RUTHFULLY YOURS

On July 18, a young man stormed through a train outside of Wurzburg, Germany. Crying “Allahu Akbar,” (God is greatest) he brandished an axe high into the air, then slashed at the men and women seated around him. Within minutes, the car, as one person described it, ” looked like a slaughterhouse.”

Then he fled.

By the time the day had ended, five people had been seriously wounded: four on the train, and a woman who had the misfortune of walking her dog at the moment he passed by. She remains in critical condition.

A day later, the Islamic State took credit for the attack, calling the killer, a 17-year-old refugee who was ultimately shot and killed by German police, a “soldier for ISIS.” It was the first full-scale Islamic terrorist attack in Germany.

But it was not the first Islamic terrorist attack on a train. Far from it: starting with the 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid and the July 7, 2005 bombings of the London Underground, trains and metros have been a common target for extremist groups. Some efforts, like the bombing of the Brussels metro station this past April, succeeded; many more have failed. But the attempts, successful or not, betray a gaping hole in international security, and one that may not be easy to repair.

In fact, a 2007 report from the Council on Foreign Relations noted that “security professionals see trains as some of the likeliest targets.” Consequently, when it comes to the possibility of a major attack on U.S. or European railway or metro systems, former Homeland Security officer Sean Burke told Boston’s WCVB news, “We have to expect it. That’s the bottom line.”

Such an attack, if large enough, could be devastating. While air traffic remains substantial, five times as many people ride trains as fly in the United States, and in Europe, the rapid, efficient and low-cost trains often offer the best transportation options between countries, especially in an era of long airport security lines and early check-ins. Moreover, freight shipments, including highly toxic industrial chemicals, travel the same routes as passenger trains, frequently passing through densely populated areas. Because of this situation, the Council on Foreign Relations reported in 2007 that former White House Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Richard Falkenrath considered such trains “the single greatest danger of a potential terrorist attack in our country today.'”

Yet security on both continents is weak, and in Europe, often at the bare minimum; one will rarely find a policeman or other security personnel at a train station in the Netherlands, for instance. Even on international trains, like the high-speed Thalys between the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, customs and immigration officials are few and far between. Rarely is anyone asked for ID (let alone a passport), and there are, as in the U.S., no security screenings even at major rail stations like Paris’ Gare du Nord and Berlin Hauptbanhof.

Which may in part explain why the real identity of the axe-wielder in Bavaria is still uncertain: at a July 20 press conference in Berlin, officials admitted that his name is still uncertain since he, like many other asylum seekers, entered the country without a passport or other identifying papers. Indeed, Time reports that, “Authorities have discovered that he could be from Afghanistan or Pakistan, and that the information he provided to officials in Germany could be partly or entirely false.”

The solar-powered plane that recently concluded its much delayed and long overdue round-the-world flight was predictably touted as further ‘proof’ that green energy has come of age. The real-world appraisal is dour: a PR stunt to obscure the fact that ‘alternative technologies’ are going nowhere.
Just the other day, we were told history was made when the aircraft Solar Impulse 2 landed in Abu Dhabi after what was described as the first round-the-world flight by a solar powered plane. The epic journey commenced in March, 2015, and since that time the plane had spent a total of 23 days in the air. This was an achievement for which the aviation world waited a long time, quite literally, to applaud — both in the short and much longer-term.

On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright conducted what is generally credited as the first sustained powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft, covering 39 metres. By 1905, the Wrights were able to cover 24 miles in 39 minutes 23 seconds. By 1916 the aeroplane had been matched the synchronised machine gun and become a potent instrument of war. A bare 65 years after the short hop at kitty Hawk, NASA put a man on the moon. The rapid progress was fuelled primarily by human imagination, wonderful new commercial opportunities and, of course, by two world wars. It was an extraordinarily rapid pace of development.

In 1925, John Logie Baird demonstrated his first prototype of a modern television set. His breakthrough, of course, relied on earlier technologies, the most important of which was the cathode ray tube first demonstrated in 1907. In 1928, the world’s first television station WGY commenced operation in Schenectady in upstate New York.

