Archive for September 2015

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Putin warns Israel off targeting Iranian targets in Syria

September 29, 2015

Source: Putin warns Israel off targeting Iranian targets in Syria

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 29, 2015, 9:53 AM (IDT)
 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is concerned about Israel’s repeated attacks in Syria, he said, after  talking for an hour and-a-half with President Barack Obama early Tuesday, Sept. 29, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Putin agreed that Israel’s security concerns must be taken into account in Syria, but he was worried by the IDF’s periodic strikes on positions in the embattled territory.

Sunday night, the IDF hit Syrian military targets with powerful Tamuz artillery rockets after two errant Syrian rockets landed on the Golan.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that they hit the artillery command post of the Syrian army’s 90th Brigade, which is stationed outside Quneitra. Syrian and Lebanese sources say the Syrian deputy commander was injured.
The message the Russian president issued, straight after his meeting with Obama, was that Moscow would not put up with Israeli strikes in Syria, even in response to an attack.
This comment and the events leading up to it raise four questions:

1.  Why did Putin take the trouble to respond in person to a trivial incident like a cross-border exchange of fire on the Golan directly after his highly-important talks with Obama?

2.  Why was he so concerned by this incident? It occurred just a week after the Russian president and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had agreed in Moscow to set up a coordination mechanism to prevent clashes between IDF and Russian forces. And in any case Russian forces were not involved.

3. What was behind statement issued by Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon after the incident, in which he stressed with unusual emphasis Israel’s zero tolerance of Syrian rocket infractions of its sovereignty?

4. The two highly-charged statements were obviously occasioned by much more than errant cross-border fire from the Syrian side of the Golan.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that the answers to these conundrums are embodied in one individual, Brig. Gen. Saeed Azadi, of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, whose presence and operations in Syria are a closely guarded secret.

Or at least they were until Netanyahu let the cat out of the bag at his meeting with Putin last week at the Russian presidential residence outside Moscow. The prime minister disclosed his knowledge that Gen. Azadi had come to replace Gen. Ali Allah Dadi, who died on Jan 18 in an Israeli air strike against a convoy carrying Iranian Guards and Hizballah commanders traveling near Quneitra. They were there to survey a site for mounting a terrorist campaign inside Israel.

The Israeli air strike nipped this plan in the bud. But Iran and Hizballah never gave up, and Gen. Azadi was assigned to finish setting up the terror machine and getting it up and running.

A week ago, Netanyahu gave Putin notice that Israel would not let this happen – even if this meant disposing of another Iranian general.

The Russian leader explained that Israel’s attacks on Iranian military targets presented a problem because they weakened Bashar Assad.
As matter stand therefore, Russia and Israel are on a collision course: While Israel views Gen. Azadi as a menacing adversary, Putin regards him as part of the Russian-Iranian axis in Syria and wants Israel to keep its hands off him. This point is of such paramount importance to the Russian leader’s plans for Syria that he made a big deal of it at the highest international forum – almost as a sequel to his first meeting with President Obama in more than a year.
He was signaling strongly that the arrangement for the Russian and Israeli armies to coordinate their operations in Syria is unworkable and he was losing patience with Israel’s “security concerns” in so far as they impeded his plans with Iran for Syria.

DEBKAfile’s military sources add: The Syrian rocket fire Friday and Saturday was not in fact “errant” as the IDF spokesman maintained. The rockets were fired on the orders of Iranian Brig. Azadi as a demonstration that Israel’s warning to Putin was a waste of time and he meant to go forward with his operation regardless. Netanyahu and Ya’alon conveyed their message of resistance to this operation by instructing the IDF to hit back with the Tamuz rocket, a system powerful enough to give the other side pause and present Putin with an unforeseen complication in his Syrian venture.

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments: 13 Comments

The mystery of Pope Francis: Was there a Vatican Coup?

September 29, 2015

The mystery of Pope Francis: Was there a Vatican Coup? Power Line, Steven Hayward, September 27, 2015

(Neither Power Line in general, nor Mr. Hayward, is a fan of “vast right-wing conspiracies.” This does not appear to be one and may help to explain several aspects of Prope Francis’ recent remarks. — DM)

One thing that that has puzzled a lot of people since the selection of Pope Francis two years ago is how a left-leaning Pope could succeed two very serious conservative Popes—John Paul II and Benedict XVI—who you would have thought had stacked the ranks of the Cardinals with clergy that would perpetuate their theological and philosophical outlook. Was Benedict hounded out of office by some kind of internal Vatican scandal perhaps? Was there some ecclesiastical version of a coup?

