RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15944/afghanistan-china-moving-in

Both the United Kingdom and the U.S. State Department have complained to China about the free flow of Chinese weapons to Iran, which then wind up with the Taliban. These include surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery shells, and land mines.

China’s $3 billion copper mine investment… in Afghanistan’s Logar Province remains under the Taliban’s protection. Other Chinese corporations that have initiated investment projects in Afghanistan include the Zinjin Mining Company, the Jiangxi Copper Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation.

Beijing and Washington are driving different bargains with the Taliban. China, supported by pro-Taliban elements in Pakistan, apparently hopes to enlist the Taliban to prevent Uighur and Eastern Turkistan Independence Movement (ETIM) fighters from using Afghanistan to launch attacks on the Chinese Province of Xinjiang. The U.S., for its part, wants the Taliban’s assurance that it will oppose Al-Qaeda and Islamic State operations on Afghan soil as a prerequisite for a near total troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The question is, just what is the likelihood of that?

The Trump administration has made clear that it wants to end the forward-positioning of U.S. troops on what it regards as a seemingly endless war in Afghanistan, and the Taliban wholeheartedly agrees. China, in the meantime, has continued to profit from its bilateral commerce and investment in the region, and now appears willing to play a future military role in the area. China has already established a military base in Tajikistan near the Chinese border with Afghanistan….

During the tumultuous two decades of American military presence in Afghanistan, China has been quietly increasing its influence there.

While the Trump Administration is distracted by the coronavirus and its economic fallout, China is now poised to inherit the great power role once played by Britain, Russia and the U.S.

Beijing has deftly maintained low-key but friendly relations with the Taliban since the Islamic movement assumed power in Kabul in 1996. Only China and Pakistan kept their ties with the Taliban when American and Northern Alliance forces drove the terrorist group from power in the autumn of 2001.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15920/iran-un-human-rights-council

One of the worst examples we can identify as a conscious distortion of reality is the way in which the UN Human Rights Council, in its February-March 2020 five-year report on the Islamic Republic of Iran, lavished praise on the despotic regime.

Other extreme forms of punishment used in Iran are equally appalling: Execution by stoning, Execution by hanging, Execution by firing squad, Execution by beheading, Execution by throwing from a height, Amputation, Blinding, Flogging. – United Against Nuclear Iran

Yet many people who boycott Israel refuse to boycott Iran. The irony is mind-boggling.

There are times when even the most steeled among us are shocked by things others say or do. For example, people who insist against overwhelming evidence that Hitler and the Nazis were good people or that the Führer never intended to kill the Jews. Individuals who, again against a massive body of evidence, deny where the coronavirus began; or, though their numbers are relatively small, the percentages of Muslims who apparently still support the Islamic State (ISIS).

One of the worst examples we can identify as a conscious distortion of reality is the way in which the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), in its February-March 2020 five-year report on the Islamic Republic of Iran, lavished praise on the despotic regime. A majority (85%) of the countries contributing to this travesty of the truth made a mockery of human rights values by treating the Islamic Republic as a shining example of those values in action — something, as we shall see, it has never been. According to UN Watch:

https://www.memri.org/reports/syrian-author-while-rest-world-sanctifies-life-we-arabs-sanctify-death

 
In an article in the weekly Enab Baladi, identified with the Syrian opposition, author and journalist Khatib Badla harshly condemned the sanctification of death in Arab society. The Arab leaders, he said, have long been cultivating the ancient Islamic concept of shahada (martyrdom) and encouraging their people to die for the regime, while other governments in the world have sanctifed life and promoted the security and well being of their citizens. He added that the Arab culture of death leads only to ruin and destruction, and wondered if a day will ever come when the Arabs finally embrace the culture of life.

The following are translated excerpts from his article: [1]

“Our [source of] hope is death. The life-loving nations deserve our appreciation and affection. The governments and national institutions in their countries work night and day to provide them with security, dignity and wellbeing, so they can get the most out of life, and if  a citizen is close to death, [the authorities] will mobilize and do everything they can to prolong his life, if only for a couple more hours…

“Conversely, we [Arabs] have a trait that distinguishes us from all the other peoples of the world, which is a love of death. We dream of it, regard it as a source of inspiration and think about it every day. We love death and love the dead. Instead of hoping for longevity, for [a life of] giving and loving, we say, with defeatism… ‘God, [help me] go to battle and reach my grave. This is in addition to the grand slogans we [like to chant], such as: ‘death to America,’ ‘better death than humiliation’ and ‘seek death and you shall be given  life [in the next world]’…