Posts Tagged ‘UNITED NATIONS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 17, 2023 at 12:16 am
Americans are suckers for children. Even if many of them might come wrapped in suicide vests.
On September 2, 2015, the body of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey.
He and his family had boarded a small rubber boat to reach Europe amid the carnage of the Syrian civil war. The boat capsized.
The resulting photo flashed around the world and triggered international demands by humanitarian organizations that the West “do something.”
Drowned Alan Kurdi lies on a Turkish beach
Only eight days later, on September 10, 2015, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that it would take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrian refugees over the next year. That was in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States had already accepted.
Almost one year later—on August 17, 2016—another photo captured the world’s attention.
It depicted a five-year-old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance. Covered head to toe in dust, his face bloodied, he seemed dazed. He had been pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria.
Once again, demands arose among liberal interventionists, especially in the United States: “We must do something.”
All of which overlooks the increasing threat posed to the United States by Islamic terrorism.
According to U.S. Census data, America legally welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are at least 3.45 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
Meanwhile, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, then-FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faced in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers. But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see [the FBI’s] stopping these [plots] indefinitely.”
The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts—against seven million potential suspects. And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
And even children, for all their supposed innocence, are not to be ignored as potential weapons of Islamic terrorist organizations.
On August 20, 2016, a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 attacked a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, killing at least 51 people. Preliminary evidence indicated that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was behind the attack.
Palestinian child suicide bomber
America may well become a similar target for child suicide bombers.
How did all of this come to be?
On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war. By December, 2022, it was estimated that 580,000 Syrians had so far died in the conflict.
Put in a positive way:
- More than 580,000 potential or actual Islamic terrorists will never again pose a threat to the United States or Western Europe.
- Additional thousands are certain to follow their example.
- And the United States cannot be held in any way responsible for it.
But Americans and Europeans have chosen to see these positives as negatives.
The United Nations refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that, in 2021, 123,300 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. .
And while the West has thrown open its doors to fleeing Syrians, the reaction of neighboring Islamic nations has been entirely different.
This was brutally but accurately depicted in a cartoon of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at the body of Alan Kurdi.
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for their Islamic brethren.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries—Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain—have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Meanwhile, democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential—if not actual—Islamic terrorists.
* * * * *
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 40,000 people to date in both countries.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Turkey—long a staunch NATO ally—has tilted increasingly toward Russia. Syria, meanwhile, remains an international pariah owing to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and his support of anti-Western terrorism.
Yet that hasn’t prevented both countries from pleading with the “infidel” West to sacrifice money and resources on their behalf. And, once again, the West is responding with unearned generosity.
As always, the type of aid most sought is money. In response, Doctors Without Borders, for example, is running full-page ads soliciting donations from $5 to $1,000.
As Karl Marx once famously said—but in another context: “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2023 at 12:10 am
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), running for reelection in 2022, minced no words in her fundraising email: She opened by attacking “Joe Biden’s Communist Green New Deal.”
Then, after slandering Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WYO), Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) and Adam Kinzinger (R-ILL), she warned that Never Trumpers were colluding “with Communist Democrats to rig the 2022 and 2024 elections.”
And she attacked the January 6 House Committee—charged with investigating the treasonous attack on the Capitol Building by Donald Trump’s followers—as the “January 6 Witch Hunt Committee.”
According to Greene, President Biden was “crippling American energy production to impose socialism on America.”
“I know with your help, we can stop communism and save America,” Greene concluded.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Since the late 1940s, attacking “Communism” and “socialism” has become standard operating procedure for Republicans running for election—and reelection.
Thus, President Donald Trump, addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations, on September 24, 2019: “One of the most serious challenges our countries face is the specter of socialism. It’s the wrecker of nations and the destroyer of societies.”
He cited Venezuela as an example of the failures of socialism, and denounced its president, Nicolás Maduro, as a “Cuban puppet.”
And Trump warned: “Socialism and communism are about one thing only: Power for the ruling class. Today I repeat a message to the world that I have delivered at home: America will never be a socialist country.”
Donald Trump
Yet despite such attacks on socialism and communism, many Republicans—including Trump and Greene—have found cause to empathize with infamous Communist dictators.
Trump stands out predominantly as the first American President known to have colluded with a Russian dictator.
This was an open secret—most explicitly advertised by both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 28, 2019.
That advertisement came when the two met in Osaka, Japan—their first since the March 22 release of the Mueller Report, which documented Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
An NBC News reporter asked: Would you tell Putin not to meddle in the 2020 Presidential election?
“Yes, of course I will,” replied Trump, grinning. “Don’t meddle in the election, please.”
And he jokingly wagged his finger at Putin: “Don’t meddle in the election.”
Putin grinned back.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Trump’s affinity for Communist dictators didn’t end with Putin. He boasted that, during an exchange of letters with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, “we fell in love.”
Had a Democrat made such a boast, Republicans would have branded him a Communist traitor.
And while Trump has slandered literally hundreds of Americans and the leaders of the NATO alliance, he has never once criticized Russian president Vladimir Putin for anything.
