UN Troops in Mali Slaughter Civilian Protesters
As outrage and unrest in Mali against the brutal United Nations military occupation grow stronger, UN troops responded to civilian protests this week by shooting and killing unarmed demonstrators, according to witnesses quoted in international media reports and a UN spokesman. While reports vary, at least three protesters were reportedly killed and many more wounded, with other sources reporting that even more civilians have been massacred by UN “peacekeepers” amid the recent unrest. In fact, as The New American reported in early 2013, UN-backed military forces in Mali have also been involved in widespread summary executions and mass human-rights abuses directed at the civilian population. Increasingly brutal UN forces have also been implicated in atrocities — murder, rape, and more; even against children — all across Africa and beyond.
Under the guise of propping up an illegitimate regime that seized power in a 2012 coup led by a U.S government-trained officer, the UN Security Council purported to authorize a UN military invasion of Mali. The main targets of the Obama-backed UN war were supposed to be “Islamic militants” (armed amid the UN and Obama “regime change” scheme in Libya) opposed to the coup regime who were allegedly perpetrating abuses in the vast Malian north. In reality, however, it now appears that a key focal point of UN and “international community” ire were long-oppressed nomadic Tuareg tribesmen, some of whom have been slaughtered by UN forces in recent weeks. Seeking an independent homeland dubbed Azawad free from the control of the corrupt coup regime operating in the capital city of Bamako in the South, Tuareg rebels declared independence, only to become targets of ruthless UN military forces.
The latest killings of civilians by UN troops occurred on January 27 in the northern Malian town of Gao. According to witnesses quoted by Reuters, at least three people were killed when UN “peacekeepers” fired live ammunition at the crowd to supposedly “disperse” protesters. One source cited by the news agency said UN military forces began shooting bullets at protesters after first tear gassing them. The man said he saw a dead protester who had been shot in the face by the global organization’s “peace” troops. A second witness told Reuters that he saw four dead protesters shot by the UN, as well as numerous wounded victims who were taken to a nearby hospital. Two independent witnesses quoted by the Associated Press also confirmed that UN troops fired into the civilian crowd protesting UN scheming.
A man described by Reuters as a “Malian military source” also described the horrors. “UN forces panicked and they opened fire on the protesters,” the military man was quoted as saying by the news agency. “There are already three dead and many injured.” Local hospital officials were reportedly not available to comment on the number of victims wounded by UN fire, Reuters reported. Iranian state-run news agency Press TV, however, quoted a medical official at the morgue in Gao as saying that there were “at least three dead protesters,” some killed by gunshot wounds, in addition to “several serious injuries.” More information is still emerging and the death toll may still go higher.
The UN, as it often does — at least until the world is presented with irrefutable evidence of its crimes — originally denied, through a spokesman, that UN troops murdered civilian protesters. Olivier Salgado, speaking for the UN’s so-called “Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali” (MINUSMA), at first confirmed to Reuters that UN troops fired “warning shots,” but said the mission headquarters in Bamako did not have information about the killings. “We are trying to understand why the Malian security detail that was with the protest withdrew,” he claimed, adding two UN “police officers” were “injured.” Later, as the UN killings of unarmed protesters became too hard to conceal, the same spokesman admitted to the AP that UN troops had killed at least two protesters and wounded six. However, he claimed protesters had thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails at UN forces, prompting the deadly response.
According to news reports, the most recent protests against UN military occupation began after globalist forces tried to create what was described in the press as a “temporary security zone” in which only troops under UN command would be allowed to keep and bear arms. The UN mission’s efforts to establish the so-called “buffer zone” followed armed clashes between nomadic Tuareg rebels and UN troops. Last week, the UN’s self-styled global military was exposed using helicopter gunships and missiles to massacre Tuaregs from the air as the alleged “rebels” seeking independence from the regime in Bamako were traveling by car. After the killings were reported in the international press, the UN claimed it was forced to fire six missiles at the Tuaregs to “protect civilians.” It was not clear how killing civilians served to protect civilians.
That deadly UN helicopter attack on alleged Tuareg “rebels” helped spark a wave of protests against the UN military occupation last week. Media reports said hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, occupied an airport commandeered by UN forces in the town of Kidal. UN troops responded to outraged and horrified civilian protesters in that incident by firing shots into the air, Reuters reported. The demonstrators, furious about recent UN killings of their countrymen, reportedly threw stones and burned UN assets such as generators and tents housing occupation troops. A resident who spoke to the news agency said protesters “are calling on MINUSMA to leave” and that the people of the region “don't want them here.”
Eventually, the protesters in Kidal were able to tear down UN flags and replace them with the Azawad flag, the name of the independent homeland that Tuaregs are hoping to create for themselves in northern Mali despite the terror campaign unleashed on them by the UN and the illegitimate regime it supports in Bamako. Leaders of the Tuareg independence movement say it is time for the UN to get out. “Today it is more urgent than ever to review the rule of the MINUSMA in Mali,” said Tuareg spokesman Mossa Ag Attaher in a press conference last week in Morocco, adding that his people would be boycotting UN-run “peace” talks set to take place in Algeria next month.
As The New American reported in January of 2013, UN- and Obama-backed forces in Mali were accused by human rights groups at the time of slaughtering innocent civilians. Among other outrages and war crimes, military forces backed by the global organization were accused of summarily executing civilians, plundering victims who happened to belong to the wrong ethnic group, torturing and disappearing opponents of the UN-backed coup regime in Bamako, indiscriminate shelling of Tuareg nomad camps, mass murder, killing the livestock on which the nomads depend, and more. UN and Western officials were well aware of the horrors being perpetrated by their ruthless allies on the ground, yet claimed that it was up to the coup regime in Bamako to stop it.
Of course, UN troops have a long and sordid history of similar brutality — especially across Africa, as The New American has documented extensively. In the nearby nation of Ivory Coast, for example, the UN — again with full support from the Obama administration — backed brutal Islamist militias to overthrow the Christian president of the country. After the disputed election, the Supreme Court ruled that the Christian president had won, but the UN, French authorities, and Obama disagreed, waging a brutal war to install a Muslim central banker as president. The UN “regime change” campaign left thousands of innocent Christians massacred throughout the country — oftentimes hacked to death with machetes. The new UN-installed regime promptly began shutting down newspapers critical of the new “president” while arresting dissidents en masse. One U.S. senator even described the UN- and Obama-backed campaign in the Ivory Coast as a “reign of terror.”
Systematic sexual exploitation of civilians by UN forces is also common. Just in the Ivorian town Toulepleu, for example, a poll conducted by the non-profit Save the Children revealed that eight out of 10 minor girls admitted to regularly being raped and forced into sexual acts by UN soldiers. “They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me,” an Ivorian girl known as “Elizabeth,” just 13 years old when she was gang-raped by UN troops, recounted to the BBC in 2008. “I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing.... I was terrified. Then they just left me there bleeding.” Similar horror stories have emerged from virtually every nation occupied by the global body’s “peace” armies. Virtually no UN soldiers have been held accountable, let alone the UN itself.
Going further back, history is also replete with UN-sponsored atrocities. In Rwanda, for example, UN “disarmament” bureaucrats forcibly disarmed civilians, many of whom were later exterminated in the government-backed 1994 genocide. As far back as the early 1960s, meanwhile, the UN waged a ruthless war against the anti-communist people of Katanga in a bid to force them to submit to a bloodthirsty communist dictator. Once the population was subjugated and terrorized into submission, the global entity perpetrated ghastly war crimes — documented in numerous books and documentaries — including massacres of civilians, attacks on medical personnel, and more. Systematic atrocities have also been perpetrated by UN troops or UN-backed forces more recently in Somalia, Congo, Haiti, and beyond.
The savage track record of UN military scheming is long, bloody, and undeniable, with Mali being merely the latest nation to suffer. Yet, instead of reining in UN forces, the Obama administration is actively working to further empower them with even more U.S. wealth, technology, and military assets. It is past time for Congress to immediately halt all U.S. support for the UN and its brutal “peace” military before the global organization claims even more innocent victims.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Questions Senators Won’t Be Asking Loretta Lynch, Obama’s Attorney General Nominee
Today and tomorrow, President Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, Loretta Lynch (shown), will face questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s highly unlikely that any of those questions will focus on how her office handled the case of Felix Sater while she was U.S. district attorney in New York (details on the Sater case further down). Without that information being obtained, however, her confirmation hearings will miss a vital part of understanding just how Lynch is likely to handle the job as attorney general.
Instead, she is more likely to be asked about Obama’s policies using executive privilege not only to impose delays on deporting illegal immigrants, but also to mark up ObamaCare according to his own views, and to launch a war in Libya.
She may well waffle when the questioning becomes too intense, just as she did when Senator David Vitter, one of the committee’s members, pressed her on the issue of illegal immigration. He said, “I met with Ms. Lynch earlier this month and didn’t get any straight answers from her.” He added:
She also surely kept him apprised of Holder’s continued efforts to emasculate states’ attempts to keep their voting process clean and transparent. Back in 2013, she claimed that voter ID laws in the states were per se racist, saying:
Other likely questions from the Senate panel will include asking if she, as the new attorney general, will finally begin to enforce the House’s contempt citation against Lois Lerner that has been languishing on Holder’s desk for seven months. Would she at last come clean on the Fast and Furious scandal?
The mainstream media certainly hopes not. CBS News had its own take on what counts for important:
• the cyber attacks by the Chinese government aimed at America’s nuclear power;
• metals and solar products industries;
• how she might “combat social media campaigns used to recruit young Americans into terrorist organizations”;
• and how she would handle the ongoing investigation into the Ferguson Police Department.
All important questions, to be sure, but no doubt this primary question will be missing from her interrogation: What about charges that while she was district attorney in New York, she and her office deliberately and systematically violated two federal laws in the handling of the case of Felix Sater?
Sater pled guilty in 1998 in a racketeering stock fraud case of having mulcted unsuspecting investors of more than $40 million. Lynch’s office withheld vital information about the case, and its secret settlement, from Sater's victims, making it impossible for them to gain restitution. Her office then stonewalled attempts to determine why Sater was let off on a plea bargain and a minuscule fine, while allowing him to keep the money he stole.
Senators should ask Lynch about the lawsuit that attorney Frederick Oberlander has filed against Sater on behalf of his victims. Wrote Oberlander:
A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.
Today and tomorrow, President Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, Loretta Lynch (shown), will face questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s highly unlikely that any of those questions will focus on how her office handled the case of Felix Sater while she was U.S. district attorney in New York (details on the Sater case further down). Without that information being obtained, however, her confirmation hearings will miss a vital part of understanding just how Lynch is likely to handle the job as attorney general.
Instead, she is more likely to be asked about Obama’s policies using executive privilege not only to impose delays on deporting illegal immigrants, but also to mark up ObamaCare according to his own views, and to launch a war in Libya.
She may well waffle when the questioning becomes too intense, just as she did when Senator David Vitter, one of the committee’s members, pressed her on the issue of illegal immigration. He said, “I met with Ms. Lynch earlier this month and didn’t get any straight answers from her.” He added:
I mean, she would say nothing. If I asked her if the sky was blue, I don’t think she would have committed to it.… I found her responses in the conversation about executive amnesty not just frustrating, but unbelievable.
