RUTHFULLY YOURS

Earlier this year, a 7-year-old girl from Minnesota entered an examination room at a clinic just outside of Detroit. Thinking this was a regular visit, she allowed the doctor to remove her pants and underwear and place her on the examination table. Suddenly, while two women in the clinic held her hands, the physician spread her legs and cut her clitoris. Two months later she told investigators the pain ran down to her ankles and she could barely walk.

In April Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, who allegedly performed the procedure, was charged with conspiracy to commit female genital mutilation. Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, the owner of the since-closed clinic, was also charged. Investigators suspect Ms. Nagarwala may be involved in 100 other cases, and the trial starts in October. This marks the first time a female genital mutilation case is going to federal court. The lawyers for the Michigan physician will argue the girl “underwent a benign religious procedure.” This is a dangerous hypocrisy with far-reaching consequences.

Female genital mutilation has been illegal in the U.S. since 1996. Yet a 2012 study in the journal Public Health Reports estimates that more than 500,000 girls in the U.S. have undergone the procedure or are at risk. These girls live all over the country, with larger concentrations in California, New York and Minnesota. Most go through this process in secret, and only 25 states have laws that criminalize the procedure. In Maine, the American Civil Liberties Union has opposed a bill to do so on the ground that “the risk of mutilation isn’t worth expanding Maine’s criminal code.”

Female genital mutilation, most often performed on girls under 13, has serious medical and psychological repercussions. The cutting ranges from a clitoridectomy, partial to total removal of the clitoris, to infibulation, removal of all the external genitalia. The latter is so severe that “healing” often involves binding the girl from ankle to waist until the scar tissue closes. This kind of cutting leaves an opening the width of a pencil for urination, menstruation, sex and childbirth.

In 2015 a U.N. official estimated that 20% of parents take their daughters to physicians but the rest use improvised sharp objects. This spring, an Ethiopian man in Georgia was deported for performing female genital mutilation with a pair of scissors on his 2-year-old daughter. Parents fearing prosecution sometimes take their girls out of the country for “vacation cutting.” A report from Unicef suggests at least 200 million girls and women alive today, in 30 countries, have undergone some form of it. (The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, of which I am vice chairwoman, does not take an official position on female genital mutilation.)

Whether this practice is religious or cultural is debatable. In the Michigan case, the victims belong to an Indian Shiite Muslim sect called the Dawoodi Bohra, whose members refer to the clitoris as a sinful lump of flesh. The cutting, khatna, is considered a religious observance to prevent girls from becoming promiscuous. Yet female genital mutilation predates Christianity and Islam. No religious text requires it. Many imams have issued fatwas against the practice and Christian leaders like Pope Francis have denounced it.

The physician’s lawyers announced they will craft a religious-freedom defense. And they may be astute enough to get away with it. The all-star team includes constitutional law scholar and O.J. Simpson lawyer Alan Dershowitz, along with Mayer Morganroth, who represented assisted-suicide champion Dr. Jack Kevorkian for more than 15 years. They are funded by an international Muslim organization called Dawat-e-Hadiyah. CONTINUE AT SITE

Authorities in the Netherlands foiled an apparent Muslim terrorist plot to attack a concert venue in Rotterdam while an American rock band with an Islamic-sounding name was performing there.

Authorities shut down the scheduled performance by Los Angeles act Allah-Las at a 1,000-person capacity club called Maassilo. The band’s name has attracted some unwanted attention in the Muslim world. Band members say they selected the name Allah, Arabic for the Muslim deity, because they wanted something that sounded “holy.” Lead singer Miles Michaud said: “We get emails from Muslims, here in the U.S. and around the world, saying they’re offended, but that absolutely wasn’t our intention.”

After being tipped off by Spanish police, on Wednesday Rotterdam police and counter-terrorism personnel located a van near the Maassilo venue bearing Spanish license plates and that reportedly contained “gas bottles.” The driver, a Spaniard, was detained, after he was observed by police going to and from the concert site repeatedly.

