RUTHFULLY YOURS

Raqqa, Syria — The coalition airstrikes lit up the night sky, perhaps a mile and a half away. The blast appears to be near the Old City, where ISIS is making its last stand, as it did in Mosul’s Old City weeks earlier. “Whatever’s there is important,” says Christian. “And you know they’re not getting it or they wouldn’t bomb the same spot every night.”

Christian is an American and a former Marine, short but strong, tattooed on the arms, neck, and head. He’s on the front lines of a war that began when he wasn’t yet a teenager, but for the last ten years he’s been on its front lines. Much of his youth was spent at a reform school for boys in California after he was orphaned in childhood. Since leaving the Marine Corps, he’s served in the French Foreign Legion and most recently with the Syriac Military Council in the fight against ISIS in Northern Syria. “I’m not a soldier of fortune, I’m a soldier of conscience,” he says.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) penetrated the periphery of the Old City just days before. But the front line, at the edge of a no-man’s-land amid the rubble of what were once residential buildings, has moved little in recent weeks. The Syriac Military Council is but a small component of the SDF, but it’s an important symbol for the pluralism that the SDF hopes will follow the war against the ISIS caliphate.

The Syriac Military Council was formed by 13 soldiers a little more than four years ago. Today they number 1,300. Most of the Syriac volunteers are from Syria — from the heavily Christian city of Qamishli, or from Malikiyah or Hasakah, or from villages on the Khabur River, which ISIS overran two years ago, taking hostages. “Christian” (one of his noms de guerre) is one among a handful of Westerners here.

“The U.S. was going to arm us [the Syriac Military Council] in 2015, but they went with the FSA instead,” says one of the Syriac commanders. That the Free Syrian Army turned out to be little more than Islamist militias, and that the U.S.-government program was nothing short of disastrous, is now well documented. The Syrian Democratic Forces, especially units like the Syriac Military Council, are much closer to what the FSA duped gullible Westerners into thinking that it was.

The Syriac unit also has Muslim volunteers, Kurd and Arab. They have fought and bled together to liberate Christian and Kurdish areas from ISIS; now they’re fighting together to drive ISIS out of a predominantly Sunni Arab city. Raqqa is the capital of the geographic “caliphate,” but it is also a symbol. The geographic caliphate in Syria and Iraq is in its final days, but this is not the end — of either the terrorists or the ideology.

Perhaps two miles separate our position in West Raqqa from the SDF forces in East Raqqa. ISIS is surrounded, but the fighting will continue, block by block, floor by floor, room by room. It is as brutal as any urban warfare since World War II. Christian hates ISIS but has no illusions about how tough the enemy is. “They’re always attacking. Always.”

For their part, those fighting for ISIS — Saudis, Chechens, Afghans, French, Turks, Pakistanis, Germans, and Americans, among others — are under no illusions that they are in the last days of the geographical caliphate. The coalition hope was to kill every member of ISIS in Mosul and Raqqa, to prevent them from returning to their countries to carry out attacks. It is certain, however, that many have already escaped. One sees many bearded young men among the caravans of refugees of fleeing Mosul and Raqqa.

The ISIS fighters who don’t blow themselves up in suicide bombings may fight to the death. Or they may try to return to their countries of origin to carry out lone-wolf — or perhaps coordinated — attacks. The latter would be in keeping with the spirit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the true founder and visionary of ISIS. Zarqawi carried out such attacks with lethal efficiency in Iraq — against defenseless civilians in public places, including houses of worship and even elementary schools. These forms of terrorism have already become somewhat commonplace in the Western world and are certain to increase in the months and years ahead.

Venezuela is a woeful reminder that no country is so rich that it can’t be driven into the ground by revolutionary socialism.

People are now literally starving — about three-quarters of the population lost weight last year — in what once was the fourth-richest country in the world on a per capita basis. A country that has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia is suffering shortages of basic supplies. Venezuela now totters on the brink of bankruptcy and civil war, in the national catastrophe known as the Bolivarian Revolution.

The phrase is the coinage of the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, succeeded by the current Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. The Western Hemisphere’s answer to Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Maduro has instituted an ongoing self-coup to make his country a one-party state.

The Chávezistas have worked from the typical Communist playbook of romanticizing the masses while immiserating them. Runaway spending, price controls, nationalization of companies, corruption, and the end of the rule of law — it’s been a master class in how to destroy an economy.

The result is a sharp, years-long recession, runaway inflation, and unsustainable debt. The suffering of ordinary people is staggering, while the thieves and killers who are Chávezista officials have made off with hundreds of billions of dollars. At this rate — The Economist calls the country’s economic decline “the steepest in modern Latin American history” — there will be nothing left to steal.