As chair of Obama’s legal advisory team, she no doubt directed the president on issues ranging from his unilateral amending of ObamaCare to launching the war in Libya. She also more than likely advised him that he was within his executive authority to defer or delay the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.She also surely kept him apprised of Holder’s continued efforts to emasculate states’ attempts to keep their voting process clean and transparent. Back in 2013, she claimed that voter ID laws in the states were per se racist, saying:
Fifty years after the civil rights movement, we stand in this country at a time when we see people [in the various states] trying to take back so much of what Dr. [Martin Luther] King fought for….
People try and take over the State House and reverse the [gains] that have been made in voting in this country.
She then declared that she was “proud” that Holder’s Justice Department had filed suit against North Carolina over its voter ID laws, which allegedly “seek to limit our ability to stand up and exercise our rights as citizens.”Other likely questions from the Senate panel will include asking if she, as the new attorney general, will finally begin to enforce the House’s contempt citation against Lois Lerner that has been languishing on Holder’s desk for seven months. Would she at last come clean on the Fast and Furious scandal?
The mainstream media certainly hopes not. CBS News had its own take on what counts for important:
• the cyber attacks by the Chinese government aimed at America’s nuclear power;
• metals and solar products industries;
• how she might “combat social media campaigns used to recruit young Americans into terrorist organizations”;
• and how she would handle the ongoing investigation into the Ferguson Police Department.
All important questions, to be sure, but no doubt this primary question will be missing from her interrogation: What about charges that while she was district attorney in New York, she and her office deliberately and systematically violated two federal laws in the handling of the case of Felix Sater?
Sater pled guilty in 1998 in a racketeering stock fraud case of having mulcted unsuspecting investors of more than $40 million. Lynch’s office withheld vital information about the case, and its secret settlement, from Sater's victims, making it impossible for them to gain restitution. Her office then stonewalled attempts to determine why Sater was let off on a plea bargain and a minuscule fine, while allowing him to keep the money he stole.
Senators should ask Lynch about the lawsuit that attorney Frederick Oberlander has filed against Sater on behalf of his victims. Wrote Oberlander:
These deals, indisputably in defiance of mandatory federal forfeiture and restitution laws, allow cooperators to keep the proceeds of their crimes in exchange for their cooperation and keep their reputation intact, hidden behind secret dockets.
As investigators from the Washington Times learned,
Sater faced nearly 20 years in prison and a mandatory $40 million restitution and $80 million forfeiture, but the sentencing judge imposed no restitution or confinement.
And victims weren’t at the hearing to object because they were never told about the sentencing in the first place.
Attorneys for a victims’ rights group, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, couldn’t get past Lynch’s stone wall:
At this point, the government is using the alleged sealing orders it may (or may not) have obtained in this case not as a legitimate law enforcement tool but rather as an excuse for obscuring what happened.
If the questioning of Lynch is designed to ferret out whether she will just be another Eric Holder, in high heels, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will fail if they don’t include the matter of Felix Sater. All these questions are determined, as Hans von Spakovsky at the Daily Signal so eloquently expressed it, "to see whether she actually believes in the limits the Constitution imposes on the executive, or whether she will simply step into Eric Holder’s shoes and help the administration continue to defy the rule of law.”A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.
Europe's Civil War: The Politics of Separateness
The European countries cannot be lumped together. The countries of the European Union [EU] are not culturally homogeneous. The Euro-Zone countries are economically separated from those outside this zone. Members of NATO -- even the expanded NATO -- are viewed differently militarily than those outside the organization. There are also, of course, distinct differences between the Eastern countries of the former USSR and its satellites, and Western democracies; between monarchies and republics; between Catholics and Protestants; between Muslim Europe (e.g. Albania, European side of Turkey, parts of Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Christian Europe.
These differences were resolved partially or totally, permanently or temporarily, to allow "business to go on."
Then entered another variable: the Islamization of previously-Christian Europe. Before developing a severe headache by pondering that, we should be prepared to learn more of the history of Islam: its previous conquests, the Islamic Empires, its decline -- and more about these recent inhabitants of the continent to which they immigrated and which many of them say they hope to Islamize. This is urgent, as many Muslim countries are stuck in the thought processes of a millennium or so ago. The hiatus is often so great that it defies rationality. We cannot expect an instant change just for our convenience. The ingredients of Europe's newest melting pot either cannot or will not "melt," even for the sake of living together in peace and working towards prosperity.
Even presuming that the majority of Muslims in Europe wish to adapt and blend in with the "natives" and live not only side by side, but totally intermingled in all aspects of life, they are hampered by the violent minority. Many immigrants, also, have a hard time moving away from their past. They can feel lost. They have left behind their origins and heritage but are not in tandem with their progeny, even though they were the ones who willingly and deliberately sought this monumental change. Actually, their offspring frequently reject their values as well as them, mostly because they simply don't comprehend them. It is equally true of the "natives." The "generational gap" is not often bridged for the sake of peace and harmony.
The militant minority, though, have a totally different agenda. They are hell-bent on the Islamization of every single person in Europe, which is the same across the globe. They are a power to be reckoned with because they are recruiting other newcomers from all corners of the earth, and the prize they offer is so temptingly salacious to youths with still-confused emotional needs. The guiding and funding sources are mostly away from the scene of the fray. If these sources could be dried up, there would be more hope for a peaceful resolution. The politics of separateness -- whether churning up racial divisions in America or separating Muslims in Europe from their non-Muslim hosts -- is now a big business and will not easily be given up.
One unanswered question is whether Islam is a religion of peace. First, the Arabic word Islam does not mean "peace" but an act of subjugation to God (Allah) and His will. Second, the basis and teaching of Islam is understood universally to consider non-Muslims as infidels. Third, infidels have to be wiped out. There is no gainsaying the word of Allah in the Koran, the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad and the shari'a. Thus, Muslims by birth or conversion, regardless of whether they are ultraconservative, moderates or secularists, are trapped in this vise-grip of enforcing the will of Allah on everyone, non-Muslim or Muslim, if they veer away from the straight and narrow.
What is poignant to me, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who has lived and worked as a physician in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, is the abysmal lack of understanding of Islam by the Western media, leaders and the man-on-the-street. It is mind-boggling to see the degree of ignorance of blatant truths and facts in the way many policies are handled.
Europe is in the middle of a civil war like no other -- for the grand prize of religious dominance by the few over the many. Regardless of the denials of many Europeans and observers from around the world -- who say that the terror acts are not related to Islam, or if in any way Islamic at all, are merely committed by deviants from the "true" origins of Islam -- in reality, the mayhem we see currently is generated by jihadist Islam. This minority is bolstered by others of a similar conviction, but with even more militant ideas and deeper purses.
The rest of the world is at risk of the same fate. There is chapter and verse, other than 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid train bombing and attacks in India, Argentina, Russia, Israel, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Britain and France, among others. As first steps, governments in the West need honestly to study Islam; and an ominous force must confront, contain and cut off the supply of jihadists and their sources of funding.
If European Islamists wish to leave the continent to fight in Syria and Iraq, that should be allowed to exit, but they should not expect to be allowed back. In addition, lawmakers need to enforce laws prohibiting cooperation with designated terrorist organizations. They might also remind people that if they cooperate with designated terrorist groups, they might be subject to arrest upon returning to their home countries, or possibly barred from entering at all. Captivating tax incentives for economic growth and upward mobility might also, in addition to addressing the economic malaise in disadvantaged areas, begin to revive at least some of the economies of Europe.
If Europeans practice delusional denials, they are surely marching toward defeat.
The politics of separateness -- whether churning up racial divisions in America or separating Muslims in Europe from their non-Muslim neighbors -- is now a big business.Who captains this continent nowadays? Is it the richest, Germany, or is it the UK, which only linked itself geographically, belatedly, by the building a rail route under the English Channel? France insists on having its own path regardless.
Europe is in the middle if a civil war, for the grand prize of the dominance of the few over the many. Even presuming that the majority of Muslims in Europe wish to adapt and blend in with the "natives," they are hampered by the violent minority.
The militant minority are a power to be reckoned with, because the prize they offer is so temptingly salacious to youths with still-confused emotional needs. The guiding and funding sources are mostly away from the scene of the fray. If these sources could be dried up, there would be more hope for a peaceful resolution.
Captivating tax incentives for economic growth and upward mobility might also, in addition to addressing the economic malaise in disadvantaged areas, begin to revive at least some of the economies of Europe.
If Europeans practice delusional denials, they are surely marching toward defeat.
The European countries cannot be lumped together. The countries of the European Union [EU] are not culturally homogeneous. The Euro-Zone countries are economically separated from those outside this zone. Members of NATO -- even the expanded NATO -- are viewed differently militarily than those outside the organization. There are also, of course, distinct differences between the Eastern countries of the former USSR and its satellites, and Western democracies; between monarchies and republics; between Catholics and Protestants; between Muslim Europe (e.g. Albania, European side of Turkey, parts of Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Christian Europe.
These differences were resolved partially or totally, permanently or temporarily, to allow "business to go on."
Then entered another variable: the Islamization of previously-Christian Europe. Before developing a severe headache by pondering that, we should be prepared to learn more of the history of Islam: its previous conquests, the Islamic Empires, its decline -- and more about these recent inhabitants of the continent to which they immigrated and which many of them say they hope to Islamize. This is urgent, as many Muslim countries are stuck in the thought processes of a millennium or so ago. The hiatus is often so great that it defies rationality. We cannot expect an instant change just for our convenience. The ingredients of Europe's newest melting pot either cannot or will not "melt," even for the sake of living together in peace and working towards prosperity.
Even presuming that the majority of Muslims in Europe wish to adapt and blend in with the "natives" and live not only side by side, but totally intermingled in all aspects of life, they are hampered by the violent minority. Many immigrants, also, have a hard time moving away from their past. They can feel lost. They have left behind their origins and heritage but are not in tandem with their progeny, even though they were the ones who willingly and deliberately sought this monumental change. Actually, their offspring frequently reject their values as well as them, mostly because they simply don't comprehend them. It is equally true of the "natives." The "generational gap" is not often bridged for the sake of peace and harmony.
The militant minority, though, have a totally different agenda. They are hell-bent on the Islamization of every single person in Europe, which is the same across the globe. They are a power to be reckoned with because they are recruiting other newcomers from all corners of the earth, and the prize they offer is so temptingly salacious to youths with still-confused emotional needs. The guiding and funding sources are mostly away from the scene of the fray. If these sources could be dried up, there would be more hope for a peaceful resolution. The politics of separateness -- whether churning up racial divisions in America or separating Muslims in Europe from their non-Muslim hosts -- is now a big business and will not easily be given up.
One unanswered question is whether Islam is a religion of peace. First, the Arabic word Islam does not mean "peace" but an act of subjugation to God (Allah) and His will. Second, the basis and teaching of Islam is understood universally to consider non-Muslims as infidels. Third, infidels have to be wiped out. There is no gainsaying the word of Allah in the Koran, the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad and the shari'a. Thus, Muslims by birth or conversion, regardless of whether they are ultraconservative, moderates or secularists, are trapped in this vise-grip of enforcing the will of Allah on everyone, non-Muslim or Muslim, if they veer away from the straight and narrow.
What is poignant to me, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who has lived and worked as a physician in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, is the abysmal lack of understanding of Islam by the Western media, leaders and the man-on-the-street. It is mind-boggling to see the degree of ignorance of blatant truths and facts in the way many policies are handled.
