RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19464/pakistan-acid-attacks-christians

“As she ran screaming for the door a second man grabbed her by the hair and forced more of the liquid down her throat, searing her esophagus. Teeth fell from her mouth as she desperately called for help, stumbling down the street. A woman heard her cries and took her to her home, pouring water over her head and taking her to hospital. At first the doctors refused to treat her, because she was a Christian.”— Daily Mail, July 12, 2012.

Not one of these attacks, with the exception of Julie Aftab, was reported on the mainstream media. Even then, no mention was made that such attacks on Christian women follow a pattern in Pakistan.

Perhaps that is something for all those who claim to care about women’s rights to think about.

A Muslim man recently splashed acid onto the face of a teenage Christian girl, disfiguring her permanently. Her crime? Refusing to convert and turning him down.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/db56e1a8-9c9e-11ed-8201-2ed91f44d1e8?shareToken=5f00e026edb6acc3ffce3b840d61b95a

Almost one in four Dutch people born after 1980 think the Holocaust is “a myth” or that the number of Jewish people killed by the Nazis is “greatly exaggerated”.

Research by the US-based Claims Conference, an organisation representing Jews in negotiations with Germany for compensation and restitution, has found “shocking and disturbing” ignorance among millennials and Generation Z in the Netherlands, which ranked the worst for Holocaust denial from a selection of Western countries surveyed.

Almost a third (32 per cent) of Dutch millennials do not know that Anne Frank, whose diary written while hiding under Nazi occupation is a worldwide bestseller, died in a concentration camp.

A total of 2,000 Dutch people were polled last December following similar surveys in the United States, Britain, France, Austria and Canada.

More than half of those surveyed in the Netherlands, and up to three out of five younger people, do not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, while 23 per cent said the crimes of Nazi Germany were untrue or exaggerated.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/25/the-two-zelenskys/

Choose your Zelensky. He can be either saint or sinner. Either valiant repairer of the liberal international order or compliant puppet of the WEF. Either a one-man defender of liberal democracy or a stooge of nefarious globalists. These are the only two Zelenskys. There’s no in-between. He’s either a Guardian editorial made dashing flesh or the willing jester of Davos Man. Take your pick.

What has happened to Volodymyr Zelensky over the past year has been extraordinary. First, of course, his nation has been subjected to the barbaric imperial aggression of its Russian neighbour, transforming Zelensky from improbable president into even more improbable commander of a war of national liberation. Then there’s been his memeification. Zelensky as virtual emblem, whether of good or ill. This global deification / demonisation of a man at war has provided a grimly fascinating insight into the tech age.

At first, the Zelensky memes were favourable, and funny. Most of them were about his testicles. ‘Things you can see from space: Amazon river, Grand Canyon, balls of Volodymyr Zelensky.’ Even Babylon Bee, which is now pretty firmly in the Zelensky-sceptical camp, was having genital-based fun at the expense of the Russians. ‘Mysterious Large Circles On Russian Radar Turn Out To Be President Zelensky’s Massive Testicles’, said a headline in February last year.

Soon, though, a divergence emerged. The virtual world came to be split between eyelash-fluttering Zelensky fanboys and girls and people who all but come out in a rash at the mere mention of the Ukrainian’s name. Between the witless gushing of media luvvies like Caitlin Moran, for whom Zelensky was a new ‘Hot Priest’ (see Fleabag; better still, don’t), and the inexplicable venom of Very Online right-wingers who started to damn Zelensky as a global welfare queen taking money from the West’s coffers to fund his probably phoney war. The shallow polarisation of what passes for public discussion in the 21st-century West had rarely been so starkly illustrated.

Both sides are projecting. Take the pro-Zelensky set. These liberal fawners over a handsome president are not really expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian struggle for national freedom. How could they, given most of them are allergic to the ideal of national sovereignty, as evidenced by their seven-year hissy fit over Brexit? No, for them Zelensky’s fight to restore Ukraine’s national integrity takes a distant second place to what they imagine he’s doing – giving voice to their views, embodying their beliefs.

