RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Venezuela has changed forever.”

Hugo Chavez (1954-2013)

President of Venezuela 1999-2013

As Mr. Chavez said, Venezuela has changed – from the richest country in South America to one of the poorest, from an economy based on abundant natural resources, including the largest oil reserves in the world[1], to one where people are starving, from a free country to a dictatorship.

Unlike many tragedies, the one in Venezuela is man-made. No natural storm or Biblical plague visited Venezuela. It was men – two in particular – who, in the pursuit of personal power and under the guise of socialism, destroyed the country and rendered its people impoverished. Venezuela, with a population of 31.2 million, is in north-eastern South America, with 1700 miles of coastline on the Caribbean and the Atlantic. Just north of the equator, it has a topography that ranges from rain forests in the Amazon basin to alpine glaciers in the Andes. The lushness of its forests prompted novelist Romulo Gallegos to write poetically of “the golden spring of the araguaneyes.” Venezuela is ranked 7th in the world, in number of plants – and now ranked near the bottom in terms of freedoms and wealth.

Besides oil, Venezuela had been an exporter of coffee, cocoa and manufactured products. Last year, the Frazier Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the world: 2016 Annual Report” ranked it dead last, as its citizens struggled to gain necessities, like food, water and even toilet paper. It has the weakest property rights in the world, according to the Heritage Foundation. How does Nicolas Maduro reward his loyalists, with oil revenues down more than 60% from their peak? Amanda Taub and Max Fisher of the New York Times recently suggested: “…the most valuable resource in Venezuela is access to favorable exchange rates. By leveraging official government rates, which value the bolivar considerably higher than the unofficial rate, someone with the proper connections can generate a small fortune out of thin air.”

There are those who blame Venezuela’s troubles on falling oil prices, or on a drought that effected hydro-electric power production, but other countries have dealt with such problems. Those industries, and many others, including agriculture and banking, were expropriated and nationalized by Chavez and his successor Mr. Maduro, which meant by-passing the inherent fairness and equality embedded in free markets.

It has been socialism that has brought this country to its knees – the arrogant belief that government can assume the means of production, dictate distribution methods and affix prices better than markets. The consequence of its failure can be seen in the starving faces of children and in the desperate countenances of demonstrators. Last year, CNBC reported that the economy shrank by 18.6 percent, with inflation at 800 percent. Official unemployment rates are around 7%, but unofficially rates are between 18 and 25 percent. Real numbers are certainly higher, probably much higher, with no relief on the horizon.

Margaret Thatcher warned: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Keep in mind, politics is about power. Governments control enormous budgets. According to the 2017 Index of Economic Freedom, Venezuela’s government accounted for 40.2% of GDP over the past three years, with deficits averaging 16.1% of GDP. Public debt is equivalent of 48.8% of GDP.

Washington has stopped trying to figure out the “Arab Street.” From what I can tell it happened somewhere around Nov. 9, 2016. America is probably better off for it.

I’m not saying we should ignore public opinion in the Arab world. Nor should we ignore its politics. The Middle East, and what happens there, is of crucial concern to American policy makers and interests.

But at least since I arrived in Washington in 2002, the foreign-policy establishment has been on a quixotic quest to tap into the thoughts of an estimated 365 million people. Armed with language lessons, history books and advanced degrees, America’s Middle East analysts labored to understand why Arab populations cheered the 9/11 attacks, jeered the 2003 Iraq invasion, and brought down dictators during the Arab Spring. I was among them, taking trips to dangerous places in the hope that I could acquire “ground truth” that would help in America’s battle for hearts and minds.

The only “ground truth” I could ever discern was that the Arab world is a complex patchwork of national identities that are influenced heavily by clan, family, tribe and—of course—religion. The people speak different dialects and embrace different cultures. Sure, there are commonalities among Arabs, but the more you travel the region, the more you find yourself focusing on the differences.

There is not one Arab Street, in the same way that there is not one Main Street in America (consider the differences among New York City, Biloxi, Miss., Des Moines, Iowa, and Los Angeles). Numerous ideological currents run through our 50 states and 320 million residents. Just ask the pollsters who got it wrong in November.

In a rather poetic twist of fate, the Arabs are now sending delegations to Washington in their own quest to glean ground truth. Some have come to visit me. Others have popped in on other policy shops around town. The conversations vary, but the questions are basically the same. With the political sands shifting dramatically in Washington, the Arabs are desperately trying to understand the thinking of the new leadership, but also the thinking of Main Street Americans who were instrumental in bringing about this change.

Can I explain what’s happening in America right now? Probably about as well as the Arab intellectuals who tried to explain things to me over the years. Shifting demographics, economics and religion all play a role. But I have yet to read a compelling narrative that explains the changes that have taken place across diverse populations nationwide. There is no ground truth here, either.CONTINUE AT SITE

Danish Minister of Justice Søren Pape hopes to solve the issue by prosecuting the imam. However, Danish politicians appear to miss the critical fact that there is clearly a thirsty audience for sermons like this.

This sermon is a call to violence against Jews.

As the Quran cannot be changed, it is crucial to make more broadly known what is in it, so at least people can see the facts confronting them, to help them determine what choices they might care to make for their own future and that of their children.

In 2015, Omar El-Hussein listened to the imam Hajj Saeed, at the Hizb-ut-Tahrir- linked Al-Faruq-mosque in Copenhagen, decry interfaith dialogue as a “malignant” idea and explain that the right way, according to Mohammed, is to wage war on the Jews. The next day, El-Hussein went out and murdered Dan Uzan, the volunteer Jewish guard of the Jewish community, as he was standing in front of the Copenhagen synagogue. El-Hussein had also just murdered Finn Nørgaard, a film director, outside a meeting about freedom of speech.

Two years later, nothing has changed. A visiting imam from Lebanon at the Al-Faruq mosque, Mundhir Abdallah, is preaching to murder Jews:

“[Soon there will be] a Caliphate, which will instate the shari’a of Allah and revive the Sunna of His Prophet, which will wage Jihad for the sake of Allah, which will unite the Islamic nation after it disintegrated, and which will liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Zionists, so that the words of the Prophet Muhammad will be fulfilled: ‘Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. The Jews will hide behind the rocks and the trees, but the rocks and the trees will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ …”

The “words of the Prophet” are from a well-known hadith, number 6985.

Far from hiding this incitement, the mosque posted the sermon, delivered on March 31, on the YouTube page of Al-Faruq Mosque on May 7. The invaluable research organization, MEMRI, translated it.

A reporter from Danish TV channel TV2 news, who recently spent two hours around the Al-Faruq mosque, could not find a single Muslim willing to condemn the imam. “I don’t think he meant anything bad by it,” said Bayan Hasan, a female student. Another Danish Muslim, Mohammed Hussein, incorrectly replied, “According to Islam, Muslims are not allowed to kill”. The Quran verse 8:12, to mention one of many examples, says otherwise: “…I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.”

Denmark’s Minister of Integration, Inger Støjberg, called on the mosque and all Muslims in Denmark to condemn the sermon. “If this had happened in a Danish church, it would not have been necessary to ask people to condemn it. It would have been automatic”, she said.

On April 19, the campaign of Jakarta’s radicals chanting, “We want a Muslim governor!” paid off, as Ahok was defeated in the gubernatorial election. Exit polls on election day indicated that religion was the main factor behind the voting.

On May 10, Indonesia’s radicals scored a second victory, when Ahok was found guilty of blaspheming Islam and sentenced to two years in prison.

The verdict came as a surprise even to the prosecutors of the case — they had requested only a suspended sentence for the offense of “inciting hatred”.

In the two decades since the fall of Indonesian President Suharto’s 32-year reign in 1998, the use of the accusation of “treason” as a governmental tool to quash political opposition gradually reemerged in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Today, however, those trying to overthrow the leadership are Islamists intent on unraveling the fabric of a pluralistic society.

This situation has led to the debate over freedom of speech and the separation of church and state — or, here, mosque and state.

Four recent rallies in the capital city of Jakarta illustrate the nature of what has become a full-blown controversy. In each case, protesters gathered outside mosques after Friday prayers for what they claim are “spontaneous” demonstrations made necessary by their clerics’ lack of financial resources to plan and stage such events. But evidence collected by Indonesian authorities indicates otherwise.

The first such protest took place on October 14, 2016. Its purpose was to demand that criminal proceedings be launched against Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama — familiarly known as Ahok — for “blasphemy.”

Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, was appointed to his position in 2014, when Joko Widodo became president of Indonesia. Hardline Muslim groups argued that a Christian should not be allowed to govern a Muslim-majority city. To back up their claim, they cited the Quran.

Their fury grew even greater when Ahok was running for reelection: he asked fishermen in Pulau Seribu not to be “deceived” by politicians using the Quranic verse, al-Maidah 51 (“…do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies”), to dissuade them from supporting him.

North Korea test fired yet another missile on Sunday. This time the test did not end in a fiasco. The missile was fired somewhere between 430 to 500 hundred miles, staying aloft for about 30 minutes at an altitude exceeding 1,240 miles, before landing in the Sea of Japan 60 miles south of Russia’s Vladivostok region. It exceeded in distance and altitude an intermediate-range missile that North Korea successfully tested last February. While reportedly not an intercontinental missile, North Korea is demonstrating with this successful test, according to at least one expert, a missile with a range as far as 3700 miles, putting Hawaii potentially at risk. The North Korean regime’s missile program is firing on all cylinders, including the use of mobile land-based and submarine launch platforms. It is only a matter of time before North Korea also conducts another, more powerful nuclear test in its relentless march towards achieving a strategic nuclear deterrence that would provide it with the leverage to extort its neighbors and threaten the U.S. mainland at will.

The White House issued a statement noting the proximity to Russia of the landing of its latest tested missile, and reiterating the U.S.’s firm commitment to protect its interests and those of its allies against North Korea’s provocations: “With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil – in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan – the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased. North Korea has been a flagrant menace for far too long. South Korea and Japan have been watching this situation closely with us. The United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea. Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.”

South Korea’s newly elected President Moon Jae-In, while indicating more receptiveness to diplomatic talks with North Korea than his predecessor, called the missile test-launch a “clear” violation of UN Security Council resolutions, adding that “we should sternly deal with a provocation to prevent North Korea from miscalculating.”

North Korea’s leader Kim Jung-un appears oblivious to such condemnations and rhetorical threats. The latest missile launch was timed to send a clear message to South Korea’s new government, sworn in just days ago, that North Korea would not back down in the face of joint military exercises or other demonstrations of force by the United States, South Korea or their allies. If anything, such demonstrations are having the opposite effect, further convincing Kim Jung-un and his fellow leaders that North Korea’s only path to survival is a nuclear strike capability strong enough to dissuade the U.S. from daring to launch a pre-emptive military strike or invasion.

Sanctions are also clearly not enough to stop the North Korean regime from pursuing its nuclear arms and ballistic missile delivery objectives. Kim Jung-un could care less whether his people starve to death or not, as long as he can control them. North Korea has also proven to be very adept at evading sanctions through front organizations. According to a UN Panel of Experts report issued earlier this year, North Korea has successfully used front companies to obtain access to the international financial system.

ISIS issued a special message to moms in the most recent issue of their multi-language recruiting magazine: Don’t listen to people who say raising kids as pint-sized jihadists is ruining their childhood or trashing their innocence.

The May issue of Rumiyah, published and distributed online in 10 languages including English, emphasized that the “tremendous grace” of giving birth in the Islamic State is “not granted to many other women,” so jihadi moms should “painstakingly endeavor to raise her children in a manner that pleases her Lord and brings benefit to her ummah [Muslim community].”

The article warns of “reckoning and punishment” if a Muslim woman “shows neglect concerning her flock,” starting with Quran and Arabic education and providing a model example as “the uprightness of the children is connected to the uprightness of the mother.”

She’s also supposed to raise her kids, the article states, “so that the worldly life becomes trivial to them and the Hereafter becomes significant to them, with the mother nurturing them upon a difficult life and some aspect of rough living.”

ISIS’ recruitment model has emphasized luring or creating jihadist families so that young children can be raised in the terror organization. The ISIS “cubs” have been featured in gory training videos, including child jihadists hunting down bound prisoners and young kids killing prisoners tied to ruins of carnival games. Many children in liberated Mosul were held out of school for the two-plus years of occupation as parents didn’t want their kids raised in ISIS indoctrination programs, which have included military training and even kids’ apps.

The Rumiyah articles dictates that “the generation of the Khilafah [caliphate] must be raised upon so that it becomes a firm and course generation which life has tested and strengthened, and so it can thereby prepare to bear the trust, take up the banner, and assume authority in the land.”

An ISIS mom “should recognize and take advantage of” her kids being “raised in the home and under the wing of a mujahid father,” it adds.

“So they grow up with their eyes becoming accustomed to seeing weapons and equipment, including rifles, tactical vests, bullets, grenades, and explosive belts. Likewise, watching the mujahidin’s video releases and following their written and recorded news nurtures within the lion cub the love of jihad and the mujahidin and hatred towards their enemies,” ISIS continues. “The mother may hear criticism from some people who would argue that the manner in which she raises her children might kill their childhood and destroy their innocence.”

“…We ask Allah to grant us righteous offspring and to bring forth from us a generation that will wage jihad for His cause and bring victory to His religion.”

The article includes a picture of an armed child about junior high-age with the caption, “A soldier of the Khilafah who was incited to wage jihad by his mother.”

ROME—Europe’s establishment breathed a sigh of relief after the pro-European Union centrist Emmanuel Macron was elected French president this week. But another populist storm is brewing in Italy, where the euroskeptic 5 Star Movement has remained strong.

Fueled by discontent with slow growth, high unemployment and disillusionment with mainstream politicians, 5-Star has won local elections in Rome, Turin and elsewhere, partly on the strength of its leaders’ call for a referendum on Italy’s use of the European single currency.

Pollsters say about 30% of Italian voters support the movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, a level of popularity that has stood firm despite a series of high-profile stumbles, especially by its mayor in Rome. The self-described association of free citizens has replaced the center-left Democratic Party at the top of most polls ahead of national elections to be held by May 2018.

Now, the group that has flouted the rules of the game for establishment parties in Italy is experiencing growing pains as it prepares for the possibility of taking power.

The prospect of Mr. Grillo and his supporters winning and forming a government has made investors nervous and pushed up yields on Italian bonds in recent months. On Friday, the spread between Italian and German 10-year sovereign bond yields was 1.85 percentage points, nearly five times the corresponding spread between French and German bonds.

Mr. Grillo and 5 Star waged a successful campaign to block constitutional changes sought by former Democratic Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, effectively forcing him from office in December. Since then, a caretaker government has run Italy. CONTINUE AT SITE

BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union beat the center-left Social Democrats in the regional election Sunday in Germany’s biggest state, providing a major boost to the German leader ahead of national elections in September.

The center-right Christian Democrats finished ahead of the Social Democrats 33% to 31.5% in Sunday’s state election in North Rhine-Westphalia, according to a projection based on exit polls and early results released by ARD public television.

The result represented a major upset in German politics and underlined Ms. Merkel’s political strength as she prepares to run for a fourth term. North Rhine-Westphalia—whose population of 18 million is more than one-fifth of Germany’s total—has long been a stronghold of the Social Democrats, who have governed in the state for all but five of the last 50 years.
The upstart, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party took 7.4%, meaning it will now have seats in 13 of Germany’s 16 state parliaments. But the party’s hopes of soaring into the double digits in a region with many working-class voters failed to materialize.

The pro-business Free Democratic Party won 12.5% according to the projection, its best-ever result in the state, building momentum ahead of the party’s campaign to try to regain seats in the national parliament in the federal election on Sept. 24.

The campaign in the state turned in part on the record of the Social Democratic premier, Hannelore Kraft, who has governed in partnership with the environmentalist Greens since 2010. Armin Laschet, the Christian Democratic candidate, slammed her performance on the economy and in education. Security was also a major issue, in part because several suspected Islamist extremists, including the Berlin truck attacker Anis Amri, spent time in the state.

But the closely watched vote also sent a message nationwide, showing that despite German discomfort with Ms. Merkel’s acceptance of more than a million refugees and migrants in the last two years, many voters still back her. Of those who voted for the Christian Democrats, 40% said the chancellor played a “very important” role in their decision, according to an Infratest Dimap exit poll. CONTINUE AT SITE

SEOUL—North Korea’s launch on Sunday of its most-sophisticated missile yet offered new clues into how serious the country is in its nuclear ambitions.

In the past three years, North Korea has launched more major missiles than in the three previous decades combined.

That acceleration is one of the most dramatic signs of leader Kim Jong Un’s push to overhaul the country’s weapons program since he took power in late 2011. He has modernized production of nuclear and missile parts, upgraded the program within the military hierarchy and overtly pampered engineers, forcing Western leaders to worry more about Pyongyang’s intentions than ever before.
On Sunday, North Korea launched a newly developed intermediate-range missile, its 10th missile firing this year. Mr. Kim attended the test of the nuclear-capable missile and described it as a “perfect weapon system,” according to a state media report. Initial projections from several experts suggested it would be able to reach U.S. military forces in Guam.

Even apparent failed missile launches, like one that blew up within minutes on April 28, are now seen by independent experts as signs of North Korea’s progress. Learning from those failures would move the regime closer to its ultimate goal of mastering a long-range missile that could threaten the U.S. with nuclear attack.
The Threat From North Korea’s Missiles

VIEW Interactive

For decades, Mr. Kim’s father and grandfather used the country’s missile program to gain leverage in diplomatic talks and revenue from weapon exports. Technological advances came slowly. That changed when Kim Jong Il died and was succeeded by his youngest son, believed to be 33 years old.

The dictator has shown no interest in negotiating with the U.S. about the missile program, and North Korea’s nuclear ambition and skill are advancing much more quickly.

The country is conducting missile tests with the frequency needed to ensure the weapons can be reliably used in conflict. A range of recent breakthroughs has forced the U.S. and its allies to review their missile defenses.

“Kim Jong Un very much wants to reach out and touch the homeland,” Gen. Lori Robinson, head of the U.S. Northern Command, the part of the military responsible for defending the U.S. mainland, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April.

Tackling the threat could become an early point of tension between U.S. President Donald Trump, who is trying to pressure Pyongyang into changing course, and new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who favors diplomacy and economic engagement with North Korea.
In a factory about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital city, dozens of computer-controlled machines, similar to those used by Samsung Electronics Co. to make smartphones, churn out intricate parts that can be used in missiles and nuclear centrifuges, according to photographs released by state media.
In a visit to the same factory in 2013, Mr. Kim angrily demanded that engineers replace old devices for making parts with robots and computer numerical control, a process for high-precision machine tools, according to a state media report at the time. The government has composed songs about CNC machines and put them on postage stamps.

Photos from a return visit by Mr. Kim last August showed CNC machines with bright orange, robotic arms bearing the logo of Swiss engineering company ABB Ltd.

Weapons experts who study satellite images and photos released by North Korea say the newer machines have become ubiquitous in North Korean missile plants. The machines allow faster, more precise manufacturing of parts around the clock, reducing the need to skirt sanctions by importing similar parts. The United Nations bans any imports that could be used in weapons programs.

Weaponry in a military parade in April in Pyongyang to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Mr. Kim, included rocket casings that might have been made by the new CNC machines, missile experts say. North Korea also showed off what appeared to be at least one new long-range missile.

“Basically, they can now produce anything [for missiles] that’s made of metal,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a missile specialist at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, Calif.

A U.N. panel that monitors sanctions on North Korea identified Tengzhou Keyongda CNC Machine Tools Co. of China as a supplier of the new CNC machines.

A sales manager at the company who declined to provide his name says it sent machines worth about $40,000 to North Korea through an intermediary company “two or three years ago.” The person says North Korea tried to buy more machines this year, but the company declined “since relations between the two countries are tense.”

An ABB spokesman says the Zurich company doesn’t sell equipment to North Korea but couldn’t rule out the possibility that some products were resold there. CONTINUE AT SITE