RUTHFULLY YOURS

General Suspects North Korea at Point of Capability to Build, Deliver Warhead By Bridget Johnson

The commander of U.S. forces in Korea, who met in Washington this week with South Korean officials, said at a Pentagon press briefing today that they fear “uncontrolled escalation” of the nuclear threat on the peninsula as North Korea continues its weapons program.

“Kim Jong Un remains in control of an isolated, authoritative regime that’s willing to use violence and threats of violence to advance its interests, gain recognition as a nuclear power, and secure the regime’s survival,” Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said.

In recent years, he said, Pyongyang “has focused on development of asymmetric capabilities,” including “several hundred ballistic missiles, one of the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpiles, a biological weapons research program, and the world’s largest special operations force, as well as an active cyber-warfare capability.”

North Korea violated UN Security Council resolutions by conducting its third nuclear test last year and “significantly increased their frequency of no-notice ballistic missile launches this year.”

“We are concerned that such events could start a cycle of action and counteraction, leading to an unintended, uncontrolled escalation. This underscores the need for the alliance to work together, to be vigilant and to be ready to act,” Scaparrotti said.

The general said the U.S. and South Korea have been working together to enhance readiness in the areas of “combined and joint command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, an alliance countermissile defense strategy, and the procurement of precision-guided munitions, ballistic missile defense systems, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms.”

Scaparrotti cautioned against reading too much into North Korea’s moves in which they’ve “reached out more,” including sending a representative to the UN or softening rhetoric.

Katie Gorka of the Council on Global Security has released an important report [1], “The Flawed Science Behind America’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” and events of this week show that it couldn’t be more timely. The separate terror attacks in Canada and a long string of terror attacks here in the U.S. show that the counter-terrorism policies of Western governments are fundamentally broken, and are directly responsible for getting their citizens killed. Even as I write this there are breaking reports of yet another attack [2].

The primary targets of Gorka’s new report are the various fictitious narratives and bogus social science models that drive Western counter-terrorism efforts. Chief among these is the “countering violent extremism (CVE)” narrative that has been the centerpiece for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.

CVE has been a colossal disaster because it has no roots in reality. It was always intended as a convenient fiction for politicians, bureaucrats, media and academics to avoid talking about [3] the problem of the ideology that supports Islamic terrorism.

There has never once been a recorded case of anyone on the planet swearing their allegiance to the ideology of “violent extremism” and their willingness to kill others and die in the cause of “violent extremism.” It is a null set. There is nothing to counter, which is the whole point. And yet there are academics and institutions who are the beneficiaries of mountains of taxpayer cash to pursue the elusive CVE unicorn.

CVE has been used to smuggle all kinds of crackpot theories into not just our counter-terrorism policy, but also our foreign policy.

One crackpot theory has been that there are good Islamists that we can use against the bad Islamists. This was the keystone of the Obama administration’s Arab Spring policies. And this theory put into practice in Egypt, Libya, Syria and other places has left the Middle East in even worse shape than Obama found it.

““I’ve been through that. My husband gave working families a raise in the 1990s,” Clinton said, saying she herself voted for raising the minimum wage when she served as a senator from New York. “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”
This video is sure to make a glorious return in a couple of years. In it, Hillary Clinton disparages the entire capitalism system in one revealing sentence.

Aside from Hillary’s actual words, notice how she’s dry-washing her hands as she winds up to the line. It’s not an off-the-cuff mistake. It’s obviously a line that she knows is coming and is preparing to deliver with relish.

Politico plays this quote as a Hillary vs. Elizabeth Warren thing, which it undoubtedly is. Hillary spends a lot of time in the story driving a knife in Warren’s back while smiling that smile of hers the whole time.

But it tells us so much about Hillary Clinton.

Nathan Cirillo and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau.