There’s no evidence that I’m aware of—until now. Three days ago the National Catholic Register ran a very curious article about the contents of a newly published authorized biography of retired Belgian cardinal Godfried Danneels. The Register article reports:

Further serious concerns are being raised about Cardinal Godfried Danneels, one of the papal delegates chosen to attend the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family, after the archbishop emeritus of Brussels confessed this week to being part of a radical “mafia” reformist group opposed to Benedict XVI. . .

At the launch of the book in Brussels this week, the cardinal said he was part of a secret club of cardinals opposed to Pope Benedict XVI.

He called it a “mafia” club that bore the name of St. Gallen. The group wanted a drastic reform of the Church, to make it “much more modern”, and for Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to head it. The group, which also comprised Cardinal Walter Kasper and the late Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, has been documented in Austen Ivereigh’s biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer.

Over at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher has gone to the trouble of translating an Italian report that is even more curious:

The Italian Vaticanist Marco Tosatti writes (in Italian; I’ve modified the Google translation):

The election of Jorge Bergoglio was the result of secret meetings that cardinals and bishops, organized by Carlo Maria Martini, held for years in St. Gallen, Switzerland. This, according to Jürgen Mettepenningen et Karim Schelkens, authors of a newly published biography of the Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who calls the group of cardinals and bishops a “Mafia club”.
Danneels according to the authors, worked for years to prepare for the election of Pope Francis, which took place in 2013. Danneels, moreover, in a video recorded during the presentation of the book in Brussels, admits that he was part of a secret club of cardinals who opposed Joseph Ratzinger. Laughing, he calls it “a Mafia club that  bore the name of St. Gallen”.

The group wanted a drastic reform of the Church, much more modern and current, with Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis, as its head. They got what they wanted. Besides Danneels and Martini, the group according to the book were part of the Dutch bishop Adriaan Van Luyn, the German cardinal Walter Kasper and Karl Lehman, the Italian Cardinal Achille Silvestrini and British Basil Hume, among others.

I underscore that this is not some secretly sourced claim, but it’s from an advance copy of Cardinal Danneels’ official biography, approved by himself. 

This is the first confirmation of rumors that had been going around for years about Benedict being thwarted by a liberal conspiracy, one that eventually forced him out. These men — Danneels, Van Luyn, Kasper, Lehman, and Hume, at least — all preside over dying churches. And they killed the Benedict papacy.

This might explain a few things. . .

Categories: Leftists, Pope Francis, Progressives
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

At the U.N., Obama refuses to see the chaotic world he has made,

September 29, 2015

At the U.N., Obama refuses to see the chaotic world he has made, Breitbart, John Hayward, September 28, 2015

ISIS-beheading-Christians-Libya-ap-640x480

President Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday morning was a rambling journey through a fantasy world where his foreign policy hasn’t been an unmitigated disaster.

Perhaps the most bizarre moment came when he tried to tout his Libyan adventure as a success.

There was plenty of tough-guy posturing that intimidated absolutely no one.  The Russian and Iranian delegations were especially good at looking bored and unimpressed when he called upon them to do this-or-that because The World supposedly demanded it. Obama hasn’t figured out he’s the only leader at the U.N. eager to sacrifice his nation’s interests to please The World.

Obama made the weird decision to vaguely threaten Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by claiming that The World would not stand idly by and allow it… when that’s exactly what The World, and especially First Citizen of the World Barack Obama, has been doing.  He essentially pleaded with Iran to stop supporting terrorist proxies and pursuing its aggressive regional ambitions, and focus on their economy instead.  (Of course, in Obama’s vigorous imagination, the U.S. has been enjoying an economic boom under his stewardship, instead of an endless grinding non-recovery and limp, sporadic growth, after Obama’s spending doubled the national debt in a single presidency.)

It was bad enough that the President talked about American troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan as the triumphant conclusion of an effective policy, rather than the hideous blunder that allowed ISIS to create a terror state, al-Qaeda to rise from the ashes, and the Taliban to begin planning its return to power.  At the same moment Obama was speaking, the Taliban was conducting a major offensive in Afghanistan, on par with the importance of ISIS taking Mosul in Iraq.  Obama’s pitifully small “New Syrian Force” of U.S.-backed rebels just handed a good deal of its American equipment over to al-Qaeda, and no one really knows what became of the unit itself.  Their predecessors were destroyed by al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria, with less than half a dozen survivors still on the field.

