Posted tagged ‘Multiculturalism’

Iran Bolsters Itself with UN Resolution Condemning Sanctions

September 27, 2015

Iran Bolsters Itself with UN Resolution Condemning Sanctions, Legal Insurrection, September 26, 2015

(Please see also, Iran Openly Declares That It Intends To Violate UNSCR 2231 That Endorses The JCPOA — DM)

Protest-Sign-Against-Iran-Nuclear-Deal-Death-to-America-e1441978760141-620x435

 

I think we all know what Iran means when it speaks of political free will. In the wake of the adoption of the Iran nuclear deal, conversations about nightmare “what if” scenarios focused on America’s ability to “snap” sanctions against Iran back into place; now, Iran is trying to reframe the conversation about the use of sanctions by arguing that the use of sanctions at all will constitute a greater violation than what the sanctions are meant to punish.

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This week, Iran used its considerable muscle to launch an attack on US efforts to tamper its nuclear program and otherwise belligerent conduct in the Middle East. These efforts took the form of a proposed resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that condemns the use of sanctions against misbehaving nations as a violation of international law and fundamental human rights.

You won’t see the word “sanctions” more than three times in the resolution; instead, the drafters used the phrase “unilateral coercive measures.” From the proposed resolution:

Recognizing the universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated character of all human rights and, in this regard, reaffirming the right to development as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of all human rights,

Expressing its grave concern at the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, development, international relations, trade, investment and cooperation,

Reaffirming that no State may use or encourage the use of any type of measure, including but not limited to economic or political measures, to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind,

Recognizing that unilateral coercive measures in the form of economic sanctions have far-reaching implications for the human rights of the general population of targeted States, disproportionately affecting the poor and the most vulnerable classes,

Recalling also article 1, paragraph 2, common to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provides that, inter alia, in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence,

1. Calls upon all States to stop adopting, maintaining or implementing unilateral coercive measures not in accordance with international law, international humanitarian law, the Charter of the United Nations and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among States, in particular those of a coercive nature with extraterritorial effects, which create obstacles to trade relations among States, thus impeding the full realization of the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments, in particular the right of individuals and peoples to development;

The writing goes on to demand that member states ignore calls for sanctions, and condemns the use of such “as tools of political or economic pressure against any country, particularly against developing countries, with a view to preventing these countries from exercising their right to decide, of their own free will, their own political, economic and social systems.”

I think we all know what Iran means when it speaks of political free will. In the wake of the adoption of the Iran nuclear deal, conversations about nightmare “what if” scenarios focused on America’s ability to “snap” sanctions against Iran back into place; now, Iran is trying to reframe the conversation about the use of sanctions by arguing that the use of sanctions at all will constitute a greater violation than what the sanctions are meant to punish.

This isn’t a one-off finger-in-the-air from Iran to the US. The UNHRC is a dysfunctional land of multilingual politicking, and now the most dangerous players are using their influence with the greater UN body to bolster the worst violators at the expense of what should be common sense.

More from UN Watch [emphasis mine]:

Earlier this year, the UNHRC’s infamous Consultative Group, with Saudi Arabia’s Faisal Trad then serving merely as Vice-President, successfully picked Algerian hardliner Idriss Jazairy — famous for his efforts as a former diplomat to enact a UNHRC “code of conduct” to intimidate independent human rights experts — as the new “Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures.”

Jazairy has already accused the U.S. and Europe of being leading human rights violators due to their use of sanctions against countries like Iran and Zimbabwe.

Indeed, many of the resolutions adopted at each session of the UNHRC are sponsored by Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Algeria, and other non-democracies, and are designed to demonize the West, free market economies, individual rights, or Israel, as part of a strategy to deflect attention from council members who are guilty of subjugating women, trampling religious freedom, persecuting gays, oppressing ethnic minorities and promoting relgious extremism.

This is clever, and part of a bigger strategy meant to counter American and Israeli efforts to speak out against the Iran nuclear deal. Even in the US, the media’s narrative has taken a subtle shift, away from the back and forth in Congress and toward an optic that frames the deal in terms of what it can do to encourage the advent of greater global cooperation. WaPo on Friday published an article needling the Republican Congress’ apparent rejection of “multilateralism”; meanwhile, the NYT editorial board executed a hard pivot away from the political theatre of the moment and toward What We Really Need to be Talking About© in terms of America’s participation in Gulf state politics.

The United Nations itself isn’t necessarily an important player in the American political conversation; international law is obscure, and multilateral relationships are [a] complication and confusing at best. However, if this resolution is adopted (and even if it isn’t) I can just about guarantee that the pro-Iran Deal crowd will use it as a weapon against anti-Deal candidates (primary season doesn’t go away just because we’re dealing with something happening in Geneva) currently warning their colleagues against the folly of attempting to deal with a nation that has proven itself more than adept at sidestepping the rules.

In this case, they’ve taken it upon themselves to rewrite them.

You can read the full proposed resolution here.

Germany: Migrants In, Germans Out – The Death of Property Rights

September 27, 2015

Germany: Migrants In, Germans Out – The Death of Property Rights, Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, September 27, 2015

  • Hamburg city officials say that owners of vacant real estate have refused to make their property available to the city on a voluntary basis, and thus the city should be given the right to take it by force.
  • “The proposed confiscation of private land and buildings is a massive attack on the property rights of the citizens of Hamburg. It amounts to an expropriation by the state [and a] “law of intimidation.” — André Trepoll, Christian Democratic Union.
  • “If a property is confiscated… a lawsuit to determine the legality of the confiscation can only be resolved after the fact. But the accommodation would succeed in any event.” — Tübingen Mayor Boris Palmer.
  • Officials in North Rhine-Westphalia seized a private resort in the town of Olpe to provide housing for up to 400 migrants
  • “I find it impossible to understand how the city can treat me like this. I have struggled through life with grief and sorrow and now I get an eviction notice. It is a like a kick in the stomach.” — Bettina Halbey, 51-year-old nurse, after being notified that she must vacate her apartment so that migrants can move in.
  • The landlord is being paid 552 euros ($617) for each migrant he takes in. By cramming as many migrants into his property as possible, he stands to receive payments of more than 2 million euros a year from government.
  • “Considering that migrants cannot afford to rent new properties… moves must be initiated in which higher income households purchase or build more expensive accommodations for themselves in order to free up the less expensive housing for migrants.” — The Berlin Institute for Urban Development, the Housing Industry and Loan Associations
  • “I saw an unbelievable situation: the elderly volunteer lifted the table halfway, looked at the migrant and moved his head asking the migrant to lend a hand. The migrant paused for a moment and then just walked away.” — Firsthand account, refugee shelter.

German authorities are applying heavy-handed tactics to find housing for the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees pouring into the country from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

With existing shelters filled to capacity, federal, state and local authorities are now using legally and morally dubious measures — including the expropriation of private property and the eviction of German citizens from their homes — to make room for the newcomers.

German taxpayers are also being obliged to make colossal economic sacrifices to accommodate the influx of migrants, many of whom have no prospect of ever finding a job in the country. Sustaining the 800,000 migrants and refugees who are expected to arrive in Germany in 2015 will cost taxpayers at least at least 11 billion euros ($12 billion) a year for years to come.

As the migration crisis intensifies, and Germans are waking up to the sheer scale of the economic, financial and social costs they will [be] expected to bear in the years ahead, anger is brewing.

In Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, municipal officials on September 23 introduced an audacious bill in the local parliament (Hamburgische Bürgerschaft) that would allow the city to seize vacant commercial real estate (office buildings and land) and use it to house migrants.

City officials argue the measure is necessary because more than 400 new migrants are arriving in Hamburg each day and all the existing refugee shelters are full. They say that owners of vacant real estate have refused to make their property available to the city on a voluntary basis, and thus the city should be given the right to take it by force.

The measure, which will be voted upon in the Hamburg parliament within the next two weeks, is being applauded by those on the left of the political spectrum. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that the refugees are not homeless during the coming winter,” Senator Till Steffen of the Green Party said. “For this reason, we need to use vacant commercial properties.”

Others argue that efforts by the state to seize private property is autocratic and reeks of Communism. “The proposed confiscation of private land and buildings is a massive attack on the property rights of the citizens of Hamburg,” said André Trepoll of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “It amounts to an expropriation by the state.” He said the proposed measure is a “law of intimidation” that amounts to a “political dam break with far-reaching implications.” He added: “The ends do not justify any and all means.”

The leader of the Free Democrats (FDP) in Hamburg, Katja Suding, said that the proposed law is an “unacceptable crossing of red lines… Such coercive measures will only fuel resentment against refugees.”