They’re so vain they think this war is about them. Zelensky has become ‘the standard bearer for liberal democracy’, said the Financial Times. He isn’t only battling Russian aggression, but the broader ‘authoritarianism’ of the 21st century. Tell that to the brave young Ukrainians on the frontlines, I dare you – that they’re laying down their lives for the pompous ‘liberal’ pretensions of FT types as much as for their own right to self-determination. Zelensky’s Ukraine has given many of us a ‘renewed sense of unity and purpose’, said one observer. This sad war has an upside, hinted the NYT: it proves that ‘liberalism has some life left’. A writer for the i was more shameless still, marshalling Ukrainians into battle with, you guessed it, Brexit. Where Brexit implied the EU was a spent force, and that the future would be populist, Zelensky’s fight reminds us of the ‘absolute moral imperative’ of modern Europe, he said. European unity is ‘the dream which now moves [Ukrainians] as they throw their bodies in front of Russian tanks’.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19435/china-advancing-russia-war

It has been known for quite a while that China has been undercutting Western sanctions against Russia…. and in their own national currencies. When, however, it recently became known that China has been secretly providing military aid to Russa, the move seemed to take the Biden administration by surprise.

China has already supplied significant military aid in the form of dual-use products that can have both civil and military use, including semiconductors used in a wide variety of weapons including fighter jets, helicopters, drones, and guided missiles.

US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield was even more explicit: If China provided lethal military aid to Russia, she said, it would cross a “red line.”

It is highly questionable at this stage whether the Chinese will pay any heed to Blinken’s or Thomas-Greenfield’s warnings: In March of 2022, the Biden administration delivered similarly worded threats to China — that helping Russia evade sanctions would lead to “consequences.” Russia did exactly that; a year later, “consequences” have yet to be seen.

These revelations are not only an embarrassment for the Biden administration — which should have known and acted upon them long ago — but also serve as yet another black hole in the ability of the United States to deter adversaries.

It shows, sadly, that the words and threats of the US carry zero weight internationally, and that America’s most aggressive adversaries are able successfully to collaborate behind its back.

It has been known for quite a while that China has been undercutting Western sanctions against Russia through trade and Chinese purchases of long-term energy supplies.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19437/iraq-republic-of-fear

Well, [Iraq] may not be a better place, but is certainly less bad than it was 20 years ago.

Neighboring Iran is facing a bigger outflow of refugees, especially highly educated people, than Iraq.

In 2021, Iraq was no longer among the countries regarded as “vulnerable” in terms of food shortages and famine.

In terms of political and social freedoms, Iraq is also doing better than such neighbors as the Islamic Republic of Iran and the parts of Syria controlled by the Assad regime.

Facing such deadly challenges as the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS/Da’esh) and the attempted Kurdish secession, post-Saddam Iraq has manifested a higher degree of resilience than many might have expected.

It has also succeeded in frustrating attempts by the Islamic Republic of Iran to stall the emergence of an Iraqi national army and the imposition of a militia state.

The war didn’t turn Iraq into a model of democracy. But, as an Iraqi friend put it the other day, it ended what Kanan Makiya had called “The Republic of Fear.”

In his picaresque novel Twenty Years After, a sequel to The Three Musketeers, French novelist Alexandre Dumas muses on the theme of “the benevolent despot” as a rampart against unbridled change that could lead to savage turbulences.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19436/iran-arms-exporter

In the next phase of Iran’s dangerous development, export and proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), it is attempting to set up drone assembly lines abroad, likely to expedite the process of weapons delivery to its allies.

“Moscow and Tehran are moving ahead with plans to build a new factory in Russia that could make at least 6,000 Iranian-designed drones for the war in Ukraine, the latest sign of deepening cooperation between the two nations….” — Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2023.

Iran’s regime has also been focusing on the proliferation and export of long- and short-range precision-guided ballistic missiles.

While ballistic missiles can be used for either offensive or defensive purposes, the sophisticated ones are mainly developed as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons.

Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19406/turkey-earthquake-ugly-faces

The worst disaster in modern Turkey’s history, the earthquake killed, as of February 15, more than 35,000 people and injured 100,000. The death toll will likely reach 40,000 or more. According to one estimate, the quake will result in $84 billion in economic losses to Turkey, more than 10% of gross domestic product.

It was not the quake that killed tens of thousands, but politics and suicidal profit-maximization behavior on individual level.