Trump is by no means the only Republican to cuddle up with Communists.
Seven House Republicans—Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Matt Gaetz (FL), Andy Biggs (AZ), Lauren Boebert (CO), Dan Bishop (N.C.) and Chip Roy (TX)—voted against stripping Russia of “most favored nation” status after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Nor is admiration of Russia confined to Right-wing politicians.
Franklin Graham, the son of the late Reverend Billy Graham, praised Putin for a 2013 law that banned “propaganda” promoting “nontraditional” relationships for children.
“Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue—protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda—Russia’s standard is higher than our own?” Graham wrote. “In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues.”
Franklin Graham
James Kirchick, an American reporter, foreign correspondent, author, and columnist, has indicted Republicans generally for their fervent embrace of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
As he wrote in a July 27, 2017 essay, “How the GOP Became the Party of Putin”:
“For the past four years, I worked at a think tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative, that was bankrolled by Republican donors and regularly criticized the Obama administration….
“What I never expected was that the Republican Party—which once stood for a muscular, moralistic approach to the world, and which helped bring down the Soviet Union—would become a willing accomplice of what the previous Republican presidential nominee rightly called our No. 1 geopolitical foe: Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”
How did this come about?
“Russia’s intelligence operatives are among the world’s best. I believe they made a keen study of the American political scene and realized that, during the Obama years, the conservative movement had become ripe for manipulation. Long gone was its principled opposition to the ‘evil empire.’
“What was left was an intellectually and morally desiccated carcass populated by con artists, opportunists, entertainers and grifters operating massively profitable book publishers, radio empires, websites, and a TV network whose stock-in-trade are not ideas but resentments….
“Surveying this lamentable scene, why wouldn’t Russia try to ‘turn’ the American right, whose ethical rot necessarily precedes its rank unscrupulousness?
“Why wouldn’t a ‘religious right’ that embraced a boastfully immoral charlatan like Donald Trump not turn a blind eye toward—or, in the case of [evangelical pastor] Franklin Graham, embrace—an oppressive regime like that ruling Russia?”
For millions, the power of love plays a central part in their lives.
Yet, for other millions, hate serves as a force that gives meaning to their lives. And its power must never be underestimated.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on July 25, 2022 at 2:54 pm
Donald Trump has often been compared to Adolf Hitler.
But, in fact, he bears a far more striking resemblance to Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili—better known as Stalin, which, in Russian, means “Man of Steel.”
On December 21, 1949, Stalin turned 70. And millions of Russians feverishly competed to out-do one another in singing his praises.
For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, he had slaughtered 20 to 60 million people.
Joseph Stalin
The British historian, Robert Payne, described how Russians’ celebrated Stalin’s birthday in his classic 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin:
“The guns blazed in salute, the processions marched across the Red Square, and huge balloons bearing the features of a younger Stalin climbed into the wintry sky.
“The official buildings were draped in red, the color of happiness. From all over the country came gifts of embroidered cloth, tapestries and carpets bearing his name or his features.
“Ornamental swords, cutlasses, tankards, cups, everything that might conceivably please him, were sent to the Kremlin, and then displayed in the State Museum of the Revolution….Poets extolled him in verses, He was the sun, the splendor, the lord of creation.
“The novelist Leonid Lenov...foretold the day when all the peoples of the earth would celebrate his birthday; the new calendar would begin with the birth of Stalin rather than with the birth of Christ.”
Lavrenti P. Beria, Stalin’s sinister and feared secret police chief, oozed: “Millions of fighters for peace and democracy in all countries of the world are closing their ranks still firmer around Comrade Stalin.”
Lavrenti P. Beria
“With a feeling of great gratitude, turning their eyes to Stalin,” gushed Central Committee Secretary Georgi Malenkov, “the peoples of the Soviet Union, and hundreds of millions of peoples in all countries of the world, and all progressive mankind, see in Comrade Stalin their beloved leader and teacher….”
“The mighty voice of the Great Stalin, defending the peace of the world, has penetrated into all corners of the globe,” enthused Defense Commissar Kliment Voroshilov.
“Without Comrade Stalin’s special care,” extolled Trade and Supply Minister Anastas Mikoyan, “we would have never have had a network of meat combines equipped with the latest machinery, canneries and sugar refineries, a fishing industry….”
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov: “The gigantic Soviet army created during [World War II] was under the direct leadership of Comrade Stalin and built on the basis of the principles of Stalinist military science.”
So those Americans with a sense of history were alarmed and disgusted upon watching President Donald J. Trump—also 70—convene his first full Cabinet meeting since taking office on January 20, 2017.
Donald Trump
On June 12, 2017, polls showed that only 36% of Americans approved of his conduct. But from his Cabinet members, Trump got praise traditionally lavished on dictators like Stalin and North Korea’s Kim Jong On.
While the Cabinet members sat around a mahogany table in the West Wing of the White House, Trump instructed each one to say a few words about the good work his administration was doing.
“Start with Mike,” ordered Trump, referring to Vice President Mike Pence.
