RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21341/move-us-military-from-qatar

“This is Qatar’s classic game: support the Islamist terrorists and then present itself as a mediator, liaison, and even peacemaker – the arsonist playing firefighter. As in Afghanistan, as in Egypt in 2010, and as in every Muslim country. In every Muslim country where there is a battle between the Islamists and the secularists, Qatar supports the Islamists, as in Gaza supporting Hamas for years, building its military might and enabling October 7.” — Colonel Yigal Carmon (ret), MEMRI, January 21, 2025.

[Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa], who claims to have broken completely with Al Qaeda, apparently did so only because of strategic disagreements, not because he suddenly abandoned its plan to create an Islamic state in Syria.

Hurrying to the next scandal, the Biden administration practically threw itself at Sharaa’s feet. It rushed to meet with the terrorist leader, then immediately removed the $10 million bounty for his arrest, without even waiting to see what he would do.

The US cannot continue to reward terrorism. President Donald J. Trump would do well to declare as a Foreign Terrorist Organization the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the font of all Sunni Islamist terrorism and is effectively promoted worldwide by Qatar’s television bullhorn, Al-Jazeera. Trump would also be well-advised to move American forces completely out of Qatar’s enormous Al-Udeid Air Base, headquarters of the US Central Command, move them to the United Arab Emirates, and effectively cut ties with Qatar, a country “pretending to be an ally.”

“Biden failed miserably. Trump should not recycle Biden’s approach, and should recognize that Qatar and Erdogan are enemies despite their incredible skill in presenting themselves as friends, and as firefighters when they are actually arsonists. Trump would achieve the release of all the hostages if he were only to hint that it is conceivable that the CENTCOM base could be relocated out of Qatar. In fact, he owes this to the Saudis and the Emiratis, who are his true allies. If Trump clings to Qatar and Erdogan against these allies, he should not then wonder why his true allies, the Saudis and the Emiratis, are drifting towards America’s adversaries, China and Russia” — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, January 9, 2025.

Qatar, the world’s foremost terrorist state, which seems never to have met an Islamist terrorist entity it did not support — from Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood to Al Qaeda and ISIS — has gained yet another win. It is Syria, the latest country seized in a hostile Islamist takeover by the formerly Al Qaeda affiliated organization Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known by his “nom de guerre,” Abu-Mohammed al-Jolani.

Throughout Sharaa’s decades-long career as a terrorist — from being a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, to founding Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front), which he led from 2012-2017, to forming HTS as a conglomerate of various jihadist groups — Qatar has been a constant factor. The Qataris have financially supported Al Qaeda wherever it went — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria -– so the final victory of Sharaa, is an even greater victory for Qatar, proving that its “investment” paid off.

Qatar’s State Security Chief Khalfan Al-Kaabi visited Damascus on December 12, 2024, just days after President Bashar al-Assad fled the country on December 8, following HTS’s final offensive. In no time, the Qataris reopened their embassy in Syria.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/21/geographys-revenge/

Over the last few weeks, Trump has raised a lot of eyebrows by suggesting that our country should annex Greenland, invite Canada to join as the 51st state, and seek the return of the Panama Canal. Together, these remarks signal a break from prevailing norms and a plan to consolidate America’s dominant position in the Western Hemisphere.

Like much of what Trump does, it all seems cheeky, but only at first glance. Even if these maximalist positions do not prevail, they form an anchor for negotiations. Trump is actively seeking to expand U.S. influence over strategically significant regions within our immediate vicinity.

A new order is emerging where regions and their shifting balances of power are the dominant force in the world, rather than conflicts between mere nation-states. Among these competing regions, Europe, under the institutions of the EU, is becoming an economic and political force in its own right, often sidelining the U.S. Unlike NATO, we are not a member of the EU, and it provides space for Europe to assert its own collective interests as distinct from our own.

The BRICS consortium is also gaining power and becoming a viable node of international power, while China is making inroads to consolidate its own influence over Eurasia through its “Belt and Road Initiative.” China also maintains robust commercial ties with Africa and Latin America. Russia, of course, has been asserting its own sovereignty over the former Soviet Union in Georgia, Ukraine, and among the various Stans.

The U.S. is no longer as powerful as it once was in relative terms. We have done a lot on autopilot in recent years, continuing to assert our prerogatives as if the rest of the world has not taken notice of the humiliations in Afghanistan, Niger, and the Red Sea. Our adversaries and competitors are reevaluating things from a realist perspective, and we should as well, abandoning outmoded ideas about friends, enemies, and our own capabilities.

After the Cold War, for a time, we were the most powerful, but this led to a failure to set any priorities. National security strategy documents consisted of meaningless word salad without any intelligent effort to rank threats or connect one activity with another.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/could-musk-starmer-spat-threaten-us-uk-security-alliance/

There is no doubt that multi-billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has propelled the Muslim rape gang issue back into the public spotlight, where it should have been from the beginning. British politicians, the nation’s “security” apparatus, and its police all abandoned the victims, while protecting the  perpetrators in the name of “diversity.” But now the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is lashing out at Musk.

A Gateway Pundit report highlights the implications, and considers whether the incoming Trump administration holds Musk’s views. “Could Musk spat hit US-UK security alliance? Labour figures ‘horrified’ by billionaire’s tirade and ‘questioning intelligence sharing’ with closest ally,” by David Wilcock, Gateway Pundit, January 7, 2025:

The cracks are beginning to show in Britain and America’s so-called “special relationship…  British Prime Minister Keir Starmer may end his country’s security partnership with the United States if Donald Trump does not distance himself from Elon Musk’s recent comments on grooming gangs.

Nick Watt, a reporter for the nightly current affairs show BBC Newsnight, claims that Downing Street are going to give a “hard-headed assessment” of whether these views are held solely by Musk or by the administration as a whole….

Trump has been watching the Muslim rape gang horrors for some time, even prior to when he first became president in 2017. He read the Horowitz Freedom Center’s own Jihad Watch website and posted on Facebook: “Police arrest 900 Muslim migrants in England and Wales for ‘sickening’ crimes.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21265/elon-musk-taiwan

In fact, no Chinese ruling group has ever held indisputable sovereignty to the island.

From 1928 to 1943, the Communist Party itself recognized Taiwan as a state separate and apart from China.

If Xi Jinping thinks Trump will not defend Taiwan, will he then attack?

[T]he People’s Republic is getting weaker — the Chinese economy is failing — making notions of inevitability outdated.

“From their standpoint, you know, maybe it’s analogous to like Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because… the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force,” Elon Musk, appearing remotely at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles in September, said referring to Taiwan.

In May, Musk talked to CNBC on the same topic. “The official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated,” he told the channel’s David Faber. “One does not need to read between the lines. One should only read the lines.” And then the world’s richest man stated this: “I think there’s a certain, there’s some inevitability to the situation.”

Musk is brilliant when it comes to providing what the world needs, but he is ignorant about Taiwan. His conclusions could not be more wrong.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21237/trump-china-deal

[T]rying to reach a grand bargain with China — what [Trump] was hinting at — would be exactly the wrong approach at this or any other moment.

Trump has already tried to reach an accommodation with China: his Phase One Trade pact of January 2020. He calls it “the best trade deal” ever, but it is now widely viewed as a bust. The Chinese, during an election year in America, never honored its terms.

[Chinese President Xi Jinping’s] actions are the inevitable result of China’s communist political system, which idealizes violence, struggle, and domination. This system means there can be no accommodation with the Communist Party.

The Chinese regime believes the world is its enemy. No enduring understanding, pact, deal or agreement is possible.

“China and the United States can together solve all of the problems of the world, if you think about it,” President-Elect Donald Trump said on December 16, at a Mar-a-Lago press conference.

He also called China’s President Xi Jinping “amazing” and confirmed he had invited the Chinese leader to his inauguration.

Earlier in the month, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris and stated this in connection with efforts to end the war in Eastern Europe: “China can help.”

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/13/trump-is-right-america-must-stay-out-of-the-crisis-in-syria/

After the sudden overthrow of Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad, there has been plenty of media commentary expressing optimism about the likely new Syrian government led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Although this group is a former al Qaeda offshoot, it claims to have reformed, intends to establish a moderate and tolerant government, and plans to hold elections.

The Biden administration appears ready to give a new HTS government the benefit of the doubt. Biden officials have said they will recognize and support a new government in Syria if it makes certain commitments to the U.S., including renouncing terrorism and destroying chemical weapons in the country. The Biden administration also is considering lifting U.S. terrorist designations from the HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

President Biden indicated on December 10 that he plans direct U.S. involvement in post-Assad Syria when he said:

“We will engage with all Syrian groups, including within the process led by the United Nations, to establish a transition away from the Assad regime toward independent, sovereign—an independent—independent—I want to say it again—sovereign Syria with a new constitution, a new government that serves all Syrians.”

President Trump has taken a different approach. Trump wants America to stay out of the Syrian crisis. He said just before Assad fled the country, “This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved.”

After the Assad government fell, Trump focused on the implications of Assad’s overthrow for the war in Ukraine, stating in a Truth Social post:

“Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success,” his post continued. “Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness. They have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin.”

There are already troubling questions that justify Trump’s caution about U.S. involvement in post-Assad Syria.

Given the many ethnic groups and religions in the large region of Syria controlled by the HTS rebels, establishing a stable and peaceful Syria will require including representatives from these groups in the government. Unfortunately, the interim government is made up entirely of HTS loyalists.