RUTHFULLY YOURS

Leon Aron is the director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of, among other works, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life and Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution 1987–1991.

As conscientious chroniclers do, Michael Doran, in his painstaking examination of the Obama administration’s disastrous foreign policy toward Russia, both instructs us and provokes thoughts and questions that may exceed the intended scope of his essay. Specifically, one is drawn to ask: what caused this policy to be so dismal, so strewn with mistakes, so strikingly unable to predict Moscow’s behavior or to catch up with Vladimir Putin’s increasingly bold moves?

Between historical explanations based in theories of conspiracy and those premised on assumptions of incompetence, it’s usually prudent to plump for incompetence; or so we’re told. But a number of those advising President Obama on Russia are personally known to me to be quite competent, so that explanation won’t wash. Doran offers a different explanation, one that focuses on the beliefs of the president. Barack Obama, he writes, is ideologically wedded to a strategic understanding that is at once false, impervious to correction by reality, and unswayable by the counsel of advisers. This may well be so, but the problem may also be deeper and require elaboration.

“He who ran this story will pay heavily for it.” — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey

The two journalists, Dundar and Gul, are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization; espionage, and revealing state secrets. The prosecution has asked for life sentence for both journalists.

Really, why would a spy publish secret material in a newspaper instead of handing it over to his foreign controllers?

As Dundar and Gul completed their 11th day in solitary confinement, that human rights champion, the European Union, committed to push forward the process towards Turkish EU membership and open five accession chapters.

Dr. Bilgin Ciftci posted photos on Twitter juxtaposing the fictional character Gollum with Erdogan. He was fired from the hospital where he worked, then brought to court for insulting Erdogan, an offense punishable by up to four years in prison.

Infused with hot air and baked in a two-degree oven, this is a dish much favoured by carbon-credit peddlers, careerist bureaucrats and settled scientists lacking the teeth to leave their mark on the red meat of more substantial enquiry

The name is fancy, but preparing a climat-soufflé is easier than you think. The folk at Paris Climat 2015 have a knock-out new recipe. Make this delicious French treat at home in Ten Easy Steps and please everyone on the planet.

Rating: AAA+
Prep Time: 21+ years
Cook Time: 2 weeks at an exotic location at least once a year
Serving Size: 7,300+ million
Chefs de cuisine: 35,000+
Venue 2015: Le Bourget, Paris

Preamble

Preparing soufflé is really just a matter of time; the time gap from the oven to the table.

Le climat-soufflé – aka the Conference of the Parties (COP) global climate-change action treaty – takes a little longer than a plain-vanilla creation. Oceans may be warming and tempers rising, but not le climat-soufflé. Still simmering after 21 years, it remains flat as a pancake or an Aussie flip-flop-flan Plan B.

Attitude is important when in the COP kitchen. To conjure up a grand miracle de cuisine keep your mind on the job, not the dollars in the Green Climate Fund (GCF). But no carnal thoughts. For as the French say: “A woman so happy in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman so unhappy in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.” (Sabrina, 1954).

Put the Cronulla violence of ten years ago into its political and social context and the conclusion is clear: it is not race that was and is the problem but culture. Multiracialism has been a huge success in Australia, but multiculturalism an abject failure.
Editor’s note: The tenth anniversary of the Cronulla riot has come and gone, the only casualty being a pig roasted at a commemorative barbecue-cum-protest organised by the flag-draped ratbags of the anti-Islam Party of Freedom, whose original plan to mark the anniversary was foiled by court rulings sought by NSW Police. Worth noting is that no injunctions were ever sought against the Jew haters who have harassed and attempted to ruin the Max Brenner chain’s business. No surprise there, sadly. Any police officer worth his or her salt, not to mention career prospects, knows when and which groups need to be allowed a little slack. Motorists booked for driving a whisker over the speed limit should be so lucky.

Much the same could be said for members of the media, who grasp what to report and how to report to it. Thus do we see, to cite but one example, Channel 9′s delicate omission from its report of the latest Cronulla tensions.

“What happened next sparked days of mob violence that shamed the nation.”
Can you pick the missing word? It’s “Lebanese”, as in “Lebanese mob violence”.

If you couldn’t guess, that is understandable. The yobbos who incited what was, by riot standards a noisy and ugly but rather mild affair, aren’t the sorts your average newsroom habitue knows, likes or understands. They certainly never met anyone like that at university!

Make mention in your report of the rolling caravans of Lebanese thugs who poured in armed convoys out of Sydney’s west to attack random strangers and burn Australian flags and who knows what might happen? Having some ethnic group or other file a complaint with your editor might be the least of it. Why not play it safe and leave readers with the impression that the subsequent violence, far more shocking than the beach melee which prompted it, was also the work of ocker extremists, racists and “right wingers”. If the day ever comes when a job with the ABC is in the offing, the stain of having once being accused of Islamophobia would not enhance employment prospects.