“It is the greatest privilege of my life to serve as the vice president to a president who is keeping his word to the American people,” Pence dutifully said.
Mike Pence
Then it was the turn of Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “It’s an honor to be able to serve you.”
“My hat’s off to you,” oozed Energy Secretary Rick Perry, referring to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue: “I just got back from Mississippi. They love you there.”
“What an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership,” gushed Secretary Tom Price. “I can’t thank you enough for the privilege that you’ve given me, and the leadership you’ve shown.”
Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta raved: “I’m deeply honored and I want to thank you for keeping your commitment to the American workers.”
“Thank you for coming over to the Department of Transportation,” eulogized Elaine Chao, its secretary. “I want to thank you for getting this country moving again, and also working again.”
“On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President,” said Reince Prebus, Trump’s chief of staff, “we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people, and we’re continuing to work very hard every day to accomplish those goals.”
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget: “At your direction, we were able to also focus on the forgotten men and women who are paying taxes, so I appreciate your support on pulling that budget together.”
* * * * *
Donald Trump’s followers believe he was all that stood between the United States and the threat of “Godless Communism.”
They totally ignore that he was elected via Russian propaganda orchestrated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And that he repeatedly defended Putin’s every aggressive move.
And, all the while, he continues to rage against the evils of “socialism.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 2, 2019 at 12:13 am
Americans are suckers for children. Even if many of them might come wrapped in suicide vests.
On September 2, 2015, the body of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey.
He and his family had boarded a small rubber boat to reach Europe amid the carnage of the Syrian civil war. The boat capsized.
The resulting photo flashed around the world and triggered international demands by humanitarian organizations that the West “do something.”
Drowned Alan Kurdi lies on a Turkish beach
Only eight days later, on September 10, 2015, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that it would take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrian refugees over the next year. That was in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States had already accepted.
Almost one year later—on August 17, 2016—another photo captured the world’s attention.
It depicted a five-year-old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance. Covered head to toe in dust, his face bloodied, he seemed dazed. He had been pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria.
Once again, demands arose among liberal interventionists, especially in the United States: “We must do something.”
All of which overlooks the increasing threat posed to the United States by Islamic terrorism.
According to U.S. Census data, America legally welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are 2.5 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
The Troubling Math of Muslim Migration | National Review Online
Meanwhile, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, then-FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faced in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers. But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see [the FBI’s] stopping these [plots] indefinitely.”
The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts—against seven million potential suspects. And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
And even children, for all their supposed innocence, are not to be ignored as potential weapons of Islamic terrorist organizations.
On August 20, 2016, a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 attacked a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, killing at least 51 people. Preliminary evidence indicated that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was behind the attack.
Palestinian child suicide bomber
America may well become a similar target for child suicide bombers.
How did all of this come to be?
On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war. By April 23, 2016, the United Nations estimated that 400,000 Syrians had so far died in the conflict.
Put in a positive way:
- More than 400,000 potential or actual Islamic terrorists will never again pose a threat to the United States or Western Europe.
- Additional thousands are certain to follow their example.
- And the United States cannot be held in any way responsible for it.
But Americans and Europeans have chosen to see these positives as negatives.
The United Nations refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimated that 366,402 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in 2015. And while the West has thrown open its doors to fleeing Syrians, the reaction of neighboring Islamic nations has been entirely different.
This was brutally but accurately depicted in a cartoon of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at the body of Alan Kurdi.
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for Syria’s refugees.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries—Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain—have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Note the contradiction: Democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential—if not actual—Islamic terrorists.
Meanwhile, the Arab world—awash in petrodollars and land—is closing its own doors to Syrian refugees.
The Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing next to nothing for Syria’s refugees – The Washington Post
* * * * *
During the 1980s, the United States saw the terroristic acts of Islamic nations as mere crimes, and not acts of war.
The September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center changed that.
For the last 18 years, the United States military has actively fought Islamics in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. And now Syria.
To be admitting huge numbers of a population with which the United States is now waging all-out war is worse than stupid. It is a guarantee of national suicide.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 22, 2017 at 12:02 am
On December 21, 1949, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili turned 70. And millions of Russians feverishly competed to out-do one another in singing his praises.
These celebrations weren’t prompted by love—but fear.
For the man being so honored was internationally known by a far different name: Stalin, which in Russian means: “Man of Steel.”
He had lived up to it: For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, he had slaughtered 20 to 60 million people.
Joseph Stalin
The British historian, Robert Payne, described these rapturous events in his classic 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin:
“The guns blazed in salute, the processions marched across the Red Square, and huge balloons bearing the features of a younger Stalin climbed into the wintry sky.
“The official buildings were draped in red, the color of happiness. From all over the country came gifts of embroidered cloth, tapestries and carpets bearing his name or his features.
“Ornamental swords, cutlasses, tankards, cups, everything that might conceivably please him, were sent to the Kremlin, and then displayed in the State Museum of the Revolution….Poets extolled him in verses, He was the sun, the splendor, the lord of creation.