Any government in a democratic country that failed this spectacularly would have been relegated to the dustbin of history long ago. Maduro is getting around this problem by ending Venezuela’s democracy. The Chávezistas slipped up a year or two by allowing real elections for the country’s National Assembly, which were swept by the opposition. They then undertook a war against the assembly, stripping it of its powers and culminating in a rigged vote this week to elect a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

The goal of Maduro’s alleged constitutional reforms is to no longer have a constitution worthy of the name. All you need to know about the spirit of this exercise is Maduro’s threat to jail the opposition leaders who boycotted the vote (outside observers estimate less than 20 percent of the electorate participated, despite the regime’s absurd claim of a popular wave of support).

Denied the ordinary means of dissent via the press and elections, the opposition has taken to the streets. Already more than 100 people have been killed in clashes over the past several months. Worse is yet to come. Lacking legitimacy and representing only a fraction of the populace, the Maduro regime will rely on the final backstop of violent suppression. It is now the worst crisis in a major country in the Western Hemisphere since the heights of the Colombian civil war in the 1990s and 2000s.

There is no easy remedy to Venezuela’s agony. If meditation were the solution, the country never would have gotten to this pass. Endless negotiations between the government and the opposition have gone nowhere — the organized-crime syndicate that has seized power under the banner of revolution knows it has no option but to retain its hold on power by any means necessary. The U.S. needs to use every economic and diplomatic lever to undermine the regime and build an international coalition against it.

We should impose more sanctions on specific officials and on the state-run oil company; we should advertise what we know about the details of how Chávezistas park their ill-gotten gains abroad; we should nudge our allies to further isolate the Venezuelan government by pulling ambassadors and breaking diplomatic relations. The hope is that with enough pressure, the regime will crack, and high-level officials will break with Maduro, weakening his position and making a negotiated restoration of democratic rule possible.

China’s grim determination to claim the South China Sea as its private lake needs an incident to demonstrate Beijing’s resolve. The US is problematic, given its undoubted willingness to respond, but the British warships Boris Johnson is dispatching, well they will make the perfect targets.

Bhutan is considered by some to be the world’s happiest country. Recently Chinese troops entered that happy country to construct a road and are currently in a face-off with Indian troops sent to stop them. It appears that it all has to do with internal Chinese politics.

There is to be a 19th Party Congress in China in 2017. The year is more than half over but no date has yet been set for it. The Congress is supposed to be in autumn, so thousands of high level Chinese officials will have their schedules disrupted at short notice. It seems that President Xi needs to shore up his position and, with the failure of the Henry Kissinger-aided effort to sell Taiwan down the river, military antics at the other end of the Middle Kingdom are being used to demonstrate what a tough guy President Xi is. Perhaps we will know if China’s military adventurism has been deemed successful when a date is set for the 19th Party Congress.

The UK has entered the fray with an undertaking made by Boris Johnson, the British Foreign Secretary, that the UK’s two new aircraft carriers will undertake a freedom-of-navigation exercise in the South China Sea. The first of these, HMS Queen Elizabeth, has started sea trials. The second carrier isn’t expected to enter service until 2020. So the UK has plenty of time to change its mind about sending under-armed warships into the South China Sea without air cover. The last time the UK tried that did ended badly. In December, 1941, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse were sent north from Singapore to interdict the Japanese fleet. The Japanese sunk both almost effortlessly.

There is another parallel from earlier in the 20th century. In February, 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet in Port Arthur. Russia responded by sending part of its Baltic fleet to Vladivostok. After setting off in October 1904, the Russian fleet sailed 25,000 km and reached the Straits of Tsushima in late May 1905, where most of it was sunk by the Japanese in a two day battle.

The modern UK sacrificial offerings to Mars may be aircraft carriers but they will be carrying the F-35B (perhaps) and be facing Chinese shored-based anti-ship missiles at point blank range. The UK is operating under the assumption that China won’t sink their shiny new ships, but China might. Consider that when Australia made similar noises last year about conducting freedom-of-navigation exercises, China concluded that Australia would “be an ideal target for China to warn and strike” — as it would from the Chinese perspective because it would demonstrate resolve and not necessarily lead to a war. The result would be to reinforce China’s position. The same would be true of the UK losing a few warships. The Chinese population is continually reminded of the Century of Humiliation which started with the Opium Wars instigated by the UK. There would be trade sanctions for a while if British warships were sunk but President Xi’s position would be reinforced and become unassailable.