[I]n the aftermath of the 1999 quake, Erdoğan said: “What broke here is not the fault line … It is [the state’s] sense of shame. This is [the result of] poor building planning and stealing from construction materials.” Now that he is in power, Erdoğan explains that the loss of life in this month’s earthquake was (God’s) fate.

As part of his election campaign in 2018, Erdoğan granted “amnesty” to 7.4 million applications for unregulated buildings in return for fees, of which his government collected more than $13 billion.

More than 10,000 buildings were destroyed in the latest earthquake.

With the amnesty, contractors were allowed to skip crucial safety regulations, increasing their profits but putting residents at risk. Few buyers and tenants could guess that those permits would be their death certificates.

One of the buildings that collapsed in Hatay, one of the worst-hit provinces, was a government hospital. In 2012, experts wrote a report that the building was not earthquake-resistant. The authorities did not mind. Ironically, a bridge in the same region, built 18 centuries ago during the Roman Empire, survived unscathed.

An Israeli relief team from United Hatzalah, after having rescued 19 people under the rubble, was forced to cut short their work in Turkey and leave the country “in the face of growing security threat to the team.” Yeni Akit claimed that “the Israeli team consisting of intelligence agents disguised as relief workers left Turkey in the face of threats and local people’s cries of ‘go home.'”

At 4:17 am on February 6, an earthquake of 7.8-magnitude hit 10 provinces in Turkey’s east, which account for a sixth of the country’s total population. The worst disaster in modern Turkey’s history, the earthquake killed, as of February 15, more than 35,000 people and injured 100,000. The death toll will likely reach 40,000 or more. According to one estimate, the quake will result in $84 billion in economic losses to Turkey, more than 10% of gross domestic product.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19429/rehabilitating-war-criminal-assad

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s offer to ease border restrictions to allow aid agencies better access to areas of northern Syria that were devastated by the recent earthquake is nothing more than a calculated ploy to have the punitive sanctions regime against Damascus eased.

The same pattern of double-dealing is now evident with the Assad regime’s blatant attempt to exploit the humanitarian disaster caused by the earthquake on the Turkey-Syrian border for its own ends.

Instead of easing sanctions against Assad, the Biden administration should be supporting efforts to establish an international war crimes tribunal that will ensure Assad and his henchmen stand trial for their despicable crimes.

Nor is Syria the only rogue Middle Eastern state seeking to exploit the earthquake.

Reports have also emerged that Iran, Syria’s main regional ally, is similarly seeking to take advantage of the humanitarian disaster to expand its military presence in Syria, a policy that is designed to intensify its efforts to threaten neighbouring Israel.

It is reported that Iran is using the earthquake to smuggle convoys of weapons disguised as humanitarian aid for earthquake victims in Syria.

The Biden Administration should not be encouraging them in their duplicity.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s offer to ease border restrictions to allow aid agencies better access to areas of northern Syria that were devastated by the recent earthquake is nothing more than a calculated ploy to have the punitive sanctions regime against Damascus eased.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19429/rehabilitating-war-criminal-assad

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s offer to ease border restrictions to allow aid agencies better access to areas of northern Syria that were devastated by the recent earthquake is nothing more than a calculated ploy to have the punitive sanctions regime against Damascus eased.

The same pattern of double-dealing is now evident with the Assad regime’s blatant attempt to exploit the humanitarian disaster caused by the earthquake on the Turkey-Syrian border for its own ends.

Instead of easing sanctions against Assad, the Biden administration should be supporting efforts to establish an international war crimes tribunal that will ensure Assad and his henchmen stand trial for their despicable crimes.

Nor is Syria the only rogue Middle Eastern state seeking to exploit the earthquake.

Reports have also emerged that Iran, Syria’s main regional ally, is similarly seeking to take advantage of the humanitarian disaster to expand its military presence in Syria, a policy that is designed to intensify its efforts to threaten neighbouring Israel.

It is reported that Iran is using the earthquake to smuggle convoys of weapons disguised as humanitarian aid for earthquake victims in Syria.

The Biden Administration should not be encouraging them in their duplicity.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s offer to ease border restrictions to allow aid agencies better access to areas of northern Syria that were devastated by the recent earthquake is nothing more than a calculated ploy to have the punitive sanctions regime against Damascus eased.