“The novelist Leonid Lenov…foretold the day when all the peoples of the earth would celebrate his birthday; the new calendar would begin with the birth of Stalin rather than with the birth of Christ.”
Lavrenti P. Beria, Stalin’s sinister and feared secret police chief, oozed: “Millions of fighters for peace and democracy in all countries of the world are closing their ranks still firmer around Comrade Stalin.”
Lavrenti P. Beria
“With a feeling of great gratitude, turning their eyes to Stalin,” gushed Central Committee Secretary Georgi Malenkov, “the peoples of the Soviet Union, and hundreds of millions of peoples in all countries of the world, and all progressive mankind, see in Comrade Stalin their beloved leader and teacher….”
“The mighty voice of the Great Stalin, defending the peace of the world, has penetrated into all corners of the globe,” enthused Defense Commissar Kliment Voroshilov.
“Without Comrade Stalin’s special care,” extolled Trade and Supply Minister Anastas Mikoyan, “we would have never have had a network of meat combines equipped with the latest machinery, canneries and sugar refineries, a fishing industry….”
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov: “The gigantic Soviet army created during [World War II] was under the direct leadership of Comrade Stalin and built on the basis of the principles of Stalinist military science.”
So those Americans with a sense of history were alarmed and disgusted upon watching President Donald J. Trump—also 70—convene his first full Cabinet meeting since taking office on January 20.
Donald Trump
On June 12, polls showed that only 36% of Americans approved of his conduct. But from his Cabinet members, Trump got praise traditionally lavished on dictators like Stalin and North Korea’s Kim Jong On.
While the Cabinet members sat around a mahogany table in the West Wing of the White House, Trump instructed each one to say a few words about the good work his administration was doing.
“Start with Mike,” ordered Trump, referring to Vice President Mike Pence.
“It is the greatest privilege of my life to serve as the vice president to a president who is keeping his word to the American people,” Pence dutifully said.
Mike Pence
Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions gushed: “It’s an honor to be able to serve you.”
“My hat’s off to you,” oozed Energy Secretary Rick Perry, referring to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue flattered: “I just got back from Mississippi. They love you there.”
“What an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership,” fawned Tom Price. “I can’t thank you enough for the privilege that you’ve given me, and the leadership you’ve shown.”
Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta raved: “I’m deeply honored and I want to thank you for keeping your commitment to the American workers.”
“Thank you for coming over to the Department of Transportation,” eulogized Elaine Chao, its secretary. “I want to thank you for getting this country moving again, and also working again.”
“On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President,” brown-nosed Reince Prebus, Trump’s chief of staff, “we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people, and we’re continuing to work very hard every day to accomplish those goals.”
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, groveled: “At your direction, we were able to also focus on the forgotten men and women who are paying taxes, so I appreciate your support on pulling that budget together.”
On June 8, former FBI Director James Comey had testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Among the charges he aimed at Trump: The President had demanded a pledge of personal loyalty in return for Comey’s keeping his job.
This would have made Comey his secret police chief.
Comey had refused to give this. And Trump had fired him.
Trump publicly denied this.
Then came the June 12 Cabinet meeting—and all the proof anyone needed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 15, 2017 at 12:02 am
On December 21, 1949, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili turned 70. And millions of Russians feverishly competed to out-do one another in singing his praises.
These celebrations weren’t prompted by love–but fear.
For the man being so honored was internationally known by a far different name: Stalin, which in Russian means: “Man of Steel.”
He had lived up to it: For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, he had slaughtered 20 to 60 million people.
Joseph Stalin
The British historian, Robert Payne, described these rapturous events in his classic 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin:
“The guns blazed in salute, the processions marched across the Red Square, and huge balloons bearing the features of a younger Stalin climbed into the wintry sky.
“The official buildings were draped in red, the color of happiness. From all over the country came gifts of embroidered cloth, tapestries and carpets bearing his name or his features.
“Ornamental swords, cutlasses, tankards, cups, everything that might conceivably please him, were sent to the Kremlin, and then displayed in the State Museum of the Revolution….Poets extolled him in verses, He was the sun, the splendor, the lord of creation.
“The novelist Leonid Lenov…foretold the day when all the peoples of the earth would celebrate his birthday; the new calendar would begin with the birth of Stalin rather than with the birth of Christ.”
Lavrenti P. Beria, Stalin’s sinister and feared secret police chief, oozed: “Millions of fighters for peace and democracy in all countries of the world are closing their ranks still firmer around Comrade Stalin.”
Lavrenti P. Beria
“With a feeling of great gratitude, turning their eyes to Stalin,” gushed Central Committee Secretary Georgi Malenkov, “the peoples of the Soviet Union, and hundreds of millions of peoples in all countries of the world, and all progressive mankind, see in Comrade Stalin their beloved leader and teacher….”
“The mighty voice of the Great Stalin, defending the peace of the world, has penetrated into all corners of the globe,” enthused Defense Commissar Kliment Voroshilov.
“Without Comrade Stalin’s special care,” extolled Trade and Supply Minister Anastas Mikoyan, “we would have never have had a network of meat combines equipped with the latest machinery, canneries and sugar refineries, a fishing industry….”
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov: “The gigantic Soviet army created during [World War II] was under the direct leadership of Comrade Stalin and built on the basis of the principles of Stalinist military science.”
So those Americans with a sense of history were alarmed and disgusted upon watching President Donald J. Trump–also 70–convene his first full Cabinet meeting since taking office on January 20.
Donald Trump
On June 12, polls showed that only 36% of Americans approved of his conduct. But from his Cabinet members, Trump got praise traditionally lavished on dictators like Stalin and North Korea’s Kim Jong On.
While the Cabinet members sat around a mahogany table in the West Wing of the White House, Trump instructed each one to say a few words about the good work his administration was doing.
“Start with Mike,” ordered Trump, referring to Vice President Mike Pence.
“It is the greatest privilege of my life to serve as the vice president to a president who is keeping his word to the American people,” Pence dutifully said.
Mike Pence
Then it was the turn of Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “It’s an honor to be able to serve you.”
“My hat’s off to you,” oozed Energy Secretary Rick Perry, referring to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue: “I just got back from Mississippi. They love you there.”
“What an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership,” gushed Tom Price. “I can’t thank you enough for the privilege that you’ve given me, and the leadership you’ve shown.”
Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta raved: “I’m deeply honored and I want to thank you for keeping your commitment to the American workers.”
“Thank you for coming over to the Department of Transportation,” eulogized Elaine Chao, its secretary. “I want to thank you for getting this country moving again, and also working again.”
“On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President,” said Reince Prebus, Trump’s chief of staff, “we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people, and we’re continuing to work very hard every day to accomplish those goals.”
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget: “At your direction, we were able to also focus on the forgotten men and women who are paying taxes, so I appreciate your support on pulling that budget together.”
On June 8, former FBI Director James Comey had testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Among the charges he aimed at Trump: The President had demanded a pledge of personal loyalty in return for Comey’s keeping his job.
This would have made Comey his secret police chief.
Comey had refused to give this. And Trump had fired him.
Trump publicly denied this.
Then came the Cabinet meeting–and all the proof anyone needed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 23, 2015 at 12:04 am
Americans had a good reason to welcome the coming of 2014: Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah had gone to war–with each other.
Al-Qaeda terrorists–now taking aim at Hezbollah terrorists
This is an event the United States could not have predicted or instigated. But it is definitely one in which Americans can take hope.
In Part One, two of those reasons for this were outlined. Here are the remaining eight:
Third, the United States is still fighting a brutal war in Afghanistan.
Following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the Taliban was ousted in Afghanistan by American and Afghan forces in 2001.
The initial goal of this war was to quickly destroy Al Qaeda–especially its leader, Osama Bin Laden–and its Taliban protectors.
But, over time, Washington policy-makers embarked on a “nation-building” effort. And U.S. forces wound up occupying the country for the next ten years.
This increasingly brought them into conflict with primitive, xenophobic Afghans, whose mindset remains that of the sixth century.
The United States originally intended to withdraw all but a small embassy-based force of 1,000 troops by the end of 2016.
But as the Taliban re-emerged as a threat, President Barack Obama announced he would maintain 9,800 troops there for most of 2016. About 5,500 troops will still be in Afghanistan by 2017.
Fourth, intervening in Syria could produce similar unintended consequences for American forces–and make the United States a target for more Islamic terrorism.
Fifth, since 1979, Syria has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a sponsor of terrorism. Among the terrorist groups it supports are Hezbollah and Hamas.
For many years, Syria provided a safe-house in Damascus to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–the notorious terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal.
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–“Carlos the Jackal”
Sixth, according to U.S. defense reports, Syria has weapons of mass destruction–and the ballistic missiles to deliver them.
Syria has an active chemical weapons program, including significant reserves of the deadly nerve agent sarin.
The recent destruction of much of Syria’s WMD stockpile–at the demand of President Barack Obama–doesn’t erase its ability to create more. And this is likely to re-occur as soon as the United States becomes preoccupied with other concerns.
Seventh, the United States had no part in creating the Assad regime.
Thus, Americans have no moral obligation to support those Syrians trying to overthrow it.
Moreover, Syria has never been an American ally–and has, in fact, directed terrorism against American forces stationed in Beirut, Lebanon.
On October 23, 1983, Syrian suicide bombers drove trucks into two buildings housing American and French military forces. Total killed: 299.
In short, the United States owes Syria nothing.
Eighth, China and Russia are fully supporting the Assad dictatorship–and the brutalities it commits against its own citizens.
This reflects badly on them–not the United States. America should focus world outrage against these longtime brutal dictatorships for propping up another one.
Ninth, the United States could find itself in a shooting war with Russia and/or China.
The Russians sent two warships to Syria in 2013 in response to President Obama’s threat to “punish” Assad for using chemical weapons against insurgents.
What happens if American and Russian warships start trading salvos? Or if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders an attack on Israel, in return for America’s attack on Russia’s ally, Syria?
U.S. warship firing Tomahawk Cruise missile
It was exactly that scenario–Great Powers going to war over conflicts between their small-state allies–that triggered World War l.
