RUTHFULLY YOURS

SEOUL—North Korea fired a submarine-launched missile that traveled much further than previous similar tests, a fresh sign of progress in Pyongyang’s program to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that are difficult to detect before launch.

The missile was launched from near the port of Sinpo on North Korea’s eastern coast at around 5:30 a.m. Seoul time on Wednesday. It traveled about 300 miles (482 kilometers), according to the U.S. military, before falling into the sea.

North Korea began testing submarine-launched missiles in late 2014 but flight distances have been limited to a few miles at most. The previous most recent missile launched from a submarine in July of this year failed in the early stage of flight, according to South Korea’s defense ministry.

The latest launch showed “progress” compared with previous tests, according to a statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The apparent successful launch of a missile from a submarine comes after North Korea also held its first successful launch of a missile from a land-based mobile carrier in June.

Both missile types represent a new threat because they are harder to identify and destroy before launch. They also have the potential to give North Korea a “second-strike” capability to retaliate to an initial major attack on its military bases.

South Korea and the U.S. quickly condemned the latest test, one of a string of ballistic missile launches by North Korea this year in violation of a United Nations’ ban. CONTINUE AT SITE

Religious programming is popular throughout the Middle East. Television viewers call in or send questions via email or social media to ask scholars of Islamic law about all manner of things. Most questions relate to their personal lives, from the mundane—can Muslims listen to pop music?—to such issues as inheritance, alimony and contraception.

Every once in a while, however, a viewer raises an issue of political consequence. Such was the case with a 2015 episode of the Al Jazeera talk-show “Al-Sharia wa Al-Hayat” (Shariah and Life), which has recently become the subject of intense debate. The following question was asked: “Is it permissible—in the Syrian context—for an individual to blow himself up to target a group that owes allegiance to the Syrian regime, even if this causes casualties among civilians?”

This was the response:

“Generally, individuals should fight and die in combat. . . . However, if the need arises, individuals should only blow themselves up if a group (jamaa) decides that it is necessary for those individuals to blow themselves up. . . . These are matters that are not to be left to individuals. . . . Individuals should surrender themselves to the jamaa, and it is the jamaa that determines how to utilize individuals according to its needs.”

The speaker was Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the intellectual force behind the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamic groups. He has written more than a hundred tomes on theological and jurisprudential issues that have attracted many adherents and numerous detractors. In addition to his scholarship, he has devoted a lifetime to religious political activism. Through his many writings, sermons, speeches and religious edicts, al-Qaradawi has become recognized as a progenitor of radicalism in the Middle East and beyond.

His answer regarding suicide bombings is typical of his extremism. By failing to reject the premise of the question, al-Qaradawi accepted suicide bombings as a legitimate weapon of warfare. This openly contradicts the prohibition in Islamic law on committing suicide.

Al-Qaradawi also fails to uphold the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, a cardinal principle of modern international humanitarian law and Islamic laws of war. The Holy Quran and various Prophetic sayings, otherwise known as the Hadith, establish an unquestionable prohibition on targeting noncombatants.

More alarmingly, al-Qaradawi entrusts the so-called jamaa—a term that can mean “the group” or “the community” and was left undefined—with the authority to order young women and men to become suicide bombers. He finds no religious compulsion or moral imperative to condemn the heinous practice of transforming human beings into indiscriminate instruments of death. He fails to denounce the evil of exploiting young women and men to advance the cause of terror. CONTINUE AT SITE

The world is spinning on its axis very quickly. Conditions that seem to define world affairs yesterday are hopelessly out of date today. There was a time only a couple of years ago when President Obama called Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan his closest friend on the world stage. Erdogan was perceived as a loyal member of NATO and an enemy of Russian’s imperial ambitions in the Middle East. Moreover, Erdogan was devoted to the ouster of Syrian president Bashar Assad, a stance that put him in direct opposition to the Russian strategy. In fact, tensions reached the point of actual conflict when a Russian fighter jet was shot down by Turkish forces near the Syrian border.

However, the ice cold relationship between the two states has begun to thaw after the attempted coup against Erdogan. During this recent period of “good feelings” Erdogan told Russian media outlets that Putin is the ”most significant” factor in resolving the Syria conflict, a statement that blatantly ignored the role of the United States.

Obviously the Turkish relationship to the U.S. has undergone change since the Obama administration has refused to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish preacher residing in Pennsylvania, who Erdogan believes was the moving force behind the attempted coup.

Erdogan has come to the obvious conclusion that reliance on the U.S. as an ally is foolhardy. Far better to deal with the malevolent Russians than the unreliable Americans. Second, Turkey’s role in NATO is now ambiguous; State Department spokesmen have openly questioned having Erdogan as an ally in the alliance. On this matter, Erdogan appears to agree.

Not only has the European Union consistently blocked Turkey’s membership, it has also challenged Turkey over the issue of migrants. Arguably the most significant bone of contention is the drum beat of Western criticism over the state of Turkish democracy or lack thereof. Erdogan is now engaged in ideological cleansing, a function of the failed coup. He remains adamantly persuaded that criticism from the U.S. and European capitals is a form of intervention and a challenge to Turkish sovereignty.

Raising American Muslim Kids in the Age of Trump was a meditative essay penned by Wajahat Ali in the New York Times. During these years of Obama and Hillary, he has been comfortable knowing that no one would question his allegiance to Islamic law (sharia) over the American Constitution. Despite Islam’s record of subversion and violence, he and his coreligionists need not have been overly concerned if their children were caught rioting in the name of Allah, damaging or looting property, or burning tires or American and Israeli flags, For nearly eight years, this has been a Land of the Freedom to Run Amok and cause damage; to join boycotts against a country, Israel, that is falsely accused of the decadence and immorality widespread in Islamic countries; to march and rally against an emasculated police force; to brazenly masquerade an ideology of conquest as a religion of peace, and to be believed!

As Mr. Ali ruminates about his toddler son and new baby daughter, he shares his concerns if Donald J Trump were to become president, and the extreme vetting that could restrict others’ entry to America, regardless of possible aggression. He fears that his friend’s son might be deported and he muses that his daughter could be sent to a “concentration camp” by the only presidential candidate who expresses his intense loyalty to our laws! Has Ali not studied the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Has he not heard Trump iterate that he wants America restored and that his favors cannot be bought? Ali fears a president who upholds the Constitution, but would be comfortable with a Clinton-Kaine administration that will continue to promote the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, endanger our homeland security with additional hordes of unvetted immigrants, betray Israel, and grant positions of power in exchange for payments, resulting in the stealthy imposition of sharia into government.

With pensive reminiscence, he speaks of the beauty of celebrating Eid-al Fitr, an elaborate dining festival that ends the Islamic month of Ramadan, and suggests that he could be denied his celebrations and food preparations under new leadership. This is pure fantasy and fear-mongering, as no other religious group has ever been thus denied – unless, of course, he misses the cattle preparation of his forebears, the men who walk in the streets with their cattle purchases, and intentionally stab and torture the docile animals with picks and knives until they bleed out and bleat their last breath. Does he fear being questioned about his loyalty to the Constitution? Does he fear the prospect of living in a country that does not countenance the torture and abuse found in the Koran?