When Obama boasted of the Libyan operation as the successful removal of a tyrant, jaws must have hit the floor around the room.  Libya is an unholy disaster, a wasteland of warlords fighting to keep ISIS off their turf.  It’s a key gateway for the incredible migratory tide blasting out of Africa and the Middle East and now surging across Europe.  And yet, Obama portrays it as [a] laudable example of tyrant removal… while modestly admitting that “our coalition could have, and should have, done more to fill a vacuum left behind.”

Of course he blamed everyone else in the “coalition” for the disaster in Libya. He’s Barack Obama.  The day may come when he takes responsibility for something, but today is not that day, and tomorrow isn’t looking good either.

The scary thing about Obama is that he believes so completely in the power of his own rhetoric.

He thinks he can reshape reality with his words.  When he scolds the Iranians for their “Death to America!” rhetoric by saying bloodthirsty chants don’t create jobs, he’s asking Iran to live up to the silly talking points he foisted off on the American people to cover the Iranian nuclear deal.  He’s commanding Iran to act like the enlightened, responsible nation-state he gambled the future of Israel, America, and much of the Western world on.

The Iranians, on the other hand, see no reason to knock off the “Death to America!” chants, disband their theocracy, and begin spending their days arguing about stimulus bills.  Belligerence has gotten them everything so far.  They’ve been rewarded for it… by Barack Obama.  They’ve got $150 billion in sanctions relief coming their way.  They can afford to send a few guys to sit in the U.N. General Assembly with pissy expressions on their faces while Obama rambles on about how geo-political crime does not pay.  They know for a fact it pays, quite handsomely.  The Iranians are already using their Obama loot to reinforce terror proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and secure Bashar Assad in power.

Ah, yes, Bashar Assad… the dictator Obama still blathers on about removing from power, even as his own diplomatic apparatus gets used to the idea Assad is not going anywhere.  The only really good part of Obama’s speech was when he spent five seconds glaring at the Syrian ambassador before launching into his denunciation of barrel bombs and chemical weapons.  But you know what?  That Syrian ambassador gets paid enough to take a few seconds of hairy eyeball from the ineffectual American president.  The Russians are smoothly replacing American influence across the Middle East, in partnership with Iran.  The new order is taking shape.  Obama isn’t going to reverse that process by telling aggressive, bare-knuckle conquerors they should be ashamed of themselves.

The other dangerous thing about this delusional President is his belief in the “judgment of history.”

He’s constantly hitting on the idea that all of the world’s villains are on the wrong side of history, and will find themselves buried in the sands of time any day now.  It’s a dodge, a way of Obama evading responsibility.  Bashar Assad is going to remerge from the Wrong Side of History in pretty good shape.  ISIS is very comfortable there, as is Iran.  Qaddafi didn’t assume room temperature because History caught up with him. Vladimir Putin has a lovely view of Crimea from the wrong side of history.  The history of Europe is being reshaped by the tramping of a million “refugee” feet.

In every example, Obama clings to the idea that he can change the world by talking and scoring debate points, while his adversaries seize territory and control the course of events.  It’s not as though Obama has some deep-seated reluctance to use deadly force – there have been a lot of deaths by drone strike since he won that Nobel Peace Prize.  What Obama lacks is commitment.  His foreign policy is all about gestures and distractions.  He cooks up half-baked plans that will blow up a terrorist here and there, so he can’t be accused of doing “nothing,” but he won’t do anything that could cost him political capital at home.  Even Libya was half-hearted and calculated for minimum risk, which is why the place went to an even deeper Hell after Qaddafi was overthrown.

Obama talks as if he’s taken action against numerous crises, but all he ever did was talk about them.  The men of action are stacking up bodies, and raising flags over conquered cities, while this President is writing speeches and trying to win applause from editorial boards.  The men of action know that Obama’s promises all have expiration dates, his vows of action always have escape clauses, and no matter how he loves to boast that he heads up the most powerful military the world has ever seen, he’s done everything he can to make it weaker.

President Obama is still clinging to a romantic vision of the “Arab Spring” as a flourishing of democracy, despite all evidence to the contrary.  He’s giving the same foreign policy speeches he gave in 2009 because he can’t bear to live in the world he made.  He talks about filling vacuums and voids… but those voids are already filled, by hard characters with plans to make the most of the extraordinary opportunity Barack Obama afforded them.

(Video of Obama’s UN address — DM):

 

Categories: Afghanistan, Arab Spring, Assad, Christians, Copts, Death to America, Denial, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, Ideology, Iran, Iran - Iraq war, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Iraq war, Islamic nations, Islamic State, Libya, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Right and wrong sides of history
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 4 Comments

Taliban storm Kunduz city

September 28, 2015

Taliban storm Kunduz city, Long War Journal, , September 28, 2015

[R]eports from the Afghan media, as well as Taliban fighters and residents from inside the city, indicate that parts if not all of the city are now under Taliban control.

*******************

The Taliban assaulted the northern provincial capital of Kunduz from three directions and seized control of areas in the city. Unconfirmed reports from residents and Taliban fighters inside Kunduz indicate that Afghan forces have been driven out of the city and the Taliban are in full control.

According to the BBC, hundreds of Taliban fighters launched their offensive today from three districts: Imam Sahib to the north, Khanabad from the southeast, and Chardara from the southwest. All three districts are thought to be under Taliban control.

The Taliban confirmed they launched a three-pronged assault on Kunduz city. “The operations have commenced on the city center from 3 directions with Mujahideen quickly taking enemy positions and the enemy is retreating from their positions,” according to an initial statement that was posted on Voice of Jihad.

The Taliban later stated that their fighters have “reached the main city intersection, are targeting the governors [sic] compound and clearing the small remaining pockets from enemy presence.”

Afghan security officials have denied that the Taliban are in control of the city and have stated that the fighting was largely confined to the outskirts of the provincial capital.

But reports from the Afghan media, as well as Taliban fighters and residents from inside the city, indicate that parts if not all of the city are now under Taliban control.

According to TOLONews, “Taliban insurgents have taken control of Kunduz city’s provincial council building and the local High Peace Council offices.”

Ehsanullah Ehsan, a stabilization manager at the international development agency DAI who is based in Kunduz, has said that the Taliban have seized the city and Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF] have retreated.

“Kunduz city is completely with taliban ANSF are out,” Ehsan tweeted. “[T]he city is completely with taliban now, taliban walking inside streets, i am trapped at home.”

Ehsan posted photographs purportedly showing Taliban fighters walking the streets of Kunduz and prisoners who have been freed from the city’s main jail.

Kunduz province has been hotly contested since the Taliban and its allies launched an offensive to seize control of the province at the end of April. The districts of Imam Sahib, Aliabad, and Qala-i-Zal were overrun in the initial assault, while Chardara and Dasht-i-Archi fellin mid-June. It is unclear when Khanabad fell under Taliban control. The status of the six districts is unclear, but the Taliban is still thought to be in control of Imam Sahib, Aliabad, Chardara, Khanabad, and Dasht-i-Archi.

The Taliban and allied jihadist groups based in Kunduz have been flexing their muscles in the province in recent weeks. In August, hundreds of fighters from the Taliban and the allied Islamic Jihad Union massed in the open, in daylight, to swear allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the new emir of the Taliban. Last week, the Islamic Jihad Union claimed it controlled large areas of the border with Tajikistan and a border crossing from Kunduz into the northern Afghan neighbor.

The loss of Kunduz city, if confirmed, would be a major blow to the Afghan government and military, which have struggled to maintain security after US and NATO forces have drawn down to a token presence. Kunduz city would be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban.

Additionally, the fall of Kunduz would invalidate the entire US “surge” strategy from 2009 to 2012. The US military focused its efforts on the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, claiming that these provinces were the key to breaking the Taliban. Little attention was given to other areas of Afghanistan, including the northern provinces, where the Taliban have expended considerable effort in fighting the military and government. Today, the Taliban are gaining ground in northern, central, eastern and southern Afghanistan, with dozens of districts falling under Taliban control over the past year.

Categories: Afghanistan, Foreign policy, Obama - Middle East, Taliban, U.S. combat troops
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Finally, A Plan To Defeat the Islamic State

September 28, 2015

Finally, A Plan To Defeat the Islamic State, Town Hall, Jim Hanson, September 28, 2015

(Obama would need the approvals of Putin, Xi, Rouhani, Assad, Erdogan and “our” other “peace partners” as well as his trained seals at the Department of Defense. Then, and only then, could General Bowie Bergdahl lead his march to victory. Or something. —  DM)

Black flag

What if there was an actual strategy to defeat ISIS and stop their reign of terror? The state of affairs and the very existence of IS as a governing entity is intolerable so we developed a strategy called Cut Down the Black Flag – A Plan to Defeat the Islamic State, the second book in the Secure Freedom Strategy series.

