RUTHFULLY YOURS

JAKARTA—Indonesian police are investigating an alleged terror plot by Islamic State supporters suspected of attempting to build chemical bombs for attacks at the presidential palace and other targets.

Five people have been arrested, police said, just ahead of Thursday’s planned celebrations for the anniversary of Indonesia’s independence. Police said the attacks were to be carried out by the end of this month, but didn’t say whether they were planned to disrupt the events specifically.

The use of chemicals as a terror agent would mark an escalation in the capacity of Indonesia’s militants, who have been unable to build sophisticated explosive devices in recent years. Police said the type of device planned was more complex than the pressure-cooker bombs typically used.

“We found chemicals and written documents detailing instructions on how to create chemical bombs,” said Yusri Yunus, spokesman for the police in West Java. The arrests were made Tuesday in Bandung, about 90 miles southeast of Jakarta.

Police didn’t say how close the suspects were to completing a device to disperse chemicals, nor did they identify the type of chemicals found. Mr. Yunus said the smoke from one substance “could burn the skin.”

Among those arrested were a husband and wife, police said, but the identities of the suspects haven’t been disclosed and it is not known if they have legal representation.

About 5,000 police and military personnel will be deployed at sensitive locations in Jakarta during Thursday’s celebrations, police said. Such holiday deployments are customary in Indonesia. In May, a pair of terror-related blasts killed three police officers who were stationed at a bus terminal ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“We stay alert during the National Day celebrations,” said Prabowo Argo Yuwono, spokesman for the Jakarta police. CONTINUE AT SITE

Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle. 1,477 people live in this little corner of Quebec with its apple orchards, elderberry fields and small wineries. But now 400 migrants can cross the border in a single day.

On the other side of the border is New York. There the language is English. In Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, the language of choice is French. But these days you’re a more likely to hear Arabic, Urdu or Haitian French being spoken here as Roxham Road fills with clots of migrants scampering out of America.

They’re not the leftist American celebs who threaten to leave for Canada if their side doesn’t win the election. Instead they’re the illegal and dubiously legal who got the message from President Trump.

The overloaded Mounties at the border crossing are being forced to cope with the jabbering illegals, grifters and fake refugees of Trump’s migrant surge. But where Obama’s migrant surge swelled America’s southern border with incoming migrants, Trump’s migrant surge is expelling them north.

The Syrians, or anyone claiming to be, are coming. So are the Sudanese, Somalis and Haitians. This is an informal border crossing and so the rules that might protect Canada from this horde don’t apply. Quebec has become the weakest link in the Canadian border with the vast majority of border migrants invading the “True North” through vulnerable points like the dead end of Roxham Road.

The same thing is happening in Emerson, a town of 689 people named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Minnesota whose Somali settler population is invading and victimizing this peaceful community. At night Somalis can be seen walking up to Emerson to take advantage of a new country and her people.

In a town where once no one locked their doors, locals now check their bolts and turn out the lights. And then they wake up to the nightmare of migrant mobs pounding on their doors and peering through their windows in the middle of the night.

“They banged pretty hard, then ‘ring ring ring’ the doorbell,” a mother of two young girls said. “It was scary.”

“The biggest migration movements are still ahead: Africa’s population will double in the next decades. A country like Egypt will grow to 100 million people, Nigeria to 400 million. In our digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle.” — German Development Minister Gerd Müller.

“Young people all have cellphones and they can see what’s happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet.” — Michael Møller, Director of the United Nations office in Geneva.

“If we do not manage to solve the central problems in African countries, ten, 20 or even 30 million immigrants will arrive in the European Union within the next ten years.” — Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament.

Spain is on track to overtake Greece as the second-biggest gateway for migrants entering Europe by sea. The sudden surge in migration to Spain comes amid a crackdown on human smuggling along the Libya-Italy sea route, currently the main migrant point of entry to Europe.

The westward shift in migration routes from Greece and Italy implies that Spain, situated only ten miles from Africa by sea, may soon find itself at the center of Europe’s migration crisis.

More than 8,300 illegal migrants have reached Spanish shores during the first seven months of 2017 — three times as many as in all of 2016, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Thousands more migrants have entered Spain by land, primarily at the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the north coast of Morocco, the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. Once there, migrants are housed in temporary shelters and then moved to the Spanish mainland, from where many continue on to other parts of Europe.

In all, some 12,000 migrants have arrived in Spain so far this year, compared to 13,246 for all of 2016. By comparison, 14,156 migrants have arrived in Greece so far in 2017.

Italy remains the main migrant gateway to Europe, with around 97,000 arrivals so far this year, compared to 181,436 for all of 2016. Italy has been the main point of entry to Europe since the EU-Turkey migrant deal, signed in March 2016, shut off the route from Turkey to Greece, at one time the preferred point of entry to Europe for migrants from Asia and the Middle East. Almost 600,000 migrants have arrived in Italy during the past four years.

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.