As I noted yesterday, the moral contrast between these two men — the Ottawa terrorist and the guard he shot — couldn’t be more stark. Cirillo gave his life in the service of country and honor. Zehaf-Bibeau gave his life in the service of tyranny and murder.

All those who have died serving Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. have made a great sacrifice for those respective democracies. Most Westerners honor them with gratitude. Tragically, however, some Westerners are betraying that honor by joining the Islamic State’s global movement.

This societal struggle — against a very small minority of extremists — speaks to a profound philosophical divide.

While the Islamic State claims to represent a new, just, and holy order, its hyper-Salafi jihadist ideology is antithetical to democracy. Where we stand for individual freedom, they stand for totalitarianism. Where we stand for the rule of law, they stand for the tyranny of one psychotic man.

Yet hundreds of Britons, around 100 Canadians, 50 Australians, and 15 Americans are now known to serve the Islamic State. The terror is spreading, and not just in Canada. As events in Australia and Britain attest, Islamic State terrorists in the Mideast and elsewhere are inspiring terrorism from their supporters in the West. Persuading them that serving the Islamic State doesn’t require travel to Syria or Iraq, ISIS offers ordained purpose to those Westerners who detest their democratic society. In basic terms, it turns hateful minds toward violent terrorism. And because of the detection challenge that homegrown terrorists pose for intelligence services, they represent an urgent threat to Western nations’ security. That threat must be met head-on. Treason charges offer one answer.

Of course, it is not a simple answer. While the U.K. is considering treason charges against citizens who join the Islamic State, there is no recent precedent there. The last man convicted of treason in Britain was a Nazi propagandist, Lord Haw-Haw, way back in 1946. Public reaction to new treason trials would obviously be complicated.

Last month, addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu made a connection between the Islamic State and Hamas. These terrorist entities, Netanyahu said, have a lot in common. Separated by geography, they nonetheless share ideology and tactics and goals: Islamism, terrorism, the destruction of Israel, and the establishment of a global caliphate.

And yet, Netanyahu observed, the very nations now campaigning against the Islamic State treated Hamas like a legitimate combatant during last summer’s Israel–Gaza war. “They evidently don’t understand,” he said, “that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.”

The State Department dismissed Netanyahu’s metaphor. “Obviously, we’ve designated both as terrorist organizations,” said spokesman Jen Psaki. “But ISIL poses a different threat to Western interests and to the United States.”

Psaki was wrong, of course. She’s always wrong. And, after the events of the last 48 hours, there ought not to be any doubt as to just how wrong she was. As news broke that a convert to Islam had murdered a soldier and stormed the Canadian parliament, one read of another attack in Jerusalem, where a Palestinian terrorist ran his car over passengers disembarking from light rail, injuring seven, and killing three-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who held a U.S. passport.

The Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Hamas — these awful people are literally baby killers. And yet they produce a remarkable amount of dissension, confusion, willful ignorance, and moral equivalence on the part of the men and women who conduct U.S. foreign policy. “ISIL is not ‘Islamic,’” President Obama said of the terrorist army imposing sharia law across Syria and Iraq. “Obviously, we’re shaken by it,” President Obama said of the attack in Canada. “We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident,” the State Department said of the murder of a Jewish child.

“Not Islamic,” despite the fact that the Caliphate grounds its barbarous activities in Islamic law. “Shaken,” not stirred to action. “All sides,” not the side that targets civilians again and again and again. The evasions continue. They create space for the poison tree to grow.

The persistent denial of the ideological unity of Islamic terrorism — the studied avoidance of politically incorrect facts that has characterized our response to the Ford Hood shooting, the Benghazi attack, the Boston Marathon bombing, the march of the caliphate across Syria and Iraq, and the crimes of Hamas — is not random. Behind it is a set of ideas with a long history, and with great purchase among the holders of graduate degrees who staff the Department of Justice, the National Security Council, Foggy Bottom, and the diplomatic corps. These ideas are why, in the words of John McCain, the terrorists “are winning, and we’re not.”