In Tübingen, a town in Baden-Württemberg, Mayor Boris Palmer (also of the Green Party), is making offers to rent or buy vacant properties to house migrants. But he is also threatening to confiscate the property of landlords who dare to reject his offer. In an interview with the newspaper Die Welt, Palmer said:

“In the written offers, I advise that the Police Law (Polizeigesetz) gives us the possibility, in cases of emergency, to confiscate homes for several months. The law provides for seizure in emergencies. I want to avoid this, but if there is no other way, I will make use of this law.”

When asked if he was afraid of lawsuits, Palmer said:

“No. The Police Law has clear rules. When the town is threatened with homelessness, empty homes may be confiscated. This emergency can happen when accommodations are overcrowded and we continue to receive 50 new migrants in Tübingen. If a property is confiscated, we would order immediate enforcement. That is to say, a lawsuit to determine the legality of the confiscation can only be resolved after the fact. But the accommodation would succeed in any event.”

In February 2015, officials in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) seized a private resort in the town of Olpe to provide housing for up to 400 migrants. The initial plan was for the town to purchase the resort from its Bavarian owners and rent it to NRW, but NRW officials decided to confiscate the property instead. According to NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jäger, properties may be seized whenever there is a “threat to public order and safety,” and the threat of mass homelessness among migrants fits the bill.

In Nieheim, another town in NRW, Mayor Rainer Vidal is using a legal maneuver called “right of repossession” (Eigenbedarf) to terminate the leases of German citizens living in state-owned apartment buildings so that migrants can move in.

On September 1, 51-year-old Bettina Halbey, who has been living in her apartment for more than 16 years, received a letter notifying her that she must vacate her apartment by May 2016 so that migrants can move in. Halbey was shell-shocked:

“I’m completely taken by surprise. I find it impossible to understand how the city can treat me like this. I cannot come to grips with this situation. I have struggled through life with grief and sorrow and now I get an eviction notice. It is a like a kick in the stomach.”

Halbey, a nurse, says that it will be difficult for her to find another place to live: “I have a dog and a cat. Many landlords will not even consider renting to me.”

1263Out with the old, in with the new… German authorities are using legally and morally dubious measures — including the eviction of German citizens from their homes — in an attempt to find housing for hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving this year.

In the same building, a single mother with two children has been given until August 2016 to move out of her apartment, also to make room for migrants. Initially, she had been ordered to vacate the property by November 2015, but her eviction was delayed to allow her daughter to finish the school year without interruption.

In an interview with the newspaper Westfalen-Blatt, Vidal, an independent who does not belong to any political party, said: “I know this is an unconventional measure. But as a community, we have an obligation to provide housing for migrants.” He said he wanted to turn the entire apartment building into housing for migrants. Vidal said it would not be financially viable to house them anywhere else.

In some cases, landlords are evicting long-time residents because the government is offering them more money to house migrants than they are receiving in rent from existing tenants.

In Braunsbedra, a small town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, a landlord evicted dozens of residents from an apartment building to make way for migrants. According to local media, the landlord, Marcus Skowronek, is being paid 552 euros ($617) for each migrant he takes in. By cramming as many migrants into his property as possible, he stands to receive payments of more than 2 million euros a year from local and regional governments.

When reporters from public broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk visited the property to interview Skowronek, he said:

“I am asking you to leave the premises. You are banned (Hausverbot) from entering the building. Please leave the property. I am sorry. Otherwise I will have to call the police. Please go.”

In Berlin, the Institute for Urban Development, the Housing Industry and Loan Associations (Berliner Institut für Städtebau, Wohnungswirtschaft und Bausparwesen, IFS) has warned that, given the influx of so many migrants, the demand for housing will outstrip supply for many years to come. Of the 285,000 building permits approved in 2014, only 56,000 were apartments in multi-unit buildings of the kind that are suitable for migrants.

The IFS is now calling for the initiation of a process in which Germans who are currently living in inexpensive housing, but who can afford more expensive accommodations, move out of their existing homes to make way for migrants. According to the IFS:

“Considering that migrants cannot afford to rent new properties, the vast majority can only afford cheaper housing, a chain reaction of moves (Umzugsketten) must be initiated in which higher income households purchase or build more expensive accommodations for themselves in order to free up the less expensive housing for migrants.”

The IFS does not explain why Germans who are living within their means should suddenly be expected to take on debt to purchase a more expensive home.

Germans are not only being evicted from their homes to make way for migrants, they are also being removed from their schools.

In Lübbecke, another town in NRW, teachers and students were given less than 24 hours to vacate the Jahn-Realschule, a secondary school for 150 students, so that the building can be used to house 300 migrants.

The school principal, Marion Bienen, said that municipal authorities notified her at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, September 15, that last day of classes at the school would be Wednesday, September 16. Students were ordered immediately to remove all of their belongings from the premises and to take a week off until alternative classrooms could be found. Bienen said:

“My students are also human beings. You cannot treat them this way. They were given 15 minutes to remove their belongings from the classroom. Then they had to get out. The evacuation was as during wartime…. There were no discussions. No one forewarned us.”

The Center for Economic Studies, a think tank based in Munich, has published a report warning that most of the migrants arriving in Germany lack the most basic qualifications to find work in the country. This implies that they will become long-term wards of the state and thus a drag on the German economy. The report advises lowering the minimum wage as a way to prevent a surge in the unemployment rate:

“To ensure that the refugee crisis does not lead to an ongoing financial overload for the German taxpayer, refugees must find paid employment as soon as possible, so that they can contribute to their own livelihoods. It is feared that many of them will not be able to find employment at the minimum wage of 8.50 euros because their productivity simply is too low. Therefore, the minimum wage should be lowered, so that the unemployment rate does not go up.”

Meanwhile, politicians are demanding that German citizens do more to ensure that the migrants feel at home. But a first-hand account of the goings-on in a refugee shelter articulates the frustration felt by many Germans that this is a one-way street:

“For about a week now, 500 migrants and refugees are being housed in the gym in our neighborhood. So I went over there because I wanted to see the conditions there with my own eyes. There were about ten vehicles belonging to the Red Cross and volunteers.

“Older men over 60 were unloading tables and benches from the trucks, cleaning them with a bucket of water and cloth, and then carrying them into the hall….

“What made me really angry was to see the incredible lethargy of the young men. All of them in their 20s and 30s, all sitting there, smoking and looking at their cell phones, while the 60-year-old volunteers where laboring away….

“While I was watching how the Red Cross volunteers were working and no one was helping them, I saw an unbelievable situation: an elderly gentleman was trying to carry a table into the hall when a refugee returned from the city center with a shopping bag. The elderly volunteer lifted the table halfway, looked at the migrant and moved his head asking the migrant to lend a hand. The migrant paused for a moment and then just walked away. I could hardly believe what I saw.”

Swedes’ Homes May Be Confiscated to Accommodate Asylum Seekers

September 25, 2015

Swedes’ Homes May Be Confiscated to Accommodate Asylum Seekers, Gatestone InstituteIngrid Carlqvist, September 25, 2015

(Possible confiscation of homes is only a minor part of the story. The rest is worse. — DM)

Translation of the original text: Svenskarnas bostäder kan konfiskeras till förmån för asylsökande.

  • In 1992, the “Threat and Risk Assessment Commission” established that the government should have the option to seize property, especially summer homes, from the Swedish people in a time of crisis.
  • Despite Sayadi’s commission of three rapes and his sexual molestation of young girls, as well as his systematic criminal activity, he received only a four-year prison sentence, and will not have to face deportation.
  • Husein wants a Swedish passport so he can go back to Somalia, the country he claims to have escaped from — to “visit his mom and establish business contacts.”
  • “The situation affects everyone who lives and stays in our little county. The climate has grown tougher, many people feel scared and unsafe and with that comes the risk of increased xenophobia, antagonism and exclusion.” — From a letter to the government from Örkelljunga County leaders. The county swiftly received criticism from the mainstream media, and the Immigration Service let it be known that they have no intention of helping Örkelljunga.

August 3: Ahmad El-Moghrabi, 21, who has no driver’s license, was indicted for driving like a madman through the city of Malmö in February, and nearly killing a mother and baby. On February 11, he drove a luxury Mercedes at high speed, with some other Arab men as passengers, one of whom is a well-known extremist, when the police tried to pull the car over. Instead of stopping, El-Moghrabi sped away at about 150 km/h on the busy inner city street of Amiralsgatan, where the speed limit is 40 km/h.

The police chase ended when El-Moghrabi hit some parked cars. Three people were injured, and the mother and baby sustained life-threatening injuries after being crushed between the cars.

