RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272076/russia-ukraine-confrontation-sea-raises-stakes-joseph-klein

A military confrontation erupted directly between Ukrainian and Russian military forces last Sunday off the coast of the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula when two Ukrainian cutters and a tugboat heading from one Ukrainian port to another attempted to pass through a narrow sea passage known as the Kerch Strait. The strait is close to the Crimean Peninsula that separates the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Russia would not let the ships pass, blocking them with a grounded tanker under a bridge Russia had constructed linking the Crimea Peninsula it had illegally annexed in 2014 with the Russian mainland. Not able to proceed to their destination because of Russia’s blockage, the Ukrainian cutters reportedly turned around. According to Ukraine’s account, Ukraine’s vessels were heading back to where they came from when Russia fired on the ships, injuring several sailors. Russia then seized the vessels, with what has been reported to be either 23 or 24 sailors on board. A Russian court on Tuesday ordered 12 of the captured sailors to remain in Russian custody for at least two months. The other captured sailors could meet the same fate when they are expected to appear in Russian court on Wednesday. If convicted on charges of colluding to cross Russia’s border illegally, the sailors could be jailed for as long as six years.

Although all-out war has not broken out yet, the region is on edge as Russia tries to leverage its control over Crimea on the ground to establish its claims of territorial dominion over the surrounding waters. Russia is also demonstrating its power over Ukraine’s economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin is ratcheting up pressure on Ukraine’s economy by limiting its freedom to send ships to ports on the Sea of Azov. Freedom of passage is necessary for Ukraine to support heavy industry on which thousands of Ukrainians depend for their livelihood. By land and sea, Russia is tightening the noose around Ukraine’s neck.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared martial law in the troubled areas of his country bordering Russia for 30 days after receiving approval from Ukraine’s parliament, a move that Russia condemned as a provocation. “The imposition of martial law in various regions potentially could lead to the threat of an escalation of tension in the conflict region, in the southeast” of Ukraine, President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/the_russians_and_the_kerch_bridge_what_would_reagan_do.html

Every story has a starting point. Don’t start with the Russian capture this week of two (or three) Ukrainian ships and the injury to three (or six) Ukrainian sailors. The Russian habit is to do as it likes with smaller countries and then announce that the other guy did it (or it never happened at all). That is the story of the Russian war in Ukraine and the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, and that is the Russian story of the Ukrainian ships – two ships, not three, three injured not six; anyhow, Ukraine was sailing out of its lane.

Start instead with the bridge over the narrow Kerch Strait that opened earlier in 2018. It is the only entrance to the Azov Sea from the Black Sea, spanning the Taman Peninsula in Russia and the Kerch Peninsula in Crimea. Earlier plans for the bridge were completed between Russia and Ukraine, but that was before the Russians occupied Crimea. There is an agreement for Ukrainian passage to its two ports along the Azov Sea, but Ukraine has complained that the bridge is the beginning of a blockade that would ultimately control or end Ukrainian shipping. There have been delays for Ukrainian ships passing through, sometimes days, and oh, by the way, the bridge is very low – nearly flat – over the water, meaning that Ukrainian ships over 115 feet can’t pass at all. And now there is a Russian ship parked under the bridge, blocking traffic.

It is estimated that Ukrainian shipping through the strait is down nearly 25% since the bridge opened – as the Ukrainians feared and as the Russians planned.

Now what?

Neither the U.S. nor NATO has an obligation here – Ukraine is not a member – but freedom of navigation is one of the defining principles of international law. The U.S. faces countries chipping at the edges of it elsewhere – China in the South China Sea and Iran in the Persian Gulf, with plans for Yemen on the Red Sea. Giving Russia a pass will make the other cases more difficult.

WWRRD? What would Ronald Reagan do?

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Iran attacked Kuwaiti, then other Gulf State, then other non-combatant tankers and merchant ships. Shortly thereafter, Iraq took the same steps. In 1986, Kuwait asked to have the U.S. Navy escort its tankers as protection, but U.S. law forbids escorting civilian vessels under a foreign flag. So the ships were reregistered and reflagged, and both Iran and Iraq decided that the cost of attacking American-flagged ships outweighed the benefits. The operation lasted until late in 1987.

President Donald Trump has proven, as Ronald Reagan did, that he is willing to take measures commensurate with the scope of an international problem.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/11/27/donald-trump-right-can-choose-either-europe-us-not/

Ever since Theresa May’s ill-fated decision to call an election and the consequent loss of her majority, very little has gone right for Britain’s beleaguered prime minister. Having finally got Brussels to agree some sort of a withdrawal deal, it now seems overwhelmingly likely that her own parliament will brutally vote it down.