President Obama has failed to articulate or implement anything resembling a strategy during his time in office. This fact is even more painful when considering the rise of the Islamic State (IS) occurred on his watch and was largely due to his shortsighted and foolish decision to cut and run from Iraq. He lost the peace after our troops won the war.

Unlike the President, we’re not interested in token gestures doomed to failure as IS kills, rapes, and tortures on ground won for freedom just a few short years ago. We will not stand on the sidelines as an Inter-Continental Caliphate calls for “Death to all Infidels.” We have a plan to win and cut down their blood-soaked, Black Flag of Jihad.

It will not be easy but it is an essential part of the war for the free world. If we do not make a full faith effort to destroy IS, we will have done a disservice to all who gave their lives and limbs to free Iraq from tyranny. We will also be leaving millions to suffer the chaos and killing fields created when the inevitable vacuum of our withdrawal was filled by IS and Iran.

This book details a strategy focused on victory, aimed for stability in the region with the possibility of actual peace. It recognizes this action must be part of a greater “long war” against the whole of the Global Jihad Movement (GJM). They are the collection of groups who, while not officially associated, share a belief in Islamic Supremacy and are working actively to achieve it.

The Violent Jihadists like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and others are easily identifiable as our enemies. The Civilization Jihadists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the groups it has spawned such as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) are less overt but perhaps even more dangerous. Our overall strategy to defeat the Global Jihad Movement with a whole of government and culture approach is detailed in the Secure Freedom Strategy.

Our plan to defeat the Islamic State is a complete departure from the dismal failures of the current Commander in Chief leading from behind. The military might and will to win of the United States are vital to any chance of success. This does not mean we propose rolling tanks in a thunder run from Baghdad to Damascus. But we must take the handcuffs off the forces we already have deployed by allowing them to participate in combat missions with the forces they have trained to provide command and control and direct fire support. We must remove the cumbersome and overly risk-averse process for airstrikes that leave most of our aircraft returning to base with all munitions unused.

We must also work with the Sunni tribes who helped us defeat the precursor to IS; and, arm the Kurds who are our best friend and truest ally in the region. Both of these groups were left to the mercy of a central Iraqi government when U.S. forces withdrew and Iranian influence became dominant. We must look to a future where they govern by self-determination rather than remain forced into artificial borders established nearly 100 years ago; and, that have been largely erased over the recent war-torn years.

Our strategy is ambitious, but it does not require large deployments of U.S. troops or the expectation we will be the sole guarantor of security going forward. We aim to cut off the head of the jihadist snake by empowering the indigenous people who have suffered the most from its actions and then let them govern themselves. This strategy vigorously executed can do what the current half-hearted efforts never will: Defeat the Islamic State.

 

Categories: Air strikes, Arab nations, Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Iraq war, Islamic nations, Kurds, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Obama's America, Syria war
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Germany segregating Christians as migrant violence escalates

September 28, 2015

Germany segregating Christians as migrant violence escalates, Breitbart, Liam Deacon, September 28, 2015

Screen-Shot-2015-09-28-at-12.58.45-640x480Sean Gallup/Getty

(Video at link.– DM)

Christian migrants in German asylum centres are living under persistent threat, with many fearing for their lives as the hardline Sunni majority within the migrant population attempts to enforce Sharia law in their new host nation. The situation is so bad that Christians claim they live like “prisoners” in Germany, and some have even returned to Middle East.

In the German state of Thuringia, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, one of the multiculturalists driving and celebrating the migrant crisis, has been forced to initiate a policy of separating and segregating different cultures as soon as they arrive in Europe.

“In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards have arrested my brother in a house church. I fled the Iranian intelligence, because I thought in Germany I can finally live freely according to my religion,” says Said, a Christian who fled persecution in his native country.

“But I can not openly admit that I am a Christian in my home for asylum seekers. I will be threatened,” he told Germany language paper Die Welt.

This year Germany prepares to absorb a million people in just twelve months – one per cent of its entire population – from numerous, diverse and alien cultures.

“We must rid ourselves of the illusion that all those who arrive here are human rights activists,” says Max Klingberg of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), who has worked with refugees for 15 years. “Among the new arrivals is not a small amount of religious intensity, it is at least at the level of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.

Said is living in an asylum centre in southern Brandenburg, near the border with Saxony. “They wake me before dawn during Ramadan and say I should eat before the sun comes up. If I refuse, they say I’m a kuffar, an unbeliever. They spit at me… They treat me like an animal. And threaten to kill me.”