El-Moghrabi fled the scene, but was apprehended later. He has been charged with gross negligence, grievous bodily harm, fleeing the scene of an accident, and driving without a license. His own explanation to the rampage was that he did not want to be caught by the police, as his license had been revoked.

August 3: It was reported that 2000 third-world immigrants are seeking asylum in Sweden — each week. The largest groups were Syrians, then Afghans, stateless people, Eritreans and Somalis. The Immigration Service now reports that there are close to 50,000 asylum seekers living in various housing and rental facilities, and more are on their way to a country that already suffers from a major housing shortage.

The question is: Where will they live? More and more people are now worrying that the government will confiscate the homes of Swedes and give them to asylum seekers. In 1992, the “Threat and Risk Assessment Commission” (Hot- och riskutredningen) established that the government should have the option to seize property, especially summer homes, from the Swedish people in a time of crisis. In early September, editorial columnist Anna Dahlberg ofExpressen, one of Sweden’s largest dailies, urged Swedes to “make way” and “hand over the keys to their apartments to those in greater need.”

August 3: Another shooting took place in the violence-stricken city of Malmö. No one was hurt this time, but the police found empty shell casings on Rasmusgatan Street in the Seved area, one of Malmö’s “no go-zones,” where a majority of the inhabitants are of foreign descent. The area is known for its open drug trade, and over the last few years, a large number of shootings and grenade attacks have occurred there. (On June 12, a hand grenade was thrown, and four people were wounded.) In an attempt to bring down the crime rate, local authorities gave the police permission on August 12 to place four cameras in the area to film events around the clock.

August 5: The Stockholm police department caused an uproar with a shocking story about everyday life in immigrant-heavy suburbs such as Tensta-Rinkeby, Hjulsta, Kista and Husby. Youth gangs regularly attack police by using lasers to blind them, and throwing rocks and firebombs. Criminal gangs resolve conflicts by shooting at each other in public places, risking the lives of innocent people who may be in their way. Police officer Nikolina Bucht wrote in a columnin the daily Svenska Dagbladet that it is time to “take back the area from the criminals and protect all the respectable people who have their neighborhoods destroyed, their cars set on fire and feel unsafe.” She wrote:

“Last week my colleagues got a call about a sudden cardiac arrest in Rinkeby. … When they arrive at the scene, they are met by about ten young people who are provoked by their mere presence, turn aggressive and mask their faces. The police are forced to focus on the rock throwing instead of going up to the apartment and starting CPR. He had to wait for several minutes extra before he got help, time that could have saved his life. This was not an isolated event.”

August 7: A Somali refugee, Mohamed Husein, complained he has not yet received a Swedish citizenship. Somalis must wait three years longer than others for citizenship, as they cannot prove their identity. Husein wants a Swedish passport so he can go back to the country he claims to have escaped from — to “visit his mom and establish business contacts.”

August 10: It was reported that a 15-year-old pregnant girl, who six weeks prior traveled with her boyfriend to Syria, had been captured by the Islamic State (ISIS). How the girl managed to travel without a passport or identification papers remains a mystery. Swedish media made no effort to sort out why she would object to living with ISIS. Her boyfriend is reported to have joined an al-Qaeda-affiliated group.

August 11: The law journal Dagens Juridik reported that a 19-year-old girl was taken into custody, in accordance with the LVU law (“Care of Young Persons Special Provisions Act”), after her family threatened to subject her to honor violence. Social service workers on the island of Gotland applied for “administered care” after the girl, in spite of threats, had escaped from the shelter where she was living and moved back with her family. The court stated that the investigation showed that the girl’s desire to return is rooted in her upbringing, which has taught her that the honor of the family is more important than her individual rights. She may also feel guilt, because she thinks she is dishonoring the family by not being with them. According to the court, the girl’s behavior should be considered socially disruptive under the definition of the LVU law, and therefore, she needs to be protected.

August 14: Two men, 21 and 26 years of age, were remanded, suspected of two of the many recent hand grenade attacks in Malmö. At the same time, another 26-year-old was remanded for attempted murder and possession of an illegal weapon, both of which occurred in Rasmusgatan, in Malmö’s “no-go” Seved neighborhood.

Early that morning, police also discovered two hand grenades in Adelgatan, in central Malmö. One had exploded, and the other one failed to work. A large area was barricaded and several buildings had to be evacuated. The police suspected the incident could be linked to a car bomb that had detonated in Malmö two days earlier. Malmö has experienced the most bomb attacks of all Scandinavian cities: this year alone, 20 bombings have taken place.

August 12: A 43-year-old Iranian citizen, Ramin Sayadi, was sentenced to four years in prison for three rapes and two counts of sexual molestation of young girls. Sayadi also sold the girls large quantities of prescription narcotics such as Tramadol, Ritalin and Subutex. The police investigation showed that he had close to 1,000 customers. When the girls became addicted to the drugs, he took advantage of them sexually. The police believe there are many more victims who have not come forward. Detective inspector Jan-Åke Stendahl told daily Göteborgs-Postenthat the man had over 200 contacts listed in his mobile phone, and a majority of the numbers belonged to young girls. Sayadi was caught in May of last year, walking around Gothenburg’s central station trawling for customers.

Despite his systematic criminal activity, he received only a four-year prison sentence, and will not have to face deportation.

August 14: A so-called unaccompanied refugee child was prosecuted on rape charges. The act took place on the night of January 10, in a youth home in Västerbotten in northern Sweden. The suspect is a native of Afghanistan and claims to be 17 years old. The police believe he raped the woman when she was in a drunken stupor, and therefore in what the law calls a “particularly vulnerable situation.”

August 17: The police issued an international arrest warrant for a Congolese citizen, Loran Guy Mogi, 23, wanted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Therese Eriksson, 23, of Vårgårda. Eriksson had been found dead four days earlier in Mogi’s apartment, but he had fled the scene. She was killed by blows to the head and body. After a week on the run, Loran Guy Mogi was apprehended at a refugee facility in the German city of Hannover. He has since been remanded pending trial. According to the prosecutor, Robert Beckard, Mogi has pled not guilty to the murder charge, but admits that he beat Eriksson and may thus have caused her death.

August 18: The media website Avpixlat wrote that an Algerian man, who has not lived in Sweden for six years, is entitled to financial aid to cover doctor’s visits and the cost of his medicine. The man came to Sweden in the 1990s, but never worked or paid taxes there. Six years ago, he returned to Algeria, but in April of this year, he suddenly appeared in Sweden again to seek emergency health care. He underwent two surgeries at taxpayer expense, and considered himself entitled to financial aid for the cost of his medicine and several doctor’s visits. The municipality of Gothenburg had ruled against the request, but an administrative court now ruled that since the man has no income or assets, he is entitled to aid.

August 18: Five representatives of the Church of Sweden wrote, in an op-ed in the Swedish dailyDagens Nyheter, that the church should also be open to Muslims. The article astonished and angered Christians. Stefan Gustavsson, secretary general of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance,pointed out that Islam, Judaism and Christianity promote three radically different versions of what happened to Jesus:

  • Islam: Jesus did not die.
  • Judaism: Jesus died but was not resurrected.
  • Christianity: Jesus died and was resurrected.

These different versions cannot all be true, Gustavsson points out, and urges the Church of Sweden to awake from their Sleeping Beauty-slumber and start taking big questions seriously:

“The religion relativism that is now widespread throughout the Church of Sweden is not just an intellectual dead end, it is an insult to the Christians of Iraq and Syria who face forced conversion and who are willing to give their lives for their faith in Jesus Christ.”

But the Church of Sweden persists, and on August 30, it invited imam Mohammad Muslim Eneborg to take part in high mass. Before he converted, the imam was named Åke Daniel Eneborg and he was a left-wing activist.

August 24: Former member of parliament Thoralf Alfsson (Sweden Democrats) wrote on his blog that the Immigration Service had hired no fewer than 1,200 people during the last year. Earlier, in August 2014, the Immigration Service had about 5,000 employees; in August 2015 that figure was 6,200. This means that the wage costs have increased by 50 million kronor (about $5.9 million) a month. In all, the Immigration Service’s staff now cost Swedish taxpayers 250 million kronor ($29.6 million USD) a month, or 3 billion kroner ($360 million) a year.

Aside from skyrocketing costs, Alfsson questions why so many people of foreign descent find employment with the Immigration Service. He writes: “I can’t but wonder what kind of screening process the Immigration Service have in regard to the people they hire. Could there be employees with residency status in Sweden who use a fake identity? Are there ISIS-sympathizers among the employees?” And there are.

Social commentator and author Merit Wager, who frequently publishes anonymous posts from Immigration Service employees, wrote in an August 21 blog post that authorities now no longer take rejected asylum seekers into custody, due to attacks from left-wing extremists. That is why the IKEA-murderer, who had received a deportation order, was not in custody, a failure that led to the death of two innocent people in the heart of the Swedish idyll. One Immigration Service employee said:

“Years ago, the Immigration Service was often heavily criticized by various left-wing groups who wanted to ‘protect’ the asylum seekers who had been found lacking in reasons for protection and targeted for deportation. Sometimes there were big demonstrations and now and again Immigration Service buildings were vandalized. Today these actions have ceased almost completely. The reason is very simple – the Immigration Service has hired the activists. They are now officials at the authority! I’ve met several people who are quite open about their backgrounds in these activist groups. The reason the Immigration Service hires them is that they state on their CVs exactly what the government wants to hear – that they have a ‘burning engagement in human rights issues.'”

August 24: A police van was attacked with a hand grenade in the Stockholm suburb of Tumba. Four policemen were in the vehicle at the time. If it had not been for the fact that the vehicle was armored, the incident could have ended in a bloodbath. The attack began when several people threw rocks at police officers, and a fire was set at the local police station. Moments later, the hand grenade was thrown and landed about five feet from the police van. No one was injured, but the vehicle sustained 105 holes from shrapnel. Despite intense police efforts, the perpetrators of this attempted murder have not yet been apprehended.

1262A police van is riddled with shrapnel (left) from a hand grenade attack in Stockholm on August 24. The four policemen in the vehicle at the time could have been killed if the van had not been armored. At right, the Malmö police bomb squad disarms a hand grenade found in Landskrona, on September 22.

August 25: Local politicians in small southern county of Örkelljunga (population 10,000) wrote a desperate letter to the government; its signatories begged for help in solving the problems brought by the wave of asylum seekers. The Immigration Service has opened housing in Örkelljunga for about 250 asylum seekers in apartments, a former motel, and a number of private family residences — including housing for unaccompanied refugee children. An additional 100 units may open up in the Åsljungagården Hotel.

The local politicians wrote in their letter that crime rates have risen and that the police have been called on a number of occasions. Rape, assault, battery and shoplifting are mentioned, as is the temporary closing of the Centrumhuset youth center. At the largest housing facility, an old motel, there are 90 adults and children. The mix of various ethnic groups is said to have led to riots, threats and hunger strikes. The letter states:

“The situation affects everyone who lives and stays in our little county. The climate has grown tougher; many people feel scared and unsafe and with that comes the risk of increased xenophobia, antagonism and exclusion.”

The county swiftly received criticism from the mainstream media, and August 27 the Immigration Service let it be known that they have no intention of helping Örkelljunga. Immigration Service Press Officer Fredrik Bengtsson, quoted in the daily Helsingborgs Dagblad, was especially angry about the county’s criticism concerning different groups being placed together:

“If one thinks along the lines of placing asylum seekers any other way, you’re on a slippery slope. Separate housing for Christians and Muslims is not something we have in society. We have freedom of religion, and that applies to housing as well. You have to stop for a moment and think about it, because that’s not how we do things in society.”

August 26: Swedes heard the news that politicians in the nation’s three largest cities want to offer courses in “self-care and sexual matters” to gypsy women beggars. Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö are applying for 8.7 million kronor (just over $1 million USD) from the European Social Fund, for the project, and hope to reach 250 women. Twice a week they will attend class and get food, free health checkups and free hygiene- and sanitary articles and condoms. They will also receive compensation for “loss of work income.” Local politicians from opposition parties in Stockholm criticized the project strongly.

August 28: “Afrikas Horn,” an immigrants’ organization, reports another “Swedish” ISIS-warrior killed in battle. The man was in his thirties and originally from Somalia, but lived in the immigrant-heavy area of Vivalla in Örebro. The man was apparently one of three who have repeatedly traveled to join ISIS, but were twice intercepted in Turkey and sent back to Sweden. The man is the fourth resident of Örebro who has died as an ISIS terrorist. The chairman of Afrikas Horn tells the local paper Nerikes Allehanda that “the family is in mourning.”

August 28: Ali Khoddami, once an asylum seeker to Sweden, was sentenced to prison for defrauding an elderly woman. Khoddami worked in home care services and tricked Inga Lill, a 90-year-old woman suffering from dementia, out of millions of kronor. By pretending to be the woman’s friend, Khoddami was able to take over her bank accounts and move into her house, along with his family. He used her savings of two million kronor (about $240,000 USD) for luxury items, as well as several cars. Khoddami also managed to persuade Lill to sign over her house — her childhood home built by her father — to him. The house is apparently worth five million kronor ($590,000 USD). It was only after Khoddami put Lill, who has no living relatives, in a nursing home that the fraud was uncovered. The District Court sentenced Khoddami to 2.5 years in prison and fined him 7 million kronor ($830,000) plus interest and damages.

August 28: There were reports that people-smugglers have, over a short period of time, dumped 100 asylum seekers in the Gothenburg area. Pernilla Wallin, unit manager of the application unit at the Immigration Service for the Western Region, told Swedish Public Television that she never thought the situation would escalate like this and that the circumstances are “exceptional.” The Immigration Service is now desperately looking for “external contractors who want to bid on temporary housing for asylum seekers.”

Ben Carson exposes Islamic taqiyya and gets attacked for it by leftist media

September 25, 2015

Ben Carson exposes Islamic taqiyya and gets attacked for it by leftist media, Front Page MagazineRaymond Ibrahim, September 25, 2015

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Originally published by PJ Media.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz freedom Center.

Of all the points presidential candidate Ben Carson made in defense of his position that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” most poignant is his reference to taqiyya, one of Islam’s doctrines of deception.

According to Carson, whoever becomes president should be “sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Koran”:

“I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country,” Carson said, referencing the Islamic law derived from the Koran and traditions of Islam. “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”

Carson said that the only exception he’d make would be if the Muslim running for office “publicly rejected all the tenants of Sharia and lived a life consistent with that.”

“Then I wouldn’t have any problem,” he said.

However, on several occasions Carson mentioned “Taqiyya,” a practice in the Shia Islam denomination in which a Muslim can mislead nonbelievers about the nature of their faith to avoid religious persecution.

“Taqiyya is a component of Shia that allows, and even encourages you to lie to achieve your goals,” Carson said.

There’s much to be said here.  First, considering that the current U.S. president has expunged all reference to Islam in security documents and would have Americans believe that Islamic doctrine is more or less like Christianity, it is certainly refreshing to see a presidential candidate referencing a little known but critically important Muslim doctrine.

As for the widely cited notion that taqiyya is a Shia doctrine, this needs to be corrected, as it lets the world’s vast majority of Muslims, the Sunnis, off the hook.  According to Sami Mukaram, one of the world’s foremost authorities on taqiyya,

Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.

Taqiyya is often associated with the Shias because, as a persecuted minority group interspersed among their Sunni rivals, they have historically had more reason to dissemble. Today, however, Sunnis living in the West find themselves in the place of the Shia. Now they are the minority surrounded by their historic enemies—Western “infidels”—and so they too have plenty of occasion to employ taqiyya.

Nor would making Muslims swear on Bibles be very effective. As long as their allegiance to Islam is secure in their hearts, Muslims can behave like non-Muslims—including by praying before Christian icons, wearing crosses, and making the sign of the cross—anything short of actually killing a Muslim, which is when the taqiyya goes too far (hence why Muslims in the U.S. military often expose their true loyalties when they finally reach the point of having to fight fellow Muslims in foreign nations).

For those with a discerning eye, taqiyya is all around us.  Whether Muslim refugees pretending to convert to Christianity (past and present), or whether an Islamic gunman gaining entrance inside a church by feigning interest in Christian prayers—examples abound on a daily basis.

Consider the following anecdote from Turkey.  In order to get close enough to a Christian pastor to assassinate him, a group of Muslims, including three women, feigned interest in Christianity, attended his church, and even participated in baptism ceremonies.

“These people had infiltrated our church and collected information about me, my family and the church and were preparing an attack against us,” said the pastor in question, Emre Karaali: “Two of them attended our church for over a year and they were like family.”

If some Muslims are willing to go to such lengths to eliminate the already downtrodden Christian minorities in their midst—attending churches and baptisms and becoming “like family” to those “infidels” they intend to kill—does anyone doubt that a taqiyya-practicing Muslim presidential candidate might have no reservations about swearing on a stack of Bibles?

Precedents for such treachery litter the whole of Islamic history—and begin with the Muslim prophet himself: During the Battle of the Trench (627 AD), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes collectively known as “the Confederates,” a Confederate called Naim bin Masud went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered the Confederates were unaware of Masud’s deflection to Islam, he counseled him to return and try somehow to get his tribesmen to abandon the siege. “For war is deceit,” Muhammad assured him.

Masud returned to the Confederates without their knowledge that he had switched sides and began giving his former kin and allies bad advice. He also intentionally instigated quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded and lifted the siege, allowing an embryonic Islam to grow.  (One Muslim website extols this incident for being illustrative of how Muslims can subvert non-Muslims.)

In short, if a Muslim were running for president of the U.S. in the hopes of ultimately subverting America to Islam, he could, in Carson’s words, easily be “sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Koran” and “publicly reject all the tenants of Sharia.”  Indeed, he could claim to be a Christian and attend church every week.

It speaks very well about Carson that he is aware of—and not hesitant to mention—taqiyya.  But that doctrine’s full ramifications—how much deceiving it truly allows and for all Muslim denominations, not just the Shia—needs to be more widely embraced.

The chances of that happening are dim.  Already “mainstream media” like the Washington Post are taking Carson to task for “misunderstanding” taqiyya—that is, for daring to be critical of anything Islamic.  These outlets could benefit from learning more about Islam and deception per the below links:

  • My expert testimony used in a court case to refute “taqiyya about taqiyya.”
  • The even more elastic doctrine of tawriya, which allows Muslims to deceive fellow Muslims by lying “creatively.”
  • My 2008 essay, “Islam’s Doctrines of Deception,” commissioned and published by Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst.
  • Recent examples of how onetime good Muslim neighbors turn violent once they grow in strength and numbers.

The pope’s misguided defense of Islam

September 24, 2015

The pope’s misguided defense of Islam, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, September 24, 2015

pope_francis_in_march_2013

 

The Pope could have used his forum in Congress to call attention to the plight of Christians.

Unlike Communist Cuba, America hasn’t seized and nationalized Catholic churches and schools. It hasn’t locked up Catholic clergy or installed surveillance equipment in their homes. It hasn’t denounced the Catholic church as “exploiters” and “fascists”. And yet Pope Francis, who had few criticisms of Cuba, came to Congress to denounce the collision between Americans and Indians, and to urge the United States to take in illegal aliens without regard for the law.

There’s a condemnation of the death penalty. Never mind that in the US, the death penalty is used after extensive appeals against some of the worst monsters imaginable, unlike Cuba, where it was used to massacre political opponents of the Castro crime family. And condemnations of selling weapons. Much of this is couched in vague language, but it’s still a sharp contrast from the visit to Cuba.

The Pope even threw in a backhanded defense of Islam…

Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind…

But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.

No religion is technically immune from anything if you mean that some members of it might misbehave. But that’s misleading language that tries to avoid the reality by setting up a strawman.

No country is immune from violating human rights, but there’s a big difference between David Cameron and Adolf Hitler. There’s also a huge difference between most religions and Islam when it comes to “violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities” committed in the name of religion. Especially when we focus in on the contrast between Western religions in the free world… and Islam.

There’s also a simplistic reductionism in reducing unpleasant truths to strawmen. There are clear cases of evil that have to be addressed. To say that does not mean an inability to see anything except black and white.

To say that no religion is immune to brutal atrocities is true and meaningless. We might as well say that no one human being is immune to evil. It doesn’t get us any closer to dealing with the reality of evil people out there.

It’s easy to talk around problems and Islam is the most talked-around problem today. But the plight of Christians in the Middle East deserves more than more ‘talking around’. Instead of elitist lectures, they need a moral authority to forcefully advocate intervention on their behalf by making it clear that they face genocide. And that it’s up to the West to make Christianity in the region sustainable or evacuate its last remnants.

It’s a much more vital issue than Global Warming, which the Pope mentions repeatedly.

The Pope could have used his forum in Congress to call attention to the plight of Christians in the region and demand action. Instead he talked generally about Syrian refugees, most of whom are Muslims.

Advocates are hoping for more.

Now that Pope Francis is in his first day of his two-day visit to Washington, D.C., advocates for persecuted Christians in the Middle East are urging the pontiff to speak out forcefully on their plight in his meeting with President Obama Wednesday and in his historic address to Congress the following day.

“I’m hoping the Pope points out that thousands of Christians are persecuted, denied their fundamental rights, and killed because of their faith [in the Middle East],” George Marlin, chairman of Aid to the Church in Need USA, told me.

Marlin, who has written a much-praised book on the subject of Christian persecution in the Middle East, emphasized that “someone has to bang pots and pans on this issue. The Administration is not doing it. The national media is not doing it. If the Pope brings this up, it makes front-page news worldwide.”

“If Pope Francis calls it genocide before Congress, there will be a moral clarity added to this issue and it will bring a new ray of hope to persecuted Christians,” said Taimoorazy, herself a refugees from Iran who came to the U.S. in 1991, “The whole world will now be paying attention.”

In underscoring why the Pope must use the word “genocide,” she cited the fact that the Assyrian Christian population in the Middle East was 1.6 million prior to 2003 and “now we only have 300,000.”

I suppose it’s not as important as the critiques of capitalism and Global Warming and illegal aliens and the death penalty.

Mandatory Muslim immigration in the EU

September 24, 2015

Mandatory Muslim immigration in the EU, Front Page MagazineArnold Ahlert, September 24, 2015

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Third Worldism, in all its attendant dysfunction, is “breaking the door down on top of us,” even as our unconscionable leaders bemoan those who resist the cultural Armageddon it represents. Leaders whose ongoing love affair with multiculturalism is nothing more than an apology for the Western culture they disdain, even as millions of those Third Worlders are irresistibly drawn to its cornucopia of bounty and beneficence. Bounty and beneficence they will ultimately undermine with the blessings of the apologists who, despite this massive flow of humanity in only one direction, believe no culture is better than any other. It doesn’t get more ironic—or suicidal—than that.

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On Tuesday, national sovereignty gave way to mandatory multiculturalism in the European Union. A plan to relocate an additional 120,000 Middle Eastern migrants was imposed by EU ministers over the objections four Eastern European countries adamantly opposed to the plan. Slovakia’s Robert Fico illuminated the resistance. “As long as I am prime minister, mandatory quotas will not be implemented on Slovak territory,” he declared in Bratislava.

Slovakia was joined by the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary. Finland abstained from the vote. Yet despite the quartet’s disapproval, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, led by France and Germany, pushed through the plan proposed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker during his annual State of the Union address in Strasbourg earlier this month. The plan called for 160,000 migrants to be forcibly redistributed from Italy, Greece and Hungary to all other member states, save Britain, Ireland and Denmark, who remain exempt from EU treaties. In addition, Junker called for a review of the “Dublin system” that determines which EU nation is responsible for asylum claims.

In order to make the plan more politically palatable, 66,000 migrants are currently slated for relocation, joining 40,000 migrants approved for asylum in July. The remaining 54,000 had originally been allocated to Hungary where they are currently camped out. But Budapest refused to abide a plan it characterized as an invitation to economic migrants. Thus, those migrants will be reallocated in 2016, possibly among Greece, Italy, Croatia and Austria, bringing the overall total of relocated migrants to 160,000. The plan is ostensibly limited to Syrian, Iraqi and Eritrean asylum-seekers, but the details have yet to be worked out. All of those migrants are people who have purportedly crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey and northern Africa, fleeing the unrelenting violence in Iraq and Syria.

Luxembourg minister and meeting chairman Jean Asselborn stated that ministers “would have preferred to have an agreement by consensus,” but nonetheless expected objectors to fall into line as required by the law. Germany has been the focus of resentment on the issue, no doubt due to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Sept. 7 announcement that her nation would take 800,000 refugees this year at a cost of $6.6 billion ,and 500,000 per year over the next few years. Less than a week later, German interior minister Thomas de Maizière announced Germany would be imposing border controls in the southern part of the nation for what Merkel called “urgent security reasons.” Austria and Slovakia followed Germany’s lead shortly thereafter as wishful thinking gave way to the inconvenient reality of as many as half a million migrants flooding into the EU.

