RUTHFULLY YOURS

Notwithstanding all of the commentary to the contrary, the Iraqi army assisted by U.S. Special Forces is putting the Islamic State on the defensive in Iraq. In fact, the Iraqi army is poised to retake the northern province of Nineveh and may soon gain control of Mosul, the province’s largest city and a militant stronghold. This is the good news, but it is not the whole story.

Up until recently the goal of ISIS was to acquire and hold territory, to build a Caliphate under a state structure. However, with that state structure in disarray, the strategy has changed and with it, the potential terrorist danger has increased. It is now the case that ISIS has involved adherents in the spread of its extremist ideas and encouraging acolytes to attack wherever they might be.

The message from the Brussels’ murders reinforces the warning from Paris – four months earlier – that the Islamic State not only has the capability of deadly terrorist attacks in the heart of Europe, but that these attacks are part and parcel of a revised strategic vision.

From outposts remaining in Iraq and, most significantly, in Syria, ISIS can use refugee flows into Europe as a method for embedding terrorist cells. Moreover, these terrorist “sleepers” can easily find “safe houses” in sanctuary neighborhoods like Molenbeek in Brussels. It is estimated that about 5,000 Europeans have travelled to Iraq and Syria to train and several hundred have since returned.

A Look Back at this Croatia-News-Heavy Month…in Election Year 2008

Restaurant honours mass murderer (Herald Sun, April 13, 2008)

An acclaimed Melbourne restaurant has sparked multi-ethnic outrage for paying homage to a fascist warlord and mass murderer.

The plush Katarina Zrinski restaurant attached to Footscray’s Croatian Club has been branded “disgusting” for its celebration of genocidal World War II Croatian leader Ante Pavelic.

Pavelic, who historians say was responsible for the deaths of up to 500,000 Jews, Serbs, Muslims and gypsies, has been described as the Heinrich Himmler of the Croatian nation.

The popular restaurant during the week displayed a big portrait of Pavelic on its wall and T-shirts depicting Pavelic for sale at the bar.

The T-shirts also showed two commanders of the Ustashe’s notorious Black Legion, which murdered thousands of civilians, and Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, who was jailed for collaborating with the Ustashe.

Drinkers at the bar were also toasting “The Poglavnik” – the name fascists use for their Fuhrer – and on Thursday the restaurant commemorated Hitler’s establishment of the puppet state of Croatia on April 10, 1941.

On Tuesday the restaurant was reviewed in a Melbourne newspaper’s food section, with its “large, airy downstairs dining room perfect for large, extended family groups”.

Dr Bob Miller, a Balkans expert at the Australian National University, has hit out at the club’s feting of Pavelic.

“It’s disgusting. This would be the equivalent to the German community honouring Himmler,” he said.

“Even the Nazis found the Ustashe regime’s actions so brutal as to be counter-productive.”

Serbians in Victoria have also expressed their distress.

“How can they do this?” George Marinkovic, publisher of the Serb Voice, said.

“Can someone explain this? We are in one beautiful country and you are going back and promoting fascists from the Hitler era. I cannot understand it.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has granted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s demand for the criminal prosecution of comedian Jan Böhmermann, for a poem he wrote insulting Erdogan. Böhmermann is accused of violating a German law forbidding the “slander of institutions and officials of foreign states” — an offense carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Erdogan once acquitted Sudanese President Omar al Bashir of genocide allegations: “Muslims cannot carry out genocide.” Erdogan was expressing an attitude widespread among German politicians and journalists: crimes are not crimes when Muslims commit them. Rarely is a Muslim despot or demagogue criticized in Germany; meanwhile no one has inhibitions about vilifying Christianity.

The signal that the German federal government has repeatedly sent to Turkey: We are totally dependent on and cannot live without Turkey. Is it really a surprise that Erdogan’s megalomania is increasing?

“The ‘cultural sensitivity’ practiced in liberal societies has nothing to do with sensitivity or thoughtfulness. It arises from the fear of violence.” — Henryk M. Broder, journalist and author.

Who would have thought that there is still a law in Germany that makes “lèse majesté” (offending the dignity of a monarch) a punishable crime? And that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now benefiting from just that — and that it could plunge Germany into a (further) “national crisis.”

The terms “national crisis” and “governmental crisis” have been coming up again and again. In light of all the massive problems Germany has, this one is about a poem in which a cabaret performer and comedian, Jan Böhmermann, recently insulted the Turkish President. Erdogan has called for Böhmermann’s head and, as of last week, has Chancellor Merkel on his side.

The story began in March, when a German regional television station aired a music video during a satirical show, in which repression and human rights violations under Erdogan were pilloried in a humorous way. The Turkish government summoned the German ambassador and demanded that the video be removed from the internet and never be shown again. Germans thereby learned that the German ambassador is regularly summoned to Ankara — three times so far this year. According to reports, the Turkish government once complained about teaching material in Saxony’s schools that dealt with the Armenian genocide.

The Palestinian jubilation over yesterday’s terror bombing in Jerusalem, the first of its kind since the suicide bombings during the Second Intifada more than a decade ago, is yet another reminder of the growing radicalization among Palestinians.

The major obstacle to peace with Israel remains the absence of education for peace with Israel. In fact, it is safe to say that there never was a real attempt on the part of Palestinian leaders and factions to prepare their people for peace with Israel. On the contrary, the message they send to their people remains extremely anti-Israel.

This casts doubt on the Palestinian leadership’s and people’s willingness to move toward peace and coexistence with Israel.

Shortly after the Jerusalem bus terror explosion attack on April 18, a number of Palestinian factions rushed to issue statements applauding the “heroic operation” and urging Palestinians to pursue the path of armed struggle against Israel.

The Palestinian jubilation over the terror attack, the first of its kind since the suicide bombings during the Second Intifada more than a decade ago, is yet another reminder of the growing radicalization among Palestinians. This radicalization is mostly attributed to the ongoing anti-Israel incitement and indoctrination by various Palestinian factions and leaders.

Not surprisingly, the first Palestinian group to applaud the Jerusalem bus attack was Hamas.

Russia’s military has been much more aggressive and even reckless over the past few weeks, stunting over and around U.S. forces. Those stunts happened, almost simultaneously, with more dangerous Russian moves in supplying Iranian and Hezbollah terrorist forces with enormously capable anti-air and anti-missile systems.

Last Monday and Tuesday, two Russian Su-24 fighter-bombers made mock attacks against the USS Donald Cook, a destroyer in international waters in the Baltic Sea. On neither occasion were the aircraft visibly armed, nor did they answer radio calls from the ship. During the Tuesday incident, one made a pass that took it to within about fifty feet above the ship.

On Thursday, a Russian Su-27 fighter did a barrel roll around an Air Force RC-135 over the Baltic Sea, coming within fifty feet of the aircraft’s wingtip. (To perform a barrel roll the aircraft banks around a single turn of a spiral while rolling once around its longitudinal axis. It takes only a couple of seconds to do, and is a lot of fun if you’re the roller, not the rollee.)

An RC-135 is, to put it bluntly, a spy aircraft that is connected directly into the gizmocracies of the CIA and NSA. It flies seeking to gather whatever intelligence its antennae can scoop up. Flying over the Baltic is a natural place to snoop given the close proximity of both Russia and Kaliningrad which, though not connected by land, is nevertheless part of Russia.

If this were our Air Force or Navy fliers, the fighter jocks would be scolded and probably grounded for a while to sort out what really happened. The Russians are different. As we used to say in the Cold War days, a Russian won’t defecate without orders. In this case, the pilots were clearly acting on the orders of a senior military person and the fact that the incidents were carried out over several days indicates that Russian President Vladimir Putin either ordered the incidents or was at least told of the plans and approved them.

The only reaction to the USS Cook incidents came from Secretary of State John Kerry. On Thursday, Kerry said, “We condemn this kind of behavior. It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down.” As we’ve come to expect from Kerry, the harrumphery of condemnation was matched by a comprehensively ignorant statement about the rules of engagement.