RUTHFULLY YOURS

LONDON—The head of the U.K.’s foreign intelligence agency warned Thursday that cyberattacks and the militant group Islamic State pose grave dangers to Britain and its allies.

In rare public comments, MI6 chief Alex Younger said that to protect itself and friendly nations from these threats, the U.K. must expose the magnitude of cyberwarfare and propaganda operations that subvert democracy.

“The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty. They should be a concern to all those who share democratic values,” Mr. Younger said in his first major speech since his appointment as spy chief two years ago.

Mr. Younger didn’t specifically say Moscow had been behind a recent wave of cyberattacks, but his comments come as Western governments warn of Russian meddling in U.S. and European politics.

The U.S. intelligence community has accused Moscow of interfering in the U.S. election by leaking emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee in Washington and from other organizations and government agencies.

U.S. officials say the Russian-backed hacking effort is likely to continue as Moscow tries to influence U.S. politics and key elections in Europe. The Kremlin has denied the allegations.

Russian interference could be particularly aggressive in Europe, where Moscow has forged ties with euroskeptic political parties, which could make it harder for Europe to keep up sanctions on Moscow, White House officials and other experts say.

Mr. Younger described the threat from terrorism as “unprecedented,” singling out Islamic State. He said the Sunni Muslim militant group was plotting violence against the U.K. and its allies from Syria, and that the U.K. couldn’t be safe from terror threats until the Syrian civil war was brought to an end.

Since June 2013, he said, intelligence agencies have disrupted 12 terrorist plots.

Mr. Younger specified Russia by name for casting all groups that oppose Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s government as “terrorists” and refusing to differentiate between rebels working with U.S.-backed allies and Islamic State fighters.

Russia began airstrikes in Syria last year at the request of the Assad government. Residents, antigovernment activists and monitoring groups have for months accused Russia of bombarding the eastern, opposition-held neighborhoods of Aleppo and worsening the humanitarian crisis there.

Rebels have suffered a series of staggering losses in the northern Syrian city, and Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. issued a joint statement on Wednesday condemning the violence.

“In Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace,” Mr. Younger said. “The human tragedy is heartbreaking.”

Mr. Younger also tried to soothe worries that Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president and the U.K.’s exit from the European Union will affect the close security ties among Britain and its allies.

“I will aim for, and expect, continuity,” he said. “These relationships are long lasting and the personal bonds between us are strong.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Reprinted from Breitbart.com.

The death of Fidel Castro has driven a stake into the heart of the Left, causing progressives worldwide to weep and moan at the loss of their secular deity. While North Korea and Raúl Castro have enforced days of mandatory mourning, leftists in the free world are beating their breasts and wailing with a voluntary and committed passion.

The examples are endless: Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gushed about how he learned of Castro’s death with “deep sorrow” and went on to pay tribute to a “legendary revolutionary.” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) praised Castro and pleaded with everyone to “stop and pause and mourn.”

Other usual suspects did not disappoint. UK’s Labor opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, the U.S. Green Party’s presidential candidate Jill Stein, Rev. Jesse Jackson and former President Jimmy Carter all stepped forward, expressing their deep sadness, extolling Castro’s “heroism,” struggle for “social justice” and other expected feats of revolutionary valor. The list goes on and on.

What exactly is going on here?

To understand why leftists, especially of the Western variety, are weeping upon Castro’s death, it is first crucial to grasp the underlying foundation of the progressives’ belief system. The leftist is a believer in a political faith, a faith that envisions a classless utopia of perfect equality and “social justice.” This faith is interlinked with the leftist’s revulsion of his own democratic-capitalist host society, which he sees as oppressive and unjust – and which he seeks to destroy. And it is upon the ashes of this intended destruction that the leftist hopes to build, with his other self-appointed social redeemers, the secular socialist paradise.

From this ideological foundation grow many pathologies, including the obvious philosophy of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Indeed, by logic, anyone else who wants to destroy the leftist’s host society is seen as a helpful ally – and so it becomes completely obvious why, as David Horowitz has documented, the Left formed an Unholy Alliance with communism during the Cold War and why it continues that tradition with Islamic Supremacism in our terror war today.