The plan itself, whereby the tens of thousands of migrants landing in Italy and Greece will be involuntarily moved by their respective national police forces to other EU nations is the epitome of wishful thinking. Those police forces are already overwhelmed, and the plan to relocate migrants bore little resemblance to the reality expressed by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC), which insists 120,000 people represents just six days’ worth of arrivals at the current influx rate. “A relocation programme alone, at this stage in the crisis, will not be enough to stabilise the situation,” insists UNHRC spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

Fleming is correct. After Hungary closed it border, refugees headed west towards Croatia, and that nation allowed tens of thousands to cross into Europe. Now Croatia has blocked off part of its border with Serbia, because they can’t process migrants fast enough. It noted that 35,000 migrants crossed its border in the week following the Hungarian shutdown. In the Austrian town of Nickelsdorf, 8000 new arrivals filled the town square, as local officials insisted no accommodations were available because existing camps were full. And of the more than 4 million migrants that remain in countries near Syria, at least 270,000 Syrians have requested asylum in Europe.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban expressed the sense of frustration felt by many in the EU. “They are overrunning us,” he told his nation’s Parliament. “They’re not just banging on the door, they’re breaking the door down on top of us. Our borders are in danger, our way of life built on respect for the law, Hungary and the whole of Europe is in danger. Europe hasn’t just left its door open but has sent open invitation… Europe is rich but weak, this is the worst combination, Europe needs to be stronger to defend its borders.” Hungary has passed a law allowing the army to use rubber bullets, tear gas and net guns to maintain control over migrants on its border.

Unsurprisingly Orban was criticized by European colleagues, such as Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek, who, prior to Tuesday’s meeting, declared Eastern European foreign ministers were “absolutely dedicated” to finding a solution with their EU partners. Since the Czech Republic was one of four nations utterly opposed to the agreement, such optimism was short-lived. “Soon we will find out that the emperor has no clothes,” he tweeted after the plan was announced. “Reason lost today.”

One suspects reason was never in play. As The Telegraph’s Janet Daley warned earlier this month, European elitists have used the now famous image of a dead child washed up on a Turkish beach “to support the notion of Western guilt,” even as Bashar Assad’s murderous regime gets a pass. “For some reason, the appalling photographs of the bodies of children who had been deliberately gassed by the Assad regime, laid out on a concrete floor in Syria two years ago, were not sufficiently moving to compel the world to take action,” she writes. “Are dead children only a moral outrage when they are on the beaches of Europe?”

Elitist outrage is more like it, as Daley notes Germany’s magnanimity, which they and other economically advanced EU nations can afford, stands in stark contrast to the economically struggling eastern bloc nations that must initially accommodate that high-mindedness. “Imagine if you were a poor householder, just managing to keep your financial head above water while you attempted to turn your circumstances around, and a very wealthy neighbour decided to throw open his doors to the needy – and one obvious way that those in need could reach that welcoming haven was by tramping through your house,” Daley explains. “Might you find yourself inclined to be unhelpful in the hopes of discouraging others from taking the same path?”

Millions of ordinary Americans are undoubtedly pondering the same question. In addition to the hordes of illegals embraced by our own ruling class, the Obama administration intends to “significantly increase” the number of “worldwide migrants” this nation takes in over the next two years, reaching a total of 100,000 by 2017. Apparently the reality that the legal and illegal immigrant population in the United States has reached a record-breaking 42.6 million, or about one-out-of-eight residents in the U.S.—more than double what it was in 1980—remains insufficient with regard to the “fundamental transformation of the United States” the American left desires. And while the similar elitist-driven multicultural force-feeding devolving the Europe ethos is much more immediate, make no mistake: both are equally inexorable should current trends on both sides of the Atlantic continue.

In Europe, the bill is coming due for a continent that largely relied on America to do the heavily lifting in response to Islamic terrorism, even as it remained largely contemptuous of the “vulgarities” associated with a military response to the problem. America is facing the twin deficits of a ruling class determined to shove illegal immigration down the throats of a recalcitrant public, and a feckless Obama administration whose foreign policy of phony red lines in Syria, leading from behind in Libya, untimely troop withdrawal in Iraq, and the apparent determination to manipulate intelligence regarding ISIS in the administration’s favor, has precipitated the largest refugee crisis since WWII.

It is a refugee crisis tailor made for ISIS and other Islamic terror groups to exploit with impunity. On both continents, Third Worldism, in all its attendant dysfunction, is “breaking the door down on top of us,” even as our unconscionable leaders bemoan those who resist the cultural Armageddon it represents. Leaders whose ongoing love affair with multiculturalism is nothing more than an apology for the Western culture they disdain, even as millions of those Third Worlders are irresistibly drawn to its cornucopia of bounty and beneficence. Bounty and beneficence they will ultimately undermine with the blessings of the apologists who, despite this massive flow of humanity in only one direction, believe no culture is better than any other. It doesn’t get more ironic—or suicidal—than that.

Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions

September 24, 2015

Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions, Gatestone InstituteRaymond Ibrahim, September 24, 2015

  • Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?
  • To the Obama administration, the only “real” refugees are those made so due to the actions of Bashar Assad. As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called “rebel” forces fighting Assad — including the Islamic State — their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.
  • The Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians. The State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives. While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Christians at hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the “human rights” of the jihadi murderers.
  • In Islamic usage, the “cause of Allah” is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah’s laws on earth, or Sharia. In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they do not, the “locations and abundance” of the West are theirs.
  • Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijrah, or jihad by emigration.

The fate of those Iraqi Christians who had fled from the Islamic State only to be incarcerated in the United States has finally been decided by the Obama administration: they are to be thrown back to the lions, where they will likely be persecuted, if not slaughtered, like so many Iraqi Christians before them.

Fifteen of the 27 Iraqi Christians that have been held at a detention center in Otay Mesa, California, for approximately six months, are set to be deported in the coming weeks. Some have already been deported and others are being charged with immigration fraud.

Many of the Iraqi Christian community in San Diego — including U.S. citizen family members vouching for the refugees — had hopes that they would eventually be released. Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community, had argued that “They’ve escaped hell. Let’s allow them to reunite with their families.” One of the detained women had begged to see her ailing mother before she died. The mother died before they could reunite, and now the daughter is to be deported, possibly back to the hell of the Islamic State.

1261Members of California’s Iraqi Christian community and their supporters protest the months-long detention of Iraqi Christian asylum-seekers at the Otay Mesa detention center. (Image source Al Jazeera video screenshot)

Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

The answer is that the Obama administration defines refugees as people “persecuted by their government.” In other words, the only “real” refugees are those made so due to the actions of Syrian President Bashar Assad. As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called “rebel” forces fighting Assad — including the Islamic State — their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

As Abraham H. Miller argues in “No room in America for Christian refugees“:

“What difference does it make which army imperils the lives of innocent Christians? Christians are still be[ing] slaughtered for being Christian, and their government is incapable of protecting them. Does some group have to come along — as Jewish groups did during the Holocaust — and sardonically guarantee that these are real human beings?”

In fact, from the start of Western meddling in the Middle East in the context of the “Arab Spring, “Christians were demonized for being supportive of secular strongmen like Assad. In a June 4, 2012 article discussing the turmoil in Egypt and Syria, the Independent’s Robert Fisk scoffed at how Egyptian presidential candidate “Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?”

More than three years later, the Western-supported “Arab Spring” proved an abysmal failure and the same Christian minorities that Fisk took to task were, as expected, persecuted in ways unprecedented in the modern era.

The Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians. The U.S. State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives. While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Christians at hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the “human rights” of the jihadi murderers. And when persecuted Egyptian Copts planned on joining the anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution, Obama said no. Then there is the situation that every Arab nation the Obama administration has meddled in — for example, Libya and Syria — has seen a dramatic nosedive in the human rights of Christian minorities.

The Obama administration’s bias is evident even regarding the Iraqi Christians’ illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border, the occasion on which they were arrested. WND correctly observes: “At the same time the Obama administration [is] deporting Christians, it has over the years allowed in hundreds of Muslim migrants from Africa and the Middle East who crossed the Southern border the same way the Chaldeans did.”

Meanwhile, as the Obama administration nitpicks at the definition of refugee and uses it against severely persecuted Christian minorities, it turns out that four out of five migrants — or 80 percent — are not even from Syria.

And while Christian minorities pose little threat to the United States — indeed, they actually bring benefits to U.S. security — Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijrah, or jihad by emigration. As Koran 4:100 puts it:

And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him — his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah.

In Islamic usage, the “cause of Allah” is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah’s laws on earth, or Sharia. In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they do not, the “locations and abundance” of the West are theirs.

All the while, the Obama administration is turning away Christian refugees fleeing the same hostile Muslim forces as Muslims — who are being welcomed into America and Europe.

Saudi Arabia: World’s Human Rights Sewer

September 21, 2015

Saudi Arabia: World’s Human Rights Sewer, Gatestone InstituteDouglas Murray, September 21, 2015

(This must be a premature April Fools Day joke. There have been several others recently, including criticisms of Donald Trump for not rebuking, correcting and silencing someone who claimed that Obama is a Muslim and of Dr. Ben Carson for saying he would not support a Muslim for President. Yeah, they must all be just sick jokes. I wish. — DM)

Saudi Arabia has been appointed as the head of a key UNHRC panel. This panel selects the top officials who shape international standards in human rights; it is intended to report on human rights violations around the world. The five-member group of ambassadors, which Saudi Arabia will now head, is known as the Consultative Group and has the power to select applicants to fill more than 77 positions worldwide that deal with human rights issues.

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  • Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, sentenced to be crucified, was accused of participating in banned protests and firearms offenses — despite a complete lack of evidence on the latter charge, and he was denied access to lawyers. Al-Nimr is also alleged by human rights groups to have been tortured and then forced into signing a confession while in custody.
  • Not only are the Saudi authorities preparing to crucify someone — in 2015 — whom they tortured into making a confession; they are preparing to crucify someone who was a minor at the time of arrest.
  • Alas not a week goes by without Saudi Arabia demonstrating to the world why they retain their reputation as one of the world’s foremost human rights sewers.
  • Crucifixion is a punishment which, it would appear, is not only Sharia-compliant but also — we must assume — Geneva-compliant.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva is an organization that may be easy to critique, but it is very hard to satirize. Ordinarily, if you told anyone that there was a place in Switzerland where Sudan, Iran and others of the world’s worst dictatorships and human rights abusers have their views on human rights treated with respect and deference, you would assume the script was written by Monty Python. Idi Amin would make an appearance at some point to share his views on how to improve equal conditions for women in the workplace. Pol Pot would crop up in order to castigate those countries where living standards had not been sufficiently raised in accordance with global averages.

Everything that happens in Geneva is beyond satire. But last week provides a demonstration, outrageous even by the standards of the UN. For this week, it came out – thanks to the excellent organization UN Watch — that Saudi Arabia has been appointed as the head of a key UNHRC panel. This panel selects the top officials who shape international standards in human rights; it is intended to report on human rights violations around the world. The five-member group of ambassadors, which Saudi Arabia will now head, is known as the Consultative Group and has the power to select applicants to fill more than 77 positions worldwide that deal with human rights issues. It appears that the appointment of Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the UNHRC, Faisal Trad, was made before the summer, but that diplomats in Geneva have kept silent on the matter since then.

That this appointment had to leak out months after the event raises the possibility that the UNHRC, contrary to popular perception, actually does have some sense of shame. Otherwise, why not shout from the rooftops that Saudi Arabia has won this prestigious position? Why not distribute a press release? After all, Saudi Arabia — and by extension the UNHRC — have nothing to be ashamed of, do they?

Alas not a week goes by without Saudi Arabia demonstrating to the world why they retain their reputation as one of the world’s foremost human rights sewers. Saudi Arabia may have beheaded more people in the last year than ISIS, but only rarely do any of these cases get more than a flicker of international attention. Occasionally a case breaks above the waves of public opinion. One such case is that of the jailed blogger Raif Badawi, sentenced last year to 10 years in jail and 1000 lashes for “insulting Islam.” The plight of Raif Badawi, who has already been served the first 50 lashes, and is being held in prison while awaiting the rest, has garnered international attention and condemnations of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom’s response has been strongly to denounce “the media campaign around the case.”

But the glare of international opinion clearly disturbs the Saudi authorities — a fact well worth keeping in mind. And it is not as though they have nothing to hide. This week brings a case that should get at least as much attention as that of Raif Badawi.

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was just 17 when he was arrested by the Saudi authorities in 2012, during a crackdown on anti-government protests in the Shia province of Qatif. He was accused of participating in banned protests and firearms offenses — despite a complete lack of evidence on the latter charge. Denied access to lawyers, al-Nimr is alleged by human rights groups to have been tortured and then forced into signing a confession while in custody. Campaigners say that it seems he has been targeted by authorities because of his family association with Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the 53-year-old critic of the Saudi regime who is his uncle. The Sheikh has also been convicted and sentenced to death. After the confession and “trial,” his nephew was convicted at Saudi’s Specialized Criminal Court and sentenced to death. The trial itself failed to meet any international standards. Al-Nimr appealed against his sentence, but this week that appeal was dismissed. It now seems likely that he and his uncle will now be executed. Because charges include crimes involving the Saudi King and the state itself, it seems likely that the method of death will be crucifixion.

1255Imprisoned Saudi dissidents Raif Badawi (left) and Ali Mohammed al-Nimr (right).

If this were in any way to cause a flicker of concern among other participants in the UNHRC farce going on Geneva, they have at least some consolation. For in Saudi Arabia crucifixion is not what it used to be. Indeed, in Saudi Arabia crucifixion begins with the beheading of the victim and only then the mounting of the beheaded body onto a crucifix, to make it available for public viewing. This is a punishment which it would appear is not only Sharia-compliant but also — we must assume — Geneva-compliant.

Of course, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr counts as having been a juvenile at the time of his arrest, so not only are the Saudi authorities preparing to crucify someone — in 2015 — whom they tortured into making a confession – they are preparing to crucify someone who was a minor at the time of arrest. Perhaps the authorities at the UNHRC in Geneva do indeed blush when they appoint Saudi officials to head their human rights panels. But it does not seem to affect their behaviour. Just as Saudi authorities think it is “international attention” rather than flogging people to death or crucifying them after beheading that is the problem, so the UNHRC in Geneva seems to think it is public awareness of their grotesque appointments rather than the appointments themselves that are the problem.

The international attention paid to the case of Raif Badawi has not yet seen him released, but it seems to have delayed the next rounds of lashes. Which suggests the Saudi authorities have the capacity to feel some shame. This should in turn be a cause for some hope among everyone who cares about human rights. It should also provide a reminder to everyone to increase global attention on the case of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr and the many others like him who suffer under a government and judicial system that should utterly shame the world outside Geneva, even if it cannot shame the UN.

U.S. soldiers ordered to ignore Afghan allies’ abuse of boys

September 21, 2015

U.S. soldiers ordered to ignore Afghan allies’ abuse of boys, Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, September 20, 2015

(“It’s their culture, so it’s cool. Don’t get involved.” The (non-Islamic) Islamic State is also a manifestation of Islamic culture. Should our we be required to ignore it as well? — DM)

 

What are we in Afghanistan for, if not to stand for our own values and the principles of human rights? Instead, U.S. officials are aiding and abetting the destruction of these boys’ lives — and in the case of Lance Corporal Buckley, sacrificing our own troops. This is beyond shameful.

“Those are the ones brought near in the Gardens of Pleasure, a company of the former peoples and a few of the later peoples, on thrones woven, reclining on them, facing each other. There will circulate among them young boys made eternal with vessels, pitchers and a cup from a flowing spring.” — Qur’an 56:11-18

“And they will be given to drink a cup whose mixture is of ginger, a fountain within Paradise named Salsabeel. There will circulate among them young boys made eternal. When you see them, you would think them scattered pearls. And when you look there, you will see pleasure and great dominion.” — Qur’an 76:17-20

Gregory-Buckley

“U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys,” by Joseph Goldstein, New York Times, September 20, 2015:

KABUL, Afghanistan — In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base.

“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militia to help hold territory against the Taliban. But soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages — and doing little when they began abusing children.
Gregory Buckley Sr. believes the policy of looking away from sexual abuse was a factor in his son’s death.

“The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.”

The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore pedophilia by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.

After the beating, the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the military.

Four years later, the Army is also trying to forcibly retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a Special Forces member who joined Captain Quinn in beating up the commander….

The American policy of nonintervention was intended to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militia units the United States has trained to fight the Taliban. It also reflected a reluctance to impose cultural values in a country where pederasty is rife, particularly among powerful men, for whom being surrounded by young teenagers can be a mark of social status.

Some soldiers believed that the policy made sense, even if they were personally distressed at the sexual predation they witnessed or heard about.

“The bigger picture was fighting the Taliban,” a former Marine lance corporal reflected. “It wasn’t to stop molestation.”

Still, the former lance corporal, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid offending fellow Marines, recalled feeling sickened the day he entered a room on a base and saw three or four men lying on the floor with children between them. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what was happening under the sheet, but I have a pretty good idea of what was going on,” he said.

But the American policy of treating pedophilia as a cultural issue has often alienated the villages whose children were being preyed upon. The pitfalls of the policy emerged clearly as American Special Forces soldiers began to form Afghan Local Police militias to hold villages that American forces had retaken from the Taliban in 2010 and 2011.

By the summer of 2011, Captain Quinn and Sergeant Martland, both Green Berets on their second tour in northern Kunduz Province, began to receive dire complaints about the Afghan Local Police units they were training and supporting.

First, one of the militia commanders raped a 14- or 15-year-old girl whom he had spotted working in the fields. Captain Quinn informed the provincial police chief, who soon levied punishment. “He got one day in jail, and then she was forced to marry him,” Mr. Quinn said.

When he asked a superior officer what more he could do, he was told that he had done well to bring it up with local officials but that there was nothing else to be done. “We’re being praised for doing the right thing, and a guy just got away with raping a 14-year-old girl,” Mr. Quinn said.

Village elders grew more upset at the predatory behavior of American-backed commanders. After each incident, Captain Quinn would gather the Afghan commanders and lecture them on human rights.

Soon another commander absconded with his men’s wages. Mr. Quinn said he later heard the commander had spent the money on dancing boys. Another commander murdered his 12-year-old daughter in a so-called “honor killing” for having kissed a boy.“There were no repercussions,” Mr. Quinn recalled.

In September 2011, an Afghan woman, visibly bruised, showed up at an American base with her son, who was limping. One of the Afghan police commanders in the area, Abdul Rahman, had abducted the boy and forced him to become a sex slave, chained to his bed, the woman explained. When she sought her son’s return, she herself was beaten. Her son had eventually been released, but she was afraid it would happen again she told the Americans on the base.

She explained that because “her son was such a good-looking kid, he was a status symbol” local commanders coveted, recalled Mr. Quinn, who did not speak to the woman directly but was told about her visit when he returned to the base from a mission later that day.

So Captain Quinn summoned Abdul Rahman and confronted him about what he had done. The police commander acknowledged that it was true, but brushed it off. When the American officer began to lecture about “how you are held to a higher standard if you are working with U.S. forces, and people expect more of you,” the commander began to laugh.

“I picked him up and threw him onto the ground,” Mr. Quinn said. Sergeant Martland joined in, he said. “I did this to make sure the message was understood that if he went back to the boy, that it was not going to be tolerated,” Mr. Quinn recalled….

Sergeant Martland, who received a Bronze Star for valor for his actions during a Taliban ambush, wrote in a letter to the Army this year that he and Mr. Quinn “felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our A.L.P. to commit atrocities,” referring to the Afghan Local Police.

The father of Lance Corporal Buckley believes the policy of looking away from sexual abuse was a factor in his son’s death, and he has filed a lawsuit to press the Marine Corps for more information about it.

Lance Corporal Buckley and two other Marines were killed in 2012 by one of a large entourage of boys living at their base with an Afghan police commander named Sarwar Jan.

Mr. Jan had long had a bad reputation; in 2010, two Marine officers managed to persuade the Afghan authorities to arrest him following a litany of abuses, including corruption, support for the Taliban and child abduction. But just two years later, the police commander was back with a different unit, working at Lance Corporal Buckley’s post, Forward Operating Base Delhi, in Helmand Province.

Lance Corporal Buckley had noticed that a large entourage of “tea boys” — domestic servants who are sometimes pressed into sexual slavery — had arrived with Mr. Jan and moved into the same barracks, one floor below the Marines. He told his father about it during his final call home.

Word of Mr. Jan’s new position also reached the Marine officers who had gotten him arrested in 2010. One of them, Maj. Jason Brezler, dashed out an email to Marine officers at F.O.B. Delhi, warning them about Mr. Jan and attaching a dossier about him.

The warning was never heeded. About two weeks later, one of the older boys with Mr. Jan — around 17 years old — grabbed a rifle and killed Lance Corporal Buckley and the other Marines.

Lance Corporal Buckley’s father still agonizes about whether the killing occurred because of the sexual abuse by an American ally. “As far as the young boys are concerned, the Marines are allowing it to happen and so they’re guilty by association,” Mr. Buckley said. “They don’t know our Marines are sick to their stomachs.”

The one American service member who was punished in the investigation that followed was Major Brezler, who had sent the email warning about Mr. Jan, his lawyers said. In one of Major Brezler’s hearings, Marine Corps lawyers warned that information about the police commander’s penchant for abusing boys might be classified. The Marine Corps has initiated proceedings to discharge Major Brezler.

Migration Crisis: Germany Wants to Be “Miss Congeniality”

September 20, 2015

Migration Crisis: Germany Wants to Be “Miss Congeniality,” Gatestone InstituteVijeta Uniyal, September 20, 2015

(Please see also, U.S. to Increase Admission of Refugees to 100,000 in 2017, Kerry Says. — DM)

  • Chancellor Merkel today seems to be promising nothing less than absolution for Germany’s sins of the Holocaust. The problem is, of course, that Muslims are quite different from Jews.
  • German media outlets have suppressed the stories of rampant rape and child abuse among the migrants housed in government-run accommodations.
  • The editor-in-chief defended her decision to suppress the rape story on public TV broadcaster ZDF: “We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread the bad mood. [The migrants] don’t deserve it.” That the poor rape victim deserved justice was apparently of no concern to the broadcaster.
  • Germany under Chancellor Merkel wants to play “Miss Congeniality” at the global scale, and wants Europe to pick up the tab.

Overwhelmed by the unprecedented influx of migrants, Germany has imposed temporary border controls. This temporary halt in new arrivals is “intended to give Germany a chance to catch its breath while at the same time ratcheting up the pressure on other European Union member states to accept a quota system for the distribution of asylum recipients across the bloc,”according to Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann of the German state of Bavaria on public radio. Germany’s move to tighten its border controls, however, is not going to halt millions of migrants already mobilized by Berlin’s suspension of existing asylum rules and its open border policy in the first place.

Horst Seehofer, the leader of Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavaria-based sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), painted a grim picture, saying that Merkel’s open border policy “was a mistake that will occupy us for a long time yet. I see no possibility of putting the stopper back into the bottle.”

German media is in lockstep with the government, giving happy-talk and a positive spin on migrant crisis of gigantic proportions hitting Europe.

German newspapers and media outlets have suppressed the stories of rampant rape and child abuse among the migrants housed in government-run accommodations. In a recent letter addressed to the Minister of Integration and Social Affairs in the state of Hesse, prominent women’s organizations have described the culture of rape and violence perpetuated by male migrants — right under the nose of German authorities. The letter states:

“It is a fact that women and children [at HEAE accommodation facility, under the supervision of Administrative District of Giessen] are unprotected. This situation is opportune to those men who already regard women as their inferior and treat unaccompanied women as ‘fair game.’ As a consequence, there are reports of numerous rapes, sexual assaults and increasingly of forced prostitution. … These are not isolated incidents.”

According to the letter, women were terrified to walk in the camp even during the day.

The letter, signed by leading officials organizing the settlement of the migrants in the state of Hesse, went virtually unreported in the German media.

For now, the German media can afford to ignore these crimes, committed in makeshift transit centers — away from the public eye. How do the media plan to suppress this reality once some of these criminals are released into communities? Here is a foretaste of the things to come:

Recently the Germany’s top public broadcaster ZDF refused to run a segment about a rape case on its prime time crime show, “Aktenzeichen XY,” which helps law enforcement to gather leads from the general public, on the grounds that the alleged fugitive was of a “darker skin” and might fit the profile of a migrant. The editor-in-chief, Ina-Maria Reize-Wildemann, defended her decision: “We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread the bad mood. [The migrants] don’t deserve it.” That the poor rape victim deserved justice was apparently of no concern to the broadcaster.

Mainstream media in Germany are not merely willing executioners of Merkel’s open border policy, they are ideological players committed to breaking any opposition to the plan.

1253Commenting on Germany’s acceptance of hundreds of thousands of migrants, the popular mainstream newsmagazine Der Spiegel last week portrayed Chancellor Merkel as a Mother Theresa-like figure (left). Pictured at right, a German policeman leads a group of newly arrived migrants.

Germany wants to dictate its stand on migration to other EU member states. First Germany wrecked the existing legal framework by unilaterally suspending the Dublin Protocol, and now it wants Europe to shoulder a “fair share” of migrants who are stampeding into Europe — encouraged by Berlin’s irresponsible stance to begin with.

Chancellor Merkel today seems to be promising nothing less than absolution for Germany’s sins of the Holocaust. “The world sees Germany as a land of hope and opportunities,” she says. “That hasn’t always been the case.” The problem is, of course, that Muslims are quite different from Jews.

German politicians and EU Commissars, however, seem hell bent on imposing quotas on member states – harkening back to the heyday of Soviets jackboots running the Eastern bloc. It may only be a matter of time until some of the reluctant East European states start complying, possibly forced by economic threats and sanctions from Brussels and Berlin.

Germany under Chancellor Merkel wants to play “Miss Congeniality” at the global scale and wants Europe to pick up the tab.