If China attacked ships, aircraft or bases of Vietnam, the United States and Japan then the result would be a war in which all parties became involved. The opportunity to sink anybody else’s ships would be welcomed by China because President Xi would see off any challengers to the throne.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria—Authorities in northeastern Nigeria say at least 14 people are dead after a suicide bombing blamed on the Boko Haram extremist group.

Bello Dambatta, head of the rapid response team for the State Emergency Agency SEMA, said a female suicide bomber sneaked into a building late Friday in Dikwa, east of the city of Maiduguri, and detonated her explosives.

Volunteers said at least two dozen others were wounded and had to wait until Saturday morning to be evacuated because of safety concerns and the lack of phone service.

Meanwhile, three geologists abducted in an ambush attack Tuesday by Boko Haram insurgents have appeared in new video calling on the Nigerian government to negotiate the workers’ release. Authorities say at least 48 people were killed in that attack near Lake Chad.

Muslim vigilantes enforcing Islamic justice have become increasingly common in Germany. The government’s inability or unwillingness to stop them has led to the rise of anti-Muslim counter-vigilantes. Germany’s BfV intelligence agency, in its latest annual report, warned that an escalating action-reaction cycle could result in open warfare on German streets.

The self-appointed “Sharia Police” urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to attend mosques and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, music, pornography and prostitution. In November 2016, the Wuppertal District Court ruled that the Islamists did not break German law and were simply exercising their right to free speech. The ruling, which effectively legitimized Sharia law in Germany, was one of a growing number of instances in which German courts are — wittingly or unwittingly — promoting the establishment of a parallel Islamic legal system in the country.

“Even if we still refuse to believe it: Parts of Germany are ruled by Islamic law! Polygamy, child marriages, Sharia judges — for far too long the German rule of law has not been enforced. Many politicians dreamed of multiculturalism…. This is not a question of folklore or foreign customs and traditions. It is a question of law and order. If the rule of law fails to establish its authority and demand respect for itself, then it can immediately declare its bankruptcy.” — Franz Solms-Laubach, parliamentary correspondent, Bild.

German Muslims have established a self-styled biker gang — modelled on the Hells Angels — aimed at protecting fellow Muslims from the “ever-growing hatred of Islam,” according to Die Welt.

The emergence of the group, which aspires to open chapters in cities and towns across Germany, has alarmed German authorities, who have warned against the growing threat of vigilantism in the country.

Muslim vigilantes enforcing Islamic justice have become increasingly common in Germany. The government’s inability or unwillingness to stop them has led to the rise of anti-Muslim counter-vigilantes. Germany’s BfV intelligence agency, in its latest annual report, warned that an escalating action-reaction cycle could result in open warfare on German streets.

The gang, which calls itself “Germanys Muslims” (the possessive apostrophe is not used in German), is based in Mönchengladbach and now has offshoots in Münster and Stuttgart. It was founded by Marcel Kunst, a German convert to Islam who also uses the name Mahmud Salam.

The gang’s uniform consists of a black leather jacket with a logo depicting a one-fingered salute, the “Finger of Tawheed,” which represents belief in the oneness of Allah. The logo also includes the number 1438, which represents the current year in the Muslim calendar, as well as the number 713, which stands for GM (Germanys Muslims), the seventh and thirteenth letters of the alphabet.

Police say they do not know how many people belong to the gang, which was established in May. The group’s Facebook page, which has more than a thousand followers, describes itself as a “citizens’ initiative” which advocates for the “peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims in Germany.” A mission statement dated June 15 reads:

“Our organization has been founded for only one purpose: To protect and support our brothers and sisters from the ever-growing hatred of Islam!!! To all non-Muslims who read this post, pay attention. The following could change your perception of us!!! We respect every religion and, as dictated by the Quran, do not force our faith on anyone!!! We do not sympathize with the Islamic State and are against compulsion in faith and in marriage!!! ISLAM DOES NOT RECOGNIZE HONOR KILLINGS AS IS OFTEN SUPPOSED!!! The raised finger in our logo is not from the so-called Islamic State. In our faith it symbolizes that there is only one God!!! We have summarized 40 commandments from the Quran for you….IMPORTANT. Whoever gets into a fight on the road or elsewhere (except for self-defense) will be expelled from our group without further discussion!!!”

Although “Germanys Muslims” claims to disavow violence, police say that several of its senior members are known to be Salafists, whose aim is to replace liberal democracy in Germany with Sharia law. One of its members, for instance, was detained as a security precaution during the Tour de France, which passed through Mönchengladbach on July 2.

German police describe the group’s founder, Kunst, as an “Islamist who moves in Salafist circles.” In a video that is no longer available, Kunst called on the group’s members to protect mosques and Muslim women.