“… They are also all Muslims,” he adds.

Gottfried Martens, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Trinity in Berlin-Steglitz, has around 600 Afghanis and Iranians in his church, most of whom he baptised himself. “Almost all have big problems in their homes,” says Martens. “Devout Muslims teach their view, that here [in Germany] there is the Sharia, and then there is our law.”

He told Die Welt that the Christian refugees are often stopped from using kitchens to prepare food in asylum centres, and are constantly bullied for not praying five times a day to Mecca. Martens continues:

“And [the Christians] ask the question: What happens when the devout Muslim refugees leave the refugee center, must we continue hiding ourselves as Christians in the future in this country?”

Said’s fear is not unfounded. On the 14th of September German police in the town of Hemer revealed in a statement that an Eritrean Christian and his wife – who was eight months pregnant – had been hospitalised after being brutally attacked with a glass bottle by Algerian Muslims. The man had been wearing a wooden crucifix, which had “insulted” the Algerians.

In September, Syrian refugees rioted in the town of Suhl when an Afghan man tore a few pages out of the Koran. Last week during Ramadan, in Baden-Württemberg Ellwangen, there was a mass brawl between Christians, Yazidis and Muslims, and just this weekend migrant violence erupted as hundreds fought in the city of Kassel, leaving 14 injured.

A young Syrian from Erstaufnahmelager in Giessen, who has reported threats against him, said he is concerned that among the refugees are followers of the Islamic State (IS): “They shout Quranic verses. These are words that IS shouts before they cut off people’s heads. I cannot stay here. I am a Christian,” he said

Die Welt even reports a case of a Christian family from Iraq who was housed in a refugee camp in Bavarian Freising. The family lived like “prisoners” in Germany, they said, so returned to Mosul in Iraq. The father told a TV crew how Syrian Islamists had attacked them in Germany: “You have my wife yelled at and beaten. My child they say… We will kill you and drink your blood.”

Simon Jacob of the Central Council of the Eastern Christians said that stories like this no longer surprise him: “I know a lot of reports of Christian refugees who are under attack. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“The number of unreported cases is high. We must expect further conflicts that bring the refugees from their homeland to Germany. Between Christians and Muslims. Between Shiites and Sunnis. Between Kurds and extremists. Between Yazidis and extremists,” he said.

Categories: Asylum seekers, Christians, Death to Europe, Europe, Free world, Germany, Human rights, Iraq war, Islam, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic perversions, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic war on Christians, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Kurds, Middle East, Sharia law, Syria war, Yazidis
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Cartoons of the day

September 28, 2015

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

 

brief

 

nobel

 

obamerica

Categories: Humor, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Invasion of Europe

September 28, 2015

The Invasion of Europe, Pat Condell via You Tube, September 28, 2015

 

Categories: Asylum seekers, Death to Europe, Europe, European Union, Free world, Human rights, Imperialism, Islam, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic perversions, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Leftists, Middle East, Pat Condell, Political Islam, Progressives, Sharia law
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Migration Crisis: “Islam Will Conquer Europe Without Firing a Shot”

September 28, 2015

Migration Crisis: “Islam Will Conquer Europe Without Firing a Shot” Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, September 28, 2015

(The principal focus of the article in on Israel and the Palestinians. — DM)

  • The failed foreign policies of the EU and the US under President Obama, have brought the Arabs to the brink of chaos, and destroyed regimes which, even though they were not democratic utopias, at least provided governance and public order. These failed policies have abandoned the Arabs to the atrocities of the Sunni Islamists and to the murderous proxies of the Iranian Islamic Revolution — and are ultimately the cause of the tsunami of refugees beating at the gates of Europe.
  • Now the EU and Obama want to bring the catastrophe of Gaza to the West Bank.
  • The American FDA is more careful with experiments on animals than the White House is with experiments on the people of the Middle East.
  • Every time the Palestinians have taken steps against the Israelis, we have hurt no one but ourselves, and are left with — nothing.
  • The Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territories know, although it is a bitter pill to swallow, that we have been favored by fortune, because under the State of Israel we live in security.
  • In the face of ongoing mass murder in the Middle East, what arcane consideration, apart from Federica Mogherini being a racist, could possibly bring the EU to deal with something as marginal to global issues as boycotting Israeli face-cream and cookies?

With the anniversary of Al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, internal Palestinian discourse revolves around radical Islam and America’s actions. It relates to the slaughter, rape and millions of refugees who have fallen victim to Al-Qaeda, humanitarian calamity of and the Islamist terrorist organizations to which it gave birth, such as ISIS. Today an apocalyptic proportions is unfolding in territories that used to be Arab states but are now the battle grounds for feuding Arab tribes, whose only objective is to destroy one another.

