P&D Geopolitics Edition: Middle East and Africa

By Rich Kozlovich  

I've stored a lot of information over the last couple of months from around the world, much of it from subscription sites so I can't link the information, so you'll just have to take my word for what I'm presenting... or not.... as it pleases you.  However, I think I can say without much argument, the world is a mess.  More and more information links the Middle East with African nations.  Some of it involving the Iran issue, and some of it involving their own internal issues, especially with western and northern African nations.   

The UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara has ended after 35 years, which wasn't all that effective anyway.  Now Morocco, which controls about 80 percent of the nation, will now ultimately control all of Western Sahara claiming they will allow "limited self government" for the Polisario Front that administers the "interior/eastern territory and refugee camps", about 20 percent of the nation, but will not allow independence.  The Polisario Front rejects that maintaining the "Sahrawi people", who are a distinct ethic group differing from those of Morocco, and have the sole right to self-determination."  While Morocco says they support the peace fire agreement, that won't last long.  Once again we see tribalism at work here, and this will not end peacefully.  

There was a report that Algeria was sending troops to Niger: A Warning for Morocco and Israel, with Russia being involved in this convoluted mess, with a lot of history behind it.  Ya just gotta read the article to get a glimmer of understanding of what a convoluted mess this is.  

Eastern Libya has taken pro-Turkish tilt with those blaming the US for being passive as "the agreement drew a new Mediterranean map, cutting across Greek islands and reflecting Turkey’s expansionist policies", yet as I see it this is just one more area where the United States has no skin in that game.  

• Bernard Haykel on Saudi Arabia at War - Houthi conflict escalation: Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia surged in summer 2026, following the closure of the Hormuz Strait. The Houthis aim to establish a “bridge to Iran” for arms and supplies, complicating Saudi defense efforts and threatening vital infrastructure. Iranian influence and strategy: Iran supports the Houthis with supplies through Oman, despite blockades, bolstering their missile capabilities..

As I've said in the past, what Saudi Arabia brings to the table with the Mecca Pact, the defense agreement between them, Pakistan, Turkey, and now Syria is money, lots of money.  Syria was encouraged to sign on to this "Sunni" alliance and got this in return:

"The Saudi Fund for Development signed six concessional loans worth more than $403 million. The largest loan is $105 million for 25 civil defense centers. The rest goes to hospitals and clinics, the Aleppo thermal power plant, up to 10,000 damaged homes, 300,000 smart water meters and the Finance Ministry’s digital systems. Reuters reported last month that Damascus was weighing military help for the kingdom against the Houthis."

The conflict in areas where African nations and Middle East nations interact is an on going mess and when you see what's going on it's easy to understand why the economics of these nation are in the toilet, with the exception of those nations that are oil rich.  But their stability is fraying as radicals are attacking them with missiles killing civilians.  And now Saudi Arabia is feeling the economic consequences of the Iran/Houthi alliance.  To avoid the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz companies are building pipelines to by pass the Strait, but the Houthi are attacking oil shipments in the Red Sea and I have no doubt will attack pipelines.  It appears if Saudi Arabia wants this fixed it will have organize a real war with Iran and it's proxies to bring this to an end.

• "Lebanon’s government is separating itself from Hezbollah on the Yemen front as well as the Israeli one, and the work is being done by the prime minister’s statements and a judge’s warrants rather than by the army. A state that can condemn, charge and telephone the head of the Saudi-backed government in Yemen is further along than it was a year ago. It still has not disarmed Hezbollah."... 
• Lebanon wants to avoid being drug into "foreign" wars for the benefit of others, and Hezbollah is part of that problem.  Red Sea’s African shore is dividing into blocs. Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea are lining up against Ethiopia, and Rabat has decided that the end of the UN mission ends UN monitoring of the ceasefire in the Sahara. 

It was reported yesterday regarding the Badr Agreement which is a Sunni defense agreement between Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Indonesia needs to be watched, and the Mecca Pact is already fraying at the edges, which doesn't surprise me at all, and done so because "Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar each have ties to Islamist groups. Pakistan shelters Islamist militant factions. Turkey and Qatar both support the Muslim Brotherhood and host Hamas figures."

The Turkish Parliament voted on support of the Mecca Pact but "has yet to provide any offensive military support to Saudi Arabia against the Houthis in Yemen, and Pakistan’s contributions are more in homeland defense."   Ethiopia, Sudan, the UAE are in conflict, and even Egypt has been drawn into this, with one observer asking Why Does Ethiopia Get the Russian Jets Washington Denied Egypt? 

What's called Kurdistan isn't really a country. It's a ethnic cultural geographical region made up of parts of Turkey, Iran, Syria, and some say parts of the Caucuses, and the Kurds want their own independent nation combining those regions, all of which are in dispute. While they may not have a recognized nation, they do have a 100 seat parliament and have chosen a new Speaker, who only got 51 votes, which I think is really interesting since they don't have a country, they hate everyone and everyone hates them, and they don't seem to even be harmonious among themselves.