Tenth, while Islamic nations like Syria and Egypt wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources–and incentive–to launch attacks against the United States.
Every dead Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda member makes the United States that much safer. Every dead supporter of Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda makes the United States that much safer.
The peoples of the Middle East have long memories for those who commit brutalities against them. In their veins, the cult of the blood feud runs deep.
When Al-Qaeda blows up civilians in Beirut, it’s certain that their relatives will urge Hezbollah to take brutal revenge. And it’s equally certain that Hezbollah will do so.
Similarly, when Hezbollah does, those who support Al-Qaeda will demand even more brutal reprisals against Hezbollah.
No American could instill such hatred in Al-Qaeda for Hezbollah–or vice versa. This is entirely a war of religious and sectarian hatred.
This conflict could easily become the Islamic equivalent of “the Hundred Years’ War” that raged from 1337 to 1453 between England and France.
When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, then-Senator Harry Truman said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”
That should be America’s view whenever its sworn enemies start killing off each other. Americans should welcome such self-slaughters, not become entrapped in them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 20, 2015 at 1:00 am
Sometimes your worst enemies aid you in ways you could never help yourself.
From July 10 to October 31, 1940, hundreds of badly-outnumbered pilots of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off relentless attacks by Germany’s feared Luftwaffe.
For Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, it was a major setback.
He was forced to concede that he lacked the strength to destroy the British air force–thus making it possible for his navy to land German troop on English soil.
But Hitler wasn’t prepared to give up. He believed he could so terrorize Britons that they would demand that their government submit to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England–and especially London–to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
More than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities. During 267 days (almost 37 weeks):
- London was attacked 71 times;
- Birmingham, Plymouth and Liverpool were attacked eight times;
- Bristol was attacked six times; Glasgow, five; Southampton four; and
- There was also at least one large raid on another eight cities.
Between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
“London can take it” went the British slogan. But, in the United States, Americans–including President Franklin D. Roosevelt–wondered: For how much longer?
Clearly, what Great Britain desperately needed most was a miracle.
Exactly that happened on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Hitler had turned on his partner-in-crime. The two dictators had greedily split Poland between them when Hitler launched his invasion on September 1, 1939.
Now they were locked in a fight to the death.
People in England were also surprised–but also suddenly hopeful. Britain now had an ally whose resources might tip the balance against Hitler.
In the United States, then-Senator Harry S. Truman spoke for many Americans when he said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”
Today the United States faces just such an opportunity.
In Syria, two of America’s most deadly enemies are now waging war–with each other.
Yes, it’s Hezbollah (Party of God) vs. Al-Qaeda (The Base).
United Nations officials estimate that more than 70,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war since conflict began on March 15, 2011. The trigger: Protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Hezbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims, who form a minority of Islamics. A sworn enemy of Israel, it has kidnapped scores of Americans suicidal enough to visit Lebanon and truck-bombed the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 299 Americans.
Flag of Hezbollah
Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, is made up of Sunni Muslims, who form the majority of that religion. It is intolerent of non-Sunni Muslims and has instigated violence against them. It denounces them as “takfirs”–heretics–and thus worthy of extermination.
Al-Qaeda has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other non-Sunnis. Examples of sectarian attacks include the Sadr City bombings, the 2004 Ashoura massacre and the April, 2007 Baghdad bombings.
Flag of Al-Qaeda
On one side is the Ba’ath regime of Bashir al-Assad, whose allies include Russia, Iran, Hezbullah, and elements in the Iraqi government.
On the other side are a host of Syrians and thousands of foreign Sunni fighters some of whom have affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
And now that civil war has spread into neighborhing Lebanon.
On January 2, 2014, at least four people were killed and 77 injured when a car bomb exploded in a residential neighborhood in southern Beirut.
The Shiite-dominated district, Haret Hreik, is known as a Hezbollah stronghold.
Two days later, an Al-Qaeda linked group claimed responsibility for the attack.
At a press conference for President Barack Obama on March 20, 2013, a reporter asked:
“Morally, how is it possible that for the last two years, tens of thousands of innocent civilians [in Syria] are being massacred and no one–the world, the United States and you–are doing anything to stop it immediately?”
That is entirely the wrong way to view this conflict.
There are solidly practical reasons why the United States should avoid this bloodfest–while cheering on each of its mortal enemies to do its worst.
First, the United States only recently disengaged from Iraq.
On Dec. 15, 2011, the American military formally ended its mission there. The war–begun in 2003–had cost the lives of 4,487 service members, with another 32,226 wounded.
Second, the war in Iraq fell victim to the law of unintended consequences.
The Bush administration invaded Iraq to turn it into a base–from which to intimidate its neighboring states: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Syria and Iran.
But while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been a counter-weight to the regional ambitions of Iran, the destruction of the Iraqi military created a power vacuum. Into this–eagerly–stepped the Iranian mullahs.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on February 18, 2015 at 2:58 am
Sometimes your worst enemies aid you in ways you could never help yourself.
From July 10 to October 31, 1940, hundreds of badly-outnumbered pilots of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off relentless attacks by Germany’s feared Luftwaffe.
But Adolf Hitler wasn’t prepared to give up. He believed he could so terrorize Britons that they would demand that their government submit to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England–and especially London–to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
More than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities. During 267 days (almost 37 weeks):
- London was attacked 71 times;
- Birmingham, Plymouth and Liverpool were attacked eight times;
- Bristol was attacked six times; Glasgow, five; Southampton four; and
- There was also at least one large raid on another eight cities.
Between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
Clearly, what Great Britain desperately needed most was a miracle.
Exactly that happened on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
German tank commander
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Now they were locked in a fight to the death.
People in England were also surprised–but also suddenly hopeful. Britain now had an ally whose resources might tip the balance against Hitler.
Fast-forward to 2015.
On February 18, news reports surfaced that members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi.
Al-Baghdadi lies just five miles from an air base stafffed by several hundred U.S. Marines. The victims might have included members of the security forces that clashed with ISIS for control of the town.
This latest atrocity comes only days after ISIS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya.
And still earlier this month–on February 3–ISIS released a a video showing the barbaric “execution” of a captured Jordanian fighter pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kasaesbeh.
Al Kasaesbeh, locked in a steel cage like an animal, could only watch stoically as an ISIS member ignited a trail of flammable liquid leading directly to him. The pilot stood upright throughout the ordeal until the flames at last consumed him.
In response to the beheadings of the 21 Egyptians, Egypt carried out a series of airstrikes against ISIS militants in Libya.
And two days after the murder of its pilot, Jordanian fighter jets launched airstrikes against ISIS training centers, arms and ammunition depots.
“This is just the beginning and you shall know who the Jordanians are,” the armed forces said in a statement on state TV.
Today–just as England was saved by the misjudgment of Nazi Germany in attacking the Soviet Union– the United States faces just such an opportunity.
The Islamic world–which has been at war with the United States for 36 years–is now at war with itself.
In Syria, it’s Hezbollah (Party of God) vs. Al-Qaeda (The Base).
United Nations officials estimate that more than 191,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war since conflict began on March 15, 2011. The trigger: Protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Hezbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims, who form a minority of Islamics. A sworn enemy of Israel, it has kidnapped scores of Americans suicidal enough to visit Lebanon and truck-bombed the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 299 Americans.
Flag of Hezbollah
Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, is made up of Sunni Muslims, who form the majority of that religion. It is intolerent of non-Sunni Muslims and has instigated violence against them. It denounces them as “takfirs”–heretics–and thus worthy of extermination.
Al-Qaeda has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other non-Sunnis. Examples of sectarian attacks include the Sadr City bombings, the 2004 Ashoura massacre and the April, 2007 Baghdad bombings.
Flag of Al-Qaeda
While Islamic nations wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources–and incentive–to launch attacks against the United States.
Every dead Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda member makes the United States that much safer.
Every dead supporter of Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda makes the United States that much safer.
Every dead ISIS member makes the United States that much safer.
And every ISIS victim stirs up greater hate against ISIS.
No American could instill such hatred against Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah or ISIS. This is entirely a war of religious and sectarian hatred. A war where each fighter is convinced that “Allah is on my side.”
These conflicts could easily become the Islamic equivalent of “the Hundred Years’ War” that raged from 1337 to 1453 between England and France.
When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, then-Senator Harry Truman said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”
As Congress and President Obama move ever closer to committing American forces to yet another Middle East conflict, it’s well to remember Truman’s words.
That should be America’s view whenever its sworn enemies start killing off each other. Americans should welcome such self-slaughters, not become entrapped in them.
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In History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 30, 2014 at 11:36 am
The dictionary defines “self-defense” as: “The act of defending one’s person when physically attacked, as by countering blows or overcoming an assailant.”
Apparently, some schools and nations have a very different idea of what constitutes self-defense.
In May, A 16-year-old girl at Santa Rosa High School was suspended for fighting on campus–after she was attacked by two other girls from another school.
The May 16 fight was recorded on cell phone video by a third student.
Mia Danley, the girl’s mother. claims her daughter was jumped by two girls who had been cyber-bullying her for months. The reason: she was dating one of their former boyfriends.
Reacting to the cellphone footage of her daughter being assaulted, she said: “I see my baby being attacked viciously and I see her defending herself like we taught her to.”
Allen Danley, the girl’s father, showed school officials the cellphone texts that one of his daughter’s assailants sent threatening a fight.
But this made no difference to school authorities.
Santa Rosa High School has a strict no-fighting policy. But Allan Danley pointed out to school officials that their own student handbook states that “a student cannot be arrested or suspenced for defending themselves.”
They, in turn, claimed that his daughter didn’t cry out for help during the fight. So she was considered a willing participant.
Click here: Parents of Santa Rosa High School Student Suspended for Fighting Say Daughter Was Defending Herself from Bullies
Now let’s turn to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, Canada, Japan, the European Union, Jordan, Egypt and the United States.
On July 8, it began launching hundreds of missiles at Israel.
Hamas rocket blasts toward Israel
And Israel, to stop the attacks, responded in kind.
As a result, Israel has come under repeated verbal attacks by Hamas-sympathetic nations.
The charge: Israel is being too effective at defending itself, killing more Palestinians than Hamas is able to kill Israelis.
Reuven Berko, a former soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) recently addressed this charge in a guest column in the online newsletter, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).
A major reason for so many civilian deaths among Palestinians, writes Berko, is that Hamas turns them into human shields by hiding its missiles in heavily-populated centers.
On July 17, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Far East (UNRWA) discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant UN school in the Gaza Strip.
“UNRWA strongly condemns the group or groups responsible for placing the weapons in one of its installations,” said the agency in an announcement. “This is a flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law.”
UNRWA claimed that “this incident…is the first of its kind in Gaza.” But Israel counters that this is just one of many proven instances of Hamas hiding its fighters and munitions among a heavily civilian population.
Click here: UNRWA Strongly Condemns Placement of Rockets in School | UNRWA
At the heart of Berko’s editorial is the subject of “proportionality.”
Writes Berko: “Israel is held to an impossible moral double standard.
“Israelis, proportionality advocates seem to believe, should be killed by Hamas rockets instead of following Home Front Command instructions and running to shelters, to say nothing of Israel’s blatant unfairness in protecting its civilians with the Iron Dome aerial defense system….
“Anyone who demands that Israel agree to a life of terror governed by a continuous barrage of rockets and mortar shells on the heads of its women and children in the name of restraint and ‘proportionality’ would never agree to risk the safety of their own families in a similar situation.”
Berko points out that during World War 11, the Allies didn’t hesitate to retaliate for the Nazi blitz of London. In February, 1945, British and American planes firebombed Dresden, killing about 25,000 people.
Nor did America feel guilty about dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, killing about 250,000 civilians.
Summing up his argument, Berko writes: “The ridiculous demand for proportionality contradicts every basic principle of warfare.
“According to American strategist Thomas Schelling, you have to strike your enemy hard enough to make it not worthwhile for him to continue….
“In the Western world, killing someone in self-defense is considered justifiable homicide.”
Click here: Guest Column: The Double Standard of Proportionality :: The Investigative Project on Terrorism
Berko could just as easily have ended his column with the words of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose Union forces cut a swath of destruction across the South in his famous “March to the Sea.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
Wrote Sherman: “Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things.
“We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt.”
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ISLAMICS: “SAVE US, INFIDELS, SAVE US!”
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 17, 2023 at 12:16 amAmericans are suckers for children. Even if many of them might come wrapped in suicide vests.
On September 2, 2015, the body of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey.
He and his family had boarded a small rubber boat to reach Europe amid the carnage of the Syrian civil war. The boat capsized.
The resulting photo flashed around the world and triggered international demands by humanitarian organizations that the West “do something.”
Drowned Alan Kurdi lies on a Turkish beach
Only eight days later, on September 10, 2015, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that it would take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrian refugees over the next year. That was in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States had already accepted.
Almost one year later—on August 17, 2016—another photo captured the world’s attention.
It depicted a five-year-old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance. Covered head to toe in dust, his face bloodied, he seemed dazed. He had been pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria.
Once again, demands arose among liberal interventionists, especially in the United States: “We must do something.”
All of which overlooks the increasing threat posed to the United States by Islamic terrorism.
According to U.S. Census data, America legally welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are at least 3.45 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
Meanwhile, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, then-FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faced in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers. But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see [the FBI’s] stopping these [plots] indefinitely.”
The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts—against seven million potential suspects. And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
And even children, for all their supposed innocence, are not to be ignored as potential weapons of Islamic terrorist organizations.
On August 20, 2016, a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 attacked a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, killing at least 51 people. Preliminary evidence indicated that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was behind the attack.
Palestinian child suicide bomber
America may well become a similar target for child suicide bombers.
How did all of this come to be?
On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war. By December, 2022, it was estimated that 580,000 Syrians had so far died in the conflict.
Put in a positive way:
But Americans and Europeans have chosen to see these positives as negatives.
The United Nations refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that, in 2021, 123,300 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. .
And while the West has thrown open its doors to fleeing Syrians, the reaction of neighboring Islamic nations has been entirely different.
This was brutally but accurately depicted in a cartoon of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at the body of Alan Kurdi.
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for their Islamic brethren.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries—Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain—have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Meanwhile, democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential—if not actual—Islamic terrorists.
* * * * *
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 40,000 people to date in both countries.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Turkey—long a staunch NATO ally—has tilted increasingly toward Russia. Syria, meanwhile, remains an international pariah owing to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and his support of anti-Western terrorism.
Yet that hasn’t prevented both countries from pleading with the “infidel” West to sacrifice money and resources on their behalf. And, once again, the West is responding with unearned generosity.
As always, the type of aid most sought is money. In response, Doctors Without Borders, for example, is running full-page ads soliciting donations from $5 to $1,000.
As Karl Marx once famously said—but in another context: “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
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