In their heart of hearts, the Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territories know, although it is a bitter pill to swallow, that we have been favored by fortune because under the State of Israel we live in security. This reality is brought home to us by the feeble international response and the strange behavior of U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of the Western world who have abandoned the Arabs to the atrocities of the Sunni Islamists (and their supporters in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar), and to the murderous proxies of the Iranian Islamic Revolution (mainly in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon).

In view of what is happening in neighboring countries, it is clear to us what will happen if Israel is in danger of destruction: no Western state will come to its aid and no Arab state will come to our aid. Our fate will be the same as that of our brothers beyond Israel’s borders. It is hard not to identify and sympathize with Israel’s efforts to fight terrorism and with its objections to the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Despite the chaos and worse than chaos in the Middle East, the EU’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, recently announced that the EU had decided to mark products made in the Israeli settlements. That is mind-boggling, so say the least. In the face of the ongoing mass murders in the Middle East, what arcane consideration, apart from Mogherini being a racist, could possibly bring the EU, now, to deal with something as blatantly marginal to global issues as the provenance of face cream and cookies?

In the final analysis, if the Europeans harm Israel’s ability to market goods manufactured in the West Bank, the first victims will be the Palestinian workers in the Israeli settlement factories. Every time the Palestinians have taken steps against the Israelis, we have hurt no one but ourselves. The last time we boycotted Israeli products we wound up buying them on the black market at double and triple the price. When we refused to work on construction sites, the Israelis switched to modular, prefabricated units, and the Palestinian construction workers who went on strike are unemployed to this day. When we refused to work in Israeli agriculture, they brought in workers from Thailand, who took our jobs and left us with — nothing.

The Western pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state as soon as possible, when viewed through the prism of the mass murders and uncertainty in the Middle East, is incomprehensible. The initiative, and the obsession, to promote such a dangerous project at a time when everyone understands that the conditions on both sides are not yet ripe is dangerous; and the motives involved, whatever they really are, are suspicious. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not new, it has been waged in an atmosphere of terrorism and violence and hostility and complete lack of trust for a hundred years. So why exert pressure now?

Everyone, at least everyone living in the Middle East, knows full well that the conflict will not end with a “peace for our time” agreement forced on the two sides and accompanied by a handful of empty, meaningless documents; the dynamics are too dangerous. For both us and the Israelis it is a matter of life and death, not semantics; and it will probably take another hundred years before enough trust can be built on both sides to find a just solution.

The irony is staggering. At a time when the Arab states that were artificially created after the First World War crumble to dust, the EU is pressing for the creation of another artificial Arab state, this one called “Palestine,” to be carved out of territories once belonging to Jordan and Egypt. If “Palestine” is granted the status of statehood, it will force not only Israel but the rest of the world to grant it complete control over its borders, airports and a seaport. That will expose the new weak “state” to a rapid and certain takeover by Hamas, ISIS and various other terrorist organizations. Given the current situation in the West Bank, the elected government of “Palestine” will be controlled by Hamas. It will overthrow the Palestinian Authority, the way it did in the Gaza Strip, take over the West Bank, use its airports and seaport to import missiles, various other weapons and Islamist terrorists, and help Islamist terrorism in general, and ISIS in particular, to operate from its territory. The Islamists will proceed to attack Israel and Jordan the way ISIS is currently attacking Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula. Worse, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad will enter the new “Palestine” and strengthen its relations with Iran, just as it has in the Gaza Strip and Syria, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Evidently the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, which led directly to Hamas’s bloodbath and takeover of the Gaza Strip, the expulsion of the Palestinian Authority and the entrenchment of Islamist terrorism, was not enough for Europe. Now the EU and U.S. President Barack Obama want to bring the catastrophe of the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. The American Food and Drug Administration is more careful with experiments on animals than the White House is with experiments on the people living in the Middle East.

In view of the events in the Arab countries, it is clear to the Palestinians that American and European actions in the Middle East are the direct result of stupidity and complete ignorance of the Middle Eastern mindset, if not outright racism and malevolence. What is inescapable is that under Obama, both America and Europe brought the Arabs to the brink of chaos and beyond, destroyed regimes which, even though they were not democratic utopias like the United States, at least provided governance and public order. That is ultimately the cause of the tsunami of refugees beating at the gates of Europe, all of it caused by the United States and its failed foreign policy.

All the signs indicate that the Middle East disaster is hardly far from over. It is actually just beginning. it will get worse because of the tens of billions that will now pour into the Ayatollahs’ coffers from the insane agreement with Iran. Much of this money will go directly not only to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force, Iran’s arm of international terrorism, but to the various proxy terrorist organizations Iran supports, thus hastening the total destruction of the Middle East and eventually large swaths of Africa.

The wave of refugees will increase, and the price will be paid by the Europeans, already faced with legions of refugees and no plan for dealing with them. Eventually Gaddafi’s prophecy will come true: Islam will conquer Europe without firing a shot.

Categories: Europe, European Union, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Islamic immigration, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, West Bank
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Differing Views from Catholic Clergy on the Threat from Jihad and Shariah

September 28, 2015

Differing Views from Catholic Clergy on the Threat from Jihad and Shariah, Terror Trends Bulletin, Christopher W. Holton, September 27, 2015

rss63_pope_turkeyPope Francis and Turkey’s Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

With the visit of Pope Francis to the United States, some attention has been paid to his views on Jihad in general and the September 11 attacks in particular.

On a visit to the September 11 memorial at Ground Zero, the pope made a statement that we find offensive and born of ignorance.

From USA Today:

In a remark some relatives of 9/11 victims may disagree with, the pope attributed “the wrongful and senseless loss of innocent lives” at Ground Zero to “the inability to find solutions which respect the common good.”

To what solutions could Pope Francis possibly be referring?

What “solutions which respect the common good” would have convinced Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mohammed Atta that violent Jihad was wrong?

Al Qaeda and all Jihadist groups have as their goal the imposition of Shariah through violent Jihad. We can only assume that the pope is unaware of this. We must also assume that he is unaware that mainstream Islamic doctrine also calls for the imposition of Shariah worldwide.

Which Catholics and other Christians should be sacrificed to live under Shariah for the “common good?”

This was not the first time Pope Francis made statements that demonstrate an ignorance of Islamic doctrine.

In his The Joy of the Gospel, the pope stated:

Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.

No one can study Islamic doctrine based on the Islamic trilogy–the Quran, the Hadith and the Sirah–and come away believing that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.”

It should be noted that when it comes to commentary on Islam, Pope Francis is merely stating his opinion; this is not a statement that has the authority of the Catholic church behind it since it applies to the interpretation of another religion.

But all one has to do to see the folly in the pope’s assertion here is to review the too numerous to count examples of Islamic religious leaders and Shariah scholars admonishing their followers to violent Jihad.

We could fill volumes with examples of violent exhortations in the Quran, the Hadith and the Sirah. We could go into depth here about the principle of abrogation in the Quran. But rather than do that, we would like to point out that there are other members of the Catholic clergy and community who are more informed on Islam, Shariah and Jihad and they have put their thoughts in writing. In some cases, these good men are much closer to the tip of the spear in the clash of civilizations:

  1. Nigerian cardinal criticizes role of sharia, says Muslim leaders must ‘rein in their mad dogs’

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=20976&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories+%28Catholic+World+News+%28on+CatholicCulture.org%29%29

Nigeria of course has been wracked for several years now by horrible violence committed by Boko Haram, which has recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Cardinal Onaiyekan has seen thousands of Christians in his country slaughtered at the hands of Jihadists and he knows that Boko Haram’s stated goal is the imposition of Shariah.

2. It’s Time to Take the Islamic State Seriously

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/time-take-islamic-state-seriously

Rev. James V. Schall, S.J. expresses a very different view from that of Pope Francis on the issue of the Islamic State and the role of Islam in violence.

3. Making Islam “As Banal as Catholicism”

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/01/30/making-islam-banal-catholicism/

Robert Royal, editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., also expresses a far different view of Islamic terrorism than the one expressed by Pope Francis.

Why have these three men, two American and one Nigerian, two men of the cloth and one a prominent lay Catholic, one black and two white, reached such a different conclusion than that of Pope Francis?

To those of us who have studied Islamic doctrine over the past 15 years, the clear answer is that they have studied the Quran, the Hadith, the Sirah and Shariah. Pope Francis clearly has not. Francis is not alone in that state of being; few if any world leaders in the non-Islamic world have studied Islamic doctrine.

But those who have know what it contains and it isn’t all about peace, the “opposition to every form of violence” and “solutions for the common good.”

Categories: Christianity, Human rights, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, Pope Francis
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »