RUTHFULLY YOURS

The regional regime that is in the best position to threaten the drive for a free Kurdish state is that of Iran.

The country that has the most to lose in the event of an independent Kurdistan is Turkey, due to its huge population of ethnic Kurds, some of whom support the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has battled Turkey’s military for decades.

Ironically and thankfully, this combination of recently acquired combat experience on the part of the Kurds — plus widespread unrest in the region, still reeling from the “Arab Spring,” and the loss of Syrian and Iraqi sovereignty over swaths of their territories — improves the chance of a peaceful secession of Kurdistan from Iraq.

On September 25, 2017, the people of Iraqi Kurdistan will vote overwhelmingly in favor of establishing an independent nation-state. All ethnic groups, from Erbil to Zakho — and in other disputed areas claimed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), such as Kirkuk, Sinjar and Makmoor — are eligible to take part in the referendum.

Although the result of the plebiscite will not be binding, it is likely to enhance existing secessionist sentiment among the populace and increase pressure on KRG officials.

The Kurds’ dream of a separate state is more than a century old. Yet geography and the imperialist designs of outside forces have conspired to render that goal a nightmare. Predictably, the most vehement opposition to the establishment of an independent state for the Kurds comes from the major powers with large Kurdish minorities — including Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Apparently fearing that a Kurdish state would heighten irredentist sentiment among the Kurdish minorities within their territories to merge with a “Greater Kurdistan,” the governments of these countries view any form of Kurdish independence as a national-security threat. It is thus quite possible that one or more of the KRG’s neighbors will move militarily to prevent a Kurdish secession from Iraq.

The regional regime that is in the best position to threaten the drive for a Kurdish Free State is that of Iran. It already employs small pro-Iranian militias — the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organization — on KRG territory, operating under the rubric of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Should Iran decide to take military action to prevent a Kurdish secession from Iraq, it will likely deploy the PMF to do so.

However, while the political and military asymmetry between Iraq’s Kurdish region and outside regional powers have seemed fixed, the historical inequality no longer exists. Currently, in fact, no state in the region easily could crush a determined effort by the Kurds to sever the artificial ties that have bound them, disadvantageously, to the Arab people of Mesopotamia.

This is chiefly due to the Peshmerga (“those who defy death”), Kurdish fighters who have become combat-hardened warriors; so much so that, with NATO air support in August 2014, they fought the Islamic State fighters to a standstill outside the gates of their regional capital, Erbil. In the event of a confrontation against the Peshmerga, even the pro-Iran PMF militias would pay a heavy price.

Greater Zab River near Erbil Iraqi Kurdistan. (Image source: jamesdale10/Wikimedia Commons)

Most of Iran’s Kurds live in the western part of the Islamic Republic, in Kordestan, West Azerbaijan and the Kermanshah provinces. Although regionally concentrated, they are not in a position to secede from Iran, due mainly to the efforts of Tehran’s intelligence services to suppress Kurdish irredentism by eviscerating rebel organizations. That could change, however, if Iraq’s Kurds are successful in seceding from the central government in Baghdad. For one thing, it might buoy Iran-based Kurdish groups — such as the Komela (Society of Revolutionary Toilers of Kordestan), the Kurd Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and the Free Life Party of Kordestan (PJAK) — and spur them to rise up against the regime in Tehran.

The country that has the most to lose in the event of an independent Kurdistan is Turkey, due to its huge population of ethnic Kurds, some of whom support the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has battled Turkey’s military for decades.

Although Turkey is also the greatest obstacle to Kurdish independence, Turkish troops have become entangled in the Syrian civil war. They have also not recuperated from the failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the summer of 2016, an act that resulted, among other things, in a massive purge within the Turkish military.

To allay Istanbul’s apprehensions that an independent Kurdish state on its borders might energize Turkey’s Kurds to seek autonomy, KRG political leaders are likely to forswear any assistance to the PKK, at least publicly. Kurdish spokesmen will probably also point out that Turks could benefit from a stable Kurdistan’s pledge to keep the oil flowing to Turkey from Kurdish fields around Kirkuk.

As the Islamic State loses caliphate territory in Iraq and Syria, a new video released by the terror group touts the growth of operations in the Philippines and the destruction jihadists unleashed on a Catholic church in Marawi.

Muslim fighters loyal to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi began clashing with government forces in the city on Mindanao in the southern Philippines in May, eager to carve out a province for ISIS. The “Inside the Khilafah” video brags about how jihadists freed inmates from the local jail and attacked local churches, and called Marawi “a reward for holding firmly to the rope of Allah.”

The English-speaking narrator with an American accent, who has narrated other videos for ISIS’ Al-Hayat Media Center, said the occupation took root in Marawi because the Philippine government tried to “subjugate the Muslims” and “expel them from the land.” Like ISIS recruitment and operations in their shrinking home-base caliphate, the video also shows child soldiers fighting with the jihadists.

ISIS re-ups raw footage first released in June showing jihadists rampaging through a church, first toppling a large crucifix and stomping on it. They also toppled and smashed statues of Jesus, Mary and saints, tore up photos of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI and set fire to the parish.
ISIS jihadists topple a crucifix in philippines (ISIS video)
ISIS jihadists destroy church statue in Philippines (ISIS video)
ISIS jihadists destroy church statue in philippines (ISIS video)

“After all their efforts it would be the religion of the cross that would be broken,” the narrator states. “The crusaders’ enmity toward the Muslims only served to embolden a generation of youth.”

One of the jihadists, vowing that “we will make more revenge,” holds aloft a photo of Pope Francis. “We will be in Rome, inshallah,” he says repeatedly before pointing his gun at the pontiff’s picture.
ISIS jihadists tear up a photo of the pope in Philippines (ISIS video)

The narrator says that Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte, who is a Mindanaoan,”ran to his masters, the defenders of the cross, America, along with their regional guard dog Australia, and begged them for help, and despite having been previously insulted by Duterte, they were quick to put their differences aside.” CONTINUE AT SITE

“North Korea still uses great terror. But modern dictatorships in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela have realized that lesser terror is effective, attracts less attention and does not jeopardize the loyalty of their radical supporters in the West. Lesser terror, though, is still terror. ”

Eighty years ago, Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror (to use Robert Conquest’s term) was well into its first month. In towns and cities throughout the Soviet Union, the headquarters of the NKVD—the secret police—were filled with screams, the sounds of beatings and the clacking of typewriters. In the Kremlin, Stalin signed “shooting lists” of prominent Bolsheviks to be executed. Extrajudicial troikas provided a thin veneer of “socialist legality” as they rubber stamped death sentences.

The Great Terror was initiated by Stalin in his order on July 2, 1937, telling regional bosses to submit lists of “enemies of the people.” The NKVD’s infamous Order No. 00447, which followed on July 30, allotted quotas for 75,950 executions and 193,000 prison sentences. These “limits” were forgotten as regions competed for higher victim totals. By the time Stalin ended the purge with a single telegram on Nov. 17, 1938, 687,000 had been shot. Stalin pleaded innocence: Mavericks in the NKVD were to blame, he claimed.

Subsequent horrors in China, Cambodia and North Korea demonstrate that the Great Terror of 1937-38 was not the product of one man’s paranoia. What Stalin did was entirely “rational” for an absolute dictator with no moral qualms. It was perfectly fine, Stalin asserted, to kill 19 innocents as long as the 20th was an actual enemy. Instead of minimizing false convictions, as Western jurisprudence does, the system minimized false acquittals. After all, that one enemy left alive could end up being Stalin’s assassin. CONTINUE AT SITE

Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (from 2007 until 2015) was directly involved in the cover-up of Iran’s role in the 1994 terrorist attack in Buenos Aires, Argentina. See the documentary “Los Abandonados”….which investigates the murder of Nisman…..rsk
Argentine federal criminal prosecutor Ricardo Sáenz announced Monday that a new toxicology analysis on the body of the late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman has discovered the drug ketamine, an anesthetic mostly used on animals. It is highly unlikely Nisman would have voluntarily ingested such a drug. He had been investigating Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center when he was found dead in his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head in January 2015.

“There is a mountain of evidence in the case that indicates that it is a homicide; this would be one more,” said Mr. Sáenz, who worked to get the case moved to federal court last year so he could take over the probe.

In 2006 Nisman indicted seven Iranians and one Lebanese-born member of Hezbollah for the bombing, which killed 85. At the time of his death Nisman was a day away from testifying before the Argentine Congress about his more recent findings. He alleged that then-President Cristina Kirchner and her foreign minister Héctor Timerman had made a deal with Tehran to bury the matter in return for Iranian oil and Iranian purchases of Argentine grain.

At the news of Nisman’s death, Mrs. Kirchner’s secretary of security rushed to label it an apparent suicide. But by all accounts the 52-year-old father of two had been in good spirits, and the government’s claim that Nisman took his own life sparked a public outcry. Even Mrs. Kirchner soon dropped the suicide theory.

Yet the investigation was sloppy and less than transparent and the case was never closed. The new evidence could lead to the truth—if the Argentine judiciary lets Mr. Sáenz continue the investigation.

A new video circulating today from ISIS features a 10-year-old kid, Yusuf, who claims to live in Raqqa and who warns that America’s fight against the terror group will “end in your lands.”

The video is the fourth in a series called “A Fertile Nation” and begins with scenes of ISIS fighters preparing for battle in what appears to be Raqqa. Coincidentally, the fighters huddle over an iPhone looking at a map of the city, presumably preparing their defensive positions against coalition forces.

Then Yusuf is introduced, reading quickly from a prepared script. He identifies himself and says that he is an American who made hijrah two years ago “from the land of kufr (infidelity)” to the Islamic State. The video then shows drone footage of what appears to be Los Angeles.

Yusuf then claims that his father is a former American soldier who fought “against the mujaheddin” in Iraq.

In the next scene, another boy, 7-year-old Abdullah, is introduced by Yusuf. Abdullah is seen performing ablution presumably before prayer.
New ISIS Video Features 10-Year-Old American Living in Raqqa

He says that he was taken by ISIS from Sinjar, meaning that he may be one of the captured Yazidi children taken when they overran that area in northern Iraq three years ago this month.

Yusuf continues:

We live in a small city called Raqqa. This city has scared the whole world because the Muslims who live in it have learned the meaning of jihad and have established the rule of Allah. Because of this all the nations of the world who are led by America have gathered to scare us away from what we have established. More and more there is more random bombings, including phosphorus bombs, and all kinds of planes, including B-52s, from jets to drones.

Yusuf and Abdullah then walk through the rubble of Raqqa. The video shows scenes of a damaged mosque and a destroyed playground.
ISIS to Jihadists: ‘Kidnap the Children’ of Westerners

A graphic is shown representing the purported damage to Raqqa from coalition bombing.

After a message about the travails of Muslims throughout history, scenes of ISIS fighters are shown, such as an anti-aircraft gun being fired at a coalition jet.

Yusuf then gives the following message:

My message to Trump, the puppet of the Jews, Allah promises victory and promised you defeat. This battle is not going to end in Raqqa or Mosul. It’s going to end in your lands. By the will of Allah we will have victory. So get ready for the fighting has just begun.

And continuing in Arabic, he concludes:

Do you think that we’re going to leave? Do you think that we’ll be finished? Never! We will remain until the Day of Judgement, with Allah’s permission.

Toronto-based automated investment provider Wealthsimple Financial Inc. introduced a Shariah-compliant portfolio targeting U.S. and Canadian investors on Wednesday in a move to expand its product offerings in an increasingly crowded robo-adviser market.

Robo-advisers have recently emerged as a popular segment of the market among passive individual investors seeking lower management fees and a reliable return on investment. However, the space has become crowded, with companies such as Charles Schwab Corp. and Bank of America Corp. launching their own robo-adviser offerings alongside startups such as Wealthfront Inc. and Betterment.

Robo-advisers are likely to report double-digit growth in assets under management in coming years from a base of less than $100 billion in 2016, according to a report released by Fitch Ratings Inc. last month. The Fitch report cited a recent study by KPMG that estimates robo-advisers’ assets under management will total more than $2 trillion by the end of 2020.

Wealthsimple’s Halal Investing portfolio is aimed at setting the company apart from its peers, said Michael Katchen, the company’s chief executive and co-founder.

“The Muslim community in North America is extremely large and underserviced,” Mr. Katchen said. He expects the portfolio’s interest to closely mirror the company’s socially responsible products that began as a niche offering and grew to one of its biggest services.

The new portfolio will track a group of 50 companies traded in the U.S. and Canada that don’t generate more than 5% of their revenue from alcohol, tobacco, gambling or pork production, and don’t make significant income from interest. Wealthsimple’s fees are a flat 0.5% for the first $100,000 invested and drop to 0.4% on any additional investment.

Mr. Katchen said there is a lack of affordable options aimed at Muslim investors, which opened the opportunity for the company to develop its own offering. He cited the Global Iman Fund managed by Global Growth Assets Inc., with a management fee of 2.82%, as a competitor. Another rival is New York-based Wahed Invest, which offers Shariah-compliant investments with management fees ranging from 0.29% to 0.99%.

“This is a way for people to achieve their long-term goals and make it acceptable to a group which hasn’t had that kind of option in the past,” Mr. Katchen said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Egypt lashed out Wednesday against a decision by the Trump administration to slash and withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid to Cairo, in a rare sign of friction between two leaders who have lavished each other with praise.

The administration is cutting $95.7 million in military and economic aid and putting another $195 million in military assistance on hold because of unhappiness over Egypt’s human-rights situation, a State Department official said.

Washington also wants to pressure Cairo on its ties with North Korea, a person familiar with the decision said.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has lauded Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, calling the former army general a “great friend and ally” and a partner in the fight against terrorism.

When the two leaders met in April in Washington, U.S. officials were assured by their Egyptian counterparts that legislation restricting the activities of nongovernmental organizations wouldn’t take effect. The following month, Mr. Sisi signed the bill into law.

The Egyptian law imposes strict regulations on nongovernmental organizations, and human rights groups have said the law essentially amounts to a ban of their work. U.S. officials see the Egyptian law as part of a crackdown on dissent under Mr. Sisi.

“People in the administration felt misled,” the State Department official said. “We definitely wanted to send a message that they need to do better on human rights.”

The U.S. moves came as White House special adviser Jared Kushner held separate talks in Cairo with Mr. Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri as part of a Middle East tour that aims to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. As the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, Egypt is seen as an important player in any resumption of talks.

The State Department official said the steps on aid weren’t timed to coincide with Mr. Kushner’s trip, and weren’t connected.

The $195 million in withheld military funds won’t be disbursed until the U.S. sees “progress from Egypt on key priorities,” said the State Department official, who declined to specify what Cairo must do to get the aid resumed.

In a statement Wednesday, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry criticized the measures as harmful to “Egyptian and American common interests” and said they represented a misjudgment about the nature of historic U.S.-Egyptian strategic ties. They also reflected Washington’s “lack of understanding about the importance of supporting the stability and success of Egypt.”

The U.S. has supplied Egypt, a key ally in the Middle East, with nearly $80 billion in military and economic aid in the past three decades, and the decision to use U.S. aid to express its displeasure over Egyptian government policies is a major shift for the Trump administration.

Mr. Trump raised his concerns about North Korea with Mr. Sisi in a call last month, according to a White House account. Mr. Trump stressed the need for countries to stop hosting North Korean guest workers and providing economic or military benefits. CONTINUE AT SITE

Hamas and Abbas have turned Palestinian journalists into weapons in their internecine war. Palestinian journalists are now being targeted not only for expressing their views and reporting in a way that angers their leaders; they are also arrested and tortured in the process of the settling of scores between Abbas and Hamas.

The Palestinians indeed live under two dictatorial regimes, where freedom of expression and freedom of the media are violated on a daily basis.

By taking journalists hostage, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have demonstrated that they are operating more as militias than as governments. We have before us a preview of the deadly drama of any future Palestinian state.

Palestinian journalists have once again fallen victim to the continuing power struggle between the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has jurisdiction over parts of the West Bank, and Hamas, the Islamist movement that is in control of the entire Gaza Strip.

Neither the PA nor Hamas is any champion of human rights, especially freedom of the media. The two parties regularly crack down on their critics, including journalists who do not toe the line or dare to report on issues that are deemed as reflecting negatively on the PA or Hamas.

The past few weeks have been particularly tough for Palestinian journalists. In this period, several journalists found themselves behind bars in PA and Hamas prisons, while others were summoned for interrogation and had to spend hours in interrogation rooms facing and detention centers.

To make matters even worse, a new Cyber Crime Law passed by the PA paves the way for legal measures against Facebook and Twitter users who post critical or unflattering comments about President Abbas and his senior officials. Critics say the law is a grave assault on freedom of expression and it will be used as a tool in the hands of Abbas and his henchmen to silence their critics or throw them into prison. In addition, the PA has blocked more than 20 news websites that are affiliated with Hamas and Mohammed Dahlan, an ousted Fatah leader who has long openly challenged Abbas.

The PA-Hamas war is hardly a secret. The two entities use every available method to bring each other down. Abbas’s PA has not hesitated to take extreme measures against the two million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. These measures include depriving the Gaza Strip of medical supplies, electricity and fuel, as well as forcing thousands of PA civil servants into early retirement and cutting off salaries to thousands of others.

Hamas’s retaliatory capacity towards the PA for these punitive steps is limited — by Israel. Fortunately for Abbas and the PA, Israel is sitting in the middle between the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Had Israel not been so situated, Hamas and its Gaza Strip followers would have marched into the West Bank and taken over Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, and overthrown Abbas’s PA.

The attempt in the West to impose a strict set of rules about what one is allowed to think and express in academia and in the media — to the point that anyone who disobeys is discredited, demonized, intimidated and in danger of losing his or her livelihood — is just as toxic and just as reminiscent of Orwell’s diseased society.

The main facet of this PC tyranny, so perfectly predicted by George Orwell, is the inversion of good and evil — of victim and victimizer. In such a universe, radical Muslims are victimized by the West, and not the other way around. This has led to a slanted teaching of the history of Islam and its conquests, both as a justification of the distortion and as a reflection of it.

Thought-control is necessary for the repression of populations ruled by despotic regimes. That it is proudly and openly being used by self-described liberals and human-rights advocates in free societies is not only hypocritical and shocking; it is a form of aiding and abetting regimes whose ultimate goal is to eradicate Western ideals.

Political correctness (PC) has been bolstering radical Islamism. This influence was most recently shown again in an extensive exposé by the Clarion Project in July 2017, which demonstrates the practice of telling “deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them in order to forget any fact that has become inconvenient” — or, as George Orwell called it in his novel, 1984, “Doublespeak.”

This courtship and marriage between the Western chattering classes and radical Muslim fanatics was elaborated by Andrew C. McCarthy in his crucial 2010 book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

Since then, this union has strengthened. Both the United States and the rest of the West are engaged in a romance with forces that are, bluntly, antagonistic to the values of liberty and human rights.

To understand this seeming paradox, one needs to understand what radical Islamism and PC have in common. Although Islamism represents all that PC ostensibly opposes — such as the curbing of free speech, the repression of women, gays and “apostates” — both have become totalitarian ideologies.

The totalitarian nature of radical Islamism is more obvious than that of Western political correctness — and certainly more deadly. Sunni terrorists, such as ISIS and Hamas — and Shiites, such as Hezbollah and its state sponsor, Iran — use mass murder to accomplish their ultimate goal of an Islamic Caliphate that dominates the world and subjugates non-Muslims.

The attempt in the West, however, to impose a strict set of rules about what one is allowed to think and express in academia and in the media — to the point that anyone who disobeys is discredited, demonized, intimidated and in danger of losing his or her livelihood — is just as toxic and just as reminiscent of Orwell’s view of a diseased society.

These rules are not merely unspoken ones. Quoting a Fox News interview with American columnist Rachel Alexander, the Clarion Project points out that the Associated Press — whose stylebook is used as a key reference by a majority of English-language newspapers worldwide for uniformity of grammar, punctuation and spelling — is now directing writers to avoid certain words and terms that are now deemed unacceptable to putative liberals.

Alexander recently wrote:

“Even when individual authors do not adhere to the bias of AP Style, it often doesn’t matter. If they submit an article to a mainstream media outlet, they will likely see their words edited to conform. A pro-life author who submits a piece taking a position against abortion will see the words ‘pro-life’ changed to ‘anti-abortion,’ because the AP Stylebook instructs, ‘Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and pro-abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice.’ It goes on, ‘Avoid abortionist,’ saying the term ‘connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions.’

“Words related to terrorism are sanitized in the AP Stylebook. Militant, lone wolves or attackers are to be used instead of terrorist or Islamist. ‘People struggling to enter Europe’ is favored over ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee.’ While it’s true that many struggle to enter Europe, it is accurate to point out that they are, in fact, immigrants or refugees.”