RUTHFULLY YOURS

Amir George, an Assyrian Christian, is the author of “Liberating Iraq – The Story of the Assyrian Christians of Iraq”.

It is a solution to the refugee problem after centuries of persecution. Not only could Assyrian Christian refugees stay where they were, but as Jews did in Israel, they could come “home”.

In the rush to condemn the liberation of Iraq as a mistake, we forget the terror that Saddam Hussein and his two sons inflicted on their people. A visit to nearly every home in Iraq will have a picture of one or more family members among the nearly one million slaughtered by Saddam.

For the Assyrian Christians, this promise of Isaiah 19:23-25 is twofold. First, that “in that day” they will finally have their nation, called Assyria. Second, that their allies will be Israel and Egypt.

Nearly six million Assyrian Christians dot the world.

In 2003, according to the Iraqi government, there were 2.5 million Assyrian Christians in the country, or 10% of the population. Another approximately 3.5 million are scattered from Australia to Europe to Lebanon, Jordan, the US and more.

The Assyrian Christians — descendants of the Assyrian Empire and the first nation to accept Christ — are the indigenous people of Iraq.

In spite of being one of the oldest civilizations, and even today speaking Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, they are refugees in their own homeland.

Following the recent move towards independence by the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Assyrian Christian organizations worldwide have organized formally to request, in accordance with Iraq’s constitution, their own area in their homeland in northern Iraq, on the Nineveh Plain.

In the wake of the “Biden Plan”, put forth by former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, and then Vice President Joe Biden, the Assyrian Christian area is one of the four areas envisioned as the only long-term solution for Iraq.

According to the plan, Kurdistan, Assyria, Sunnistan and Shiastan — the four dramatically different areas of Iraq — would each be able to evolve into their own areas.

While the Arab areas of Sunnistan and Shiastan in Iraq operate as do most Arab countries — with corruption, terror and civil strife — the non-Arab regions of Iraq, Kurdistan and Assyria in the north are shining examples of what all of Iraq could be, and a testimony to the sacrifice of 4,888 brave Americans who gave their lives for a liberated Iraq, as well as the 35,000 injured and the 2.5 million who served.

In the rush to condemn the liberation of Iraq as a mistake, we forget the terror that Saddam Hussein and his two sons inflicted on their people. A visit to nearly every home in Iraqi will have a picture of one or more family members among the nearly one million slaughtered by Saddam.

For the Assyrian Christians, the move toward the independence of Kurdistan is their encouragement to move forward with their independence as well.

The election outcome, the result of popular discontent with established parties, is the latest in a recent wave of successes for European populists, including in Austria and Germany. The populist ascendancy highlights a shifting political landscape in Europe where runaway multiculturalism and political correctness, combined with a massive influx of unassimilable migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, have given rise to a surge in support for anti-establishment protest parties.

“It is unthinkable that the indigenous European population should adapt themselves to the refugees. We must do away with such nonsensical political correctness. The refugees should behave like guests, that is, they should be polite, and they certainly do not have the right to choose what they want to eat…. There is a deep chasm between what people think and what the media tell them.” — Andrej Babis, in the Czech daily Pravo, January 16, 2016.

As prime minister, Babis would share government with Czech President Milos Zeman, who has described political correctness as “a euphemism for political cowardice.”

Populist tycoon Andrej Babis and his Eurosceptic political party have won the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election — by a landslide — making the “politically incorrect” billionaire businessman the main contender to become prime minister after coalition negotiations.

With all of the votes counted, Babis’s anti-establishment party ANO (which stands for “Action of Dissatisfied Citizens” and is also the Czech word for “yes”) won nearly 30% — almost three times its closest rival — in elections held on October 20. The Eurosceptic Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the anti-establishment Czech Pirates Party and the anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) came second, third and fourth, with around 11% each.

The Communists came in fifth with 7.8%. The Social Democrats, the center-left establishment party that finished first in the previous election, came in sixth with just 7.2%. The Christian Democrats, the center-right establishment party, won 5.8%, just enough to qualify for seats in parliament. In all, nine parties competed in the election.

The election outcome, the result of popular discontent with established parties, is the latest in a recent wave of successes for European populists, including in Austria and Germany. The populist ascendancy highlights a shifting political landscape in Europe where runaway multiculturalism and political correctness, combined with a massive influx of unassimilable migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, have given rise to a surge in support for anti-establishment protest parties.

Babis’s victory will also strengthen the role of the Visegrad Group (V4), a political alliance of four Central European states — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — committed not only to resisting mass migration, but also to opposing the continued transference of national sovereignty to the European Union. A stronger V4 will accentuate the divisions between the pro-EU states of Western Europe and the increasingly Eurosceptic states of Central and Eastern Europe. The European Union consequently will struggle to maintain an outward semblance of unity.

In his victory speech at the ANO party headquarters, Babis, who campaigned as a centrist, refused to speculate on the composition of a coalition government, but said he wanted the cabinet to be set up as quickly as possible: “This is a huge opportunity to change our country. I would like to assemble a government that will be of the people and for the people and promotes policies that are in their favor.”

Babis also tried to reassure the public that he would not put the Czech Republic on the path to authoritarianism, as some of his detractors have charged:

“We are a democratic movement. We are a solid part of the European Union and we are a solid part of NATO. I do not understand why some people say we are a threat to democracy. We certainly are not a threat to democracy. I am ready to fight for our national interests and to promote them.”

Taboos — traditional ones, at any rate — were the ballast that kept us on an even keel. Increasingly that is no longer the case, as White House Chief of Staff General John F. Kelly so eloquently reminded the Washington press corps. Instead, policy and discourse is shaped by the sensibilities of jackals

If you didn’t catch White House Chief of Staff, General John F. Kelly, talking to the press about the politicisation of President Trump’s condolences to the wife of a fallen marine, Sgt La David Johnson, you should. This is part of what he said.

You know when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with honour. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we see from recent cases. Life – the dignity of life – is sacred. That’s gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well. Gold Star families, I think that left in the [Democrat] convention over the summer. But I just thought – the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die on the battlefield, I just thought that that might be sacred.

Though clearly emotional at times it is amazing that he was able to speak with such composure. General Kelly lost his son, Second Lt. Robert Kelly, to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2010.

It goes without saying that the action of Democrat congresswoman Frederica Wilson in raising the matter as she did was beyond despicable. It can be made sense of only in a world of seriously declining standards of common decency. This is not about glimpse of a woman’s stocking no longer being shocking. It is about not assuming the worst of each other. I don’t know what Trump said. I believe I know what he meant to say. He meant to say what General Kelly suggested he might say.

He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining…He knew what the possibilities were because we’re at war… and when he died, he was surrounded by the best men on this earth; his friends.

Maybe it didn’t come out quite right. I don’t know. I know from experience that trying to remember what you are supposed to say in pressurised and emotional situations can get you into more trouble than extemporising. If he mangled it in any way, a quiet word might have had him making amends in one way or another. But, hey, that would have been the decent thing to do.

Theresa May was mocked because she developed a nagging cough during a speech to the ‘faithful’ at the Conservative Party’s recent conference. Who hasn’t had a coughing fit? How in the world does that reflect on her ability as prime minister? Sympathy and understanding would have been the decent response. Instead jackals spotted weakness and pounced.

Recall Tony Abbott when opposition leader making his overheard and immediately-reported comment “shit happens” in 2011. This followed a firefight in Afghanistan in which an Australian soldier, Lance Corporal Jared McKinney, was killed. It was absolutely clear, in context, that Abbott’s comment was not disrespectful.

His comment was aimed, in a comradely manner, at the things that had gone wrong. It was a complete beat-up by some reporters lacking even the rudiments of common decency who took his remarks out of context and tried to make political capital out of a soldier’s death. They were the disrespectful ones.

The Czechs have had two distinguished and eminently decent Presidents….Vaclav Havel and Milos Zeman…..Is Babis their Donald Trump? Stay tuned….rsk

PRAGUE—The Czech Republic’s second-richest citizen, who has pledged to upend the country’s constitutional order and boost executive authority, won a legislative election on Saturday, as a breakdown in political consensus sent a record number of parties to parliament

With 99% of ballots counted, the Ano party led by Andrej Babis —a 63-year-old agricultural tycoon who has promised to abolish the Czech senate and a rewrite the country’s election laws—had 30% of the vote. The ruling Social Democratic Party took just 7%, while support surged for a series of minor parties.

As he voted, Mr. Babis—who has also called for a ban on Muslim immigrants, friendlier ties with Russia and a more defiant attitude toward the European Union—called his victory a triumph over the establishment.

“We want to defeat this clientelistic-corruption system,” he said.

Mr. Babis now faces the challenge of assembling a coalition from the most fractured Parliament in Czech history. Nine parties, the most ever, won seats, including the Pirate Party, which believes in internet-based direct democracy and was roughly tied for second at 11% with the center-right Civic Democratic Party.

One of the few points of broad consensus in the legislature is that Mr. Babis shouldn’t be prime minister.

Last month, Parliament voted almost unanimously to strip Mr. Babis of his judicial immunity as a fellow member, clearing the way for courts to prosecute him for charges of fraud he denies.

Some members worry about the unprecedented power that voters have given a magnate who already owns several of the country’s top media outlets.

“I cannot imagine [the country’s center-right Civic Democratic Party] will be in government with Ano, with or without Babis as the prime minister,” said the party’s shadow speaker for EU affairs, Adela Kadlecova. “I am also of the opinion, that a criminally charged politician should not become a prime minister.”

Both the Pirate Party and the fiscal-conservative TOP party, upstart parties that boosted support in the election, ruled out joining a coalition with Mr. Babis.

“We will absolutely try to make a coalition of democratic parties against all populists, extremists and oligarchs,” said TOP’s deputy chairman, Marketa Adamova. “I wish to be able to make a democratic coalition against all those parties.” CONTINUE AT SITE

BARCELONA—Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy asked lawmakers to grant him unprecedented power to remove the leaders of Catalonia and temporarily control the region from Madrid, a forceful move aimed at bringing the separatist movement to heel.
Mr. Puigdemont and members of his cabinet appeared several hours later at a pro-independence rally in Barcelona that became a mass protest against the central government’s move.

Afterward, Mr. Puigdemont said in a televised address that he would ask Catalonia’s parliament to convene in the coming week to map out a response to the central government’s proposed measures. “The Catalan institutions and the people of Catalonia can’t accept this attack,” Mr. Puigdemont said. “The government of Mariano Rajoy wants to appoint a board to control the life of Catalonia remotely from Madrid.”

One of the targets of Mr. Rajoy’s proposed measures is Catalonia’s police force, a prized symbol of regional power. The 17,000-strong regional police force, known as the Mossos D’Esquadra, resisted Madrid’s orders to halt the referendum on independence earlier this month. A judge seized the passport of the Mossos chief earlier this week amid a sedition probe. The regional force has said the investigation is based on false accusations.

The central government is also seeking to administer Catalonia’s finances. Madrid already seized control of most of the regional government’s spending power in the run-up to the referendum to prevent Catalan officials from dedicating public funds to the independence vote.

“This is a real coup d’état,” Arnau Casadevall, a 27-year-old school receptionist, said at Saturday’s demonstration, which Barcelona police estimated was attended by 450,000 protesters. “I have no intention to stop fighting until Catalonia is free.”

The measures Mr. Rajoy announced were hammered out in recent days with leaders from two of the main oppositions parties, said the premier, a sign of the widespread political support for his bid to halt the Catalan independence drive. Spain’s Senate, where Mr. Rajoy’s center-right Popular Party has a majority, is likely to approve the measures in a vote on Friday. CONTINUE AT SITE