RUTHFULLY YOURS

There are reports of two explosions at Brussels Central Station, where a man wearing what appeared to be an explosive belt has been “neutralized” in what Belgian authorities are calling a terror attack:

Local media reports indicate the suspect shouted “Allah akhbar” before being shot:

Belgian authorities won’t confirm if the suspect is dead or alive, but are saying there are no further injuries.

The Independent reports:

The main square and central station in Belgium’s capital Brussels have evacuated by place after reports of a blast.

Witnesses said La Grande Place was cleared in seconds, while others took pictures of a fire in the nearby Central Station.

Belgian media have reported a man wearing a explosive belt has been “neutralised” by police.

Local police tweeted about an “incident with an individual at Brussels Central station”.

It said: “The situation is under control but please follow the instructions [of police]”.

Kenneth Bae was seized by North Korean officials in November 2012. Two years later, after suffering myriad health problems brought on by forced labor, Bae’s 15-year sentence was cut short and he headed home to Washington state.

The Christian missionary thought he could help suffering North Koreans in part by leading a tour company in the special economic zones that would help reveal the people’s plight. Pyongyang accused Bae of trying to topple the communist regime.

After the release and death of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, Bae said he was grieving with and praying for the young man’s family.

Bae called attention to the many people “living without freedom in the country of 24 million people – enduring horrible circumstances and forced labor – and we do not even know their names.”

“We plead with the U.S. government, the international community, and leadership in North Korea to value human lives. Every life is important — Otto’s life, lives of the American detainees, and the lives of each person in North Korea. I am a Christian, and part of what that means is to act justly and to have mercy on the innocent. Although we don’t know everything about life in North Korea, this much is sure: innocent people like Otto are suffering. I pray that these innocent people suffering in North Korea are not forgotten in this high-stakes game of weapons, sanctions, and international diplomacy,” Bae’s statement continued.

“Please join me in prayer and be a voice for the innocent. Please join me in praying for Otto’s family. This did not have to happen and should never happen again.”

Bae was released at the same time as Matthew Todd Miller, who had been arrested after entering North Korea in April 2014. In October 2014, Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio tourist arrested after a Bible was discovered in his hotel room, was released — a month after being sentenced to six years of hard labor. The Pentagon sent an aircraft to pick up Fowle at North Korea’s request.

Ten Americans were detained and released by North Korea during the Obama administration, with Bae serving the longest period in captivity. Warmbier was seized in January 2016, and is believed to have suffered the brain damage that left him in an unresponsive state soon after being sentenced that March.

In June 2016, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency blamed Bae’s

“babbling” about the regime for the prisoners’ plight, claiming Pyongyang would “not proceed with any compromise or negotiations with the United States on the subject of American criminals, and there will certainly not be any such thing as humanitarian action” as long as the former hostage spoke out about his experiences and advocated for those still suffering.

“As we grieve Otto’s passing, I also want people to know that other Americans remain detained in North Korea right now,” Bae added in his statement this week. “There are three Americans — Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, Kim Hak-Song — and the Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim.”

In an article entitled “Just Terrorist Tactics: Hostage Taking,” the recently released issue of ISIS’ online magazine, Rumiyah (Rome), features new techniques to terrorize non-Muslims.

Volume 9 of the terrorist group’s recruitment and propaganda tool introduces several new ideas of note for aspiring jihadists which involve 1) advertising for fake jobs, 2) falsely advertising property for rent and 3) participation in online sales sites such as Craigslist, Gumtree and eBay.

The advertising of a job at a local unemployment center is presented as a way to lure a particular type of target for “job interviews” (i.e. any male kafir). The “soldier of Allah” is informed that this should take place at various locations and times in order to eliminate the victims as they arrive by “attacking, subduing, binding and then slaughtering them.”

Falsely advertising a property for rent in the local classified section or with “For Rent” advertisement posters is suggested as another effective ploy. Perpetrators are instructed to describe the available property as a single room or studio so potential “tenants” will likely come alone to view the rental.

As the collection of goods is often conducted in person, the use of buy and sell websites is encouraged as well by the latest Rumiyah feature. The writer specifies that the viewing and collecting of the item in question should be arranged at a suitable location for carrying out a terrorist operation.

