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September 2018

Pakistan: New Government Fails to Support Minorities by Kaswar Klasra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12983/imran-khan-pakistan-minorities

In a move that raised eyebrows both in Pakistan and abroad, the government succumbed to the pressure of Islamists by asking renowned economist Atif Mian to step down from membership of the prime minister’s Economic Advisory Council, solely because he is a member of the persecuted minority Ahmadi community.
Mohammad Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in science, and the second person from an Islamic country, after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, ever to have been awarded a Nobel Prize in any field.
Mohammad Safdar, a prominent legislator, launched a verbal attack on Ahmadis, calling them a “threat to this country, its Constitution and ideology… Because their’s is a false religion, in which there is no concept of jihad for Allah.”
Let us hope that the Pakistani leadership’s abandonment of Mian is the last such incident.

Radical Islamists took to the streets of Pakistan on September 1, to protest Prime Minister Imran Khan’s appointment of former Princeton University scholar Atif Mian, a minority Muslim of the Ahmadiyya faith, to the Economic Advisory Council (EAC). Demanding that Mian be removed from the EAC, a key forum that advises the prime minister on economic issues, demonstrators threatened to lock down Pakistan’s major cities, including Islamabad, its capital.

Mian’s appointment was opposed by Pakistan’s right wing political parties including “Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)”, which strongly objected to his Ahmadi faith.

In addition, a well-orchestrated social-media smear campaign is being waged against Mian — the only Pakistani on the International Monetary Fund’s 2014 list of the world’s “25 brightest young economists” — for the sole reason that he adheres to the Ahmadiyya faith.

Then, in a move that raised eyebrows both in Pakistan and abroad, the government succumbed to the pressure of Islamists by showing the door to Mian: he was asked to step down from membership of the EAC.

Are We Remembering 9/11 or Forgetting It? by David C. Stolinsky

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12987/are-we-remembering-9-11-or-forgetting-it

Instead of being angry at the perpetrators of 9/11, some people are angry at those who waterboarded three (only three) terrorists, including one of the chief planners of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. As a result of information he revealed, a plot to crash a plane into the Los Angeles Library Tower was broken up, saving thousands of lives.
The attack of 9/11 was not only an act of war. It was also a horribly costly lesson. Let’s not waste it….This does not mean that we should involve ourselves in every conflict in the Middle East. But if it is, we should use not a “light footprint” but a size-14 boot stomp. Our object should be to encourage our friends and frighten our enemies, not the opposite….
Some argue that the terrorists are trying to goad us into getting involved more deeply, so we should do nothing. These people forget the long series of terrorist attacks that led up to 9/11….In fact, by doing nothing, we are goading the terrorists into escalating.
The purpose of remembering 9/11 is not merely a history lesson. Like remembering the Holocaust, the purpose is never again.

Rick Rescorla, chief of security for Morgan Stanley, safely evacuated all 2,700 employees on 9/11, except for six. Four of the six were himself and his three deputies (two pictured above): Wesley Mercer, Jorge Velasquez, and Godwin Forde. That’s true multiculturalism.

Rick was last seen going back into Tower 2 shortly before its collapse. When he was told he should get out, he replied, “As soon as I make sure everyone else is out.” His body was never recovered, but U.S. troops at Fallujah remembered him well.

Then there is Mike Kehoe, the firefighter who was photographed going up the stairs when most people were going down. From the expression on his face, I would guess that he had doubts about his survival. But he did survive. He got out about 30 seconds before the tower collapsed. But 343 of his fellow firefighters were not so lucky.

And what about Todd Beamer? He was a passenger on United Flight 93. What happened was verified by the telephone supervisor with whom he spoke. They recited the Lord’s Prayer together, and he made her promise to tell his wife and sons he loved them. He then said his timeless words: “God help me. Jesus help me. Are you ready? Let’s roll!”

The Only Subject Ben Sasse Won’t Talk About: Spygate By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/11/the-only-subject-

Ben Sasse is a man of contradictions.

The junior senator from Nebraska is a frequent critic of President Trump but Sasse votes with him nearly 87 percent of the time. He laments inaction by Congress on big issues, but can boast of few legislative accomplishments that are his own. Sasse now claims he might leave the Republican Party—a threat he also made before Trump was elected—but he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Republican donors and interest groups.

He blasts the president’s lack of civility, but he regularly demeans his colleagues, to say nothing of the president. Sasse complains that folks in Washington have no long term plan for the country, but he stumbles when asked for his own specific vision. And the father of three wrote a book chock full of advice about how to raise kids all before his own have even left home. (If Senate work doesn’t work out for him, perhaps he might find a bright future as a parenting blogger?) He has a new book to sell now, which could explain his latest PR stunt.

All of this has—of course—earned him the fawning admiration of establishment conservatives who view Donald Trump with horror and disdain. Sasse’s name has been floated by NeverTrumpers either as a primary or third-party challenge to the president in 2020, a proposition the 48-year-old, two-thirds of a first-term senator does not rebuff. The Ivy Leaguer is a perfect fit for outlier Republicans who sneer at Trump’s working-class base and his crass mannerisms.

China to Join Russian Drills in Sign of Growing Military Ties The maneuvers in Russia’s far east will take place as both countries’ relations with the U.S. show strains By Thomas Grove and Jeremy Page

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-to-join-russian-drills-in-sign-of-growing-military-ties-1536595659?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Chinese and Russian troops begin joint maneuvers Tuesday, marking the first time Moscow has invited a country outside a tight circle of former Soviet allies to its largest annual exercises and offering Chinese generals rare and valuable experience training outside their country’s borders.

The five days of drills in Russia’s far east, near the Chinese border, are also meant to demonstrate the extent to which the two sides are moving beyond symbolic displays of force to coordinate weapons systems and command structures. Washington says the two countries have developed capabilities that could test U.S. military dominance in times of crisis.

The military relationship between Beijing and Moscow has gathered pace in the past few years as both countries have seen their relations with Washington deteriorate. Both countries are undergoing intense military modernization and reform, and Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to turn his armed forces into a more expeditionary fighting force.
Call to ArmsAnnual military spending*Source: Stockholm International Peace ResearchInstitute*In constant 2016 dollars
.billionU.S.ChinaRussia19952000’05’10’150200400600$800U.S.x2017x$597.18 billion

“Their exercises with Russia give them access to much-needed foreign experience that is crucial if Beijing wants to establish an internationally-capable fighting force,” said Vasily Kashin, an expert of Russian-Chinese relations and senior researcher at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics. CONTINUE AT SITE

Seven Injured in Paris Knife Attack, Authorities Deny Terrorist Motive By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/seven-injured-in-paris-knife-attack-authorities-deny-terrorist-motive/

A knife attack in a popular Paris neighborhood Sunday night left seven people injured but French authorities are not characterizing the incident as terrorism.

The attack took place just before 11p.m. in Parc de la Villette by the Ourcq Canal, a 19th arrondissement neighborhood frequented by young people and tourists.

The attacker, whom authorities believe to be an Afghan national, has been arrested.

“Nothing at this stage shows signs of a terrorist nature in these assaults,” a source close to the investigation told Agence France-Presse, adding that the man targeted “strangers in the street.”

“This is not being treated as a terrorist attack,” a French Interior Ministry spokesperson told CNN.

Sept. 11 Terror Attacks: 17 Years Later The disturbing allegiances of the Democratic Party. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271288/sept-11-terror-attacks-17-years-later-michael-cutler

For me, writing about the terror attacks of 9/11 has become something of an annual ritual.

I don’t do this to rehash old news and old concerns but out of my burning desire to prevent future terror attacks by pointing out the vulnerabilities that undermine national security and public safety. Those threats are as real today as they were on that sunny late summer morning 17 years ago.

Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 I have testified before numerous Congressional hearings and provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission and have testified before state legislative hearings across the United States.

Wherever I participate in panel discussions and other public speaking engagements I am frequently asked essentially the same question by concerned members of the audience, “Are we safer today than we were on September 10, 2001?”

From the immigration perspective, my area of expertise, it is clear that we are not only not safer, but increasingly at risk. In point of fact, today because of the Radical Leftist ideology that the Democratic Party has adopted, America’s threat level has risen precipitously. I addressed this extreme danger in my recent article, Democrats’ Attack On ICE Agents Is Working, making more terrorism inevitable.

Let me be as clear about this as I can. I am not being partisan, I am being pro-American!

I have been a registered Democrat for more than five decades. The problem is that Democrats are no longer Democrats but have morphed into a political party of anarchists and seditionists.

The Democratic Party has been hijacked as certainly as were those four airliners on September 11, 2001 turning crowded passenger airliners into de facto cruise missiles.

Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States have spread across the United States like a wildfire, obstructing the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

Remembering 9/11 in the Age of Trump At last, beyond denial and fatalism? Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271292/remembering-911-age-trump-bruce-bawer

One day in the early stages of the AIDS crisis – so early, in fact, that I don’t think the disease had yet acquired that name – I fell into conversation with a young man at a gay bar in L.A. It turned out that he, like me, was from New York. But whereas I was in L.A. on a trip, he had recently pulled up stakes and moved there. Why? Because, he told me, his friends back east were beginning to get sick and die, and it was having an impact on the “scene.”

I pointed out that the gay population of San Francisco was also hard hit, and that even if the situation was not yet quite as dire in L.A., it would surely catch up soon enough. He admitted as much, but estimated that in L.A. he had another six months during which he could keep leading the freewheeling life he’d enjoyed in the Big Apple. His attitude, in short, hovered somewhere in the dark, uncharted territory between denial and fatalism.

On September 11, 2001, New York – along with Washington, D.C. – was struck by mass death in another form. It shook the world. Mainstream European commentators attributed the terrorist attacks to legitimate Muslim grievances against America, and breezily dismissed suggestions that Europe might soon be struck as well. Sweeping aside Osama bin Laden’s claims, President Bush asserted that the attacks had nothing to do with Islam, which he called a “religion of peace.” He then sent armed forces to “liberate” Afghanistan and Iraq, on the premise that the people of those countries, if allowed to vote in democratic elections, would choose a democratic path.

It all turned out to be spectacularly wrong. The European savants were shown up by the horrific attacks on Madrid, Beslan, London, and elsewhere. Their perpetrators put the lie to the “religion of peace” rhetoric, repeatedly announcing that they were committing jihad, a core Islamic concept. Some people in the West understood. But the West’s cultural elite turned away. And Western leaders, while sending young men to fight abroad, left the gates wide open at home.

Why some mistakes, like “I am Spartacus,” stick to politicians and others don’t Charles Lipson

https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/09/i-am-spartacus-will-stick-to-cory-booker/

Political rule number 1: Don’t take a selfie with Bozo the Clown. Your opponents will use it forever in political ads.

Political rule number 2: Don’t call yourself Spartacus. You will be ridiculed today, tomorrow, and forever.

Somebody forgot rule number 2, and the man who forgot it, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), will pay a price.

The junior senator from New Jersey is looking ever-more junior by the day. He is now the butt of every prankster with Photoshop and a picture of Kirk Douglas in a gladiator’s costume.

True story. Today, when I Googled “Spartacus,” the search engine helpfully added a second word, “Booker.”

Although the ridicule will fade, it will return every time Sen. Booker seeks the presidency, which will probably be for the rest of his life. Breathtakingly stupid comments like Booker’s “I am Spartacus” are like red wine spilled on a white carpet. You can mop and scrub them, but they don’t really disappear.

Why do some mistakes like this live so long and others fade away so quickly?

The ones that live are those that reveal—and congeal—our deep-seated images of the person who made them. They do so succinctly, memorably. Their opponents know that and seize upon them. So do comedians and editorial cartoonists, unless they are unwilling to joke about a candidate they support (an all-too-common ailment these days).

Consider a few Great Fumbles from recent U.S. political history.