RUTHFULLY YOURS

In April, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that ISIS supporters have the right to defend their freedom, and was reported to have referred to Evangelical Christians as the “worst part of Canadian society.” These remarks came after is after he remained silent when Jewish centers received bomb threats, and despite Canada’s imams regularly calling for the annihilation of Jews.

Even more disturbing is a technical loophole in the Canada Elections Act. The law allows foreign entities to make contributions to Canadian candidates. This means that players such as Iran or Saudi Arabia will be able to further their agendas through a particular politician, as long as they pump him with funds for six months and a day prior to his official bid for office.

A journalist was taken to task recently for calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau an inelegant name during a press conference. In response, Josh Sigurdson justified his behavior in a YouTube video:

“The state-run media got to ask [Trudeau] questions — pre-screened ones, at that… How is it journalism to ask pre-selected questions of a politician? Restricting opposition, restricting free speech… pretending to stand for women while sending money to governments and dictatorships who stone women to death for driving and kill gays … that is the definition of scumbag.”

Although many might not have used that exact word to describe Trudeau, one might sympathize with the sentiment behind it.

As a Canadian citizen who was born in Iran and watched my country come under the Islamist regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, it is not hard to spot a tyrant. It is not hard for Trudeau, either, apparently. Three years ago, as head of the opposition, he told a group of women in Toronto: “There is a level of admiration that I actually have for China, because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime…”

Walter Laqueur (Born in May 1921) is the author of, among other books, Weimar, A History of Terrorism, Fascism: Past, Present, Future, and The Dream that Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union. His newest book,Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West, was released in 2015 by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s.https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2017/05/racing-before-hitler/

It’s not so common for people in their forties or fifties to start rereading the books they read at thirteen or fourteen. But it’s quite common for them to revisit and regale friends with their early sports achievements and those of others that they may have witnessed first-hand. “Those were the days, my friend. . . .”

The habit is pronounced not only in circles that sophisticated intellectuals look down on but among such allegedly superior types themselves. Nor is it confined to those fortunate enough to have enjoyed a “normal” youth. It was no less prevalent among the generation of Jews who, like me, grew up in Germany or elsewhere in Central Europe during the tumultuous 1920s and 30s—and certainly among my own colleagues, friends, and close contemporaries.

Much later, and throughout the decades beginning in the 1960s when I was living in London, I always looked forward to the pleasure of a visit from Abraham Ascher, the distinguished historian of Russia at the City University of New York. Like me, Abe was a native of Breslau and almost exactly my age, so I knew for certain that he had stopped first not at the British Museum but in Highbury, mecca to Arsenal Football Club fans. Of similar disposition was the Berlin-born historian Peter Gay of Yale, though I forget the name of his favorite British team. In the annals of British Zionism, Chaim Weizmann, destined to become Israel’s first president, may have had no great feeling for soccer, but his biographer Jehuda Reinharz, a former president of Brandeis University, has a deep knowledge of its history and its significance for other Jews in, especially, Central Europe, and above all of the exploits of the renowned Westphalian club known as Schalke 04.

At a luncheon before he became U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger’s curiosity was sharply piqued when he discovered that I not only had a certain command of history and politics but also knew which sports club went by the nickname “1860 Munich” and could even talk intelligently about the exploits of Heinrich Stuhlfauth, the legendary goalie of Kissinger’s own hometown team, Spielvereinigung Fuerth. I also remember having a long debate at Dulles Airport with the world-class French political thinker Raymond Aron, a tennis fanatic and brother to a player once considered among France’s leading champions—and this at a time (the 1920s-30s) when France was a tennis superpower, boasting the likes of René Lacoste, Jean Borotra, and the other two members of France’s “Four Musketeers.” On the Parisian amateur front in those same days, a young Estonian-born devotee of tennis named Michael Josselson, later to become a consummate intellectual entrepreneur, had a regular partner in the composer and writer Nicolas Nabokov (cousin to Vladimir); in postwar Berlin, the two would give birth to the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

The great sports issuepreoccupying me and many of my teenage generation was the case of Gretel Bergmann. This young Jewish lady from Laupheim in southwest Germany, who had equaled the previous German record in high-jumping, was at first invited by the Nazi regime to represent Germany in the 1936 Olympic Games. But at the last moment the invitation was withdrawn.

Some brief background. In 1912, a decision had been made in favor of Berlin as a site for the Olympic Games. Then World War I intervened, and the decision was put on indefinite hold. It was only owing to the initiative and personal contacts of Theodore Lewald, the German representative of the Olympic Committee, that the original decision was reinstated and the games could take place, infamously, under Nazi auspices in 1936. And even then there were complications as some Nazi fanatics discovered that Lewald had a Jewish grandmother and demanded his removal. When his many personal friends in the U.S. made it clear that “no Lewald, no Olympic games in Germany,” the complainers were forced to capitulate. (As for the grandmother in question, Fanny Lewald, she is very much a story unto herself, which I have rehearsed in an earlier essay in Mosaic.)

PARIS—A live head-to-head debate Wednesday between French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen rapidly descended into a tit-for-tat battle in which both struggled to land a knockout punch.

Seeking to close a 20-percentage-point gap in the polls before Sunday’s vote, Ms. Le Pen quickly went on the offensive in the live prime-time event with a blistering attack on Mr. Macron, centering on his past as an investment banker and a minister in the government of incumbent President François Hollande.

Over the course of the two-and-a-half-hour marathon, however, Ms. Le Pen’s barrage failed to deliver a destabilizing blow to the front-runner. Mr. Macron stood his ground, wearing his opponent down by highlighting what he said were technical holes in her sweeping plans to pull France out of the euro.

“Mr. Macron is the candidate of wild globalization,” Ms. Le Pen said.

Mr. Macron shot back that Ms. Le Pen was preaching isolationism.

“Confronted with this mind-set of defeat, I represent the mind-set of conquest,” Mr. Macron said.

A snap poll of 1,314 viewers by Elabe for BFMTV showed that 63% found Mr. Macron the most convincing and 34% Ms. Le Pen.

For Mr. Macron, who is running for elected office for the first time, the debate was a test of whether he can hold his footing under pressure from a battle-hardened National Front candidate who is tapping into deep resentment of globalization and the European Union.

The debate was watched closely by investors, who sold French assets when Ms. Le Pen polled high ahead of the April 23 first-round vote. If Ms. Le Pen can turn the table on Mr. Macron during the debate, it could cast renewed doubt over the outcome of an election that is crucial for the future of the EU.

Ms. Le Pen proposes pulling France from the euro and a radical overhaul of the EU to repatriate powers in Paris and implement protectionist trade policies. On Wednesday, Ms. Le Pen sought to paint Mr. Macron as a crony of the EU establishment who lacks the gravitas to stand up to Germany. She also characterized him as weak on terrorism. CONTINUE AT SITE

Assad, Putin, Iran, North Korea — what they have had in common is the West’s perception that all are madmen who will stop at nothing if pushed beyond the limits of their tolerance. Donald Trump’s recent barrage of Tomahawk missiles has now called that long-successful bluff.
We habitually think about events, especially significant international ones, in terms of their own dynamic merits, without considering the psychological traits and defense mechanisms of the individual leaders or nations involved. Were we to do so the resulting insight might help us gain a better understanding of bristling autocrats, tyrants and international outlaws.

Begin by considering the gradual deterioration of the relationship between the West and Putin’s Russia. Mostly, this has come to be determined by Russian actions — Moscow’s “acting out” on the international stage. This is one tough, ruthless customer, we conclude, a man who may well have no limits on the lengths he is prepared to go in order to achieve his ends. Such determination can strike observers as a madness, but it also has guaranteed him respect. Who wants to provoke a madman waving a gun?

And there are many madmen, or those who a happy to be perceived as mad. Assad, Iran and the North Korean chieftain with that unoriginal name (let’s just call him Kim Junior) comport themselves in the international arena as barely sane, quite deliberately projecting attitudes of dangerous unpredictability. One of Putin’s mouthpieces even declared a readiness to activate nuclear weapons during the Crimean crisis. That kind of talk prompted Angela Merkel to describe the Russian leader as “living in a world of his own”.

By appearing for all the world to see as perpetually peeved and barely controllable, Putin has won a considerable degree of freedom of action. Who of right mind would tangle with a man who speaks so loosely of using nuclear weaponry? There is profit in this kind of systematic madness. Consider Putin in terms of his actions towards Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Ossetia, Crimea and Syria, plus his veilled threats to Baltic States. Peeps of protest from the rest of the world have been barely audible.

The Iranians repeatedly and provocatively launch ballistic missiles while forever stating and re-stating their intention to one day blanket Israel with mushroom clouds. Obama did not intervene, other than to ship pallet-loads of bank notes to Tehran in return for the regime’s laughably bogus “promise” not to be naughty with the nukes it continues to build. Assad was openly gassing his domestic enemies, yet all the UN and Obama could manage in response was another impotent finger-wagging and pleas that he a good boy in future.

New York Magazine says yes. In April, ran a long, long article on the “Alt-Right,” “Beyond Alt: The extremely reactionary, burn-it-down-radical, newfangled far right,” authored by seventeen contributors (!). The magazine, being one of the leftist persuasion, attempted to cover the whole gamut of what is called the “Alt-Right,” (or the Alternative Right), that is, what are considered by the Left to be “extreme” individuals, publications, and memes that oppose the welfare state and statism and the Progressive path to full-scale socialism. Racists and anti-Semites were stuffed into the same bag, which I think the writers would have been happy to tie and toss into the East River. The Alt-Right carries a lot of unasked-for baggage, to judge by Wikipedia’s discussion of the subject:

The alt-right, or alternative right, is a loose group of people with right to far-right ideologies who reject mainstream conservatism in the United States. White supremacist Richard Spencer appropriated the term in 2010 to define a movement centered on white nationalism, and has been accused by some media publications of doing so to whitewash overt racism, white supremacism, and neo-Nazism. Alt-right beliefs have been described as white supremacist, frequently overlapping with anti-Semitism and Neo-Nazism, nativism and Islamophobia, antifeminism and homophobia, white nationalism, right-wing populism, and the neoreactionary movement. The concept has further been associated with multiple groups from American nationalists, neo-monarchists, men’s rights advocates, and the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Quite a grab-bag of groups in an artificial homogeny concocted by the leftwing political world view. The New York Magazine’s article and Wikipedia perform a scatter-shot drive-by shooting intended to discredit and smear legitimate, responsible spokesmen for reason and Western civilization together with the screaming meemies, such as Richard Spenser, Dilbert, and Jack Donovan.

NY Magazine also deigned to quote the National Review, which, as a conservative publication, somehow does not earn its enmity and sarcasm:

In National Review in April 2016, Ian Tuttle wrote,

The Alt-Right has evangelized over the last several months primarily via a racist and anti-Semitic online presence. But for Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos, the alt-right consists of fun-loving provocateurs, valiant defenders of Western civilization, daring intellectuals—and a handful of neo-Nazis keen on a Final Solution 2.0, but there are only a few of them, and nobody likes them anyways.

National Review does a more economical job of painting the Alt-Right in almost psychedelic colors than does New York Magazine.

Curiously, I have not received any solicitations or invitations via email from any of the groups mentioned in either the New York magazine article or in Wikipedia, even though in the ineffable ignorance of Left and Right, my blog columns could easily be labeled one or the other. I am certainly familiar with Milo Yiannopoulos and Paul Joseph Watson, but not at all with Allum Bokhari or many of the people mentioned, such as Rebekah Mercer or Peter Thiel. I have never heard of half the individuals, organizations, and blog sites mentioned by New York Magazine’s authors.

However, as Victor David Hanson points out in one NR column, “You Gotta Lie”:

Red/blue, conservative/liberal, and Republican/Democrat mark traditional American divides. But one fault line is not so 50/50 — that of the contemporary hard progressive movement versus traditional politics, values, and customs.

The result of this mess is that France as one country no longer exists.

People who voted for Le Pen seem to feel not only that they lost their jobs, but that they are becoming foreigners in their own country.

Macron, for many analysts, is the candidate of the status quo: Islamists are not a problem and reforming the job market will supposedly solve all France’s problems.

The French presidential race is the latest election to shake up establishment politics. The Parti Socialiste and Les Républicains, who have been calling the shots for the past forty years, were voted out of the race. The “remainers” are Emmanuel Macron, a clone of Canada’s Prime Minster Justin Trudeau; and Marine Le Pen, whom many believe will not win.

France is a fractured country. As in the US and the UK, the rift is not between the traditional left and right. Instead, it reflects divisions — cultural, social, and economic — that came with globalization and mass migration. A map released by the Ministry of the Interior after the first round of the presidential campaign illustrates the new political scenery.

Blue represents the parts of France where Le Pen heads the list; pink, the areas supporting Macron. The blue areas coincide with old industrial areas, deeply damaged by globalization and industrial relocation. Many blue-collar workers are on welfare; and the antagonism between Muslims and non-Muslims is high. People who voted for Le Pen seem to feel not only that they lost their jobs, but that they are becoming foreigners in their own country.

The areas in pink (Macron), represent the big cities and places where the better jobs are. It also represents the areas where the “upper classes can afford to raise invisible barriers between themselves and the ‘other’, immigrants or minorities,” explains Christophe Guilluy, geographer, and author of Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut (The Twilight of Elite France).

The result of this mess is that France as one country no longer exists. One half the population (in blue-collar areas, small towns and rural areas) is shut out by the other half of the population (white-collar workers) who live in the big cities.

Guilluy adds:

“The job market has become deeply polarized and mainly concentrated in big cities, squeezing out the middle classes. For the first time in history, working people no longer live in the places where jobs and wealth are created.”

…

“But social issues are not the only determinant of the populist vote. Identity is also essential, linked as it is to the emergence of a multicultural society, which feeds anxiety in working-class environments. At a time of fluctuating majorities and minorities, amid demographic instability, the fear of tipping into a minority is creating considerable cultural insecurity in developed countries. Unlike the upper classes, who can afford to raise invisible barriers between themselves and the ‘other’ (immigrants or minorities), the working classes want a powerful state apparatus to protect them, socially and culturally. So, the populist surge is re-activating a real class vote.”

As ISIS is losing territory in Iraq and Syria but al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula maintains its strength, AQAP’s chief stressed that all jihadists “pious and immoral” are considered their “brothers” in the face of the common enemy, America and its allies.

Qasim al-Raymi, the 38-year-old leader of the Yemeni terror group, began the interview, distributed in English online, with AQAP’s Al-Malahem Media talking about the January raid by U.S. forces on one of their compounds, which he said confirmed “we are confronting a spiteful, criminal and crusade enemy.”

“What America is doing in the era of Trump is a clear sign of their accumulated failure in the American administration,” al-Raymi said. “Consecutive administrations have failed and continue to fail in confronting mujahideen.”

SEAL Team 6 led the operation in a Yaklaa district compound soon after President Trump took office. U.S. officials said 14 enemy fighters were killed, including some women. One Navy SEAL was killed — Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens, 36, of Peoria, Ill. — and three were wounded, and one MV-22 Osprey was destroyed by a U.S. strike after it crash-landed during evacuation.

Yemenis said there were multiple civilian casualties, including the 8-year-old daughter of late al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico. A U.S. Central Command review team “concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed in the midst of a firefight” during the raid, and “casualties may include children.”

The administration said significant intelligence was retrieved during the raid; al-Raymi dismissed the claim as “just mere attempts to cover their failure.”

As is customary for al-Qaeda, al-Raymi said they reviewed the details and results of the raid to compile some new unclassified guidance for jihadists: “Not less than two people in a shift” for guard duty. Planning ahead for nighttime defensive scenarios. “No one should leave his stationed place during combat, as planes above him could detect him. One should fight in his stationed place,” he added.

The leader also advised “planting bombs and mines in a circular motion and away from the place of keeping guard, the station and away from shelter,” and “leaving the enemy to advance until he reaches the place of ambush and sphere of combat.”

“There is no Muslim who sees America violating sanctity, killing children and women and yet hesitates in fighting them,” al-Raymi added. “If an American comes at your doorstep, that is by all means a test to your faith and loyalty. Therefore, this is a golden chance to avenge your fellow Muslims by this American soldier who practices crime against the Muslim nation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and among other Islamic countries… the mujahideen do not let the crimes of America pass by without consequences.” CONTINUE AT SITE