About 120 gas canisters were found at the suspected lair of the terrorist cell that used a rented van to mow down pedestrians last week in Barcelona, Spain. The night before the August 17 vehicular attack, two members of the terrorist cell are thought to have inadvertently blown themselves up in Alcanar, Spain, possibly while preparing terror materiel. At least 15 people were killed and 130 injured in a series of attacks by the cell.

According to one British media outlet,

It has since been claimed that the 12-strong terror cell planned to rent three large lorry-type vehicles, pack them each full of butane gas and TATP plastic explosive, and drive them into busy hotspots in Barcelona city. One van was to be driven into the Sagrada Familia, another was to be detonated on Las Ramblas, and the third was going to be blown up in Barcelona’s port area.

Of course, the foreign-born Muslim mayor of Rotterdam urged people not to connect the dots.

Ahmed Aboutaleb told a presser that there was no proven connection between the Spanish tip and the van. “We should not draw conclusions too fast.”

The Islamist attacks against Spain, Finland and Germany unmasked the central problem: Pacifism will not protect Europe from either Islamization or terror attacks. Spain and Germany were, in fact, among the most reluctant countries in Europe to take an active role in the anti-ISIS coalition.

The Spanish press did not participate in a discussion of the Mohammed cartoons; no Spanish writer was accused of “Islamophobia” and no Spanish personality was put under police protection for “criticizing Islam”. It seemed as if Spain were not even interested in what was at stake in Islamist attacks on Europe’s very existence. No Spanish city made headlines for having multicultural ghettos, as in France and Britain. The attack in Barcelona should have ended this illusion. Terrorists do not need an excuse to butcher “infidels”.

The sad conclusion seems to be that that jihadists do not need a “reason” to kill Westerners. They attack equally France, which conducts military operations in the Middle East and North Africa, and countries such as Spain and Germany, which are neutral.

In 24 hours, Spain suffered two major terror attacks. A jihadist cell killed 15 people in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils. In the past year, Germany was the other European country hit hard by armed Islamists. First, a jihadist plowed a large truck through a Christmas market in central Berlin and murdered 12 people. Then a man wielding a knife murdered one person during an attack at a supermarket in Hamburg.

One day after the carnage in Barcelona, another terror attack took place in Turku, Finland. Two women were murdered in the market square of the country’s oldest city. Jihad — in Finland?

Jihad — in Finland? Terrorists do not need an excuse to butcher “infidels”. On August 18, an Islamic terrorist murdered two women in in Turku, Finland, during a stabbing spree in the city’s market square. Pictured: The Aura River in Turku. (Image source: Arthur Kho Caayon/Wikimedia Commons)

The Islamist attacks against Spain, Germany and Finland unmasked the central problem: Pacifism will not protect Europe from either Islamization or terror attacks. Spain and Germany were, in fact, among the most reluctant countries in Europe to take an active role in the anti-ISIS coalition.

John Vinocur of the Wall Street Journal recently defined Germany as “a country where the army and air force basically do not fight”. And Spanish politicians, since the 2004 train bombings, have not backed U.S. and NATO operations in countries such as Libya and Mali. Spain has been described as a “reluctant partner” in the anti-ISIS coalition.

Spain and Germany contribute less than others to NATO’s efforts. US President Donald Trump has made clear that the existence of NATO is contingent on members meeting their agreed-upon obligations of spending 2% of GDP on defense. Spain spends less than half of that — 0.91 percent. Germany does only a little better — at 1.19 percent. Finland never even joined NATO.

The surprise of the Finnish élite over the Turku attack was noted by The Financial Times:

“The Nordic country of 5m people does not feature prominently in jihadi invective against the west. Despite Finland’s armed forces having occasionally supported Nato missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country’s longstanding nonaligned and peaceable military status has insulated it from most blowback from crises in the Middle East.”

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