is now gaining strength in Afghanistan.

In short, America’s Afghan victories were significant but incomplete. Subsequently, we failed to revise and update our Afghan strategic objectives, leading many to argue the war had gone on too long and we should withdraw. This criticism is superficially appealing, recalling anti-Vietnam War activist Allard Lowenstein’s cutting remarks about Richard Nixon’s policies. While Lowenstein acknowledged that he understood those, like Sen. George Aiken, who said we should “win and get out,” he said he couldn’t understand Nixon’s strategy of “lose and stay in.”

Today in Afghanistan, the pertinent question is what we seek to prevent, not what we seek to achieve. Making Afghanistan serene and peaceful does not constitute a legitimate American geopolitical interest. Instead, we face two principal threats.
Taliban’s Return To Power

First, the Taliban’s return to power throughout Afghanistan would re-create the prospect of the country being used as a base of operations for international terrorism. It is simply unacceptable to allow the pre-2001 status quo to re-emerge.

Second, a post-9/11 goal (at least one better understood today) is the imperative of preventing a Taliban victory in Afghanistan that would enable Pakistani Taliban or other terrorist groups to seize control in Islamabad. Not only would such a takeover make all Pakistan yet another terrorist sanctuary, but if its large nuclear arsenal fell to terrorists, we would immediately face the equivalent of Iran and North Korea on nuclear steroids. Worryingly, Pakistan’s military, especially its intelligence arm, is already thought to be controlled by radical Islamists.

Given terrorism’s global spread since 9/11 and the risk of a perfect storm — the confluence of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — the continuing threats we face in the Afghan arena are even graver than those posed pre-9/11. Accordingly, abandoning the field in Afghanistan is simply not a tenable strategy.

However, accomplishing America’s goals does not require remaking Afghanistan’s government, economy or military in our image. Believing that only “nation building” in Afghanistan could ultimately guard against the terrorist threat was mistaken. For too long, it distracted Washington and materially contributed to the decline in American public support for a continuing military presence there, despite the manifest need for it.

There is no chance that the Trump administration will pursue “nation building” in Afghanistan, as the president has repeatedly made clear. Speaking as a Reagan administration alumnus of USAID, I concur. We should certainly continue bilateral economic assistance to Afghanistan, which, strategically applied, has served America well in countless circumstances during the Cold War and thereafter. But we should not conflate it with the diaphanous prospect of nation building.

Nor should we assume that the military component in Afghanistan must be a repetition or expansion of the boots-on-the-ground approach we have followed since the initial assault on the Taliban. Other alternatives appear available and should be seriously considered, including possibly larger U.S. military commitments of the right sort.

Although Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, is shunned by U.S. negotiators, Fatah, the party headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, is considered a potential partner for peace with Israel.

Official Fatah social media pages, however, openly laud and encourage “lone wolves” to arm themselves with knives and vehicles with which to slaughter Israelis whenever and wherever possible.

Abbas and his henchmen in the PA do not allow freedom of expression. They do not “weep” over the “thuggish” and “deliberately murderous” conduct of their populace. Instead, they champion it and fund it. A Palestinian who uses his car as a deadly weapon is viewed by his peers and rulers as a hero. Physical violence is officially sanctioned and rewarded. An American who commits violence is demonized by everyone other than a handful of hard-core bigots.

A day before the car-ramming attack in Charlottesville, Virginia — which left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead and 19 others wounded — the White House announced that it would be dispatching President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser, Jared Kushner, Special Adviser on International Affairs Jason Greenblatt, and Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell to the Middle East for the second time since June.

The stated purpose of their trip, the scheduled date of which has yet to be disclosed, is to revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Justifiably, the Trump administration’s declaration that it would resume efforts to broker negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah was drowned out by the events in Charlottesville.

The act of domestic terrorism, committed by 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio, mimicked a choice method employed by Palestinian organizations Hamas and Fatah in Israel, and ISIS in Europe. The car-ramming so horrified the American public that it instantly became the key issue of the day, with candlelight vigils and memorials held across the country — indicating mass consensus that such abhorrent behavior is anathema to American values and will not be tolerated.

James Alex Fields rams his car into a crowd of “antifa” marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot)

The otherwise universal condemnation of the Charlottesville clashes between the “Alt-Right” and extreme “Antifa” (short for anti-Fascist) movements — sparked by the city’s decision to remove a statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert. E. Lee from Emancipation Park — has, however, been clouded in two points of controversy.

One involves the fact that, while dubbed “Unite the Right,” the protest was actually a gathering of neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other racists, xenophobes and anti-Semites — most, it turned out, imported from out-of-state.

For Muslims in other parts of the world, inflammatory outrage — often based on spurious charges — against Israel, has always been given immediate priority, while serious human rights violations by Muslim nations, dictators, and mobs are shrugged off as problems “over there.”

This silent refusal by many Muslims to condemn attacks that are openly inspired by Islam does not come from aggression, but from a fear of challenging religious authority or needfully holding our own community accountable. In a post-Trump era, Muslims are not worried about what Jews, Americans or a new administration will do. Many of us fear first and foremost our own community for the ostracism and harassment we risk if we rise as a dissenting voice.

Extremist ideology will only change once we remove the imams and the mosque leadership who are complicit and who have unfettered access to a powerful platform. These are not people of faith; they are not spiritual leaders. They are dangerous propagandists and they need to be removed.

From Lebanon to Norway — now most recently in California — pulpits at mosques are ripe with raw Jew-hate. This hate is not denounced by the immediate community. When news broke recently that Imam Ammar Shahin of the Islamic Center in Davis, California, delivered a one- hour war-drum sermon against Jews concerning the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the imam and the members of mosque stood shamelessly behind his bidding to “Liberate the Al Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews. Annihilate them down to the very last one.”

That is a call for genocide.

On the same day, in front of a congregation of Friday worshippers, another imam, Mahmoud Harmoush, in Riverside, California, also gave a Jew-hating sermon. Harmoush openly said:

“Oh, Allah, liberate the Al Aqsa Mosque and all the Muslim lands from the unjust tyrants and the occupiers… Oh, Allah, destroy them, they are no match for you. Oh, Allah, disperse them and rend them asunder. Turn them into booty in the hands of the Muslims.”

In the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century.

The Church of Santa Rita used to stand in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A few weeks after Father Hamel was murdered by Islamic terrorists, the French police cleared the church. It is now a parking lot. Police dragged the priests out by their legs as a Mass was being celebrated.

In France there are laws protecting old trees. But the state is free to flatten old Christian churches. The vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques. Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity.

“France is not a random space… fifteen centuries of history and geography determined its personality. Inscribed in the depths of our landscape, the churches, the cathedrals and other places of pilgrimage give meaning and form to our patriotism. Let us demand our civil authorities to respect it”. Two years ago, the French journalist Denis Tillinac promoted this appeal, signed by dozens of French personalities, after some French imams requested the conversion of abandoned churches into mosques.

A year later, terrorists who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State assaulted the Catholic parishioners in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, murdering an elderly priest, Father Jacques Hamel, at the foot of the altar. An outpouring of great emotion followed the most serious attack on a Christian symbol in Europe since the Second World War.

After that attack, the French authorities prevented many Islamist plots against the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Last June, police shot a Muslim man outside the cathedral after he tried to attack them with a hammer. Another terror cell of French women, guided by Islamic State commanders in Syria, had previously been foiled before they could attack Notre Dame. France’s most famous Catholic house of worship is a prime target for the jihadists. A t the same time, France has been dismissing the religious and cultural heritage of France’s Catholic patrimony, which, in a time of religious clashes and revival, should instead be protected as treasures and sources of strength.

Last month, around the time of the first anniversary of the murder of Father Hamel, a wrecking crew demolished the famed Chapel of Saint Martin in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, built in 1880-1886 and deconsecrated in 2015. A parking lot will replace the old Christian building. Photographs and videos posted on social networks, in scenes reminiscent of ISIS’ vandalism of churches in Mosul, show the cross being ripped from the church and the church destroyed. A few days earlier, in Rouen, not far from where Father Hamel had been killed, the local authorities ordered the destruction of the Saint-Nicaise Church’s presbytery, for “safety reasons”.

In 1907, the French state appropriated all church property, and now an increasing numbers of local authorities are deciding they cannot or will not renovate their churches. French mayors call this process “deconstruction”.

For the past two weeks “Dunkirk” has been top of the box office in cinemas throughout the United Kingdom. The film is a fictional rendition of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the Dunkirk, in France, in May 1940, as Hitler’s invading divisions blitzed their way towards Paris.

The evacuation involved over 400,000 soldiers, including many Frenchmen and troops recruited in British Empire and Commonwealth units such as Canada and Australia.

The greatest retreat in the history of warfare, the Dunkirk operation prevented the Germans from annihilating the bulk of the British army, giving London the chance to prepare to fight another day.

t first glance, there was little heroism in such a vast force fleeing without fighting; armies usually retreat after they have fought and lost a battle. And, yet, what came to be known as “the spirit of Dunkirk” was truly heroic as thousands of ordinary Brits, defying Hitler’s vast war machine, made their way to the beaches of Dunkirk, often aboard small fishing boats and dinghies and even a few floating bath-tubs, to help bring the stranded soldiers back to England.

Over the following decades “the spirit of Dunkirk” came to indicate a key characteristic of the British: fighting when their backs are to the wall.

Not surprisingly, therefore, those who campaigned for Britain leaving the European Union last year have seized on the excitement created by the new film to inject a bit of heroism in their narrative.

“Yes,” they say,” Britain is heading for tough times outside the European Union. But, helped by the Spirit of Dunkirk, it shall overcome all hurdles.”

One leading campaigner for “Brexit” has even demanded that the new film be shown in schools to boost the morale of the young whose lives will be most affected by leaving the EU.

However, it is hard to draw a parallel between Brexit and Dunkirk, if only because the EU can’t be equated with Nazi Germany. Nor was the UK at war with the EU, an alliance of democratic nations which Britain played a leading role in the creation of its latest version.

The question the Brits faced in Dunkirk was one of life and death. As a member of the EU, however, Britain has enjoyed membership in the biggest economic bloc in the world, alongside most of its NATO allies.

Advocates of Brexit have cited four reasons why the UK should leave.

The first is “regaining lost national sovereignty”.

However, in its White Paper published earlier this year, the government solemnly declared that Britain never lost sovereignty. Membership of the EU meant a sharing of — and not a loss of — sovereignty. Britain already shares sovereignty in many international and regional organizations including NATO, the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, among many others.

The “strongman” has a history of murder, abuse and suppression of any dissent. The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders identifies him as a “predator” who attacks press freedom, citing the fact that in the last two decades, eight journalists have been killed or have gone missing, 11 have been given long jail terms, and 33 forced to flee Rwanda. However, since he ended the horrific genocide in Rwanda, he is evidence that in post colonial Africa most nations want economic growth and stability more than real democracy….rsk

Rwanda’s strongman leader Paul Kagame won a landslide victory in Friday’s presidential election with almost 99% of the vote, extending his 17-year rule until at least 2024 after a campaign that seemed more like a coronation than a contest.

With 80% of the votes tallied, Mr. Kagame secured some 5.4 million, the National Electoral Commission said Saturday, confirming the president’s widely expected runaway victory.

“We are now certain that even if we get 100% of the votes, nothing will change,” the commission’s executive secretary, Charles Munyaneza, said on national television.

The victory—by a margin that more closely resembles those chalked up in dictatorships than democracies—hands the 59-year-old Mr. Kagame what he has indicated will be his final term in office. But according to Rwanda’s constitution, he is free to seek two further five-year terms, meaning he could retain his position until 2034.

Mr. Kagame delivered a victory speech to cheering supporters at the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front’s headquarters in the capital, Kigali, on Saturday morning. He pledged to “continue transforming Rwanda to guarantee a dignified life for every citizen,” and thanked the Rwandan people “for putting trust in me once again.”

The European Union, which often sends representatives to monitor African elections, had no presence during Friday’s polls, but the East African Community said the vote was free, fair and without irregularities.

Mr. Kagame—a former rebel leader who is now more commonly seen at international business events—is credited with engineering Rwanda’s economic transformation from the ruins of the 1994 genocide to one of the star economic performers on the continent. But critics and rights groups accuse his government of using state power to intimidate, jail and eliminate opponents through assassinations—allegations that the government rejects.

Mr. Kagame’s victory cements his position at the leading edge of a growing trend of self-styled strongman technocrats across the continent. From Ethiopia to Tanzania and Ivory Coast, leaders are increasingly consolidating control to spur radical economic transformation.

“The development strategy is identical to that of the late Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore,” said Efosa Ojomo, a research fellow at the U.S.-based Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, referencing the former prime minister who transformed the tiny Asian economy into a global hub but drew criticism from humanitarian groups. CONTINUE AT SITE

Andrew Warren, an Oxford University employee has been arrested in connection with the killing of a 26-year old man in Chicago.

Police have also arrested Wyndham Lathem, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology a Northwestern University in Chicago and expert in the bubonic plague.

Mr Warren, 56, and Prof Lathem, 42 were sought by police after a hair stylist, Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, 26, was found stabbed to death in an upmarket high-rise flat in Chicago. . Chicago Police said the two men are believed to be in custody in Oakland California. by the US Marshals Service.

News that the men were being held was announced by Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for Chicago police department on Twitter.

A senior treasury assistant at Somerville College, Oxford, Mr Warren left the home he shared with his sister in Faringdon, Oxfordshire on June 24.

He was reported missing to Thames Valley Police by Mr Warren’s sister, Tracey, and his partner, Martin Grant.

It is believed Mr Warren left the UK the day before, travelling to the United States without telling his boyfriend or family.

Authorities haven’t detailed the relationship between Mr Warren and Prof Lathem, who moved to Chicago from the Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Australia’s arrest Saturday of four men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on a commercial airliner signals more than a resurgent terror threat to airplanes. Because the alleged weapon involved smuggling explosives and poison gasses in a standard kitchen utensil – a meat grinder or mincer – it demonstrates, too, the rapidly increasing sophistication of these plots and the development of new means of attack.

It also exposes what international intelligence agencies, but few others, have known for some time: in a recent ranking of countries where radical Islam is a significant security threat, Australia stands in third place.

This may surprise most people, who think of Australia as a land of laid-back surfers and cuddly koalas, but a different side of Australia has emerged in recent years – one where radical Islam is rising. And it’s not just among immigrant populations; there, as elsewhere, converts also play a large role. The large percentage of Australian Muslims who have joined the Islamic State also has been little noticed. With an estimated 476,000 Muslims among 24.13 million Australians, the country has one of the highest per capita rates of Muslims who have made hijrah, or the journey to the caliphate. The ratio is about on par with France.

According to a BBC report, the majority of Australia’s radicals were born in that country. Sixty percent of them are of Lebanese heritage – another distinction from European ISIS members, most of whom appear to come from Northern Africa. And a 2010 report from Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre noted that, unlike other jihadists in the West, radical Muslims in Australia tend to be married (77 percent, as opposed to 38 percent in the UK).

The four men arrested in conjunction with the latest plot all were Lebanese-Australian, according to the Daily Mail. Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat, alleged to be father and son, are believed to be related to a senior ISIS figure; Khaled and Abdul Merhi are said to be related to Ahmed Merhi, who has been in Syria since 2014 and is a popular ISIS recruiter. According to the Australian, while Ahmed Merhi’s mother is Lebanese and a practicing Muslim, his Syrian father Faraj claims to have abandoned religion.

Abdul Merhi was released Monday without charges. According to press reports, despite extensive questioning, officials found no evidence he was involved.