The recent Rumiyah article cautions Muslims to remind themselves that these actions constitute “worship” and that “Allah has obliged us to “kill the mushrikin*” wherever we find them and to “fight the disbelievers who are closest**” to us.” It stresses the importance of having a room specifically reserved for the disposal of bodies so that future victims are not alerted to any danger. The use of background noise to drown out sounds of a struggle is encouraged. It is suggested that in order to maximize the “terror in the hearts of the disbelievers***” and enhance the publicity value of the operation, some victims should be kept alive and used as hostages. The “ideal scenario” is depicted as the storming of the site by armed forces as the jihadist is killed as a shahid or martyr.

In issues of a prior ISIS publication, Dabiq, Muslims were urged to kill children and attack Christians.

“Bangladesh is a Muslim country, no culture of statue establishment would be allowed by the people here… all of them must be removed.” — Nur Hossain Quashemi, president, Dhaka branch of Hefazat-e-Islam.

“The Quran says: You [women] should stay at your home… Your duty is to stay at the husband’s house and safeguard property. Your primary duty is to stay home and look after your family and children only. Do not go out even for shopping.” — Shah Ahmed Shafi, chief of Hefazat-e-Islam.

Millions of Bangladeshi youths are increasingly wearing Islamic attire; and freedom of speech and freedom of movement are fast becoming a luxury — if not a threat to the safety — of Bangladesh’s more secular-minded people, already feeling themselves a minority of sorts.

The government of Bangladesh, led by historically known secular political party Awami League, has completely surrendered to the country’s radical forces regarding the demands, made by Hefazat-e-Islam and some other Islamic political and religious organizations, including the removal of the sculpture that was designed with the theme of the Greek goddess of justice. The statue was installed in last December following a decision taken by the Chief Justice. On May 26, at night, Bangladeshi authorities, in the name of the “consent of the chief justice”, removed the sculpture from the front side of the Supreme Court. The current chief justice, incidentally, is the ever first non-Muslim to hold the constitutional post.

In reaction, the next day, after Friday prayers, Islamists, led by Hefazat-e-Islam, arranged a rally and expressed joy and satisfaction over removal of the sculpture and demanded further removal of all existing idols/statues/sculptures — whatever one might call them — across the country. “Bangladesh is a Muslim country, no culture of statue establishment would be allowed by the people here… all of them must be removed,” said Nur Hossain Quashemi, the president of Dhaka branch of Hefazat-e-Islam, to the media.

They’re falling like dominoes, starting with the great Robert E. Lee, whose statue went down with a yank of a crane in a jiffy, after standing tall on his New Orleans perch for 133 years. Jefferson Davis is also down, and the great Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard, who partnered the heroic General Johnston on his left flank in the battle of Shiloh, has also bitten the dust.

Removing statues of great American generals who fought for, er…the wrong cause is the latest trendy thing to do. In fact, the virus has spread as far away as Australia, where the politically correct in cahoots with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender brigades are demanding that a tennis legend’s name be removed from a stadium named after her. Margaret Court won 24 Grand Slam titles in her time during the ’60s and early ’70s, one more than Serena Williams, but a couple of years ago committed the greatest crime ever: She criticized same-sex marriage from the pulpit of her church in Perth, where she is a pastor. Her name has been mud ever since, at least among those who think it’s normal for people of the same sex to marry.

So far so bad, and I will get back to Margaret Court in a minute, but here are a few predictions of my own concerning these latest outrages by the PC crowd: Old Hickory is history, as far as the $20 bill is concerned, Malcolm X or Muhammad Ali will take his place. Andrew Jackson killed too many Indians and never apologized for it, so there. Poor old Alexander Hamilton had a close call, but the Broadway play depicting him as black and speaking rap has saved him on the tenner, at least for now. The next big bad guy is going to be Thomas Jefferson, who not only owned slaves but also slept with them. I expect my old alma mater the University of Virginia, whose founder he was, will deal with him rather sternly. The big one, of course, will be when the PC Nazis demand old George be struck off the dollar bill for owning and freeing his slaves only after he met his maker.
“America has started the trend by taking down the greatest general ever, Robert E. Lee.”

