Khamenei ally is accusing ‘Iran’s liberal enemies of delaying the Mahdi’s appearance’

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Imam Mahdi, Iran's enemies, Iranian elections, Iranian Islam
Tags: , , ,

Khamenei ally is accusing ‘Iran’s liberal enemies of delaying the Mahdi’s appearance’, Alarabiya, Saleh Hamid, April 21, 2017

(Please see also, Iran: Possible US and Iranian Opposition Cooperation to Counter the Threat of Mullahs’ Rule. — DM)

Saidi is known for making controversial statements about the sanctification of Khamenei’s regime. (Archives)

“[T]he Guardianship of the Islamist Jurist does not require legitimacy from the people, since it represents the divine judgement, and the people must accept the orders of the Islamic Jurist, as they accept the orders of the infallible Imam”.

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A representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the Revolutionary Guard, Ali Saidi, said in a speech that the Khomeini revolution in Iran paved the way for the emergence of Imam Mahdi, which is the last stage before his appearance, but that “there are enemies delaying his arrival.”

According to Islamic theology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will rule for a number of years before the Day of Judgement.

Saidi has accused secularist and liberal front in Iran, of delaying the emergence of the Mahdi.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Saidi as saying at a meeting of the Revolutionary Guards clerics’ last Wednesday. Saidi recognized two “specific enemies one being an external enemy embodied in the United States of America and the others being internal enemies represented by the liberals and seculars in Iran.”

Saidi is known for making controversial statements about the sanctification of Khamenei’s regime. Last June, at a sermon in the province of Gilan northern of Iran, Saidi claimed that Khamenei “communicates with a divine source through revelation, occultism and diligence”.

FILE – In this June 15, 2009 file photo, a demonstrator wears a mask in the party’s color of green, due to fears of being identified, as hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran. ( AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

He also said that “the Guardianship of the Islamist Jurist does not require legitimacy from the people, since it represents the divine judgement, and the people must accept the orders of the Islamic Jurist, as they accept the orders of the infallible Imam”.

Saidi also courted criticism for another controversial statement about Iranian influence and expansion in the region, when he said in a speech that “Iran’s strategic influence extends from Bahrain to Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, the shores of the Mediterranean and even Latin America”.

On Tuesday, the European Union extended sanctions for another year against 82 Iranian figures, including Saidi, for serious human rights violations.

Saidi played a key role in suppressing the green movement protests following Iran’s presidential elections in 2009. The oppositional director Mohamed Nouri Zad broadcasted a tape in which guard leaders spoke, including Saidi, about details of the suppressing the protests that began in June 2009 against the presumed manipulation of the votes that led Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win a second term.

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Europe’s Rising Islam-Based Political Parties

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic political parties, Islamisation of Europe, Sharia law, Turks in Europe
Tags: , , , , ,

Europe’s Rising Islam-Based Political Parties, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, April 21, 2017

So far, none of the existing [Islamic) parties has had a great deal of success – and the emerging parties have yet to make their platforms known, let alone acquire active supporters. But as Denk founder Tunahan Kuzu proudly announced after the March elections, a new voice has now gained power in a European government. But what that voice ultimately will be, and the strength of its commitment to secular and democratic values, remains yet to be seen.

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These past several months, eyes across the world have been trained on a growing far-right movement sweeping Europe and America – from the neo-Nazi groups in Germany and the United States to the increasing popularity of France’s National Front. But another, far less noticed but sometimes equally-radical movement is also emerging across Europe: the rise of pro-Islam political parties, some with foreign support from the Muslim world. And the trend shows no sign of stopping.

Holland’s Denk (“Think”) party, established and led by two Turkish immigrants, is among the most significant. Denk won three seats in the Dutch parliament last month, becoming the country’s “fastest-growing” new party, according to Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad. Its platform: replace ideas of integration with “mutual acceptance” – a charming but antiquated idea in a culture where one group accepts gay marriage and the other is taught that homosexuals should be shoved off of tall buildings; an “acceptance monitor” to measure the extent to which such “mutual acceptance” has succeeded; and the establishment of a dedicated “anti-racism” police force.

While not the first of such Islamic parties in European politics, Denk’s March 15 win makes it an inspiration to others. Existing parties now see a new chance for success, while political aspirants across Europe are making plans to start similar parties of their own.

Hence, while the focus in next week’s French elections will be on Marine le Pen’s National Front, many European Muslims will also be watching the Equality and Justice Party (PEJ), led by French-Turk Sacir Çolak. Like Denk, the party claims to be a voice for the downtrodden, aimed at fighting “inequalities and injustices,” according to a report by the Turkish Anadolu news agency. But also like Denk, it has been accused of representing not the political interests of French citizens, but those of Turkey’s president – a man who has spoken out against assimilation and integration and called on European Turks to reject Western values.

The PEJ is not alone in France: The French Union of Muslim Democrats (UDMF), founded in 2012, made headlines when it entered the 2015 electoral race. Its platform seems more moderate than many of its fellow Muslim parties across Europe: founder Nagib Azergui has insisted in interviews that he respects the secular foundation of the French republic, and advocates philosophy and civic education classes that would help mitigate against the recruitment efforts of Muslim extremists.

The party does, however, seek to establish sharia-compliant banks and calls for Turkey to become a member of the European Union. Further, it seeks to re-install the right of Muslim girls to wear headscarves in public schools, a move that could be seen as a gesture towards re-introducing religion into the secular sphere.

Austria, too, has seen a rise in Islamic political parties, such as the New Movement for the Future (NBZ), founded, like Denk and the PEJ, by Turkish immigrants. Unlike the others, however, NBZ has made little effort to hide its loyalty to Turkey. Following the failed 2016 Turkish coup, for instance, its leader, Adnan Dinçer, called on Austria to respect Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s clampdown on the country and the mass arrests that followed. It is worth noting, however, that Austria’s far right has been particularly virulent in its anti-Islam activity, calling for Islam itself to be banned from the country. Such motions inevitably bring forth counter-movements from the targeted groups, and it was, just those actions which mobilized Dinçer to form the NBZ.

But it was Denk’s success, above all, that inspired Lebanese-Belgian activist Dyab Abou Jahjah to establish his newest political effort: a party (to date, unnamed) aimed at “Making Brussels Great Again, a la Bernie Sanders,” according to an interview in Belgian newspaper de Morgen.

This would be a third attempt for Jahjah, who first came into the public eye in 2002 as the founder of the Brussels-based Arab-European League, a pan-European political group that aimed to create what he called a Europe-wide “sharocracy” – a sharia-based democracy. In 2003, the AEL further organized a political party, RESIST, to run in the Brussels elections: it received a mere 10,000 votes. Now, Jahjah, who also runs an activist group called Movement X, hopes to run again in Brussels’ 2018 elections. While his party has yet to declare a platform, his anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and anti-European rants on Facebook and elsewhere give an indication of his plans. So, too, did a recent blog post in which he wrote: “we must defeat the forces of supremacy, the forces of sustained privileges, and the forces of the status-quo. We must defeat them in every possible arena.”

But he, too, is not alone: days after Denk’s win, fellow Belgian Ahmet Koç announced his own initiative, the details of which have also still to be determined. However, some things are easy enough to predict on the basis of his past: the Turkish-Belgian politician was thrown out of Belgium’s socialist party in 2016 for supporting Erdogan’s efforts to censor Europeans who insult him publicly, and calling for Belgian Turks to rise up against the “traitors” of the 2016 coup.

Both Koç and Jahjah will have to reckon with the ISLAM party, which has already established itself in the Brussels area. Founded in 2012, ISLAM – which poses as an acronym for “Integrité, Solidarité, Liberté, Authenticité, Moralité” is unapologetically religious. Leaders pride themselves on following the Quran, not party politics. With divisions already in place in the Brussels districts of Anderlecht, Molenbeek (the center of Belgian radicalism) and Luik, the party now plans to expand throughout the Brussels region.

So far, none of the existing parties has had a great deal of success – and the emerging parties have yet to make their platforms known, let alone acquire active supporters. But as Denk founder Tunahan Kuzu proudly announced after the March elections, a new voice has now gained power in a European government. But what that voice ultimately will be, and the strength of its commitment to secular and democratic values, remains yet to be seen.

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Europe: Making Itself into the New Afghanistan?

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Britain and Islamists, Censorship, Europe and Islamists, Islamisation of Britain, Islamisation of Europe
Tags: , , , ,

Europe: Making Itself into the New Afghanistan? Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, April 21, 2017

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan,” said Algerian writer Kamel Daoud. Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan.

The West used to be proud of being the land of the free. European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom” at the Mall Gallery in London censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley.

“The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of President Hollande’s culture ministry. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Maastricht, in the Netherlands, is the picturesque city that gave its name to the famous treaty signed in 1992 by the twelve nations of the European Community at the time, and which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.

Maastricht, however, is also the home of “Tefaf”, the most important art and antiques fair in the world. The art work “Persepolis” by the Italian artist Luca Pignatelli was already scheduled when the commission ordered it removed. The work, built in 2016, combined a Persian Islamic rug and a female head. “We are all humbled and speechless”, Pignatelli declared, pointing out that his work had initially aroused the enthusiasm of the commission. The fair’s explanation was that Pignatelli’s work was “provocative“.

The officials of fair presumably did not want to offend Islam and possible Muslim buyers with Pignatelli’s combination of the mat (used by Muslims for prayer) with the woman’s face. “We are shocked, this is the first time this has happened and I think it is legitimate to talk about it”, Pignatelli said. “If in Rome it can happen that you decide to veil art works to avoid offending foreign visitors, well, I do not agree”. The reference is at the Italian government decision to veil the antique Roman statues to avoid offending Iran’s visiting President Hassan Rouhani.

If Europe wants a future, it should be less ideological about Maastricht’s treaty and more against Maastricht’s capitulation to fear. The brave Algerian writer Kamel Daoud said:

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan”.

Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan. The Taliban have killed artists and destroyed art works. The West used to be proud of being the land of the free.

European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom,” at the Mall Gallery in London, censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley. Entitled, “ISIS Threaten Sylvania“, it was eliminated after the British police referred to its “inflammatory” content. Previously, the Tate Gallery in London banned a work by John Latham that displayed a Koran embedded in glass.

The brave work of the artist Mimsy, “ISIS Threaten Sylvania”, which satirized the brutality of ISIS, was removed from London’s Mall Galleries after the British police defined it “inflammatory.” (Image source: Mimsy)

Another British artist, Grayson Perry, admitted that he censored himself out of fear that he might end up like Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker slain by an extremist Muslim, Mohammed Bouyeri, for having made a film about women under Islam. “I have censored myself,” Perry said. “The reason I have not gone all out in attacking Islamism in my art is because I have real fear that someone will slit my throat”.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London first showed, then withdrew, a portrait of the Prophet of Islam, a work of devotional art image of Muhammad. The photographer Syra Miah, a British native whose family came from Bangladesh, saw her work withdrawn from an Art Gallery in Birmingham after protests by a group of Muslims. The photo portrayed a half-naked woman, mentally ill, who lives under a bus stop in Bangladesh.

The Museum of Cultures of the World in Gothenburg, Sweden, opened with an exhibition entitled “AIDS in the Era of Globalization”. In it, the artist Louzla Darabi exhibited a work, “Scène d’amour”, that depicts a woman having sex with a man whose face cannot be seen. A verse from the Koran is written on it in Arabic. Less than three weeks after the inauguration of the exhibition, the museum removed the painting. The Hergé Museum in Louvain, Belgium, was planning an exhibition to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo‘s cartoonists; that event, too, was cancelled.

French President François Hollande eliminated a section of the Louvre Museum dedicated to the Eastern Christians, who in the last two years have been decimated by the Islamic State. “The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of Hollande’s culture ministry.

Marie-Hélène Rutschowscaya — former head of the Louvre’s Coptic section and one of the world’s leading scholars on Eastern Christianity — denounced the move. “The dramatic events we are currently seeing in the Middle East and Eastern Europe should instead spur us to do more to promote lasting cultural ties,” Rutschowscaya wrote in her letter to Hollande. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Perhaps the Iranian ayatollahs were right in asking the Capitoline Museums in Rome to veil the nude statues during President Rouhani’s visit. Perhaps the Islamic fundamentalists are wrong, the West is not as free as it claims. Perhaps we should apologize to the Taliban for criticizing their destruction of the great Buddhas of Afghanistan. According to the West’s new cultural sanctimony, today these statues might be considered “blasphemous” too.

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Trump Has a Foreign Policy Strategy

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: America First, Foreign policy, Media and Trump, Trump agenda
Tags: , , ,

Trump Has a Foreign Policy Strategy, National Interest, James Jay Carafano, April 20, 2017

Trump is an arch nationalist in the positive sense of the term. America will never be safe in the world if the world doesn’t have an America that is free, safe and prosperous.

That belief is at the heart of Trump’s policies designed to spark an economic revival, rollback the administrative state and rebuild the military. It lies at the core of his mantra: make America great again.

Even the strongest America, however, can’t be a global power without the willingness to act globally. And that’s where Trump’s declaration of “America First” comes in.

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For two weeks, the White House has unleashed a foreign-policy blitzkrieg, and Washington’s chattering classes are shocked and, if not awed, at least perplexed.

CNN calls Trump’s actions a “u-turn.” Bloomberg opts for the more mathematical “180 degree turn,” while the Washington Post goes with “flipflop.” Meanwhile, pundits switched from decrying the president as an isolationist to lambasting him as a tool of the neocons. Amid all the relabeling, explanations of an “emerging Trump Doctrine” have proliferated faster than North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Here’s my take on what’s going on:

• Yes, there is a method to Trump’s “madness.”

• No, there has been no big change in Trump’s strategy.

The actions that flustered those who thought they had pigeon-holed Donald Trump simply reflect the impulses that have driven the direction of this presidency since before the convention in Cleveland.

At the Center of the Storm

Where is the head and heart of the president’s national-security team? Ask that question a year ago, and the answer would have been simple: General Mike Flynn, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator Jeff Sessions.

Today, Flynn is gone. Giuliani never went in. Sessions is still a crucial voice in the administration, but his duties as Attorney General deal only partially with foreign policy and national-security matters.

The new team centers round Jim Mattis at the Defense Department, Rex Tillerson at the State Department, John Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security and H. R. McMaster in the West Wing—ably assisted by Nikki Haley at the United Nations. Trump barely knew these people before the election.