Europe is in the middle of a civil war like no other -- for the grand prize of religious dominance by the few over the many. Regardless of the denials of many Europeans and observers from around the world -- who say that the terror acts are not related to Islam, or if in any way Islamic at all, are merely committed by deviants from the "true" origins of Islam -- in reality, the mayhem we see currently is generated by jihadist Islam. This minority is bolstered by others of a similar conviction, but with even more militant ideas and deeper purses.
The rest of the world is at risk of the same fate. There is chapter and verse, other than 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid train bombing and attacks in India, Argentina, Russia, Israel, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Britain and France, among others. As first steps, governments in the West need honestly to study Islam; and an ominous force must confront, contain and cut off the supply of jihadists and their sources of funding.
If European Islamists wish to leave the continent to fight in Syria and Iraq, that should be allowed to exit, but they should not expect to be allowed back. In addition, lawmakers need to enforce laws prohibiting cooperation with designated terrorist organizations. They might also remind people that if they cooperate with designated terrorist groups, they might be subject to arrest upon returning to their home countries, or possibly barred from entering at all. Captivating tax incentives for economic growth and upward mobility might also, in addition to addressing the economic malaise in disadvantaged areas, begin to revive at least some of the economies of Europe.
The Dutch-Turkish jihadist known as Yilmaz, who left the Netherlands to fight in Syria, has proven adept at the use of social media in Dutch, English and Turkish for jihadist "public relations" and recruitment.
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If Europeans practice delusional denials, they are surely marching toward defeat.
Euroflop: Europe Dilutes the Euro
Every criminal printing money can now argue in court that he should be given a medal for "stimulating the economy."Europe now wants the rest of the world to foot the bill for its own economic mismanagement.
The refusal of some European countries, such as France, to tackle their high debt level and lack of competitiveness, is now also affecting the non-eurozone.
Suppose a family can no longer pay its debts and dad decides to solve the problem by going down to the cellar and printing extra money. Society would not approve. Printing money is a form a robbery, stealing from everyone else by diluting the value of their financial assets.
Last week, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank [ECB], announced that in the coming months the ECB is going to pump an additional €1.1 trillion into the economy, at a rate of €60bn a month. When dad does it, it is called "counterfeiting," but when Mr. Draghi does it, it is called "quantitative easing" and one euphemistically speaks of a "stimulus package for the Eurozone." Every criminal printing money can now argue in court that, rather than a jail sentence, he should be given a medal and a reward for stimulating the economy.
The headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany. (Image source: Flickr/Solvency II Wire)
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The European debt crisis began in late 2009 after Southern European countries, using the euro as a common currency with Germany and other Northern European countries, were no longer able to pay the debts they had foolishly accumulated during the preceding years. To prevent the eurozone from collapsing and its banks from going bankrupt, the ECB began to purchase the government bonds of countries in difficulty, including the junk-rated bonds issued by Greece and Portugal. As a result, the ECB balance sheet swelled to almost €2 trillion. Mr. Draghi has now solved that problem by using his big bazooka and creating €1.1 trillion out of thin air.
The effects were immediate. The euro fell against all other currencies. It hit an 11-year low against the dollar. In July 2008, one dollar was worth €0.62, and one month ago still €0.81; today it is worth €0.89. Analysts expect that the effects of Draghi's "bazooka" will soon push the euro to parity with the dollar, perhaps even lower.
The Swiss central bank SNB anticipated Draghi's decision. Two weeks ago, it stopped pegging the Swiss franc to the euro. In 2011, the SNB had decided to fix the exchange rate between the Swiss franc and the euro at 1.20 or higher. The aim was to keep the franc from getting too strong compared to the euro. On January 15, the SNB surprised the markets with its dramatic decision to reverse its policy. Traders came to refer to the decision as the "Francogeddon": it led to huge losses for those who had not expected it and resulted in an immediate 30% rise of the franc versus the euro. Meanwhile, the Swiss franc, which in October 2007 was worth €0.57 and on January 14 of this year stood at €0.83, is now already worth slightly over €1.
Obviously, this is extremely bad news for Swiss companies and for the Swiss tourism sector. The SNB reckons, however, that keeping the franc artificially low compared to the euro by buying large quantities of euros, which are rapidly going to lose their value as a result of Draghi's strategy, would be an infinitely worse scenario. So they stepped out of the currency war. Other economic competitors of the eurozone, such as the British, the Americans, the Japanese and the Chinese, will either have to do the same or try to keep their own currencies low by buying large quantities of euros or by following the ECB's example and switching on their own money presses.
Within the eurozone, however, Draghi's decision is also leading to tensions. France and the southern countries are supporting Draghi, while the central bankers of northern eurozone countries, such as Germany's Bundesbank president, Jens Weidmann, and his colleagues from the Netherlands, Austria and Estonia, opposed the decision.
They are, however, outnumbered by the southerners. The northerners fear that Draghi's program will reduce the pressure on governments in the south, including France and Mr. Draghi's own Italy, to reform their economies and stop living beyond their means. The Greek elections yesterday resulted in huge gains for the far-left Syriza party, which opposes the current austerity policies. Now that the ECB is buying Greek junk bonds with newly created money, the Greeks may well feel that they no longer need to reform their economy.
Last week, in Davos, Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb warned that there is a bottom line when it comes to Greece. He said that he even preferred a "dirty exit" of Greece from the eurozone, rather than allow it to shirk further economic reforms. "All of us have taken very difficult structural reforms," Stubb said. "I can't take issue with the Greek elections. The Finnish position is: we will deal with any democratically-elected government that Greece has, but it will be very difficult for us to forgive any loans or restructure debt at this particular moment."
On Sunday, Bundesbank President Weidmann reiterated his doubts about the effectiveness of the ECB bond-buying plan. He questioned whether quantitative easing in the eurozone would lead to an economic stimulus -- as it did in the US after the financial crisis of 2008 -- because the sluggish growth in Europe is largely due to high levels of debt and, in certain countries, a lack of competitiveness.
It seems that the refusal of some European countries, such as France, to tackle their high debt levels and lack of competitiveness is now also affecting the non-eurozone. As a result of the ECB's decision, non-eurozone countries, such as Switzerland and America, will also be affected. Their companies will have more difficulty exporting to the eurozone because their currencies will become too expensive. In short, they will be paying the price of the ECB's decision to lift the burden from the economies in Southern Europe.
Islamic Terrorism: The Taboo Topic
Why should anyone be afraid of a "religion of peace"? Because some of its supporters threaten to kill you, and often do.
Is there even one critic of Islam who has not received a threat, or been able to live freely without worrying about his or her safety? We are now living in a world where, if a prominent critic of Islam stays alive, or out of a court of law, it is considered almost a miracle -- in both the Muslim world and the West.
We are living in a world where, in Britain, Muslim rape gangs and sharia law courts abound, but where defenders of liberty, such as Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Susanne Winter, Lars Hedegaard or Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff are variously banned, sued or threatened with jail -- if they are not first murdered, as was Theo van Gogh or the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, by the people or groups that they were trying to warn us about. Worse yet, in a blame-the-victim inversion that could be out of Orwell, if you do speak up and are harmed, it is all too often considered your fault: if you had just kept quiet, so the thinking goes, nothing would have happened to you. Just try telling that to the aid workers beheaded in their orange jump suits, or, among many others, the victims of Britain's 7/7, America's 9/11, Spain's train bombings, Toulouse, the Jewish museum in Belgium, the Canadian Parliament, a massacre in Boston or Fort Hood, in Australia or a Parisian supermarket.
The world has turned into a place where free speech is confused with hate speech; and where people in positions of responsibility, who take that responsibility seriously, such as Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, are bullied, marginalized and brought to trial.
The apologists for Islamophobia have many tales to tell to hinder free speech. Every time Islam is brought up, they bring up the issue of violence committed against individuals who provide abortions. But anti-abortion violence is not "Christian terrorism," and nowhere in the New Testament does a single teaching command that people who either have or provide abortions must be murdered or assaulted.
Verses of violence in any scripture that are open-ended commands to kill should, instead, like the violent verses in the Old Testament, be stories that relate to history, restricted by their historical context, not interpreted as requirements for piety. Christians no longer engage in the Inquisition.
Every time the Quran is discussed, apologists for Islam say "Oh, what about the violent verses in the Old Testament?" But there are qualitative and quantitative differences between the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, even if they do not want to see that.
The Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, Bill Warner, compares Islamic doctrine to other religions quantitatively and qualitatively. Islamic books are neither peaceful nor are their violent verses restricted by their historical context.
After the Islamic State [IS] started beheading and raping innocent people wholesale in Iraq and Syria, people were so shocked that they attempted to find explanations for these vicious acts. Some of the shocked have accused the lyrics of a former rapper who later joined the IS[2]; some accused the United States[3], and some accused historical British colonialism[4].
And another popular explanation is that Muslim terrorists in general, and Islamic State terrorists in particular, are simply the victims of mental illness [5]. So, to a degree are we all, but not all mental illnesses are socially acceptable, and not every mentally ill person channels his mental illness through the prism of a religion that glorifies homicide.
According to this explanation, even no matter what terrorists themselves say, anything but Islamic theology seems to be responsible for Islamic violence. Even if people or organizations proclaims their Islamic beliefs for their actions, shout Islamic slogans and carry the flag of Islam, their violence always seems to have "nothing to with the Islamic ideology."
A photo that compares the Ku Klux Klan [KKK] to IS, for instance, has been shared on the social media for weeks. The photo's caption, referring to the Klan, read: "No one thinks that these people are representative of Christians." Then, referring to IS terrorists, it asked: "so why do so many think that these people are representative of Muslims?"
A cartoon referring to IS read: "This is an Islamic organization... about as much as this [KKK] is a Christian organization."
Sadly, such photos and cartoons show how theologically illiterate many people are. They have lost the ability to analyze or critique what they are observing in the face of a deadly threat -- in this instance a religion, Islamic ideology. These images, and messages like them, seem intended to mislead one into concluding that fundamentalist Islamic ideology contradicts the Islamic State's killings in Iraq and Syria, and that Islam is not violent. "ISIL is not Islamic," U.S. President Barack Obama said. That conclusion is wrong.
To determine whether a group is a terrorist organization inspired by a certain religion, what needs to be looked at is whether there is a parallel between the stated goals of the group and the teachings of their religion. The stated objective of IS is to establish an Islamic caliphate under Sharia law[6].
Every time Islamic terrorism is discussed, those who bring up the "Christian terrorism" of the KKK or anti-abortion violence, simply block free speech, as if deliberately trying to scramble the main topic. They seem to be saying, "Whether the Islamic State is Islamic or not is irrelevant; there are Christian 'terrorists' as well, so do not talk about Islamic terrorists."
The Quran, however, contains dozens of verses promoting violence -- at least 109 verses call on Muslims to wage war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islam. It would be hard to interpret these verses as a spiritual struggle.
For instance, the Quran commands: "If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge thee on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while. Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter." (33:60-62)
Such teachings in Islam sanction slaughter against three groups:
Worse yet, Muslims who do not join the fight are called "hypocrites" (Quran: 3:167) and warned that if they do not join the violence, they will be sent to a Hell of eternal fire. It is an order apparently intended to neutralize one's conscience, encourage and sanction human aggression, and promote murder -- seemingly why it has worked so well for so long. As the leading Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi admitted, "If they [Muslims] had gotten rid of the punishment for apostasy, Islam would not exist today."
Part of the appeal of the Islamic State to many of its young recruits seems to be this appetite for blood. It starts with videos of beheading men in orange jumpsuits, and now reasons for murder have spread to killing people for wanting to leave the IS -- not Islam, just the IS -- and, in the instance of women and girls, for refusing to marry jihadists.
On December 18, 2014, the Hindu Human Rights Group [HHR] reported that,
Fortunately, of course, most Muslims do not engage in fundamentalist Islam, jihad or violence, but this still does not mean that those teachings are not commanded by fundamentalist Islamic theology. Of course, that ideology should never be confused with individuals. Muslims should never be stereotyped, mistreated, or discriminated against just because of their Muslim identity. Islam needs to be analyzed on the basis of its teachings -- not on the basis of Muslims.
But that is why Islamic theology, ideology and goals desperately need to be discussed. They deeply affect the life choices most Muslims make.
[1] "It turns out," he writes, "that jihad occurs in large proportion in all three texts (Koran, Sira, and Hadith, or the Islamic Trilogy). It is very significant that the Sira (life of Muhammad) devotes 67% of its text to jihad.... Now let's go to the Hebrew Bible. When we count all the political violence, we find that 5.6% of the text is devoted to it. ... When we count the magnitude of words devoted to political violence, we have 327,547 words in the Trilogy (Koran, Sira, and Hadith) and 34,039 words in the Hebrew Bible. The Trilogy has 9.6 times as much wordage devoted to political violence as the Hebrew Bible."
[2] Hisham Aidi, for instance, a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Institute of African Affairs at Columbia University, argues whether extremist hip hop is helping the Islamic State. Instead, he should be asking, "are some certain Islamic teachings helping IS or why do the lyrics of extremist Muslim hip hop promote so much violence?
[3] Various students who were interviewed on the quad by Campus Reform said that they believe America, not the Muslim fanatics who behead innocent people, is the biggest threat to world peace.
[4] For example, David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Human Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, wrote that "ISIS has a legitimate grievance against Western countries that carved up the Middle East, with blatant disregard for tribal and sectarian affiliations of the local population.
[5] For instance: Psychiatrists Dr. Paul-André Lafleur, and Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem say that the homegrown radicalization of the two men -- Martin Couture Rouleau, who rammed his vehicle into two Canadian soldiers, killing one, and Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who shot dead a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in October -- stems from acute psychiatric problems of paranoia, personal identity crisis and possible psychosis. Rouleau, however, had called 911 during the chase to say that he carried out his acts in the name of Allah. Similarly, Zehaf-Bibeau had made a video prior to the attack in which he expressed his motives as being related "to Canada's foreign policy and in respect of his religious beliefs", according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
[6] On 29 June 2014, the Islamic State proclaimed a new caliphate and appointed al-Baghdadi as its caliph. Laith Kubba, the director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment of Democracy, explained: "Baghdadi declared a caliphate, and anyone who knows theology and the background would realize that this declaration, according to traditional fiqh, puts an obligation of anyone who is religiously observant to declare allegiance." When the caliphate was announced, IS stated: "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah's [caliphate's] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas."
The political violence of the Koran is eternal and universal. The political violence of the Bible was for that particular historical time and place. This is the vast difference between Islam and other ideologies." — Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam.Shhhh! We can talk today of all religions but one. We can question all religions but one today. We know that any question of Islam can be taken as a criticism, and put our lives at risk, as seen most recently in Paris with the murders of the staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine. It is the only religion that people -- including the apologists for "Islamophobia" -- have to think ten times before discussing. At the same time, it is the same religion that is perpetually associated with "peace."
The word has turned into a place where free speech is confused with hate speech, and people in positions of responsibility, who take that responsibility seriously, such as the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, are bullied, marginalized and brought to trial.
So, to a degree are we all mentally ill, but not all mental illnesses are socially acceptable and not every mentally ill person channels his mental illness through a prism of religion that glorifies homicide.
Every time Islamic terrorism is discussed, those who bring up the "Christian terrorism" of the Ku Klux Klan or anti-abortion violence simply block free speech, as if deliberately trying to scramble the main topic. They seem to be saying, "Whether the Islamic State is Islamic or not is irrelevant; there are Christian terrorists as well, so do not talk about Islamic terrorists."
When violence and domination in a religion are so deeply rooted -- and sanctioned with promises of rewards -- fundamentalists will always find people to excite and people to persecute. It is a magnificent ready-made outlet for people who wish to be violent and dominate, or identify with a cause bigger than themselves.
That is why Islamic theology, ideology and goals desperately need to be discussed. They deeply affect the life choices most Muslims make.
Why should anyone be afraid of a "religion of peace"? Because some of its supporters threaten to kill you, and often do.
Is there even one critic of Islam who has not received a threat, or been able to live freely without worrying about his or her safety? We are now living in a world where, if a prominent critic of Islam stays alive, or out of a court of law, it is considered almost a miracle -- in both the Muslim world and the West.
We are living in a world where, in Britain, Muslim rape gangs and sharia law courts abound, but where defenders of liberty, such as Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Susanne Winter, Lars Hedegaard or Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff are variously banned, sued or threatened with jail -- if they are not first murdered, as was Theo van Gogh or the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, by the people or groups that they were trying to warn us about. Worse yet, in a blame-the-victim inversion that could be out of Orwell, if you do speak up and are harmed, it is all too often considered your fault: if you had just kept quiet, so the thinking goes, nothing would have happened to you. Just try telling that to the aid workers beheaded in their orange jump suits, or, among many others, the victims of Britain's 7/7, America's 9/11, Spain's train bombings, Toulouse, the Jewish museum in Belgium, the Canadian Parliament, a massacre in Boston or Fort Hood, in Australia or a Parisian supermarket.
The world has turned into a place where free speech is confused with hate speech; and where people in positions of responsibility, who take that responsibility seriously, such as Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, are bullied, marginalized and brought to trial.
Geert Wilders was brought in for interrogation by Dutch authorities, who want to prosecute him for a remark made during a March 2014 speech, in which he asked, "Do you want more or fewer Moroccans?" (Image source: nos.nl video screenshot)
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The apologists for Islamophobia have many tales to tell to hinder free speech. Every time Islam is brought up, they bring up the issue of violence committed against individuals who provide abortions. But anti-abortion violence is not "Christian terrorism," and nowhere in the New Testament does a single teaching command that people who either have or provide abortions must be murdered or assaulted.
Verses of violence in any scripture that are open-ended commands to kill should, instead, like the violent verses in the Old Testament, be stories that relate to history, restricted by their historical context, not interpreted as requirements for piety. Christians no longer engage in the Inquisition.
Every time the Quran is discussed, apologists for Islam say "Oh, what about the violent verses in the Old Testament?" But there are qualitative and quantitative differences between the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, even if they do not want to see that.
The Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, Bill Warner, compares Islamic doctrine to other religions quantitatively and qualitatively. Islamic books are neither peaceful nor are their violent verses restricted by their historical context.
"The real problem goes far beyond the quantitative measurement of ten times as much violent material [as in the Hebrew Bible]; there is also the qualitative measurement. The political violence of the Koran is eternal and universal. The political violence of the Bible was for that particular historical time and place. This is the vast difference between Islam and other ideologies. The violence remains a constant threat to all non-Islamic cultures, now and into the future. Islam is not analogous to Christianity and Judaism in any practical way. Beyond the one-god doctrine, Islam is unique unto itself."[1]He notes that, "There is no admonition towards political violence in the New Testament." He might also have added that the violence in Islam remains a threat also to many Islamic sects: Sunni, Shi'a, Sufi, Ahmadiyya, Alawite.
After the Islamic State [IS] started beheading and raping innocent people wholesale in Iraq and Syria, people were so shocked that they attempted to find explanations for these vicious acts. Some of the shocked have accused the lyrics of a former rapper who later joined the IS[2]; some accused the United States[3], and some accused historical British colonialism[4].
And another popular explanation is that Muslim terrorists in general, and Islamic State terrorists in particular, are simply the victims of mental illness [5]. So, to a degree are we all, but not all mental illnesses are socially acceptable, and not every mentally ill person channels his mental illness through the prism of a religion that glorifies homicide.
According to this explanation, even no matter what terrorists themselves say, anything but Islamic theology seems to be responsible for Islamic violence. Even if people or organizations proclaims their Islamic beliefs for their actions, shout Islamic slogans and carry the flag of Islam, their violence always seems to have "nothing to with the Islamic ideology."
A photo that compares the Ku Klux Klan [KKK] to IS, for instance, has been shared on the social media for weeks. The photo's caption, referring to the Klan, read: "No one thinks that these people are representative of Christians." Then, referring to IS terrorists, it asked: "so why do so many think that these people are representative of Muslims?"
A cartoon referring to IS read: "This is an Islamic organization... about as much as this [KKK] is a Christian organization."
Sadly, such photos and cartoons show how theologically illiterate many people are. They have lost the ability to analyze or critique what they are observing in the face of a deadly threat -- in this instance a religion, Islamic ideology. These images, and messages like them, seem intended to mislead one into concluding that fundamentalist Islamic ideology contradicts the Islamic State's killings in Iraq and Syria, and that Islam is not violent. "ISIL is not Islamic," U.S. President Barack Obama said. That conclusion is wrong.
To determine whether a group is a terrorist organization inspired by a certain religion, what needs to be looked at is whether there is a parallel between the stated goals of the group and the teachings of their religion. The stated objective of IS is to establish an Islamic caliphate under Sharia law[6].
Every time Islamic terrorism is discussed, those who bring up the "Christian terrorism" of the KKK or anti-abortion violence, simply block free speech, as if deliberately trying to scramble the main topic. They seem to be saying, "Whether the Islamic State is Islamic or not is irrelevant; there are Christian 'terrorists' as well, so do not talk about Islamic terrorists."
The Quran, however, contains dozens of verses promoting violence -- at least 109 verses call on Muslims to wage war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islam. It would be hard to interpret these verses as a spiritual struggle.
For instance, the Quran commands: "If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge thee on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while. Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter." (33:60-62)
Such teachings in Islam sanction slaughter against three groups:
- Muslims who refuse to "fight in the way of Allah" are hypocrites and they are to be massacred (3:167).
- People with "diseased hearts" -- including Jews and Christians (5:51-52; 33:61-62).
- "Alarmists," those who speak out against Islam, should also be slain. (33:62).
Worse yet, Muslims who do not join the fight are called "hypocrites" (Quran: 3:167) and warned that if they do not join the violence, they will be sent to a Hell of eternal fire. It is an order apparently intended to neutralize one's conscience, encourage and sanction human aggression, and promote murder -- seemingly why it has worked so well for so long. As the leading Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi admitted, "If they [Muslims] had gotten rid of the punishment for apostasy, Islam would not exist today."
Part of the appeal of the Islamic State to many of its young recruits seems to be this appetite for blood. It starts with videos of beheading men in orange jumpsuits, and now reasons for murder have spread to killing people for wanting to leave the IS -- not Islam, just the IS -- and, in the instance of women and girls, for refusing to marry jihadists.