Back in the old country, Greece, people are in a tizzy over the removal of past heroes in order to satisfy present trends. “The Parthenon was not exactly built by rich Athenians, only financed by them,” was the way a nephew of mine put it. “It was the slaves, under a merciless whip, who put it up. Should we dynamite it?” The Parthenon is known as the most perfectly symmetrical and beautiful edifice ever built by man, but it was slave labor that put the marble pieces together. And what about the pyramids down south? Did free rich Egyptians carry those stones all the way up to the top during the permanent heat wave that is Egypt? We’ll need a lot of TNT to blast those monuments to smithereens, but what the hell, as long as the PC bunch is satisfied, who are we old-timers to object?

When I was young and on the tennis circuit I met Margaret Court, Smith as she then was, and she could not have been nicer. We were not close by any means, but I remember her standing out because of her winning ways and—let’s face it—her refusal to join the crowd of female competitors who were mostly lesbian, although extremely discreet. Fifty years later she has become a hated figure despite the fact that there are members of the LGBT community in her church who admit that she is not homophobic. In one of her sermons, Margaret included that “a lust for the flesh leads people to destroy their lives.” Which rang a bell. I remembered during a tournament in Rome when I was in hot pursuit of an American female tennis player, Margaret told me words to that effect. “I hope I’m destroyed sooner rather than later,” I answered her, and she gave me a rueful smile and dropped it.

So here we are, with Martina Navratilova, as great a champion as she was a predator, pressing for the name of Margaret Court Arena to be changed, describing Margaret as racist and homophobic. The latter is neither, but you know how it is—if you believe in God too much, you must also be someone who wants to boil all gay people and all black people, and all brown people, and all those with slitty eyes. The fact that in her church Margaret Court has people from ten different African countries is neither here nor there. Navratilova knows better. Heaven help us.

The U.S. has shot down a Syrian Su-22 near Ja’Din and close to the strategic dam at Al Tabqa. The Sukhoi 22M series, the model in the Syrian inventory, is an old and relatively slow aircraft primarily used for bombing targets. First produced in 1970, the Russians improved the model over the twenty years it was manufactured (until 1990). It is entirely noncompetitive against top U.S. jet fighters including the F-18 that shot down the Syrian Sukhoi.

It is unlikely the Syrian pilot had any warning before being shot out of the sky. Indeed, the warning issue is what is at the heart of the dispute between Russia and the United States, and it may tell us more than the Russians would like us to know about their unstable relationship with Syria.

According to the Combined Joint Task Force official report, at around 4:30 P.M. Syria time, there was a Syrian attack on Ja’Din which was held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. The SDF is “multi-ethnic and multi-religious alliance of Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Turkmen and Circassian militias.” The SDF took a number of casualties before Coalition aircraft chased the Syrians away. Immediately on the heels of the Syrian attack, the U.S. made use of what is called the deconfliction hotline and called the Russians. A little more than two hours later, another Su-22 was bombing in the same area and this is the plane that the U.S. shot down. There was no further call to the hotline, and while not precisely stated it is nearly certain that the Su-22 was not warned in any way by the approaching F-18.

The U.S. action is consistent with the agreements reached with the Russians. However, the Russians are claiming the U.S. did not use the hotline. Without saying so, they are likely treating the second incident as one that was separate from the first. Of course, this is something of a reach on their part, but it is probably the only response the Russians could have given under the circumstances because the Syrians went ahead with another airstrike on their own after the deconfliction warning was initially given.

Why would the Syrians do this? It boils down to an argument between the Russians and the Syrians over how to treat the Kurds. Last year, the Russians sponsored a peace proposal for the Kurds that would have given them autonomy inside a new Syrian constitution that ultimately would have divided the country into cantons, keeping the appearance of central Syrian Alawite control but in reality changing the nature of the existing unitary state into something different and perhaps acceptable to all sides in the conflict. Moscow flew in a delegation of experts from the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry to meet with the regime and Kurdish representatives. It appears to have been Moscow’s view, which is largely President Putin’s idea, that this solution would achieve a number of important goals: move the peace process forward and separate the Syrian Kurds from the Americans. Apparently, the Russians failed to do their homework, for while the Syrian Kurds appeared to be onboard, the Assad regime was contemptuously against the deal and rejected it out of hand, the result being the Moscow delegation was sent home emptyhanded or worse. The current Syrian regime attack on the Kurds near Ja’Din should be seen exactly in this context.

ADAZI, Latvia—The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said its deterrent force is fully in place in the Baltic area with the addition of a Canadian-led battle group in Latvia, enhancing deployments criticized by Russia.

A ceremony on Monday, featuring parading troops from Latvia, Canada, Poland, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Albania, marked complete deployment of the fourth and final alliance battle group to the Baltic region. In all, NATO has positioned some 4,500 troops in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.

Allied and Russian forces have both been building up in the Baltic region. The deployments have raised the risk of miscalculation, some analysts said, but both sides have said they are necessary defensive initiatives.

The U.S. has deployed a tank brigade to Central and Eastern Europe and is conducting exercises in the Baltic Sea region. This month, the U.S. flew B-2 stealth bombers to Europe for what American military officials called a demonstration of reassurance for allies. The U.S. has also deployed other bombers and Army units for exercises in the Baltic Sea area.

Russia, too, is enlarging its forces. It is creating a larger permanent military presence in the region, including missiles and new army units, moves it says counter the NATO deployments. Russia and Belarus are also preparing for a large military exercise in September.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he didn’t see any “imminent threat” to NATO forces or the Baltic states. He also said he hoped to convene a meeting between NATO ambassadors and their Russian counterpart so the two sides could brief each other on coming exercises.

Terrorism in the middle east knows no limits. The ancient monastery of St. Catherine’s in Egypt’s Sinai desert was attacked with 40 worshippers slaughtered. This is the same religious shrine that has a decree of protection issued by the Prophet Muhammed himself until the end of days.

A bus carrying Coptic Christians on a prayer vigil was attacking killing 26 people, including ten children.

As these incidents indicate the challenge for Middle East leaders is the maintenance of religious beliefs within limits imposed by modernity along with secularization that doesn’t trample religious observance.

The terrorists had clear goals in mind. One, they wanted to demonstrate that the government does not have the ability to deter terrorism. Two, the attack was a way to discourage tourism, the major source of revenue in the country. Three, by making this incident distinctly religious, it is believed this would cause defections from the secular impulse in the nation.

Religious freedom is clearly being threatened in Egypt, a condition that goes back 50 years ago to the publication of Sayyid Qutb, Islamic theorist and member of the Muslim Brotherhood. This trend applies throughout the Levant where secular nationalism has had to compete with the orthodox stance of radical Islam. General Nasser walked a fine line between the two positions by evoking a sense of national pride, but when his regime descended into pan Arabism and economic collapse, secularism suffered as well.

In the Middle East, it is apparent that what is dormancy is not death. President al Sisi is a pious Muslim who cautions against the extremism within his faith. These who want to weaken him do not fully understand the political alternatives. Removing loathsome dictators as was the case in Iran, Libya and Iraq does not yield the blossoming of a new Spring, but rather extremist forms of religions far more destructive than the regimes replaced. Radical elements do understand the meaning of replacement. A pathway to an Islamized Egypt lies in the “bulls-eye” on Sisi’s back.

Western goals in the region invariably refer to Ataturk’s secularization program in Turkey. But while Ataturk’s influence was profound, President Erdogan has disinterred religious ideas imposing them in a manner that would have been unthinkable before 2002, when he was first elected. Religion may have been in a long slumber in Turkey, but it is now awakened and playing a profound role.

Sisi, to his credit, understands the need to balance religion and modernity; perhaps that explains why he is a threat to Islamists. In his case, dedication to his faith is real, but it is not a faith imposed on the Egyptian people. Surely, his critics contend the blasphemy laws are not applied fairly to non-Muslims. And this may be true. Nonetheless, the balance his government has achieved, however imperfect, is a veritable model for the region and the best hope for stabilization.