In Sweden, only the people who say they are not applying for asylum are checked.

To avoid having to show any papers, a terrorist going to Sweden to commit acts of terror only has to tell the border police that he is seeking asylum. He will immediately be driven to the closest Immigration Service facility. And while the Immigration Service tries to figure out who he is, he can plan his attacks in the peace and quiet of the Swedish countryside.

“The truth is that persons with evil intent know exactly what to do when they come here. That information spreads like wildfire. These new border controls are there for the sole purpose of reassuring the public. They have absolutely no effect on the influx of migrants.” — Border policeman at the Öresund Bridge (between Denmark and Sweden).

Despite many Swedes drawing a sigh of relief when the government announced that immigration was to be limited, the new policy does not really entail any difference at all.

Since 9/11, America has been plagued with a media industry churning out counterintuitive “What do the terrorists want” pieces. Sure you might think that the terrorists “want to kill you”. But profound media thinkers who know all about Islam without ever having read the Koran know that what the terrorists really want is for us to kill them. Every time we bombed them, we were just “playing into their hands.”

Today the same bad ideas are being brushed off for insipid “What does ISIS want” thinkpieces which conclude that what ISIS wants most is for us to deviate from the media’s favorite progressive policies.

After letting ISIS overrun its half-dozen countries, the same geniuses responsible for the mess began claiming that what ISIS really fears is more of their failed policies. And what it really wants is Republican policies. If you support bombing terrorists or keeping them out of the country, you’re helping ISIS.

According to Obama, ISIS wants us to turn to “tough talk” and begin “abandoning our values” by keeping Syrian Muslim migrants out. After the Oval Office speech was done, the Caliph of ISIS probably threw up his hands and told his fellow terrorists, “It’s no use. This Hussein fellow just won’t talk tough. We’re doomed. Sure we’ll keep on killing Americans, but what good will it do if he won’t talk tough?”

Biden informed Americans that, “It’s clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of ‘us versus them.’” Whereas our leaders know better than to think in such terms, unless the “thems” are Republicans in which case it’s okay.

It was recently reported that the commander of the Islamic State (ISIS) branch in Sinai held talks in the Gaza Strip with leaders of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezaddin al-Qassam Brigades, about expanding their cooperation.

President Abbas does not seem to care whether the Palestinians of Gaza are turned into hostages and prisoners. He is probably hoping that the crisis will drive Palestinians to revolt against the Hamas regime, paving the way for his PA to return to the Gaza Strip.

Instead of trying to solve the Gaza crisis, Abbas is too busy waging a diplomatic war against Israel. He wants to file “war crimes” charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court — ignoring the fact that he and Hamas are responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Palestinians ignore the fact that their biggest tragedy over the past few decades has been (and remains) their failed and corrupt leadership that is willing to sacrifice them for its own interests.

Since June 2013, the Rafah border crossing, the sole crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has been closed for most of the time.

Since the beginning of 2015, the Egyptian authorities have opened the Rafah terminal for a total of only 21 days.

Last week, the Egyptians opened the border crossing for two days, allowing a few hundred Palestinians to cross in both directions.

Good lord:

The Islamic State has executed five Russian nationals after accusing them of spying within ISIS controlled territory.

This is in addition to the beheading of a Russian citizen last week by a man now dubbed “the Chechen Jihadi John.”

“Yes, this Russian citizen was a Chechen,” Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechenya told reporters on December 3. “He was beheaded.”

A Russian security source said, “The victim is unlikely to have had any relation to our special services.”

Graphic video (in Russian) at the link.

The report also claims there are 2,400 Russians fighting for ISIS. That’s enough to make you wonder if ISIS selected a few of their own to execute for propaganda purposes, or if they somehow managed to get their hands on five non-ISIS Russians to murder.

Group wants to stake claim as the only protector of Muslims

Before dawn in February 2006, militants sent by the precursor of today’s Islamic State sneaked into the golden-domed Shiite shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra, disarmed the guards and rigged the building with explosives.

By most accounts, nobody died in the explosion itself, which blew off the dome and reduced the venerated mosque to rubble. But the bombing achieved its goal of baiting Iraq’s Shiite majority into a spree of retaliation against the country’s Sunnis. Thousands died in the wave of sectarian killings that began hours later, and the social fabric of Iraq was torn forever.

In this environment of sectarian strife, many Iraqi Sunnis eventually came to view Islamic State as their only, however unpalatable, protector.