On December 18, 2014, the Hindu Human Rights Group [HHR] reported that,
"Text books in Pakistani schools foster prejudice and intolerance of Hindus and other religious minorities, while most teachers view non-Muslims as 'enemies of Islam,' according to a study by a US government commission released on Wednesday."As seen easily in the history of Islamic militancy in Pakistan, if the extremist fundamentalists of this religion can find any Jews, Christians, Hindus, atheists or other non-Muslims, who are referred to in the Quran in less than favorable terms, the extremists target them[7]. Sometimes the extremists kill them, and sometimes they only forcibly convert them. If they cannot find non-Muslims, they attack the believers of other sects of Islam -- as in the battles between Sunnis and Shias. If people from those sects cannot be found to dehumanize and attack, then the extremists target their own members. If supremacy, conquest, violence and forced conversion are commanded and sanctioned in a religion to such a great extent, the number of victims of that religion will naturally continue to grow.
...
"The findings indicate how deeply ingrained hard-line Islam is in Pakistan and help explain why militancy is often supported, tolerated or excused in the country.... The textbooks make very little reference to the role played by Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in the cultural, military and civic life of Pakistan, meaning 'a young minority student will thus not find many examples of educated religious minorities in their own textbooks.'"
Fortunately, of course, most Muslims do not engage in fundamentalist Islam, jihad or violence, but this still does not mean that those teachings are not commanded by fundamentalist Islamic theology. Of course, that ideology should never be confused with individuals. Muslims should never be stereotyped, mistreated, or discriminated against just because of their Muslim identity. Islam needs to be analyzed on the basis of its teachings -- not on the basis of Muslims.
But that is why Islamic theology, ideology and goals desperately need to be discussed. They deeply affect the life choices most Muslims make.
[1] "It turns out," he writes, "that jihad occurs in large proportion in all three texts (Koran, Sira, and Hadith, or the Islamic Trilogy). It is very significant that the Sira (life of Muhammad) devotes 67% of its text to jihad.... Now let's go to the Hebrew Bible. When we count all the political violence, we find that 5.6% of the text is devoted to it. ... When we count the magnitude of words devoted to political violence, we have 327,547 words in the Trilogy (Koran, Sira, and Hadith) and 34,039 words in the Hebrew Bible. The Trilogy has 9.6 times as much wordage devoted to political violence as the Hebrew Bible."
[2] Hisham Aidi, for instance, a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Institute of African Affairs at Columbia University, argues whether extremist hip hop is helping the Islamic State. Instead, he should be asking, "are some certain Islamic teachings helping IS or why do the lyrics of extremist Muslim hip hop promote so much violence?
[3] Various students who were interviewed on the quad by Campus Reform said that they believe America, not the Muslim fanatics who behead innocent people, is the biggest threat to world peace.
[4] For example, David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Human Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, wrote that "ISIS has a legitimate grievance against Western countries that carved up the Middle East, with blatant disregard for tribal and sectarian affiliations of the local population.
[5] For instance: Psychiatrists Dr. Paul-André Lafleur, and Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem say that the homegrown radicalization of the two men -- Martin Couture Rouleau, who rammed his vehicle into two Canadian soldiers, killing one, and Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who shot dead a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in October -- stems from acute psychiatric problems of paranoia, personal identity crisis and possible psychosis. Rouleau, however, had called 911 during the chase to say that he carried out his acts in the name of Allah. Similarly, Zehaf-Bibeau had made a video prior to the attack in which he expressed his motives as being related "to Canada's foreign policy and in respect of his religious beliefs", according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
[6] On 29 June 2014, the Islamic State proclaimed a new caliphate and appointed al-Baghdadi as its caliph. Laith Kubba, the director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment of Democracy, explained: "Baghdadi declared a caliphate, and anyone who knows theology and the background would realize that this declaration, according to traditional fiqh, puts an obligation of anyone who is religiously observant to declare allegiance." When the caliphate was announced, IS stated: "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah's [caliphate's] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas."
How Iran Is Encircling the Gulf and Israel
Emboldened by Obama's obsession with the nuclear negotiations, which are set to resume next month, Iran's leaders apparently trust that the Obama Administration is prepared to turn a blind eye to whatever they do.
So the Iranians are apparently feeling free to meddle once again in the internal affairs of the Palestinians, to strengthen their hand still further in the Middle East.
With bases in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, Iran has surrounded Saudi Arabia and all the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. This encirclement can be comfortably backed with Iran's forthcoming nuclear weapons program.
Tehran's main goal is to regain control over the Palestinian Islamist movement so that it can turn itself into a player in the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The Iranians already have Hezbollah sitting on Israel's northern border. All they need now is another terror group in Gaza to the south, in order to create a similar encirclement. And they are working hard to achieve this goal.
Relations between Iran and Hamas had become strained after Hamas's refusal to support the regime of Iran's client, Syria's Bashar Assad, in his fight against the Syrian opposition forces.
Iran and Hamas need each other badly. Iran wants Hamas because it does not have many Sunni allies left in the region. An alliance with Hamas would enable Iran to rid itself of charges that it is leading a Shiite camp fighting against the Sunnis.
Hamas, for its part, is desperate for any outside support, especially in wake of its increased isolation in the Palestinian and international arenas.
Hamas is also beginning to feel the heat at home in light of its failure to rebuild the Gaza Strip after last summer's war with Israel. Hamas leaders are now hoping that Iran will resume its financial aid to the movement and avoid a situation where Palestinians might revolt against it.
Egypt's tough security measures along its border with the Gaza Strip, including the demolition of hundreds of smuggling tunnels and the creation of a security zone, have also tightened the noose on Hamas.
Hamas leaders say they have taken a "strategic" decision to restore their ties with Iran. Ismail Haniyeh, the former prime minister of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, announced recently that his movement is working toward establishing "open relations" with Iran.
Another Hamas leader, Osama Hamdan, announced that the differences between his movement and Iran have been resolved. He said that Hamas establishes its relations with all parties on the basis of providing support for the Palestinian cause. "We welcome any party that supports the Palestinian cause," Hamdan said. "Relations between Iran and Hamas have returned to normal."
As part of Hamas's efforts to appease the Iranians, the Islamist movement's armed wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, issued a rare statement "thanking Iran for providing money and weapons" to Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip over the past few years.
Hamas knows that improving its relations with Iran also means rapprochement with Tehran's proxies in Hezbollah. That is why Hamas has taken a number of steps over the past week to restore its ties with Hezbollah.
The commander of Izaddin al-Qassam, Mohamed Deif, last week sent a letter of condolence to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah over the death of some senior Hezbollah operatives, who were killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria.
In his letter, Deif called on Hezbollah to join forces with Hamas against "the real enemy -- the Zionist entity."
The Hamas-Iran rapprochement is yet another sign of Tehran's effort to use its allies in the Middle East to destroy Israel. Hamas leaders are now hoping that Iran will resume not only its financial aid to their movement, but the supply of weapons as well.
Iran is not interested in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip or providing shelter to thousands of Palestinian families who lost their homes during the last war. The only thing Iran is interested in there is turning Hamas into another Iranian-backed army that would be used to attack Israel. This is all happening at a time when the Obama Administration is busy preparing for another round of talks with Iran over its nuclear program. It is obvious by now that Tehran is using these negotiations to divert attention from its efforts to deepen its involvement in the Middle East, with the hope of taking over the oil fields and eliminating Israel.
With bases in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, Iran has surrounded all the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. This encirclement can be comfortably backed with Iran's forthcoming nuclear weapons program.As U.S. President Barack Obama continues to seek a negotiated deal on Iran's nuclear program, the Iranians have been working hard in recent weeks to infiltrate the Palestinian arena and re-establish ties with their erstwhile ally, Hamas.
The Iranians already have Hezbollah sitting on Israel's northern border. All they need now is another terror group sitting in Gaza to the south, in order to create a similar encirclement. And they are working hard to achieve that goal.
"We welcome any party that supports the Palestinian cause." — Osama Hamden, Hamas leader.
Iran is not interested in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The only thing Iran is interested in there is turning Hamas into another Iranian-backed army that would be used to attack Israel.
Emboldened by Obama's obsession with the nuclear negotiations, which are set to resume next month, Iran's leaders apparently trust that the Obama Administration is prepared to turn a blind eye to whatever they do.
So the Iranians are apparently feeling free to meddle once again in the internal affairs of the Palestinians, to strengthen their hand still further in the Middle East.
With bases in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, Iran has surrounded Saudi Arabia and all the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. This encirclement can be comfortably backed with Iran's forthcoming nuclear weapons program.
A ballistic missile on display in Iran. (Image source: Fars News)
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Tehran's main goal is to regain control over the Palestinian Islamist movement so that it can turn itself into a player in the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The Iranians already have Hezbollah sitting on Israel's northern border. All they need now is another terror group in Gaza to the south, in order to create a similar encirclement. And they are working hard to achieve this goal.
Relations between Iran and Hamas had become strained after Hamas's refusal to support the regime of Iran's client, Syria's Bashar Assad, in his fight against the Syrian opposition forces.
Iran and Hamas need each other badly. Iran wants Hamas because it does not have many Sunni allies left in the region. An alliance with Hamas would enable Iran to rid itself of charges that it is leading a Shiite camp fighting against the Sunnis.
Hamas, for its part, is desperate for any outside support, especially in wake of its increased isolation in the Palestinian and international arenas.
Hamas is also beginning to feel the heat at home in light of its failure to rebuild the Gaza Strip after last summer's war with Israel. Hamas leaders are now hoping that Iran will resume its financial aid to the movement and avoid a situation where Palestinians might revolt against it.
Egypt's tough security measures along its border with the Gaza Strip, including the demolition of hundreds of smuggling tunnels and the creation of a security zone, have also tightened the noose on Hamas.
Hamas leaders say they have taken a "strategic" decision to restore their ties with Iran. Ismail Haniyeh, the former prime minister of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, announced recently that his movement is working toward establishing "open relations" with Iran.
Another Hamas leader, Osama Hamdan, announced that the differences between his movement and Iran have been resolved. He said that Hamas establishes its relations with all parties on the basis of providing support for the Palestinian cause. "We welcome any party that supports the Palestinian cause," Hamdan said. "Relations between Iran and Hamas have returned to normal."
As part of Hamas's efforts to appease the Iranians, the Islamist movement's armed wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, issued a rare statement "thanking Iran for providing money and weapons" to Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip over the past few years.
Hamas knows that improving its relations with Iran also means rapprochement with Tehran's proxies in Hezbollah. That is why Hamas has taken a number of steps over the past week to restore its ties with Hezbollah.
The commander of Izaddin al-Qassam, Mohamed Deif, last week sent a letter of condolence to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah over the death of some senior Hezbollah operatives, who were killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria.
In his letter, Deif called on Hezbollah to join forces with Hamas against "the real enemy -- the Zionist entity."
The Hamas-Iran rapprochement is yet another sign of Tehran's effort to use its allies in the Middle East to destroy Israel. Hamas leaders are now hoping that Iran will resume not only its financial aid to their movement, but the supply of weapons as well.
Iran is not interested in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip or providing shelter to thousands of Palestinian families who lost their homes during the last war. The only thing Iran is interested in there is turning Hamas into another Iranian-backed army that would be used to attack Israel. This is all happening at a time when the Obama Administration is busy preparing for another round of talks with Iran over its nuclear program. It is obvious by now that Tehran is using these negotiations to divert attention from its efforts to deepen its involvement in the Middle East, with the hope of taking over the oil fields and eliminating Israel.
Europe's Real "Resistance"
When they come back to the countries to which their parents fled to escape the political and economic distress of the Arab and Muslim world, many of these mujahideen plan to kill their hosts in the name of extremist Islam. They will call their hosts "infidels," and kill them for the "crime" of not being Muslims.
