RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13984/christchurch-murders-accomplices

Two days before the tribute to the victims and the broadcasting of the call to prayer, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern invited an imam to read the Koranic verses of Surah al Baqarah before the opening of a parliamentary session. Surah al Baqarah speaks of “those who are killed in the way of Allah” and evokes a “great punishment” for “those who disbelieve”. Do New Zealanders really deserve a great punishment because an Australian came to New Zealand and committed a mass murderer?

In Saudi Arabia, the good news is that in 2018, a few laws were changed to allow women to drive. The bad news is that women are still not allowed to travel, get married or divorced, file a police report, or even leave prison, without the permission of a male guardian. If they try to flee, they risk being arrested or killed. In November, “dozens” of activists involved in the “right to drive” campaign were arrested and are currently on trial. Apple and Google, in their app stores, offer a Saudi Arabian government app that “allows Saudi men to track women under their sponsorship.”

The real accomplices of Christchurch mass murderer are not those who sounded the alarm about Muslim immigration to the West, but those in the West who embrace this passive submission, weakness and cultural suicide and refuse to see the potential storms ahead.

The Christchurch massacre — in which dozens of innocents were slaughtered in cold blood because of their religion, as they were assembled to pray — was a despicable, indefensible act. The murderer, Brenton Tarrant, is a criminal. The manifesto text he left to justify his act is in no way a justification.

The reactions that followed were marked by legitimate indignation. Unfortunately, the attack was also used to launch a campaign both dangerous and treacherous.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/legacy-of-an-african-genocide-11554160620

This poor country once brutally occupied by Belgium has had no surcease in conflict-ignored by the so called African-American legislators in Congress who have shown no interest in the turmoil in Africa but choose rather to spend their days criticizing Israel…..rsk

April marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide, in which almost 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were indiscriminately set upon and murdered—in their homes, in schools, in churches and in the open air. Victims were often killed by machete, sometimes by neighbors they’d known for years.

Foreign governments, including the U.S., dithered while Rwandans died. The end of the genocide came only when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame and supported by Uganda, marched into Rwanda, defeated the genocidal government forces, and drove the remaining loyalists into the bush.

Twenty-five years after the Rwandan genocide, neither the ethnic conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa nor the problems that made the world’s response so tepid and slow have been resolved. Commendable and even heroic measures by both Hutu and Tutsi survivors in Rwanda have restored order, enabling victims and perpetrators to live side by side without further violence. The economy is growing at a rapid clip, but political life in Rwanda is constrained. Opposition politicians risk arrest; some of the regime’s critics have mysteriously died; and well into President Kagame’s third term, there is no alternative to his rule in sight.

Meanwhile, the prospect of an effective, consistent international system that could act swiftly to prevent new genocides is even more remote now than in the 1990s. The “international community” is better at wringing its hands than at stopping crimes against humanity. The U.S.-led response to ISIS demonstrates that multinational intervention against outrageous behavior is possible. But the world’s indifference to the wider slaughter in Syria is a sobering reminder of the limited political will to enforce even the most basic humanitarian standards.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tension-over-the-taiwan-strait-11554159931

Two Chinese J-11 fighter jets crossed the Taiwan Strait’s “median line” on Sunday, stoking a 10-minute standoff with Taiwanese jets in the island’s airspace. Taipei’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the incident “intentional, reckless, and provocative,” and it underscores why President Trump should bolster Taiwan’s defenses with a sale of American F-16s.Taiwanese media called the incursion the first since 2011, and the one eight years ago was considered an accident. Chinese planes have skirted the island’s airspace for years with little consequence, and Sunday’s deeper breach underscores the danger of that impunity.

Beijing is smarting from the voyage a week ago of a U.S. Navy destroyer and Coast Guard cutter through the Strait, as well as President Tsai Ing-wen’s speech in Hawaii a few days later. Speaking via video link to the Heritage Foundation, Ms. Tsai confirmed her government’s request to buy American M-1 Abrams tanks and F-16V fighters.

The Chinese may hope Sunday’s escalation will convince Washington that its support for Taiwan’s democracy isn’t worth the risks. This strategy has worked for decades to convince American Presidents not to sell fighters to Taiwan, and the island’s forces are now heavily outnumbered. Taiwan has 144 fourth-generation F-16s from the 1990s compared to 600 fourth-generation planes on the Chinese side, an advantage that has made Beijing more aggressive.