As is often the way with middle course strategies, her deal has ended up offending almost everyone. The country, and parliament, are too divided, too entrenched and immovable in their views, to allow for compromise. Remorselessly, apparently irredeemably, we are drifting towards the mother of all political crises, perhaps the biggest of many of our lifetimes. May’s only hope is that Brussels comes to her rescue, and offers sufficient in the way of concessions – say allowing the UK unilaterally to withdraw from the customs backstop – to get her over the line. But it is an increasingly forlorn prospect.

As if things were not bad enough, along comes Donald Trump to deliver, as is his way, the final coup de grâce, insisting in effect that Mrs May’s deal would be incompatible with a meaningful US free trade agreement. Since free trade deals with other parts of the world were meant to be the big economic dividend from Brexit, this is something of a blow.

But it was also only a statement of the bleedin’ obvious; the closer you are to one trading bloc, the less easy it is to strike a deal with another, and that’s precisely the dilemma that Mrs May’s deal has highlighted. By trying to stay close to Europe, she makes it very hard to be close to America at the same time.

Trade was always as much about geopolitical power and heft as the Ricardo-esque textbook ideal of mutually beneficial commercial interaction and progress. We’d like it to be the latter; but the way of the world is the former. Mr Trump has laid this harsh reality bare, demolishing some of the wilder fantasies about “Global Britain”, free to trade as it likes with the rest of the world once released from its European shackles. What Trump is saying is that you can have a deep and meaningful trading relationship with either the US or Europe, but not both; it’s us or them.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/11/pushing-shoving-south-china-sea/

Warships pushing and shoving in the South China Sea might be nothing to worry about in the short term, but what implications do such incidents have for the area, including countries further abroad such as Australia?

Aggressive naval manoeuvring between the warships of nations who don’t like each other is nothing new. A standard tactic is to deliberately plot a collision course, and then, if you’re the aggressor, change speed or course by a few knots or degrees and just miss your opponent. Crossing his bow then dumping garbage over the stern of your ship so he has to steam through it is another one.

These doings might seem silly but they have a method in their madness. Forcing your opponent to back down is pushing him onto the back foot, as boxers say. Warfare is won by aggression, something warriors learn in the Principles of War. And being a successful aggressor heightens morale on your side, another imperative if you want to win.

The recent shoving between the US destroyer Decatur and the Chinese Luyang-class destroyer Lanzhou was not nearly as fraught as it might have been. These manoeuvres can quickly escalate—if both nations want them to—to fire-control radars “lighting up” their target; missiles and guns being trained towards the potential enemy, and in the more physical sense, one vessel refusing to back down from contact. Having your ship “T-boned” might involve costly damage, injuries, even loss of life, but it shows your ship, and by implication your nation, is not in a mood to back down.

It needs to be understood, though, that such aggressive manoeuvring is almost always done with the full knowledge of the senior command of the navies involved, and from there the political structure above them.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272041/dodging-very-long-vacation-dubai-bruce-bawer

Quick quiz. What do these universities have in common: New York University, London Business School, Michigan State University, Middlesex University, Murdoch University (Australia), Heriot-Watt University (Scotland), the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Birmingham, the University of Bradford, the University of Exeter, the University of South Wales, City University London, and the University of West London?

Answer: they all have branches in the United Arab Emirates. This is a perfect set-up for the petroleum millionaires of the Persian Gulf, who want their sons to have American or British degrees but who may not want them to be exposed to the haram aspects of life in the U.S. or U.K. It’s thus also a perfect set-up for the universities themselves, because these oil sheikhs can afford whatever price these universities charge them to educate their little darlings.

A few decades ago, the idea of establishing branches of Western universities in a country like the UAE would be considered ethically problematic. No free speech, no free press, no due process, and all that. Premarital sex and the drinking of alcohol are punishable by flogging. The penalty for adultery and apostasy is death by stoning.

Fortunately for the American and British universities in question, these drawbacks are more than balanced out by the huge piles of cash that are in it for them. In any event, as you know, it’s politically incorrect – Islamophobic, in fact – to get too worked up about sharia law. And nowhere are people more determined not to be politically incorrect or Islamophobic than at your typical American or British university.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-american-fracking-changes-the-world-1543276935

The most important news in world politics this month isn’t about diplomacy. Bigger than Brexit, more consequential than presidential tweetstorms, the American shale revolution is rapidly reshaping the global balance of power as energy prices plummet.

Until recently, observers expected American energy production to reach a plateau. A lack of pipeline capacity was expected to constrain output in the Permian Basin through 2020. Instead, shippers found ways to use existing pipelines more efficiently, and new pipelines were constructed faster than expected. U.S. crude-oil production is expected to average 12.1 million barrels a day in 2019, 28% higher than in 2017. Surging production has roiled world energy markets.