In a July 27 interview with Die Welt, Isabella Hannen, spokeswoman for the Mönchengladbach Police Department, revealed that police met with Kunst on July 5 and warned him that “vigilantism will not be tolerated.” They also stressed that the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force (Gewaltmonopol) is the exclusive domain of the state. On July 28, “Germanys Muslims” issued a statement saying that the group respects the authority of the state. “So far, we have no evidence that they are a danger, but we are keeping our eyes on them,” Hannen said.

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. would have to cut 755 diplomats and staff in the country by September in retaliation for impending U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

In an interview with Russian state television, Mr. Putin said the U.S. presence in Russia would be reduced by more than half, following the passage of new sanctions legislation by Congress that has further frayed ties between Moscow and Washington. The White House has indicated that President Donald Trump plans to sign the legislation.

“We had hoped that the situation would somehow change,” Mr. Putin said. “But judging by everything, if it changes, it won’t happen fast.”

Mr. Putin held out the possibility of additional measures but said that at this point he was against taking further punitive steps. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

Mr. Putin told state television that slightly more than 1,000 U.S. diplomatic and technical staff work in Russia at present.

As U.S. sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential election move forward, here’s a look at various contacts between President Trump’s associates and Russians. Photo: Getty

Last week, the Russian foreign ministry said the number of U.S. diplomatic and technical staff in Russia as of Sept. 1 would be reduced to 455, the same number of Russian diplomats now operating in the U.S.

It’s unclear how the reductions will affect American citizens working in the U.S. embassy and in three U.S. consulates in Russia; many of the people who work in those facilities are local hires.

A State Department official said Sunday, “This is a regrettable and uncalled for act. We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it.”

A U.S. official said the move to trim down staff could slow down the embassy’s ability to issue visas, among other possible consequences.

The largest-to-date diplomatic expulsion involving Washington and Moscow occurred in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave the country over espionage allegations. CONTINUE AT SITE

Among the many types of missiles North Korea is perfecting is a short-range system that Kim Jong Un is almost certain to export. Although not as worrisome as the intercontinental ballistic missile Pyongyang tested last Friday, this weapon has a highly accurate front end optimized to knock out overseas U.S. and allied bases, Persian Gulf oil fields, key Israeli assets and eventually even commercial shipping and warships. The good news is there’s still time to halt the system’s proliferation, but only if we act quickly.

The missile in question is an advanced version of a Scud, a 185- to 620-mile-range missile that has been in use world-wide for decades. What makes the version North Korea just tested so different is that it has a maneuvering re-entry vehicle, or MaRV, which allows the missile’s warhead to maneuver late in flight both to evade missile defenses and achieve pinpoint accuracy. China, Russia, the U.S. and South Korea have all tested MaRVs but decided, so far, not to export them. Iran has also tested a MaRV, raising questions about Tehran’s possible cooperation with Pyongyang.

The worry now is how far and quickly this technology might spread. Pyongyang has already sold ballistic missiles to seven countries, including Iran, Syria and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. These sales generate precious hard currency for the Kim regime, which is otherwise difficult to come by as Washington continues to ratchet up sanctions.

Pyongyang will have no trouble finding customers. While only Iran or Pakistan might consider purchasing a North Korean ICBM, 15 countries besides North Korea already possess older Scud missile systems they might want to upgrade. Getting a MaRV version would be an affordable way to threaten targets that previously could have been knocked out only by a nuclear warhead or scores of missiles.

If Syria—which previously purchased Scuds from North Korea—were to acquire this missile, it would need only a handful to wipe out the bases the U.S. uses to launch airstrikes within its borders. Rebels in Yemen have repeatedly fired Scuds at Saudi air bases. Most have either missed their targets or been shot down by Saudi forces. A MaRV would ensure a successful strike. If Hezbollah, a North Korean arms customer, got its hands on the new system, it could make good on its threats to take out Israeli chemical plants and the Dimona nuclear reactor. Eventually, if paired with capable surveillance systems, MaRV Scuds could even be used against moving targets such as warships or oil tankers.

If these missiles spread, hostile nations and terror groups won’t need nuclear weapons to threaten America or its allies. They will be able to upgrade their threat level by merely trading up the Scuds they already have. CONTINUE AT SITE

In this new Glazov Moment, Jamie focuses on “Annihilate” Jews! A Cali Imam’s Call to Muslims, and he asks: Where are the police and the media?

Don’t miss it!

And make sure to watch Anni Cyrus discuss Unveiling Linda Sarsour’s Jihad, where she exposes what Sarsour is really saying to America — and to her comrades: