RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://asiatimes.com/2022/01/ukraine-is-the-hollow-man-of-europe/

Ukraine is disappearing, for two reasons. It has one of the world’s lowest birth rates at just 1.23 children per female, and one of the world’s highest rates of out-migration. No other country has willed itself out of existence so decisively.

Ukraine’s demographic decline is so pronounced that it should be high on the list of strategic considerations. For what, and for whom, might NATO and Russia go to war?

Ukrainians vote with their feet. Nine million have work abroad, according to the National Security and Defense Council of the Ukraine, and 3.2 million have full-time jobs in other countries. There are only 21 million Ukrainians between the ages of 20 and 55, which suggests that more than two-fifths of prime working-age Ukrainians earn their living elsewhere.

I do not know whether this estimate includes half a million Ukrainian prostitutes working abroad since independence, according to one scholarly estimate.

Even worse, a Wilson Center study reports, Ukraine’s best-educated people are likeliest to leave:

Ukrainians who go abroad to study often view their studies as the first stage of emigration. A survey of Ukrainian students at universities in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic showed that students who studied in these countries had similar motives for doing so. Most said they intended to earn their diplomas in order to work in the EU in the future, since living conditions in Ukraine were unsatisfactory; few planned to return home after graduating. Those who do return may be the ones unable to settle abroad in permanent positions.

https://bit.ly/3o2RVMV

Iran’s domestic violence feeds the global Islamic Revolution

According to London-based Iran human rights review: “The combination of Iran’s human rights practices, its weapons programs, its democratic deficit and its support for listed terrorist entities make it a special and dangerous case. Human rights abuses in Iran threaten the peace and security of people elsewhere. It must be tackled, not just for the sake of justice, but also for the peace, order, and good government of Western democracies….”

Iran’s crackdown on religious and ethnic minorities, exacerbated by Iran’s anti-Western hate-education curriculum, is the most authentic reflection of the Ayatollahs’ worldview and strategic vision. However, this rogue domestic conduct has never featured prominently in the negotiation process between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Moreover, Iran’s domestic fanaticism constitutes a most productive breeding ground of recruits for the global exportation of the Islamic Revolution.

However, downplaying – or even whitewashing – the centrality of Iran’s domestic violence, provides the Ayatollahs with a robust tailwind, while generating a sturdy headwind to the battle against Islamic terrorism.

Furthermore, a focus on Iran’s domestic conduct would set the current negotiation on realistic – rather than make believe – grounds, exposing the built-in contradiction between the assumption that Iran is a potential “good-faith negotiator” and the reality of Iran as a prime epicenter of anti-US violence, driven by a 1,400-year-old fanatic and imperialistic Shiite Islamic vision.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/26/why-putin-has-not-been-deterred/

Americans want an autonomous Ukraine to survive. They hope the West can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strangulation of both Ukraine and NATO. 

Yet Americans do not want their troops to venture across the world to Europe’s backyard to fight nuclear Russia to ensure that Ukraine stays independent. 

Most Americans oppose the notion that Russia can simply dictate the future of Ukraine. 

Yet Americans also grudgingly accept that Ukraine was often historically part of Russia. During World War II, it was the bloody scene of joint Russian-Ukrainian sacrifices—over 5 million killed—to defeat the Nazi German invasion. 

Americans publicly support NATO. 

Yet most Americas privately worry that NATO has become diplomatically impotent and a military mirage—a modern League of Nations. 

NATO members have a collective GDP seven times larger than Russia’s. Their aggregate population is 1 billion. Yet the majority will not spend enough on defense to deter their weaker enemies. 

The second largest NATO member, Turkey, is closer to Russia than to the United States. Its people poll anti-American. 

Germany is NATO’s richest European member and the power behind the European Union. Yet Germany will soon be dependent on imported Russian natural gas for much of its energy needs. 

In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of Germans voiced a desire for more cooperation with Russia. Most Americans poll the exact opposite. 

Worse, 60 percent of Germans oppose going to the aid of any NATO country in time of war. Over 70 percent of Germans term their relationship with the United States as “bad.” 

We can translate all these disturbing results in the following manner: The German and Turkish people like or trust Russia more than they do their own NATO patron, America. 

They would not support participating in any NATO joint military effort against even an invading Russia—even, or especially, if spearheaded by an unpopular United States. 

So, assume that NATO’s key two members are either indifferent to the fate of nearby Ukraine, or sympathetic to Russia’s professed grievances—or both. 

Indeed, most Americans fear that if Ukraine ever became a NATO member, Putin might be even more eager to test its sovereignty. 

Putin assumes that not all NATO members would intervene to help an attacked Ukraine, as required by their mutual defense obligations under Article 5. 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18086/turkey-erdogan-hoax

The Turks’ per capita GDP has been falling for the seventh consecutive year, from $12,500 in 2012 to slightly more than $7,000 this year. The Turkish lira has lost more than half its value against major Western currencies in just the past three months.

“The problem with the narrative is there is no evidence Ankara wants better ties or is willing to do anything in which Israel benefits… It [Ankara] thus wants ‘reconciliation’ without actually doing anything.”— Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post, December 5 , 2021.

Erdoğan’s charm offensive to win hearts and minds in Washington, however, is not limited to changing his aggressive course against Israel or unfriendly Gulf states.

U.S. President Joe Biden has persistently encouraged Turkey to normalize diplomatic relations with Armenia…. What is the hoax here? Erdoğan’s move to pretend that Turkey is now taking steps for normalization is fake. He will start a process that he never intends never to complete — just in case other efforts might have gone unnoticed in Washington.

The ailing Turkish economy is forcing Erdoğan to reconcile with adversaries, and reconciliation means these adversaries will demand that Erdogan stop supporting Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. That will be the case “in the short-term.” At the first opportunity, however, Erdogan will abandon the reconciliation and resume his support for these terrorist groups.

Erdoğan’s pragmatist-self has only appeared after 12 or so years, as he prepares to fight for his political survival in the 2023 elections. If he feels Gulf money and some kind of U.S. political support has bolstered the Turkish economy sufficiently for him to win in 2023, he will take off his reconciliatory mask and put his usual Islamist shirt back on.

The province of Konya in central Anatolia has historically been a bastion of extreme conservatism and political Islam — meaning supporters of Turkey’s Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the presidential elections of 2018, in this industrial city, he won 75% of the vote.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18176/genocide-looking-away

The words are haunting, as if a mourner’s lament and offered prayers for the dead. “They Fell,” written by Herbert Kretzmer, Charles Aznavour, and George Garvarentz, is a song that remembers the victims of the Armenian genocide, where as many as 1.2 million living under Ottoman rule died during World War I.

But the lyrics speak to every bloody ravine that was turned into a mass grave. The words speak to the terror all genocide victims must have experienced in their final moments. The emotion of Aznavour’s voice reveals the despair of viewing the incomprehensible inhumanity inflicted on those targeted for extinction.

Tomorrow, as we observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is more important than ever to memorialize the six million Jews who were put to death and all those who have been targeted for genocide. It is equally important to understand how mass murder on an industrial scale can be repeated time and again as loving human beings are reduced into something subhuman by a regime that deems them worthy of destruction. Equally chilling is how, who, and why there are co-conspirators in the heinous act of genocide.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/24/china-sends-nearly-40-warplanes-towards-taiwan/

On Sunday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sent 39 warplanes on a flight path towards Taiwan in its latest act of military aggression against the small island nation.

As reported by ABC News, the Chinese formation which departed on Sunday night is already the largest group of warplanes sent to Taiwan in the new year. Among the aircraft were 24 J-16 fighter jets and 10 J-10 jets. Other aircraft in the formation included those designed for electronic warfare.

On the same day, two American aircraft carriers – the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson – sailed through the South China Sea, engaging in anti-submarine, air and combat readiness operations.

In response to the Chinese aggression, Taiwan scrambled jets of its own and tracked the movements of the PLA formation via radar. While Chinese warplanes flying near Taiwan has become an almost daily occurrence, the sheer size of this particular group was unusual; the previous largest PLA formation to buzz Taiwan, back in October, consisted of 56 aircraft.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/samuel-hayeks-message-will-remain-hanging-air-hugh-fitzgerald/

When Samuel Hayek, the head of the Jewish National Fund in the U.K., gave an interview to the Jewish News in December, he said that within ten years, the situation of British Jewry might become intolerable because of the increase in the Muslim population. These are his exact words:

“The process is that maybe in 10 years, maybe less, who knows, Jews will not be able to live in the UK. I don’t think anybody can stop it.” ”It” refers to that burgeoning Muslim presence.

All hell then broke loose. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis denounced him, and 46 members of the Jewish Board of Deputies called for Hayek to be fired. “Chief Rabbi condemns JNF UK chair Samuel Hayek’s ‘no future for Jews’ claim,” by Lee Harpin, Jewish News, January 7, 2022:

In denouncing Samuel Hayek for expressing alarm about the Jewish future in the U.K., Mirvis also praised the support of the Muslim community, alongside that of “countless non-Jewish partners” in the fight against the “scourge of antisemitism” which he said sadly “continues to be an appalling blight upon British society.”

Mirvis claims that everything is copacetic for British Jews, “a vibrant, confident, and contented community,” but at the same time, he admits that “the scourge of antisemitism continues to be an appalling blight upon British society.” So which is it? The “scourge” is there, but at the same time, there is nothing to worry about? And would the Chief Rabbi care to tell us where he thinks that “appalling blight” of antisemitism is coming from? Lager louts, is it, or possibly aging admirers of Oswald Mosley? C’mon, Chief Rabbi, admit that the current antisemitism in the U.K. is coming almost entirely from Muslims who have taken to heart the many antisemitic passages to be found in the Qur’an, which I included in my post yesterday.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/crime-wave-nobody-sees-yet-another-muslim-rape-robert-spencer/

If you thought that the Muslim rape gangs that plagued Britain for years while authorities did nothing for fear of being called “racists” or “Islamophobes” were a thing of the past, think again. A gang of six Muslims is in court now over charges that the forced eight underage girls into sexual activity multiple times between 2013 and 2017. There is no indication that this will be the last Muslim rape gang in shattered, staggering, dhimmi Britain, either. Yet still no one in Britain dares speak of the root causes of this appallingly recurring phenomenon.

The details are about as revolting as you might expect. The MailOnline reported Tuesday that the men “sexually exploited and abused vulnerable young girls after luring them over Facebook with the promise of drink and drugs.” They “committed the offences against eight girls under the age of 16 in the Redditch area of Worcestershire.”

Abdul Hussain, 21, Usmaan Asghar, 22, Arslan Tazarab, 25, Ethashan Tazarab, 21, Usman Ali, 28 and Numan Mohammed, 23, “are charged with a total of 24 sex offences going back almost ten years – including sexual assault and sexual activity with a child.”

Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC said: “This case is about eight girls in their early to middle teens and from 2013 to 2017 they were sexually abused by these defendants. Some were crudely groped simply because they were in reach. Some were lonely and wanted attention. Others had made poor lifestyle choices which made them vulnerable. This included drinking, taking drugs, and being sexually available – they were easily taken advantage of. One was faced with demands for oral sex, she gave up resisting. When she did resist and saying no, she was grabbed and forced to comply.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/norways-government-welcomes-taliban-oslo-bruce-bawer/

On April 9, 2002, the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet reported that a man named Ingmar Tveitt, who was a friend of a member of the Norwegian Parliament named Jan Simonsen, had been dining in the Parliament cafeteria on the previous day when security guards asked him to remove his jacket. Why? Because Tveitt, a supporter of Israel, had an Israeli flag pin on his lapel. Some Parliament members found this offensive – even though, as Tveitt pointed out, people were always walking around the premises in Palestinian scarces. Yes, it was a minor incident, quickly forgotten by almost everybody. But that little story stuck in my mind, and I’ve had occasion to recall it now and then, because it told a big truth about the sympathies of Norwegian officialdom vis-à-vis the Middle East

That was twenty years ago. Since then, as the Islamic presence in Norway has steadily increased, Norwegian anti-Semitism, Israel-hatred, and support for Palestine have grown. In recent years, Norway has given Palestinian government bodies about $100 million annually – over $20 per Norwegian taxpayer. Earlier this month, when Norway took charge of the U.N. Security Council, its ambassador to the UN, Mona Juul, said that the Israel-Palestine conflict deserves “more attention” – as if the five million Palestinians hadn’t been getting far more than their share of attention (and Western largesse) for the last half century. Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt, for her part, chided Israel as “inhuman” for listing six Palestinian organizations – all of which Norway helps fund, in addition to the money it transfers to government bodies – as terrorist groups. Even though, by any objective definition, they are terrorist groups.

I was reminded of the Tveitt story this weekend after being apprised of the latest development in the saga of Norwegian involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. The story broke last Friday in the country’s biggest newspaper, VG. “The Taliban,” trumpeted the headline, “is coming to Norway to negotiate.” Norway, I read, had grabbed the brass ring: of all Western countries, it would be the first since the fall of Kabul to welcome a delegation of Taliban leaders to its shores. Reportedly, the distinguished visitors would meet not just with their Norwegian counterparts but also with representatives of the U.S., the EU, the U.K., France, Germany, and Italy, as well as with Afghans living outside Afghanistan, with officials of the Church of Norway and the Norwegian Red Cross, and with sundry journalists and human-rights activists. The meetings, which the Norwegian government had hoped to keep secret, began yesterday and will conclude tomorrow. 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18163/eric-zemmour-france

When French President Emmanuel Macron speaks, it is only about the pandemic. Political analysts think that if he manages to avoid all other topics, his reelection will be a certainty. If he does not, everything could turn out any which way.

“No, the great replacement is not a fantasy”. — Éric Zemmour, candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election, Reconquest Party, YouTube, December 15, 2021.

“Four hundred thousand Muslim immigrants enter France each year. In five years, that makes two million more Muslims. These Muslims go to live in the Muslim areas and do not integrate… What do you think that means?” — Éric Zemmour, YouTube, December 15, 2021.

“We see violence in our cities and towns…. We see hatred of France and its history becoming the norm… You abandon, without reacting, entire districts of our country to the law of the strongest… if a civil war breaks out, the army will maintain order on its own soil…. No one can want such a terrible situation… but yes, once again, civil war is brewing in France and you know it perfectly well”. — Open letter in Valeurs Actuelles, signed by thousands of professional soldiers who asked that their names not be made public, May 9, 2021.

Paris, December 18, 2021. The Algerian national soccer team wins the Arab Cup in Qatar. Tens of thousands of Algerian supporters, waving Algerian flags, rush onto the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Shop windows are smashed. The unrest lasts until nightfall. Slogans are shouted: “Long live Algeria”, “By Allah, the Koran!” — and also “Fu*k France!” and “Fu*k Zemmour!” The police are ordered not to intervene. They are attacked anyway.

The next day, Jean Messiha, a former member of the National Rally Party, notes on television: “The great replacement and the ethnic hatred, we can see them”.

Éric Zemmour, a Jewish candidate for the French presidency, does not comment. He simply states in an interview: “sadly banal scenes”.