The biggest loser is Iran. Shale has been pummeling Tehran for some time. The economic benefits Iran hoped to gain from President Obama’s nuclear deal were largely offset by the sharp 2016 fall in the price of oil. Now the pesky Permian is blighting Iranian hopes again. Rising American output made it easier for the U.S. to slap tough sanctions on Iran without risking a sharp rise in world energy prices. Low prices also reduce Iran’s income from the oil it still manages to sell.

The next biggest loser is Russia. Oil is a key revenue source for the Kremlin. But the shale boom doesn’t only pick Vladimir Putin’s pocket; it also attacks his foreign-policy strategy.

Russia wants to control the world oil price and use that power to boost its diplomatic weight. Mr. Putin has two ways to influence the price of oil. The first is to increase geopolitical tensions. If threatening Ukraine or bombing Syria spooks traders and jacks up energy prices, Russia has a better hand in negotiations with Europe and the U.S.

Mr. Putin’s second option is to cooperate with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on price fixing. Building a closer relationship with Saudi Arabia over their common interest in inflated oil prices might loosen the kingdom’s U.S. ties and generate lucrative commercial and arms deals for the Kremlin.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13346/greece-organ-trafficking

Greek diplomats were issuing visas to unaccompanied children in order to facilitate illegal removal of their organs, “but the press did not write about them.” — Nikos Kotzias, Greece’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, in an interview on November 20, 2018.

There are currently 3,050 unaccompanied children in Greece, and 1,272 of them (42%) are either homeless, or they live in a non-permanent residence or in an unknown location, according to the newspaper Kathimerini. They all face the risks of sexual exploitation and illicit organ removal.

“The Trafficking in Persons Protocol states that if the victim is a child, that is a person below the age of 18, consent is irrelevant regardless of whether any improper means (such as deception, force, abuse of a position of vulnerability) have been used.” — United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Greece’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Kotzias, in an interview on November 20, disclosed — for a second time — that he sent to the prosecutor 93 cases that involved Greek diplomats issuing visas to unaccompanied children in order to facilitate illegal removal of their organs. These diplomats are already in jail. “The fact that I saved a few souls will make me sleep quietly when my life is over,” Kotzias said.

The first time Kotzias revealed illegal trafficking of organs from children in Greece was in October 2018, when he said:

“We sent 93 cases to the Prosecutor, highly evaluated ambassadors went to jail, but the press did not write about them. Because the person who gives a visa in Constantinople [Istanbul] to an unaccompanied child is not just a criminal, he is traitor. A visa for a 14-month-old unaccompanied baby and they tried to cover it up for him.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13355/palestinian-victims

The 3,903 Palestinians killed in Syria in the past seven years are of no interest to the Western correspondents and their editors.

The Western media’s obsession with Israel has created the impression that the only Palestinians living on this planet are those who are residing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This impression does injustice to the Palestinians who are facing horrendous conditions, torture, and death in the Arab countries, especially Syria.

Who cares about the suffering of these Palestinians? No one. Every week, scores of foreign journalists travel to the Israel-Gaza border to report on clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian rioters. Have any of these journalists thought of travelling to Syria or Lebanon to report about the atrocities that are being committed against the Palestinians there? Of course not. Why should they do so when the story lacks an anti-Israel angle?

The number of Palestinians killed in Syria will soon reach 4,000. Perhaps then, with that gruesome milestone reached, will Western correspondents in the Middle East wake up to the enormity of the crimes that are really being perpetrated against Palestinians?

Here’s some “good” news: In October, only five Palestinians living in Syria were pronounced dead. The London-based Action Group for Palestinians of Syria reports that in October 2017, 12 Palestinians were killed due to war-related incidents in that country. “The list of victims who died in October 2018 includes four Palestinians who were pronounced dead in Teloul Al-Safa, in Al-Sweida desert, south of Syria, and one Palestinian in Damascus,” the group said.

According to the human rights watchdog that monitors the situation of Palestinians in Syria, the number of Palestinians killed in Syria since the beginning of the civil war there in 2011 now stands at 3,903. Another 1,712 Palestinians in that country have been arrested by the Syrian authorities, and 316 are listed as missing.

The latest victim was identified as Ahmed Abdullah Balbisi who, according to the human rights group, died of torture in a Syrian prison eight years after his incarceration. The group said that Balbisi was arrested then for participating in peaceful demonstrations organized by the Syrian opposition. Balbisi is the latest victim added to the 3,903 Palestinians killed in Syria during the past seven years. His death was reported by the group on November 22.

A day earlier, the human rights group reported that two other Palestinians, Mohammed Khalil al-Kurdi and Wael Abu Hamdeh, died due to lack of proper medical treatment. On November 19, reports surfaced that a third, Mohammed Ahmed Farhat, was killed during an exchange of gunfire between the Syrian army and the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group.