In Modern Times, his sweeping history of the 20th century, Paul Johnson recounts how Einstein’s theory of relativity, a strictly scientific principle, was contorted into relativism, a loopy social phenomenon, through a permanent campaign of serpentine rhetoric. It is, as Roger Kimball explains in The Fortunes of Permanence, a classic example of how a sensible concept or term of art that helps us grasp some narrow aspect of reality can end up distorting reality when ripped from its moorings and broadly applied.

Another good example is “lone wolf.”

Since Thursday afternoon, newscasters have incessantly told us that the late and unlamented Zale Thompson was a “lone wolf.” Thompson was the 32-year-old Muslim from Queens who attacked four New York City police officers with a hatchet on Thursday, breaking one’s arm and critically wounding another with a gash to the head.

Reading off the familiar script, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton insisted that “nothing we know at this time would indicate” a connection to terrorism. This, despite Thompson’s Facebook page on which he portrayed himself as a mujahed warrior superimposed on Koranic verses and called for “guerilla warfare” against the United States. Evidently, it is just one of those “violent extremism” coincidences that this “lone wolf” strike — translation: non-terrorist strike — occurred soon after the Islamic State urged Muslims in the West to “attack the soldiers of the tyrants and their police force.”

In addition to Americans, Europeans, and Australians, the Islamic State lists the “infidels” of Canada among its enemy “tyrants.” Thompson’s “lone wolf” jihad followed hard upon two separate “lone wolf” attacks in Canada this week. First, Martin Couture-Rouleau plowed a car into two soldiers, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Then, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot Corporal Nathan Cirillo to death at the National War Memorial in Ottawa before spraying bullets inside Parliament (but fortunately killing no one else). Each “lone wolf” was killed in the aftermath, and each was reportedly a “recent convert to Islam.”

An Arab colloquialism, frequently employed by Arab policy-makers in order to mislead foreign movers and shakers (including American Secretaries of State) suggests that “on words one does not pay customs.”

For instance, on October 16, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry stated: “I was just in Cairo, where a terrific $5.4bn was raised in order to help rebuild Gaza.” In fact, $5.4bn was not raised; it was verbally pledged against the backdrop of a litany of unfulfilled Arab pledges to help the PLO, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

While Secretary Kerry assumes that Arab leaders walk-the-talk when it comes to the Palestinian issue, a July, 2014 study by the Congressional Research Service states: “Routinely, [Arabs] make generous pledges of aid to the Palestinians, but at times fulfill them only in part and after significant delay…. According to Reuters, ‘a high of $1.8bn in foreign aid from Arab countries in 2008 plunged to $600mn in 2012, with Gulf countries scaling back their giving….” The study indicates that since 2008, the US foreign aid to the Palestinians has averaged $400mn annually, more than the oil-rich Saudi Arabia ($260mn in 2013, $100mn in 2012 and $180mn in 2011), the United Arab Emirates ($50mn in 2013) and Kuwait ($50mn in 2013).

The Qatari Al Jazeera reported that “Palestinian officials are skeptical of Arab aid pledges, as few Arab countries carried through on promises last year…. ”

On December 26, 2012, Nabil Elaraby, the Secretary General of the Arab League, divulged that “Arab countries pledged a $100mn monthly safety net to the Palestinian Authority at the March, 2012 Baghdad Arab Summit, but none of it has been realized yet.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Abed al-Rahman Shaludi, a 21-year-old resident of east Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood, rammed his car at high speed into a group of people standing at one of the city’s light-rail stations.

After committing this “hit-and-run” terrorist attack, killing 3-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun and wounding eight others, Shaludi ended up crashing into a pole. As he attempted to flee the scene on foot, he was shot by police. He was then taken to Hadassah hospital, where he died.

One of his uncles told reporters that Shaludi was a “normative” person who had merely lost control of his car, and therefore was a victim of cold-blooded murder by Israeli police.

But Shaludi’s record shows otherwise.

He has had two stints in jail — one for 14 months and another for 20 days — for throwing rocks at Jews. In addition, he had ties to Hamas.

Another of his uncles, Mohiyedine Sharif (known as “the electrician” for his expertise in explosives), was responsible for three major bus bombings. He was killed in 1998 in Ramallah, possibly by rivals in Fatah.

In addition, Shaludi had written pro-Hamas posts on his Facebook page, and following Wednesday’s attack, Hamas praised him as a proud member and martyr for their cause.

Internecine rivalries aside, Fatah also hailed Shaludi as a “heroic martyr” in a poster created for this purpose. The poster, which honors Shaludi for having carried out the attack against “settlers in occupied Jerusalem,” was distributed in Silwan. This is not only the neighborhood where Shaludi lived, but also the site of stepped-up Arab violence, due to the recent purchase of a number of homes by Jews. (Though Arabs are free to live anywhere in Israel, Jews are not welcome to reside among Arabs).

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of creating the climate of incitement which led to the attack, one of many incidents of violence in the Israeli capital of late.

Editor’s Note (Oct 16): See the statement released today by CIDRAP related to this commentary.

Editor’s Note (Sep 17): Today’s commentary was submitted to CIDRAP by the authors, who are national experts on respiratory protection and infectious disease transmission. In May they published a similar commentary on MERS-CoV. Dr Brosseau is a Professor and Dr Jones an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Authors’ disclaimer: This commentary reflects the personal opinions of the authors. It does not represent the opinion of the University of Illinois at Chicago or any other organization. The authors have not received any compensation for the preparation of this commentary or any associated public statements. The authors do not endorse any specific manufacturer or brand of personal protective equipment (PPE) and have no direct or indirect financial interest in the use of a specific brand of PPE. In the past one or both of the authors have received research funding from numerous government agencies and organizations, including 3M.
Healthcare workers play a very important role in the successful containment of outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola. The correct type and level of personal protective equipment (PPE) ensures that healthcare workers remain healthy throughout an outbreak—and with the current rapidly expanding Ebola outbreak in West Africa, it’s imperative to favor more conservative measures.

The precautionary principle—that any action designed to reduce risk should not await scientific certainty—compels the use of respiratory protection for a pathogen like Ebola virus that has:

No proven pre- or post-exposure treatment modalities
A high case-fatality rate
Unclear modes of transmission

We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.1

I begin this column by offering a measure of what I choose to uphold what ought to be a standard of esthetics, at least in portraiture. It is by no means my only measure, but it does reflect a person I once knew, and who is still close to my conception of a romantic ideal. If she is reading this, she will recognize herself.

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw is a luxuriant representation of the kind of woman a man ought to want: In the frank, steadfast glance at her auditor is the knowledge of how she is being regarded, that knowledge shamelessly obvious in the set of her eyes and face, in the quiet confidence of her bearing, in her total expression. It is, from my own perspective, at least, a seductive, come-hither look. The hues of her satin gown, the purple sash, and the relaxed set of her arms, the surrounding colors of the armchair, the neutral background, in terms of composition, together all highlight and are all calculated to guide one’s glance to the focal point, that unforgettable, alluring face….

I have other such conceptions. Some are photographic, others cinematic. But Lady Agnew has been anchored in my gallery most of my adult life. A framed reproduction of it hangs on one of my walls. Two of my fictional characters are also painters and portraitists, literary versions of my projection of a romantic ideal: Stella Dawn in Run From Judgment, and Dilys Jones-Skeen in the Cyrus Skeen detective novels.

Well, enough of that. My point here is that this caliber of art has virtually vanished. There are some capable, unsung artists able to produce that quality of portraiture, but they are invisible to the cultural establishment, and if recognized, then shunned, banished, and deprecated. I happen to know at least two such artists, but only one has a website.