Although Western countries mistakenly turn the spotlight on the Middle East, the real danger is in their own backyards. Thousands of young men are still being brainwashed by imams in mosques throughout Europe. Those who return from Syria and Iraq operate openly -- organizing, and waiting for orders – all in the name of freedom of expression.
When these orders come, bombs and rifles will not require trips to the Middle East; they have already been put in place.
The imams in the mosques and the Muslim field operatives hide behind democracy's ideology, its freedom of speech and worship, its individual liberty and pluralism – just as Muhammad did during the days of jahiliyya (the period of ignorance before Islam), when he began spreading Islam in a polytheistic Mecca -- which also allowed freedom of speech at that time.
Conditions for Islamic activity in Europe are perfect. The West has only good intentions: it desires to integrate its Muslims socially and economically. Yes, most Muslims are not terrorists, but that most terrorists are Muslims is slowly being internalized by a public suffering from naiveté and a serious lack of understanding of radical, violent Islam.
The refusal of people in the West to believe that extremist Muslims are serious when they state that their plan is to take over the world and impose sharia on it, may possibly be the result of fear -- either of physical, financial or political harm -- or possibly of political correctness. At best it blurs, and at worst conceals, radical Islam's intentions. Anyone who does reveal these intentions is condemned an "Islamophobe" a "racist" or accused of "hate speech."
These accusations are specifically designed to neutralize all opposition before it begins. The Westerners do not understand the Islamists' plan of action. Accusations make them helpless; their helplessness is broadcast to the Islamists. The Islamists then smell blood in the water and ratchet up their demands and murderous activities even more.
The most serious problem of the Western intelligence agencies is that most of their agents do not understand Arabic. This shortcoming makes it impossible to follow the nuances of both the imams and the field operatives. Worse yet, the Westerners seem not understand the Arabic mentality. The imams and operatives work ceaselessly and with great sophistication in their communities to accelerate the process of isolation and alienation. They nurture the poverty-stricken Muslims' sense of deprivation and rejection. They whip up a fabric of Islamist success. They talk about the partial victories of the Islamist terror organizations in the Middle East. They glorify the reputation of terrorism, and they instill a fear of radical Islam as a threatening rising power.
While radical Islam has been gaining strength and influence, Europe has been increasingly helpless regarding its Christian and Jewish populations, and has been seriously demonizing its Jews.
As Islamists increase in both numbers and power, they become more feared, more violent, and more attractive to young, neglected and marginalized Muslim youths, attracted to their power and happily recruited to a new "home."
The only active reaction in the West is the rise of various groups that say they will return Islam to what they say is its proper place. The patience of these groups seems to be wearing thin; a violent clash seems possible.
It is unfortunate that neither the radical Islamist ideologues nor the leaders of the moderate Muslim world understand either Europe's pluralist spirit or the damage they are doing by increasing this tension. A clash will harm most those Muslims living in Europe who seek nothing more than a normal life.
Sadly, the Muslim states that sponsor and incite global terrorism -- Sunni Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as Shi'ite Iran and its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah -- are now paving the way for the destruction of their own Islamic communities in Europe, in the name of a regressive and extremist Islam.
To pour oil on the flames of the European protestors, Turkey's President Erdogan is now hinting that Europe and Israel are to blame for the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket massacres in Paris, while the Egyptian Mufti has threatened Europe with hellfire and a bloodbath if cartoons "insulting the prophet" continue to be published.
The moderates in the Islamic communities in Europe understand the tragedy waiting in the wings for Muslim-Christian peaceful coexistence, and have made efforts to condemn the extremists responsible for them. But their voices are often too weak to be heard. These brave, non-extremist imams and neighborhood leaders know that terrorist operatives often attack as "infidels" anyone who dares to condemn their actions. They are understandably afraid of what will happen to them if they openly oppose violence and incitement.
Meanwhile, as Europe's economy disintegrates, immigrants, most of them Muslims from Turkey and Africa, continue to flood into Europe. As the indoctrination of hatred toward the West continues to escalate, no European country – or even the United States -- has found a way to keep radical, violent Islamist indoctrinations out of its mosques, community centers and hiding places.
Europeans so badly want to believe that the legacy of Islam is free from incitement to violence against the West. They hold close the notion that a non-violent Islam exists, which will not turn the Islamic legacy into a model for violence and terrorism. A non-violent, non-extremist Islam does exist, but it is not the one being marketed by charlatan imams and other extremist operatives pretending to be "moderate."
The West has been duped. Billions of dollars, including the laundered proceeds of crime, have been sent from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, to fund incitement and terrorist activities in schools, universities, and radical Islamic charities and institutions in the West. The governments of the West have been victimized and tricked by oil money, Islamic sophistry, voter blocs and political correctness.
By sticking its head in the sand and not taking legitimate steps, which indeed may occasionally impinge on some individual rights, to preserve the right to life, the West keeps itself and its population from understanding the real threat posed by extremist Islam. If Europe wants to take the necessary steps to protect itself, it is losing the race.
It does not take a prophet to see what is coming, or even a simple observer such as Libya's late leader, Colonel Muammar Gadhafi, who said that Europe would fall to the Muslims without a shot being fired.
The truth is, to understand how Europe is deteriorating and careening towards self-destruction, one should look at the limp-wristed policy of appeasement used by the EU in general, and France in particular, when dealing with the conflicts in the Middle East -- the years of dedicated cynicism, corruption, cowardice and the distortion of the truth in the service of narrow, short-term self-interests.
Europe's policies harm first the Palestinians because they encourage radical organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and now the Islamic State [IS], which halt progress towards a Palestinian state. When Europe claims that Hamas is a "legitimate resistance organization" -- rather than a vicious, terrorist organization with no recognizable standard of ethical behavior or morality -- it torpedoes all chances of creating a decently governed State of Palestine -- one that will not be ruled, now or in the future, by rampaging Islamist terrorists.
Like it or not -- and frankly this author does not -- the last bulwark keeping radical Islamism from engulfing Europe is Israel. Nevertheless, for decades France has supported the Arab-Muslim world against Israel, the result of latent and not-so-latent anti-Semitism, oil, and most of all, the political pressure of its indoctrinated Islamic community.
France's hypocrisy and treachery are famous throughout history. In its weakness, France tries to curry favor with the Arabs and radical Islam, thereby inviting blackmail and setting the table for its own submission.
In view of the conduct of Europe in general, and France in particular, it should come as no surprise that by yoking us Palestinians like farm animals to our leaders, who are the real beasts, they are betraying the Palestinians.
Europe's policies of encouraging groups such as Hamas, which constantly espouse violence, demolishes the Palestinian effort to achieve a responsible Palestinian state that finally could end the conflict with Israel.
The French have naïvely taken the bait: they now associate the Palestinian "Resistance" with the courageous French underground Résistance, which fought the Germans during World War II. As they admire the French Résistance, they incorrectly assume that the Palestinian "Resistance" must be a good thing, too.
But, as they well know, there is no way to compare them. The Palestinian "Resistance" is nothing more than terrorist organizations repressing their own people. They do not resist an evil force; they are an evil force.
The problem is that in setting up the Arabs to get rid of the Jews -- so the Europeans can pretend to themselves that they had nothing to do with it -- the people they are hurting are not only the Jews and Palestinians. By encouraging Hamas, Islamic Jihad and now even the Islamic State in the region, they are obtusely hurting themselves.
That is why overtly and covertly, the French hypocritically support Palestinian terrorism instead of supporting genuine efforts for a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are betting on the wrong pony.
That is also why the French support the UN and UNRWA, which perpetuate the Palestinian problem, instead of demanding that the Arab states, where many of the Palestinians reside, absorb them, grant them citizenship and set them free. The truth is that they do not really care about the Palestinians, only about destroying Israel. That is why the European Union so easily removed Hamas from its terrorist list. Similar to this was the French decision unilaterally to recognize the "State of Palestine" -- despite the fact that the Palestinian national consensus government is made up of Hamas and the PLO. Both are unrepentant terrorist organizations. Both not only openly incite terrorism and violence and call for Israel's extinction, but also train their own children for nothing but violence when they are not using them as cannon fodder. All that would seem to show what France really cares about, and it has nothing to do with free speech, democracy, good governance and least of all the well-being of the Palestinians. The only thing it is clear they care about is getting rid of the Jews.
France's hypocrisy in calling the Israelis "occupiers" ignores the fact that Israel did not invade, conquer and occupy a Palestinian state: there never has been a Palestinian state. France also ignores the fact that in fairness, the Israelis have never said they wish to destroy the Palestinian people, while, to be frank, every day we Palestinians speak and make plans about how we will destroy Israel.
France further ignores the fact that that so-called Palestinian "resistance" -- in the form of the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Popular Resistance Committees -- has, since its inception and throughout its history, done nothing but murder and maim Jewish civilians.
Now, in new summits of hypocrisy, the International Criminal Court [ICC] is planning to investigate Israel for war crimes because it had the gall to defend itself against terrorism, while what did Europe do? Europe -- in the face of slaughter, bloodshed and atrocities committed by extremist Muslims -- invited every terrorist-sponsoring dictator to join it in a march to protest the very murders that these dictators had paid for.
Europe dozes as the Palestinian terrorist organizations continue their ceaseless efforts to destroy the Palestinians, as well as Israel and the Jews. Then Europe awakens periodically to support the Palestinian "Resistance," which bears no resemblance whatever to the French Résistance of World War II.
An Arab proverb says, "a dog will have a crooked tail even if you put it in splints for forty years." There is no difference between Hamas's aspirations to be "liberated from the Zionist occupation," and radical Islam's aspirations to be liberated from the "Christian occupation" in Europe -- from France to Andalusia to Vienna -- to enable Islam to take over the world.
The willingness of the French to view terrorism, whether Palestinian or Hezbollah, as "legitimate Resistance" is an all-time low.
No terrorism is legitimate: Not terrorism against Jews, not terrorism against Palestinians, not terrorism against Christians in the Middle East and not terrorism against cartoonists in France. For the sake of the future State of Palestine, all "Resistance" should be against radical Islam, as embodied by groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, among others. They are the ones we should resist. They should not be allowed to rule us in some Islamist "Palestinian State."
Europe's policies of encouraging groups such as Hamas, which constantly espouse violence, demolishes the Palestinian effort to achieve a responsible Palestinian state that finally could end the conflict with Israel.
The West has been duped. The French have naïvely taken the bait: they now associate Palestinian "Resistance" with the courageous French underground Résistance that fought the Germans in World War II. They incorrectly assume that the Palestinian "Resistance' must be a good thing, too.
But the Palestinian Resistance bears no resemblance to the French Résistance of Word War II. There is no way to compare them. The Palestinian "Resistance" is nothing more than terrorist organizations repressing their own people. They do not resist an evil force; they are an evil force.Europeans, both civilians and law enforcement personnel, may well be on tenterhooks, wondering what thousands of young Muslim men and women, who left their countries of origin to join the Islamist terrorist organizations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Africa, will do when they return. Europeans have reason to be concerned: many of the returning jihadists were trained to murder civilians.
The truth is that the Europeans do not really care about the Palestinians, only about destroying Israel.
Now the International Criminal Court is planning to investigate Israel because it had the gall to defend itself against terrorism, while what did Europe do? Europe, in the face of terrorism, invited every terrorist-sponsoring dictator to join it in a march to protest the very murders that these dictators had paid for.
There is no difference between Hamas's aspirations to be "liberated from the Zionist occupation," and radical Islam's aspirations to be liberated from the "Christian occupation" of Europe.
All "Resistance" should be against radical Islam as embodied by groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Islamic State, among others. They are the ones we should resist. They should not be allowed to rule us in some Islamist "Palestinian State."
When they come back to the countries to which their parents fled to escape the political and economic distress of the Arab and Muslim world, many of these mujahideen plan to kill their hosts in the name of extremist Islam. They will call their hosts "infidels," and kill them for the "crime" of not being Muslims.
Although Western countries mistakenly turn the spotlight on the Middle East, the real danger is in their own backyards. Thousands of young men are still being brainwashed by imams in mosques throughout Europe. Those who return from Syria and Iraq operate openly -- organizing, and waiting for orders – all in the name of freedom of expression.
When these orders come, bombs and rifles will not require trips to the Middle East; they have already been put in place.
The imams in the mosques and the Muslim field operatives hide behind democracy's ideology, its freedom of speech and worship, its individual liberty and pluralism – just as Muhammad did during the days of jahiliyya (the period of ignorance before Islam), when he began spreading Islam in a polytheistic Mecca -- which also allowed freedom of speech at that time.
Conditions for Islamic activity in Europe are perfect. The West has only good intentions: it desires to integrate its Muslims socially and economically. Yes, most Muslims are not terrorists, but that most terrorists are Muslims is slowly being internalized by a public suffering from naiveté and a serious lack of understanding of radical, violent Islam.
The refusal of people in the West to believe that extremist Muslims are serious when they state that their plan is to take over the world and impose sharia on it, may possibly be the result of fear -- either of physical, financial or political harm -- or possibly of political correctness. At best it blurs, and at worst conceals, radical Islam's intentions. Anyone who does reveal these intentions is condemned an "Islamophobe" a "racist" or accused of "hate speech."
These accusations are specifically designed to neutralize all opposition before it begins. The Westerners do not understand the Islamists' plan of action. Accusations make them helpless; their helplessness is broadcast to the Islamists. The Islamists then smell blood in the water and ratchet up their demands and murderous activities even more.
The most serious problem of the Western intelligence agencies is that most of their agents do not understand Arabic. This shortcoming makes it impossible to follow the nuances of both the imams and the field operatives. Worse yet, the Westerners seem not understand the Arabic mentality. The imams and operatives work ceaselessly and with great sophistication in their communities to accelerate the process of isolation and alienation. They nurture the poverty-stricken Muslims' sense of deprivation and rejection. They whip up a fabric of Islamist success. They talk about the partial victories of the Islamist terror organizations in the Middle East. They glorify the reputation of terrorism, and they instill a fear of radical Islam as a threatening rising power.
A Salafist demonstration in Solingen, Germany on May 1, 2012, moments before it degenerated into a violent riot. (Image source: YouTube video screenshot)
|
While radical Islam has been gaining strength and influence, Europe has been increasingly helpless regarding its Christian and Jewish populations, and has been seriously demonizing its Jews.
As Islamists increase in both numbers and power, they become more feared, more violent, and more attractive to young, neglected and marginalized Muslim youths, attracted to their power and happily recruited to a new "home."
The only active reaction in the West is the rise of various groups that say they will return Islam to what they say is its proper place. The patience of these groups seems to be wearing thin; a violent clash seems possible.
It is unfortunate that neither the radical Islamist ideologues nor the leaders of the moderate Muslim world understand either Europe's pluralist spirit or the damage they are doing by increasing this tension. A clash will harm most those Muslims living in Europe who seek nothing more than a normal life.
Sadly, the Muslim states that sponsor and incite global terrorism -- Sunni Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as Shi'ite Iran and its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah -- are now paving the way for the destruction of their own Islamic communities in Europe, in the name of a regressive and extremist Islam.
To pour oil on the flames of the European protestors, Turkey's President Erdogan is now hinting that Europe and Israel are to blame for the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket massacres in Paris, while the Egyptian Mufti has threatened Europe with hellfire and a bloodbath if cartoons "insulting the prophet" continue to be published.
The moderates in the Islamic communities in Europe understand the tragedy waiting in the wings for Muslim-Christian peaceful coexistence, and have made efforts to condemn the extremists responsible for them. But their voices are often too weak to be heard. These brave, non-extremist imams and neighborhood leaders know that terrorist operatives often attack as "infidels" anyone who dares to condemn their actions. They are understandably afraid of what will happen to them if they openly oppose violence and incitement.
Meanwhile, as Europe's economy disintegrates, immigrants, most of them Muslims from Turkey and Africa, continue to flood into Europe. As the indoctrination of hatred toward the West continues to escalate, no European country – or even the United States -- has found a way to keep radical, violent Islamist indoctrinations out of its mosques, community centers and hiding places.
Europeans so badly want to believe that the legacy of Islam is free from incitement to violence against the West. They hold close the notion that a non-violent Islam exists, which will not turn the Islamic legacy into a model for violence and terrorism. A non-violent, non-extremist Islam does exist, but it is not the one being marketed by charlatan imams and other extremist operatives pretending to be "moderate."
The West has been duped. Billions of dollars, including the laundered proceeds of crime, have been sent from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, to fund incitement and terrorist activities in schools, universities, and radical Islamic charities and institutions in the West. The governments of the West have been victimized and tricked by oil money, Islamic sophistry, voter blocs and political correctness.
By sticking its head in the sand and not taking legitimate steps, which indeed may occasionally impinge on some individual rights, to preserve the right to life, the West keeps itself and its population from understanding the real threat posed by extremist Islam. If Europe wants to take the necessary steps to protect itself, it is losing the race.
It does not take a prophet to see what is coming, or even a simple observer such as Libya's late leader, Colonel Muammar Gadhafi, who said that Europe would fall to the Muslims without a shot being fired.
The truth is, to understand how Europe is deteriorating and careening towards self-destruction, one should look at the limp-wristed policy of appeasement used by the EU in general, and France in particular, when dealing with the conflicts in the Middle East -- the years of dedicated cynicism, corruption, cowardice and the distortion of the truth in the service of narrow, short-term self-interests.
Europe's policies harm first the Palestinians because they encourage radical organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and now the Islamic State [IS], which halt progress towards a Palestinian state. When Europe claims that Hamas is a "legitimate resistance organization" -- rather than a vicious, terrorist organization with no recognizable standard of ethical behavior or morality -- it torpedoes all chances of creating a decently governed State of Palestine -- one that will not be ruled, now or in the future, by rampaging Islamist terrorists.
Like it or not -- and frankly this author does not -- the last bulwark keeping radical Islamism from engulfing Europe is Israel. Nevertheless, for decades France has supported the Arab-Muslim world against Israel, the result of latent and not-so-latent anti-Semitism, oil, and most of all, the political pressure of its indoctrinated Islamic community.
France's hypocrisy and treachery are famous throughout history. In its weakness, France tries to curry favor with the Arabs and radical Islam, thereby inviting blackmail and setting the table for its own submission.
In view of the conduct of Europe in general, and France in particular, it should come as no surprise that by yoking us Palestinians like farm animals to our leaders, who are the real beasts, they are betraying the Palestinians.
Europe's policies of encouraging groups such as Hamas, which constantly espouse violence, demolishes the Palestinian effort to achieve a responsible Palestinian state that finally could end the conflict with Israel.
The French have naïvely taken the bait: they now associate the Palestinian "Resistance" with the courageous French underground Résistance, which fought the Germans during World War II. As they admire the French Résistance, they incorrectly assume that the Palestinian "Resistance" must be a good thing, too.
But, as they well know, there is no way to compare them. The Palestinian "Resistance" is nothing more than terrorist organizations repressing their own people. They do not resist an evil force; they are an evil force.
The problem is that in setting up the Arabs to get rid of the Jews -- so the Europeans can pretend to themselves that they had nothing to do with it -- the people they are hurting are not only the Jews and Palestinians. By encouraging Hamas, Islamic Jihad and now even the Islamic State in the region, they are obtusely hurting themselves.
That is why overtly and covertly, the French hypocritically support Palestinian terrorism instead of supporting genuine efforts for a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are betting on the wrong pony.
That is also why the French support the UN and UNRWA, which perpetuate the Palestinian problem, instead of demanding that the Arab states, where many of the Palestinians reside, absorb them, grant them citizenship and set them free. The truth is that they do not really care about the Palestinians, only about destroying Israel. That is why the European Union so easily removed Hamas from its terrorist list. Similar to this was the French decision unilaterally to recognize the "State of Palestine" -- despite the fact that the Palestinian national consensus government is made up of Hamas and the PLO. Both are unrepentant terrorist organizations. Both not only openly incite terrorism and violence and call for Israel's extinction, but also train their own children for nothing but violence when they are not using them as cannon fodder. All that would seem to show what France really cares about, and it has nothing to do with free speech, democracy, good governance and least of all the well-being of the Palestinians. The only thing it is clear they care about is getting rid of the Jews.
France's hypocrisy in calling the Israelis "occupiers" ignores the fact that Israel did not invade, conquer and occupy a Palestinian state: there never has been a Palestinian state. France also ignores the fact that in fairness, the Israelis have never said they wish to destroy the Palestinian people, while, to be frank, every day we Palestinians speak and make plans about how we will destroy Israel.
France further ignores the fact that that so-called Palestinian "resistance" -- in the form of the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Popular Resistance Committees -- has, since its inception and throughout its history, done nothing but murder and maim Jewish civilians.
Now, in new summits of hypocrisy, the International Criminal Court [ICC] is planning to investigate Israel for war crimes because it had the gall to defend itself against terrorism, while what did Europe do? Europe -- in the face of slaughter, bloodshed and atrocities committed by extremist Muslims -- invited every terrorist-sponsoring dictator to join it in a march to protest the very murders that these dictators had paid for.
Europe dozes as the Palestinian terrorist organizations continue their ceaseless efforts to destroy the Palestinians, as well as Israel and the Jews. Then Europe awakens periodically to support the Palestinian "Resistance," which bears no resemblance whatever to the French Résistance of World War II.
An Arab proverb says, "a dog will have a crooked tail even if you put it in splints for forty years." There is no difference between Hamas's aspirations to be "liberated from the Zionist occupation," and radical Islam's aspirations to be liberated from the "Christian occupation" in Europe -- from France to Andalusia to Vienna -- to enable Islam to take over the world.
The willingness of the French to view terrorism, whether Palestinian or Hezbollah, as "legitimate Resistance" is an all-time low.
No terrorism is legitimate: Not terrorism against Jews, not terrorism against Palestinians, not terrorism against Christians in the Middle East and not terrorism against cartoonists in France. For the sake of the future State of Palestine, all "Resistance" should be against radical Islam, as embodied by groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, among others. They are the ones we should resist. They should not be allowed to rule us in some Islamist "Palestinian State."
Committees of Safety live Talk
Thursday Jan 29 at 6:00pm PST and call-in(347) 826-7353
We can all agree that our government is corrupt. But does that mean our Constitutional
Republic is?
The answer is simple…..It is the agents of the government
that make bad laws, judges who violate your protected rights and law agents who
enforce them. Want to stop those
corrupt agents?
HEREAS the Preservation of our Country from Slavery, depends
under God, on an effectual Execution of the Continental and Provincial Measures
for that Purpose:
RESOLVED, That there be now appointed for each County in
this Colony, a Committee consisting of Five Persons, any Three of whom to be a
Quorum, whose Business it shall be, to receive from the Committees of
Correspondence in their respective Counties, a State of the Conduct of the Towns
and Districts, with Respect to their having executed the Continental and
Provincial Plans as aforesaid ; and it shall be the Duty of said Committees to
meet on the first Wednesdays of May, July, September, November, January and
March, and prepare a Report of the same, to be laid before the Congress at it's
then next Session, that any Neglect of such Towns and Districts in executing
such Plans, may be speedily and effectually remedied.
Also, RESOLVED, That it be, and it is hereby strongly
recommended, to the Committees of Correspondence in the several Towns and
Districts in this Colony, some Time before the first Wednesday in May, July,
September, November, January and March aforesaid, to render to any one of the
Members of their County Committees aforesaid, a true State of the Conduct of
their respective Towns and Districts, with Respect to their having executed
each Plan recommended by the Continental and Provincial Congresses ; and to use
their utmost Diligence for this important Purpose.
And whereas some Towns and Districts in the Colony, may be
destitute of so excellent an Institution as Committees of Correspondence :
RESOLVED, That it be, and it hereby is strongly recommended
to such Towns and Districts, forthwith to choose them, and to afford them
Assistance at all Times, in effectually suppressing the Efforts of the Enemies
of America, whenever they shall make them.
Signed by Order of the Provincial Congress,
Restore righteous lawful government to the American People
with Kelby Smith
Jan 27 at 5:00pm PST
call-in (347) 826-7353
In order to
understand the foundation of the Government of the United States it is
important to not only understand the words that are used in our founding
documents and laws but also the context and the paradigm from which they came. It is well documented that many of the
Founders were men who believed in the Bible.
The 1st Amendment that was ratified years later prohibits the Congress
from enacting any law that establishes or prohibits the free exercise of one’s
religion, however, because of their beliefs many of the words and concepts that
are part of the foundation of the United States are defined by Scripture and
are discussed here for clarity and because they are fundamental to the
authority of We the People. Any
reference is provided that the reader may verify and validate the accuracy of
what is presented for your review.
In the beginning God created man (Gen 1:26). And God blessed them, and God said unto them,
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Gen 1:28)
These two verses establish our authority as men to have
separate and equal station among the powers of the earth. It is from Scripture that we get the word
“dominion” which is defined as “Sovereign or supreme authority; the power of
governing and controlling.” Unalienable
Rights cannot be taken or given away. We
the People delegated “just powers” by our consent to institute the government
of the United States to “secure these rights.”
All political power is inherent in the People. We the People ARE the government. If there was no government WHO would perform
the duties that were delegated to it? We
the People would, right? And, if the
People did not enumerate it, they reserved it to themselves. Therefore, if we did not give the power, we
retained it. Once we gave it, we are
subject to it and must abide in it. A
Republican Form of Government is “Rule of Law”, not politics, religion, special
interests and the like.
In September of 1787 the Continental Congress adopted the
Constitution for the United States of America and submitted it back to the
State Legislatures for ratification. So
the supreme Law of the Land was not a work of just one political body (the
Continental Congress/federal government but also required the approval
(ratification) of at least nine of the thirteen original States for it to
become Law. This was accomplished by
June of 1788 when New Hampshire became the ninth State which gave the
Constitution for the United States force and effect. By September of 1788 the Founders had passed
a resolution to establish a seat of government, when to hold elections and the
date that the Government of the United States would begin operations under the
Constitution; March 4, 1789.
The Constitution is widely misunderstood. Some believe that this is where we derive our
Rights as Americans. Some believe that
the Constitution is a “living document”.
Some recognize it as a mere inconvenience. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6 “My people are
destroyed for lack of knowledge”. The
reason that the People of the United States suffer at the hands of an imposter
government is for “lack of knowledge”.
This website is devoted to the truth.
The Constitution for the United States of America is a “system” of
governance that was established by the consent of the People. Shouldn’t we KNOW what it says? The reason it does not “appear” to work is
because most do not know what it says?
After all, how can you follow something you have never read?
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sisterthundershow/2015/01/28/restore-righteous-lawful-government-to-the-american-people-with-kelby-smith
The Constitution is a body of orders that the People issued
to the government to secure their Rights and provide for the things that we
have in “common” among the States. The
government Officials and Members of Congress do not answer to the People, they
answer to the Constitution. The
Constitution answers to the People! The
Constitution defends itself, it requires “support”. That is what we are lacking in the United
States at this time — “support” for the Constitution. The oath that the Congress takes is “to
support the Constitution of the United States”.
Their oath is not to the People, it is to support the orders of the
People which is embodied in the Constitution, Treaties and Statutes of the
United States first, and then to the State governments and what is not
enumerated is reserved to the People.
There is a great misconception that the People are in charge of the
government. That is simply not so, the
government answers to the Constitution, the Constitution answers to the People.
The issues that we face today in America are because the
Constitution has not been supported! It
would surprise MOST of America to learn that there are NO political parties in
the federal government! The People did
not enumerate in the federal Constitution the power for the government to be
partisan in ANY way! Their only duty is
to support the Constitution! The
Constitution secures the Rights of the People.
The powers not given to the federal government were reserved to the
State OR to the People. The People never
surrendered Rights or authority; they delegated powers to the government to
perform certain duties in a specific way.
And they provided for the government to remove any individual who failed
to comply with the duties as ordered. It
is a marvelous system!
In the first session of Congress, the Founders passed the
Judiciary Act of 1789. In section 34 of
that Act is says: “And be it further enacted, That the laws of the several
states, except where the constitution, treaties or statutes of the United
States shall otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision
in trials at common law in the courts of the United States in cases where they
apply.” Further, in 1791 The
Legislatures of the several States ratified the “Bill of Rights”. The 5th Amendment to the Constitution says:
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,
unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising
in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time
of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence
to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be
taken for public use, without just compensation.”
During the decade surrounding the events of the Civil War
the Constitution for the United States of America was usurped through
unconstitutional acts. The oath that was
established for Congress was changed so that Congress became Officers and not
Members who hold seats. In a Republican
Form of Government, those who are elected or appointed go “in our place” to
“support the Constitution”. If no power
is given, no action can be taken. Once
established, the Constitution requires “amendment” by a specific process and
the Rights of the People cannot be “legislated” away. The Congress also RE-defined words that have
a significant impact on our lives today and mixed the Republican Form of
Government that was authorized by the People with a corporate democratic
structure. This comingling of terms,
jurisdictions, law forms and politics has led the American People into
slavery. The People have been RE-created
as corporate fictions, never authorized by the Constitution.
The Republic for the United States of America is comprised
of People just like you. One must be a
citizen of the United States to vote, hold office or be an elector in the
Republic. It is NOT the wicked thing
that the Corporation called the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA makes it out to
be. We were born here in America or
naturalized according to Law. We have
taken a stand for the truth and invite you to join us in that plight. There is no need for violence. We do not require the permission of a fiction
to maintain the form of government that WE authorized. No person in the United States may be
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. As stated above, the laws of the States are
the measure of Law, not the precedent, case law, administrative process,
etc…that we have been subjected to all our lives.
There are those who would attempt to have us believe that we
CAN be deprived of our Rights without due process. How can that be true if our Rights are God
given and unalienable? It simply
requires the American People to not KNOW the difference. We have devoted ourselves to learning and
disseminating the truth and ask you to join us.
There are a number of ways to “support the
Constitution”. Below you will find a way
to sign up to affirm your support. Every
person born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen of the United
States and has unalienable Rights. That
is what the Constitution secures to you, and the Republic for the United States
of America “supports” the Constitution.
If you are concerned about your name being associated with organizations
that are not part of the Corporation and are considered to be part of a
“sovereign citizen movement” we understand.
You have several options to affirm your support, volunteer your talents
and skills, or just receive updates by email. You are not required to sign up
on this site unless you want to take part in filling the vacancies that
occurred when the Corporation usurped and set aside the Republican Form of
Government during the Civil War. Each of
the several States has already been accepted into the United States and if you
were born in one of those States, or naturalized into the United States, your
Rights cannot be taken from you. We are
looking for those who are willing to fill the vacancies in the States and
federal government during this interim time of government so that we can
prepare to have a fully informed, fully disclosed election under the
Constitution with the full support of the American People.
Will They Index Debts?
By: Tom Chatham
For those keeping up with the economic game of bumper cars
we are playing, it seems likely that money printing will continue to the point
of possible hyperinflation at some point. It is not a foregone conclusion but
it seems likely. In that event what is the individual to do?
Some that have seen this possibility have come to realize
that holding large amounts of debt before hyperinflation hits would allow them
to pay off this debt with basically worthless currency and come out way ahead
in the wealth game. That works in theory but how about in reality?
The bankers and politicians control the money supply and are
even now cashing in their paper wealth for tangibles that are actually worth
something. These people want it all and you can be assured of one thing. They
will take the people to the cleaners before they are done with their
redistribution of wealth.
Some may find themselves in a position to come ahead during
any hyperinflation but they will be few and far between. The majority will not
be allowed to come ahead at the bankers expense. The bankers after all created
all of this easy credit that everyone uses and the sole purpose is to use it to
separate the population from the hard assets that exist.
For those with substantial wealth accumulated, the first
priority is to steal that paper wealth from the people. With that wealth gone
they will not be able to preserve the hard assets they have that are not fully
owned yet. Once that paper wealth is gone the bankers will need to inflate the
money supply and force the majority into default on their assets. In a
hyperinflation paychecks will not be able to keep up with rising prices and
people will slowly fall behind until they lose it all.
For those that continue getting paid every week, the
inflating pay will eat away at the debts faster and faster. To avoid losing
real money, the bankers may index debts in order to prevent losing the leverage
they created from nothing. When you index you basically increase the value of
the debt at the same rate as inflation.
For those that say this will not work because they have a
contract with the bank fixing the payment I can only say, do you really think
these people will let you get over on them. These are the people that own the
government and change the rules on a daily basis when it suits their needs. All
that needs to happen is the government pass a law allowing the banks to index
all debts and it will be a done deal.
I am not saying this will happen, but it could happen so you
need to think about that and incorporate it into any plans you make to get
through a currency collapse. If your plan is simply to pay off debt with
devaluing currency and they index, you will not be in any better position than
everyone else.
One way some will come out ahead is by having their excess
wealth in precious metals. These assets will increase at or above the rate of
inflation and allow the holders to maintain their buying power. The U.S. called
in the gold in 1933 and could do it again but it is not likely. The main reason
is that in 1933 gold was still part of the money supply and was held by the
general population in large amounts. Very few people hold gold today and most
of the ones that do are the very people that make the laws and they will not
shoot themselves in the foot.
They may place a tax on any precious metals that are sold
and use that as a way to control the smaller holders of metals but a house to
house confiscation is not likely unless they just happen to target you for some
other reason and find some in your possession and decide to take it.
Ultimately, any paper currency only has the value that those printing it will
give you. Metals can be used worldwide and have universal value. That is what
makes metals more appealing than paper.
If currencies are
destroyed in the future you can be assured that the perpetrators have a plan in
place to prevent the majority from profiting from it on any large scale. Those
that create the credit only care about owning everything they can get their
hands on. Their greed knows no limits. With ownership of all assets comes
complete control of the population. That is the end game for many. For those
that see danger on the horizon it only makes sense to look ahead and plan for
any contingency that may cost you everything you have.
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