There is little question that the new team’s character and competence affected the White House response to the recent string of high profile events and activities—from presidential meetings with Egypt and China and Tillerson’s tête-à-tête with Putin, to the ominous developments in Syria and North Korea. Though on the job for only about dozen weeks, the new administration handled a lot of action on multiple fronts quite deftly. Much of that can be credited to the maturity and experience of Trump’s senior national-security team.

But how the administration responded was purely Trumpian—reflecting an impulse that transcends the makeup of his foreign team or other White House advisors.

Decoding Trumpian Strategy

Since the early days of the campaign, one thing has been clear: trying stitch together an understanding of Trump’s foreign and defense policy based on Trump’s tweets and other off-hand comments is a fool’s errand. That has not changed since the Donald took over the Oval Office.

That is not to say that none of Trump’s rhetoric matters. He has given some serious speeches and commentary. But pundits err when they give every presidential utterance equal merit. A joint address to Congress ought to carry a lot more weight than a 3 a.m. tweet about the Terminator.

But especially with this presidency, one needs to focus on White House actions rather than words to gain a clearer understanding of where security and foreign policy is headed. Do that, and one sees emerging a foreign and defense policy more conventional and more consistent than what we got from Bush or Obama. Still, a deeper dive is necessary to get at the root of Trump’s take on the world and how it fits with recent actions like the tomahawk strikes in Syria and the armada steaming toward North Korea.

I briefed Candidate Trump and his policy advisors during the campaign. I organized workshops for the ambassadorial corps during the Cleveland Convention and worked with the presidential team through the inauguration. Those experiences let me observe how the policies from the future fledgling administration were unfolding. Here are some observations that might be helpful in understanding the Trumpian way.

At the core of Trump’s view of the world are his views on the global liberal order. Trump is no isolationist. He recognizes that America is a global power with global interests and that it can’t promote and protect those interests by sitting at home on its hands. Freedom of the commons, engaging and cooperating with like-minded nations, working to blunt problems “over there” before they get over here—these are things every modern president has pursued. Trump is no different.

What distinguishes Trump—and what marks a particularly sharp departure from Obama—is his perception of what enabled post–World War America and the rest of the free world to rise above the chaos of a half century of global depression and open war.

Obama and his ilk chalked it all up to international infrastructure—the UN, IMF, World Bank, EU, et al. For Trump, it was the sovereign states rather than the global bureaucracies that made things better. The international superstructure has to stand on a firm foundation—and the foundation is the sovereign state. Without strong, vibrant, free and wealthy states, the whole thing collapses like a Ponzi scheme.

Trump is an arch nationalist in the positive sense of the term. America will never be safe in the world if the world doesn’t have an America that is free, safe and prosperous.

That belief is at the heart of Trump’s policies designed to spark an economic revival, rollback the administrative state and rebuild the military. It lies at the core of his mantra: make America great again.

Even the strongest America, however, can’t be a global power without the willingness to act globally. And that’s where Trump’s declaration of “America First” comes in.

What it means for foreign policy is that the president will put the vital interests of the United States above the maintenance of global institutions. That is not an abandonment of universal values. Every American president deals with the challenge of protecting interests and promoting values. Trump will focus on American interests and American values, and that poses no threat to friends and allies. In many cases, we share the same values. In many cases, what’s in America’s vital interest is also in their interest—and best achieved through joint partnership.

Here is how those animating ideas are currently manifesting themselves in Trump’s strategy:

A strategy includes ends (what you are trying to accomplish), means (the capabilities you will use to do that) and ways (how you are going to do it). The ends of Trump’s strategy are pretty clear. In both talk and action in the Trump world, it boils down to three parts of the world: Europe, Asia and the Middle East. That makes sense. Peace and stability in these regions are vital to U.S. interests and are under assault. The United States wants all three parts of the world to settle. It is unrealistic to think all the problems can be made to disappear, but it is not unrealistic to significantly reduce the potential for region-wide conflict.

The means are more than just a strong military. Trump believes in using all the instruments of power, hard and soft. He has unleashed Nikki Haley on the United Nations. He has ordered Rex Tillerson to revamp the State Department so that it is focused on the core tasks of statecraft and the effective and appropriate use of foreign assistance. He wants an intelligence community that delivers intelligence and doesn’t just cater to what the White House wants to hear. And he has ordered Homeland Security to shift from being politically correct to operationally effective. Further, it’s clear that Tillerson, Kelly, Mattis and Sessions are all trying to pull in the same direction.

The ways of the Trump strategy are not the engagement and enlargement of Clinton, the rearranging of the world by Bush, or the disengagement of Obama. The world is filled with intractable problems. Trump is less interested in trying to solve all of them in a New-York minute and more concerned about reducing those problems so that they give the United States and its friends and allies less and less trouble.

Trump is traveling a path between running away and invading. It might be called persistent presence. The United States plans to engage and use its influence in key parts of the world consistently over time to protect our interests. Done consistently, it will not only protect our interests; it will also expand the global safe space by causing bad influences to fade.

Recent activities in the Middle East are a good example. The bomb strike on Syria was not a prelude to regime change or nation-building in Syria. It was a warning shot to Assad to cut it out and stop interfering in U.S. efforts to finish off ISIS, stabilize refugee populations and keep Iraq from falling apart. Engagement with Egypt was to signal America is back working with partners to stabilize the region and counter the twin threats of Islamist extremism and Iran. Neither is a kick-ass-and-withdraw operation. These are signs of long, serious engagement, shrinking the space in which bad actors can operate.

The U.S. regional strategies for Europe and Asia are the same, and it seems clear that Chinese and Russian leaders have gotten the message. In the wake of recent meetings, both countries have reacted by treating Trump with the seriousness he has demanded. Others get it too. I’ve talked to many foreign officials who have come through Washington, DC this year and they have all told me that they got the same impression: this administration is about resolve and persistence. Still, no strategy is without risks and pitfalls. This one is no different. Here is how Trump might screw up or be upended by a smarter or luckier enemy:

Pop goes political will. A strategy of persistent presence can work only if the United States persists. It took past presidents over a decade to screw things up. It is going to take at least eight years of reassuring friends and wearing down adversaries to fix it. Trump will have to get reelected.

Strength for the fight. Trump has to deliver guns and butter: a rebounding economy at home and a strong face abroad. That means a combination of growth and fiscally responsible federal spending—a challenge that eluded the last two presidents.

Mission creep. Presence can lapse into ambition, which can become overreach, or certainly taking on more than make sense to handle. There might always be temptation to deal with a North Korea, Syria or Iran once for all.

Blindsided. There are other parts of the world. An administration can’t be indifferent to effective engagement in Latin America and Africa.

Distractions. Persistence is boring. There is always the temptation to follow the bright foreign-policy object.

Enemy gets a vote. The United States has to be strong in three theaters at the same time, so there will always be a temptation for its competitors to coordinate efforts or seize opportunities to give the United States multiple problems to solve, straining its capability to persist in each theater.

Black Swans. Competitors might get tired of the long war and risk throwing in a game changer. For example, rolling the dice on an Electromagnetic Pulse attack. Effective persistence requires a measure of paranoia. Competitors are never inanimate entities to be pushed around. They have agency, and they are always looking for a way to make a bad day for the other guy.

It remains to be seen if Trump can become a strategic leader capable of steering America past all these obstacles, but certainly he sees the path forward much more clearly than his domestic opponents are willing to recognize or acknowledge.

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EU Demands UK Pay Turkey for Migrants and All Brexit-Related Costs in Euros

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: BREXIT, Britain, Divorce costs, European Union
Tags: , , ,

EU Demands UK Pay Turkey for Migrants and All Brexit-Related Costs in Euros, Breitbart, Liam Deacon, April 21, 2017

VIRGINIA MAYO/AFP/Getty

The European Commission is plotting to force the UK into paying even more for Brexit, burdening Britain with all related divorce costs and risks, according to draft negotiating directives.

The potentially huge bill must also be paid in euros rather than pounds, the European Union’s (EU) unelected executive arm said, meaning the UK will bear all the currency risk.

The list of demands sees little room for compromise; it includes the costs of relocating any EU institution and the UK’s share of a massive aid package given to Turkey in return for easing the migrant crisis.

“The United Kingdom should fully cover the specific costs related to the withdrawal process such as the relocation of the agencies or other Union bodies,” the Commission wrote, adding the UK’s financial obligations to the EU “should be defined in euro” rather than sterling.

The demands were made in a confusingly and bureaucratically dubbed, “Non Paper on Key Elements Likely to Feature in the Draft Negotiating Directives”.

The document demands the UK “honour its share of the financing of all the obligations undertaken while it was a member of the Union” including the so-called “Facility for Refugees in Turkey”.

“These obligations cover liabilities, including contingent liabilities, legal and budgetary commitments and any other obligations deriving from a basic act within the meaning of Article 54 of the Financial Regulation,” the draft document adds.

Britain is one of the largest net contributors to the EU budget, along with Germany, France, and Italy. Brexit is likely to leave a large hole in the bloc’s budget.

In February, it emerged the EU is planning to hammer the UK with a £51.2 billion (€60 billion) divorce bill.

Eurocrats demonstrated their intention to play hardball when Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, insisted a future trade deal and the status of British expats could not be discussed until the bill was paid.

At the beginning March, however, a House of Lords Committee concluded the UK has no legal obligation to pay the massive bill under international law.

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Hezbollah Sure Sounds Like it’s Afraid of an Israeli Attack

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Defense of Israel, Golan, Hezbollah, Hezbollah vs Israel
Tags: , , ,

Hezbollah Sure Sounds Like it’s Afraid of an Israeli Attack, Front Page Magazine (The Point), Daniel Greenfield, April 21, 2017

Hezbollah has been bleeding rather badly in Syria. And the casualties are bad enough that many of its Jihadists don’t want to report for duty. Hezbollah has a paper force. People are listed who won’t actually fight. Because their opponents aren’t going to be afraid of their human shields or will pull back when the UN and the State Department barks. 

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You don’t have to be a great student of human psychology to pick up on it.

A Hezbollah commander on Thursday guided a group of journalists on a tour of the Israel-Lebanon border, according to media reports.

“We’re not afraid of war,” Israel’s Channel 2 quoted him as saying. “The enemy understands this. We are firm in our positions…We will not hesitate to go to war and are even expecting it. We will fight when we are compelled to and we will win.”

We’re not afraid to fight! And we won’t hesitate to fight… if we have to fight. So you better not fight us because we’re not at all afraid to fight you. Really. And it would be foolish of you to fight us.

 Israel has been deterred by Hezbollah and it would be “foolish and reckless” for the Jewish state to launch a military campaign on its northern border, the Lebanese terror group’s deputy leader claimed on Thursday.

Qassem also expressed confidence regarding the terror organization’s readiness and capabilities in any future conflict with Israel, saying, “The level of Hezbollah’s readiness enables it to withstand any possible war, both numerically and in terms of means and goals.”

Sure.

Hezbollah has been bleeding rather badly in Syria. And the casualties are bad enough that many of its Jihadists don’t want to report for duty. Hezbollah has a paper force. People are listed who won’t actually fight. Because their opponents aren’t going to be afraid of their human shields or will pull back when the UN and the State Department barks.

Fighting fellow Islamic terrorists is much less fun than fighting Israel. But Hezbollah’s manpower is badly overextended in an Islamic civil war against enemies as cruel and treacherous as themselves.

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Krauthammer: U.S. does have cards to play against North Korea

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: China and North Korea, Kim Jong-un, Korean reunification, North Korea, North Korean nukes, South Korea
Tags: , , , , ,

Krauthammer: U.S. does have cards to play against North Korea, Mercury News, April 20, 2017

(Mr. Krauthammer offers a reasonable alternative to the reunification of North and South Korea.

Do present-day South Koreans really want reunification? Nearly half a century ago, when I was an Army JAG officer and spent two tours of duty in South Korea, I travelled widely and got to know many Koreans. They were generally enthusiastic about reunification. Now? Not so much, I think.

German reunification was widely embraced and cost the West about $1.9 trillion. South and North Korea have been separated about twenty years longer than East and West Germany had been. Now, younger working South Koreans — with fewer close relatives in the north than their parents and grandparents had half a century ago — would bear much of the cost of Korean reunification. Reunification gave former West Germany Frau Merkel. Korean reunification, providing a wave of unskilled, perhaps hopelessly brainwashed, North Koreans with very little to offer South Korea and needing much adaptation to South Korean democracy, would be about as useful to South Korea as a North Korean version of Frau Merkel. — DM)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a military parade on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Because Beijing has such a strong interest in the current regime, we could sweeten the latter offer by abjuring Korean reunification. This would not be Germany, where the communist state was absorbed into the West. We would accept an independent, but Finlandized, North.

During the Cold War, Finland was, by agreement, independent but always pro-Russian in foreign policy. Here we would guarantee that a new North Korea would be independent but always oriented toward China. For example, the new regime would forswear ever joining any hostile alliance.

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WASHINGTON — The crisis with North Korea may appear trumped up. It’s not.

Given that Pyongyang has had nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles for more than a decade, why the panic now? Because North Korea is headed for a nuclear breakout. The regime has openly declared that it is racing to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States — and thus destroy an American city at a Kim Jong Un push of a button.

The North Koreans are not bluffing. They’ve made significant progress with solid-fuel rockets, which are more quickly deployable and thus more easily hidden and less subject to detection and pre-emption.

At the same time, Pyongyang has been steadily adding to its supply of nuclear weapons. Today it has an estimated 10 to 16. By 2020, it could very well have a hundred. (For context: the British are thought to have about 200.)

Hence the crisis. We simply cannot concede to Kim Jong Un the capacity to annihilate American cities.

Some will argue for deterrence. If it held off the Russians and the Chinese for all these years, why not the North Koreans? First, because deterrence, even with a rational adversary like the old Soviet Union, is never a sure thing. We came pretty close to nuclear war in October 1962.

And second, because North Korea’s regime is bizarre in the extreme, a hermit kingdom run by a weird, utterly ruthless and highly erratic god-king. You can’t count on Caligula. The regime is savage and cult-like; its people, robotic. Karen Elliott House once noted that while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a prison, North Korea was an ant colony.

Ant colonies do not have good checks and balances.

If not deterrence, then prevention. But how? The best hope is for China to exercise its influence and induce North Korea to give up its programs.

For years, the Chinese made gestures, but never did anything remotely decisive. They have their reasons. It’s not just that they fear a massive influx of refugees if the Kim regime disintegrates. It’s also that Pyongyang is a perpetual thorn in the side of the Americans, whereas regime collapse brings South Korea (and thus America) right up to the Yalu River.

So why would the Chinese do our bidding now?

For a variety of reasons.

• They don’t mind tension but they don’t want war. And the risk of war is rising. They know that the ICBM threat is totally unacceptable to the Americans. And that the current administration appears particularly committed to enforcing this undeclared red line.

• Chinese interests are being significantly damaged by the erection of regional missile defenses to counteract North Korea’s nukes. South Korea is racing to install a THAAD anti-missile system. Japan may follow. THAAD’s mission is to track and shoot down incoming rockets from North Korea but, like any missile shield, it necessarily reduces the power and penetration of the Chinese nuclear arsenal.

•  For China to do nothing risks the return of the American tactical nukes in South Korea, withdrawn in 1991.

• If the crisis deepens, the possibility arises of South Korea and, most importantly, Japan going nuclear themselves. The latter is the ultimate Chinese nightmare.

These are major cards America can play. Our objective should be clear. At a minimum, a testing freeze. At the maximum, regime change.

Because Beijing has such a strong interest in the current regime, we could sweeten the latter offer by abjuring Korean reunification. This would not be Germany, where the communist state was absorbed into the West. We would accept an independent, but Finlandized, North.

During the Cold War, Finland was, by agreement, independent but always pro-Russian in foreign policy. Here we would guarantee that a new North Korea would be independent but always oriented toward China. For example, the new regime would forswear ever joining any hostile alliance.

There are deals to be made. They may have to be underpinned by demonstrations of American resolve. A pre-emptive attack on North Korea’s nuclear facilities and missile sites would be too dangerous, as it would almost surely precipitate an invasion of South Korea with untold millions of casualties. We might, however, try to shoot down a North Korean missile in mid-flight to demonstrate both our capacity to defend ourselves and the futility of a North Korean missile force that can be neutralized technologically.

The Korea crisis is real and growing. But we are not helpless. We have choices. We have assets. It’s time to deploy them.

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Al-Qaeda Mocks Arabs for Submitting to Haley’s ‘Kick in High Heels’

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Al Qaeda, Arab nations, Islamist terror groups, Israel, Nikki Haley
Tags: , , , ,

Al-Qaeda Mocks Arabs for Submitting to Haley’s ‘Kick in High Heels’, PJ Media, Bridget Johnson, April 20, 2017

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley speaks with media at UN Headquarters in New York on April 20, 2017. (Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa via AP Images)

Al-Qaeda mocked Arab rulers for being at the mercy of “the kicks of the high heels” of Ambassador Nikki Haley after her warning that things are going to change at the United Nations.

“I wear heels. It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick them every single time,” Haley said in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference last month in Washington.

“So how are we kicking? We’re kicking by, No. 1, putting everybody on notice, saying that if you have our back, we’re going to have the backs of our friends. But our friends need to have our backs, too,” she continued. “If you challenge us, be prepared for what for what you are challenging us for because we will respond.”

In the most recent issue of al-Qaeda’s al-Nafir Bulletin, published in several languages and distributed online by the Global Islamic Media Front, the terror group said “the representative of the bearer of the Cross America” — Haley — “sent a message to the apostate Arab rulers filled with sarcasm and mockery.”

The bulletin added that America was “the Hubal of the era to its worshippers the Arab rulers,” referring to a moon god worshipped at Mecca before Islam.

“You will not go beyond your worth, and you will receive a kick in high heels as punishment for any statement… that criticizes the Zionists,” they summarized Haley’s message to Arab rulers after quoting her directly.

“American and its Crusader allies will never allow anyone to stand before their support of the Zionists and the apostates of the Arabs and foreigners from the Muslim rulers, and they will not accept to end their robbery of the fortunes and resources of the Ummah [Muslim community], and that any Islamic project that seeks to establish the Shariah, and spread justice, and distribute fairly the fortunes of the Ummah, will face bombs and guided rockets, with the supporter of the apostate rulers who are ready to receive the kicks of the high heels from the Zionist Haley in case they go beyond the allowed limit, and gave wrong criticisms of the nation of the sons of Zion,” the bulletin stated.

Al-Qaeda added that the only “salvation” for Muslims “out of this delusion in the sea of weakness” was “targeting the real enemy.”

“O youth of Islam, attack global infidelity headed by America, and show Allah what is required of you,” the terror group told followers. “Shake their thrones, and bring down their interests, and target their great criminals.”

Al-Qaeda has previously used issues of the al-Nafir Bulletin to call for action against the United States. In February, the terror group accused the U.S. of withholding necessary medication from “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the deadly 1993 World Trade Center bombing who died behind bars that month.

They also released a final statement from the sheikh complaining of strip searches that explored his private parts “front and back,” claiming that he could be poisoned behind bars and calling for “the most powerful and violent revenge” in the event of his demise.

Last month, the bulletin told jihadists to go forth and just kill Americans without any Islamic consultations first. Al-Qaeda called a U.S. airstrike that struck a mosque complex in Al-Jinah, Syria, “a horrible crime among the crimes of America and its damned president, Trump.”

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Palestinian Authority Official: Terrorists Who Murder Americans Are ‘Victims’

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian incitement
Tags: , ,

Palestinian Authority Official: Terrorists Who Murder Americans Are ‘Victims’, Washington Free Beacon, April 21, 2017

(Please see also, The UNRWA book battle. — DM)

 

A top official from the Palestinian Authority (PA) told reporters Thursday that convicted Palestinian terrorists who receive cash benefits from the PA are “victims of Israeli terrorism.”

Riyad Mansour, the “Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine [sic] to the United Nations,” was asked to comment on the PA’s payment of benefits to the family of the terrorist who murdered an American tourist last year.

The Taylor Force Act, a bill under consideration in Congress that would cut U.S. aid to the PA over the payments, is named after the U.S. Army veteran and Vanderbilt graduate student who was killed.

The PA spends approximately $300 million a year on payments to convicted terrorists and their families, money that originates largely from aid donations by western countries. The terrorism benefits program, which comprises around eight percent of the PA budget, has emerged as a significant point of contention in U.S.-Palestinian relations.

“I don’t know exactly what you’re referring to,” Mansour responded, before claiming that the PA is against the killing of civilians. The reporter repeated his query about Taylor Force.

“Who? Who is?” Mansour asked.

“Taylor Force, an American who was killed in Jaffa last year, March 8, and the family of the terrorist who killed him are receiving payments from the PA. What do you have to say about that?” the reporter asked.

“Listen, this issue is, that is now, uh, in circulation for discussions,” Mansour said, later asking rhetorically, “Who is the killer and who is the terrorist?”

“There are a large number of Palestinians who are receiving compensation,” Mansour acknowledged. “They are victims of Israeli terrorism.”

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Iran: Possible US and Iranian Opposition Cooperation to Counter the Threat of Mullahs’ Rule

Posted April 21, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Iran - regime change, Iranian dissidents, Iranian elections, Iranian resistance, Senator McCain
Tags: , , , ,

Iran: Possible US and Iranian Opposition Cooperation to Counter the Threat of Mullahs’ Rule, Iran Focus, April 20, 2017

(Please see also, Iran’s Top Judge Warns of Enemy Schemes for Election. Might the “enemy schemes” of the Iranian dissidents who met with Sen. McCain be among those referenced there? — DM)

Senator McCain’s visit to Albania to visit dissidents and Maryam Rajavi could perhaps be a step in the direction of cooperation between the US government and the main Iranian opposition. It is true that the NCRI is receiving more and more support from lawmakers in the West, and from all over the world, and it is making the Iranian regime nervous. Cooperation between the US and the Iranian opposition, which has large networks of people all over Iran, will be a positive move for the people of Iran. No one knows more about the Iranian regime and its activities than the main opposition group and it will help the US get foreign policy to counter the regime’s threat right.

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London, 20 Apr – Last week, Senator John McCain went to Albania where he met a number of the former residents of the Camp Liberty base. The dissidents were finally released from the former US military base last year and many of them have now made Albania their permanent residence. The dissidents at Camp Liberty had been victim to numerous attacks planned by the Iranian regime.

However, they have now all finally been released from Camp Liberty and have the freedom to continue their activism, must to the dismay of the Iranian regime.

Senator McCain also met with the leader of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Maryam Rajavi.

It was no surprise that the mullahs were unhappy about this encounter and claimed it was part of a conspiracy against the Islamic Republic. There were also threats that the US would be made to “pay” for the “mistakes” it has made. This predictable anger is nothing but proof that the Iranian regime is extremely weak and terrified of opposition.

For years, the Iranian regime has attempted to destroy the opposition via various methods including force, violence, false allegations and slander. It is clear that the opposition groups, especially the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), pose a very real threat to the mullahs’ rule.

The threat has got even more real now that the Trump administration is in place. While President Obama was in office, the Iranian regime enjoyed free reign over the Middle East. Obama did not dare call the regime out on its malign activities, let alone sanction it.

In his presidency so far, Trump has put Iran “on notice” after it conducted testing of ballistic missiles and has issued numerous sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities. The Trump administration is also weighing up whether or not to designate the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation). However, the biggest message was sent to Iran when it launched a strike on its ally in Syria. As well as saying that the United States will not put up with such evil acts (the chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians), it was a challenge to Iran’s position as the main backer of the Syrian regime.

Senator McCain’s visit to Albania to visit dissidents and Maryam Rajavi could perhaps be a step in the direction of cooperation between the US government and the main Iranian opposition. It is true that the NCRI is receiving more and more support from lawmakers in the West, and from all over the world, and it is making the Iranian regime nervous. Cooperation between the US and the Iranian opposition, which has large networks of people all over Iran, will be a positive move for the people of Iran. No one knows more about the Iranian regime and its activities than the main opposition group and it will help the US get foreign policy to counter the regime’s threat right.

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