In 1932 the BBC commenced regular programming. TV broadcasts in London were on the air an average of four hours daily from 1936 to 1939. There were 12,000 to 15,000 receivers. Some sets in restaurants or bars might have 100 viewers for sport events. Broadcasts were suspended during the war and resumed in 1946. By the 1960s TV had become a ubiquitous part of modern life and by now its quality has improved exponentially.

A third example of technological advancement and commerce began in 1946, when ENIAC, the world’s first electronic general purpose computer was unveiled. It weighed 27 tons, occupied 167 square metres of space, used 150kw of electricity. Its construction cost almost US$7 million in today’s money, not least for its five million hand-soldered joints! It could multiply two 10 digit numbers in .0028 seconds. ENIAC was, of course, based on vacuum tubes and crystal diodes, which imposed a serious physical limitation on future progress. This impediment was overcome in 1955 with the development of the first fully transistorized computer, the Harwell Cadet, at the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment. The development if the integrated circuit in 1958 then opened the way to the rapid development of the microcomputer. The world went from ENIAC to Apple Mac in just 38 years! And the pace of technological advance in computing since then has been astronomical.

See where I’m going with this? Now consider other technologies, ones we are constantly told are on the very edge of becoming commercially viable.

A former Guantanamo Bay detainee who unexpectedly disappeared from Uruguay last month showed up in Venezuela on Tuesday, saying he wanted help traveling to Turkey, Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry said.

Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who was transferred by the Obama administration to Montevideo, Uruguay, in 2014, appeared at Uruguay’s consulate in Caracas and asked for assistance to fly to Turkey or some other country to be reunited with his family.

“He made it clear he has no interest in returning to Uruguay, but that he needs our country’s help,” the ministry said late Wednesday, adding that Venezuelan authorities were aware of the situation.

A spokesman for the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry in Caracas had said earlier that the office had no information about the former detainee’s arrival.

Uruguay’s foreign ministry said it wouldn’t fund Mr. Dhiab’s travel plans but that he could return to Montevideo, where his legal status as a refugee would still be valid.

Mr. Dhiab’s abrupt disappearance from Uruguay sparked weeks of speculation and concern about his intentions, leading several South American nations to try to determine his whereabouts. Brazil was especially interested as security is being heightened ahead of the Summer Olympic Games set to begin next week.

Once accused of being an al Qaeda militant, Mr. Dhiab is one of six former Guantanamo prisoners who were resettled in Uruguay as part a White House effort to close down the Cuba-based prison. The other five men remain in Uruguay.

Uruguayan officials have allowed the former detainees to move about freely.

Mr. Dhiab’s travel plans may raise additional concern, given Turkey’s porous border with Syria and its use as an entry point for volunteers looking to join Islamic State. CONTINUE AT SITE

Turkish prosecutors are investigating people who allege on social media that the coup attempt was in fact a hoax.

In a massive purge, the government sacked more than 60,000 civil servants from the military, judiciary, police, schools and academia, including 1,577 faculty deans who were suspended. More than 10,000 people have been arrested and there are serious allegations of torture.

Witnesses told Amnesty International that captured military officers were raped by police, hundreds of soldiers were beaten, some detainees were denied food and water and access to lawyers for days. Turkish authorities also arrested 62 children and accused them of treason.

The good news is that the coup attempt failed and Turkey is not a third world dictatorship run by an unpredictable military general who loves to crush dissent. The bad news is that Turkey is run by an unpredictable, elected president who loves to crush dissent.

In 1853, John Russell quoted Tsar Nicholas I of Russia as saying that the Ottoman Empire was “a sick man — a very sick man,” in reference to the ailing empire’s fall into a state of decrepitude. Some 163 years after that, the modern Turkish state follows in the Ottoman steps.

Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule, was staggering between a hybrid democracy and bitter authoritarianism. After the failed putsch of July 15, it is being dragged into worse darkness. The silly attempt gives Erdogan what he wanted: a pretext to go after every dissident Turk. A witch-hunt is badly shattering the democratic foundations of the country.

Taking advantage of the putsch attempt, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that will run for a period of three months, with an option to extend it for another quarter of a year. Erdogan, declaring the state of emergency, promised to “clean out the cancer viruses like metastasis” in the body called Turkey. With the move for a state of emergency, Turkey also suspended the European Convention on Human Rights, citing Article 15 of the Convention, which stipulates:

Earlier this month, the visitors’ log of the Jewish part of Hebron enjoyed a boost as activists, largely American Jews, ‎descended on the ancient Jewish city. Not as tourists to the Cave of the Patriarchs, or for contemplation ‎or prayer at the Avraham Avinu synagogue, but to organize a protest against “Israel’s crimes” and to support the Palestinian community.

There was no mention of the ‎fact that only 3% of Hebron is accessible to Jews and the remaining 97% is Palestinian, ‎with a small area functioning as a military buffer zone, or that Palestinian Hebron has ‎functioned as a terrorist hub for some time. The group’s main objective, ‎according to their spokesperson, was to take over an old Palestinian factory, now part of ‎the buffer zone, and turn it into a movie theater.

Some of the activists brought ‎popcorn labeled “Cinema Hebron” with them as a prop to drive the point home. ‎There were 45 American Jewish activists and a handful from various other countries. They did their best to provoke the authorities in the already volatile city, but while a ‎few activists with Israeli citizenship were detained and charged with presence in a ‎closed military zone and organizing an illegal protest, the others were merely banned from ‎entering Hebron for two weeks and then permitted to return to Tel Aviv. ‎No violence erupted, and despite a heavy media presence, the event could be ‎considered a calm affair. At around 2 p.m. the activists left Hebron to go have lunch, and, ‎according to their spokesperson, they have no plans to come back to complete the movie theater task.

The leaders of this pack were Peter Beinart, an American left-wing activist and self-‎proclaimed intellectual, and Amna Farooqi, the Muslim president of J Street U. The activists belonged to such well-known groups as J Street, the New Israel Fund and Jewish ‎Voice for Peace, an organization that supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions ‎movement against Israel. During the hours spent in Hebron, Beinart said he was very happy with what they had achieved that day and that he saw this as ‎proof of not only the success of their message, but also of a “new leadership” emerging ‎within the Jewish world. ‎

Beinart has every reason to be happy and content, because he is a major player in ‎one of the world’s most lucrative and trendy industries — conflict and activism. I have ‎personally seen an example of this industry much closer to home, as my home of Sweden is also the home of the infamous Gaza flotilla, known as “Ship to Gaza,” involving well-known intellectuals, ‎politicians and pundits far more concerned with an idea than with actual results. This is clearly demonstrated by their cargo manifest, which includes 10-year-old antibiotics, a few footballs, canned goods, a second-hand fridge and a ‎generator — a considerably more humble contribution than the 700 trucks entering Gaza ‎every day from Israel, carrying building material, food, medicine and clothes.

Both wings of the totalitarian Liberal/Left, The American and European ones, have proven themselves to be as dedicated to suppressing and censoring speech as have been the Muslims. Totalitarian activists like Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg would punish anyone who on Facebook or Twitter says nasty or critical things about Muslims or Islam. As Daniel Greenfieldhas eloquently pointed out, Germans who speak out about the rapes of German women by “migrants” or about the other crimes committed by “migrants’ are likely to be handed penalties as severe if not more so than any migrant charged and sentenced.

It’s not that German authorities are incompetent. A January headline informs us, “Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants”. Merkel forged a censorship deal with Facebook and Twitter. So that next time Muslims commit thousands of sexual assaults, it will be much harder for the populace to get the news out through the digital curtain of dot com censorship and propaganda.

With her Communist background, Merkel understands the mechanics of censorship. And that makes her an accessory to the war crimes that Muslim migrants have committed in their invasion of Europe both before and after the fact.

A 29-year-old German woman had received five months probation for her outrage over Muslim rapes of women. In today’s Germany, the sentences for Muslim sexual assaults and for denouncing them are eerily similar.

It is an issue of self-loathing, for the Muslims as well as for the likes of Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg, the censor and her enabler. As Muslims hate existence as well as their own, alleged “Westerners” like Merkel and Zuckerberg also hate their own and the superiority of the West. The poppies must be leveled, and everyone reduced to the lowest common denominator and if that means reducing men of independent thought to non-thinking conformists, erasing beauty as Muslims tried to erase Lara Logan in Tahrir Square, as the killers of Bataclan in Paris tortured and mutilated Westerners. When attempting to understand why many Westerners would turn against the civilized milieu in which they were raised, one can’t help but venture into a bit of “psychologizing.” Muslims subscribe to the notion that they are not fit for living except to serve Allah; why not ascribe the same or similar motive to Merkel and Zuckerberg? Merkel hails from a failed Communist regime, and is apparently making up for that by turning Germany into a fascist dictatorship that eats the non-Muslim or non-“migrant” citizens.

Zuckerberg undoubtedly comes from a society that holds self-sacrifice as a paramount moral virtue, as did Bill Gates, who has made it a goal to liquidate his own fortune, “to give back” what he claims he took from society. Altruism can emasculate a person, and turn him not only into a self-sacrificing nonentity but move him to become a monster who wishes to sacrifice anyone else who does not apologize for his existence or for what he may say.

Adel Kermiche made his first attempt to join the caliphate in March 2015. Alerted by his family, authorities picked him up in Germany and sent him back to France where he was placed under surveillance. In May 2015, he left again, this time using his cousin’s ID. He was picked up in Turkey, sent back to France via Geneva , and placed in detention awaiting trial on terrorist charges. He reportedly shared a cell with a 32 year-old Salafist. In early March 2016 the investigating judge responded favorably to his request for parole. The higher judicial authority objected, a 3-magistrate appeals panel overruled the authorities and released him on parole with the array of restrictions and requirements detailed above. (correction: he only had to report to the police once a week, not every day.)

One could write in advance the first reports about this jihad attack or the next one. The perpetrator(s) is always a nice guy, maybe a bit rough around the edges but friendly, likes music and partying. Nothing but absolutely really I mean completely totally nothing would have even slightly hinted that he might commit such untold violence. He wasn’t even religious! N.B. Islam is a religion of peace, has nothing to do with jihad, sharia, throat-slitting and other mass murders. But the sign that the suspect wasn’t suspicious is…he wasn’t religious. And what happens, two days later, when reporters get to the ‘hood? A year ago or two years ago, x changed. Grew a beard. Talked about nothing but jihad, sharia, Daesh, the koran, hung around the mosque, acted scary.

The second church killer is almost identified. They say it took this long to verify his identity because his facial features were obliterated by commando gunfire, he has never been fingerprinted because he has no criminal record. Though he was flagged as a security risk. Described as “brilliant,” he just earned his baccalauréat degree in business. He was living with his family in Aix les Bains. His mother swears he is not a terrorist but for some reason the specialized terrorist unit had been frantically trying to locate him a few days before the church attack. The “wanted” bulletins described him as dangerous and likely to go into action. Imminently. He left home on Monday, telling his mother he was going to visit a cousin in Nancy. Called home on the eve of the church slaughter. Then nothing. Named by sources as Abdel Malik P. he is probably the accomplice seen in a video testament sent by the pair to the Daesh agency (AMAQ) and proudly displayed.

Debate, as I said yesterday, is raging, and everything that can be said within the limits of decency is being said. The government is on the defensive, inside information is spilling out on all sides, the president, the PM, and the Interior Minister go from TV studios to church services to stand-up declarations in front of their palatial ministries but nothing will stem the tide.

Muslims around the world—especially in Europe where their numbers have burgeoned in recent times—are wreaking havoc.

The newest atrocity—assuming another one hasn’t already occurred since this writing—is the barbaric slaughter of an 84-year-old Christian priest in France. Yesterday (7/26) morning, “Allahu Akbar” shouting Muslims stormed his church in Rouen during morning Mass, slit the throat of the octogenarian priest (named Jacques Hamel), and “critically injured” a nun, before being killed by police—the same police who knew that that church was being targeted and had been monitoring one of the murderers for at least one-and-a-half years.

Days earlier in France and Germany, Muslims, mostly migrants, committed terrorist acts in Nice (84 dead), Munich (9 dead), attacked people in train stations (one dead, several injured), killed a pregnant Polish woman, and attacked a mother and her three adolescent daughters (puncturing the lungs of an 8-year-old).

Those who seek to reverse this situation must begin by embracing one simple fact: Islam is not terrorizing the West because it can but because it is being allowed to.

To be sure, that was not always the case: for over a millennium, Muslims repeatedly invaded and conquered portions of Europe—terrorizing, massacring, raping and enslaving in the name of Allah—and were only repulsed by great force of arms.

Indeed, invading and destroying churches, slaughtering priests, even raping nuns is as old as Islam’s first entry into Christian territory in the seventh century, and has played out countless times since. (Watch this brief video for an idea of how many jihadi campaigns were undertaken against Europe.)

Today, Muslim terrorists, rapists, criminals are not entering the West against its will but because of it.

Western Europe is now being hit by a wave of terror. Israel has expressed sympathy to the governments and peoples, and is helping or has offered to help the hardest-hit countries—France, Germany, and Belgium—fight the terror.

It has been different when terror has pounded Israel. Even during the five-year onslaught known as the Second Intifada (2000-2005), Europe was sharply critical of Israel and denounced all its terror-fighting methods as immoral.

The contrast is particularly striking in light of some disparities. From the Charlie Hebdo attack on January 7, 2015 to Tuesday’s attack in a church, 239 have been killed in France (pop. 67 million). In the Brussels bombings on March 22 this year, 32 were killed in Belgium (pop. 11 million). Since September 15, 2015, terror attacks (counting the Munich shooting late last week) have killed 15 in Germany (pop. 82 million).

During the five years of the Second Intifada, however, 1000 were killed in Israel (current pop. 8.5 million; even smaller then)—a much higher rate even than France has endured since the start of 2015.

Yet, in the course of those intifada years—and since then as well, including, of course, the Gaza wars—Europe’s criticism of Israel’s fight against terror has been unremitting.

The irony is deepened by the fact that some of the Israeli measures that Europe has most fiercely condemned are now used routinely by European countries themselves—without, of course, having to put up with criticism from Israel or anyone else.

For instance, there was once a time when targeted killings—if practiced by Israel—stirred world outrage. On April 17, 2004, with the Second Intifada still seething, an Israeli airstrike killed Hamas terror master Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in Gaza.

Condemnations followed like clockwork. From the European direction, they were voiced, among others, by then-EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, then-Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini, and then-British foreign minister Jack Straw, who said: “The British government has made it repeatedly clear that so-called targeted assassinations of this kind are unlawful, unjustified and counterproductive.” Only a U.S. veto saved Israel from UN Security Council censure for the killing.

Today, of course, drone strikes on terrorists by the U.S. and European countries are so routine that they can hardly compete for attention with weather forecasts. On November 26, 2015, the Daily Mail reported that “British drone strikes have killed 305 ISIS targets in the last year….”

European Union High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini has publicly rejected PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s call for Arab nations to lobby the UN Security Council to not endorse a Quartet Report that Abbas considers biased in favour of Israel.

Addressing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on 22 July, Mogherini declared:

“John Kerry and I sit together in quite an impressive number of different formats. Together we decided to revitalize the Middle East Quartet. The report we have come up with just a few weeks ago cannot be underestimated. For the first time ever, the US, the EU, Russia and the United Nations have agreed on a clear analysis of the situation on the ground, and also more importantly on recommendations on the way forward to turn the two states solution into reality. Together we have also agreed to engage more regularly with the key Arab states such as Saudi Arabia – the initiator of the Arab Peace Initiative – Egypt – for obvious reasons – and Jordan – for its role in the Holy places.”

The Report certainly cannot be underestimated – condemning and identifying the PLO and Hamas as fostering and condoning terrorism, including:

* “recent acts of terrorism” against Israelis, and incitement to violence including over 250 attacks and attempted attacks by Palestinians against Israelis since October 2015 – resulting in at least 30 Israelis having been killed in stabbings, shootings, vehicular attacks, and a bombing.

* Palestinians committing “terrorist attacks” being often glorified publicly as “heroic martyrs”

* Some members of Fatah – which Abbas heads – publicly supporting attacks and their perpetrators, as well as encouraging violent confrontation – including a senior Fatah official referring to perpetrators as “heroes and a crown on the head of every Palestinian”.

* Palestinian leaders having not consistently and clearly condemned specific “terrorist attacks”. And streets, squares and schools having been named after Palestinians who have committed “acts of terrorism”.