Israel has been given American go ahead to continue attacks against Iran on one day and then President Trump says he may not continue attacks.  He's vacillated on this from the beginning, is it any wonder the American public is irritated at him over this?  Is it any wonder Israel is mired in their internal politics over this.    Iran's goal in the Strait has been to "frustrate efforts by the United States and its allies to bring down global oil prices”, and has been successful in sinking ships.  Anyone accused of supporting Reza Pahlavi and Israel are being executed, and their internal security is so vast it's impossible to organize a movement against the Iranian tyranny.  

Strikes in Gaza continue taking out senior officials working against the ceasefire agreement.  How true it may be, the State Department claims “we are making real progress toward a demilitarized Gaza”.  That just might be a little bit delusional.  

Hamas Found to Be Storing Weapons in Mosques - Wow, who saw this coming? As everyone knows, Islam is a beautiful religion of peace, and mosques are peaceful houses of worship, akin to churches or synagogues, places of prayer, contemplation, worship, and the healing of the soul. 

Anyone who thinks otherwise, and especially anyone who gets the crazy idea that mosques might have something to do with jihad violence, is just a greasy Islamophobe — right? 

Well, as it turns out, Hamas is full of greasy Islamophobes.  Israel National News reported Tuesday “the IDF and Shin Bet on Monday struck and destroyed five Hamas weapon storage facilities and a Hamas launch site in several strikes across the Gaza Strip.” What’s that? You thought Hamas had already turned in all its weapons, as it was supposed to do under the terms of Trump’s grand plan for lasting peace in the Middle East?

Is this the real explanation behind October 7? Rumors are rife in Israel that October 7 was indeed made possible thanks to a leftist plot to destroy Netanyahu.

Somalia is tearing itself apart, which shouldn't shock anyone, over efforts to have President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term extended and their Supreme court says that's not legal. So, the military has surrounded their Supreme Court.... I guess they feel that's a very strong legal argument in their favor.  In Nigeria their Federal High Court has "nullified the election of former Senate President David Mark as the leader of the opposition African Democratic Congress party, or ADC, and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission not to recognize any decision made under his leadership, including the nomination of Atiku Abubakar as the ADC's presidential candidate in Nigeria's Jan. 16, 2027, general election...."

What could possibly go wrong? 

P&D Geopolitics Edition

By Rich Kozlovich

Pakistan has enacted Emergency Measures in one of their far Northeast provinces bordering Afghanistan  and Tajikistan.   From what I can glean from news reports the opposition party from that province is marching in protest of the ruling party's  arrest of the former Prime Minister Imran Khan.  The ruling government attempted to physically prevent that march which is being called "undemocratic".  The ruling party claims they're terrorists and say their actions are necessary to stop the rise of Islamist militancy in the border region.  

Which is interesting since Pakistan has in the past been a secure location for terrorists, and while this may be a political stunt by the ruling party, it's clear actual terrorists are attacking Pakistan.    Pakistan is surrounded by Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, China and India, and have conducted some military actions against Afghanistan's terrorist camps, along with the Indian military.  

What I see is a stunningly unstable society, and a dysfunctional government that's going broke with a crashing currency who is begging the IMF for money and even the United States to keep solvent.  

Ukraine has struck a data centers in two days leaving them seriously damaged and offline.   After the Trump inspired "energy ceasefire" brokered by Donald Trump Ukraine was warned if Ukraine attacked Russian energy infrastructure they'd loose intelligence and material support from the U.S.  I find it interesting no such threat was issued against Russia when they did launched missile attacks against Ukraine the next day.   

 Russia's failed war against Ukraine has had unexpected consequences in Central Asia:

"Kazakhstan, Russia, China: Kazatomprom Snubs Russia, Greenlights China Uranium Sale Shareholders of Kazakhstan's state uranium producer Kazatomprom approved a spot sale to China's SNURDC but withheld approval for a separate contract with Rosatom's Uranium"

The riots in France is acting like a pandemic infection and has spread to Belgium and the rioters have proclaimed they're going to smash everything in spite of the fact some of them.... and I'm betting most of them..... have no idea why they're smashing everything just as long as they can continue in their orgy of out of control destructive rage.  Who are these people?  Mostly of African and Middle East decent, and the Belgians, just like the rest of western Europe brought this on themselves arrogantly, self righteously and stupidly embracing globalist and multiculturalist leaders.   They're asked for it and now they're getting it... good and hard.  

One Belgian leader, Dries Van Langenhove has a clear vision about what needs to be done saying:

“European people can’t comprehend this because we’re simply not the same. They destroy. It’s what they do. It’s who they are. Politicians now come up with all sorts of fake ‘solutions’: more money for education, more youth detention centres, military conscription, … but it’s all nonsense. There is only one real solution: they have to go back.”

That may well be the next chapter in Europe's immigration crisis as the European Parliament Adopts Landmark Resolution Targeting Islamist Infiltration.

The European Parliament has voted in favor of a historic resolution opposing Islamist infiltration, specifically naming the Muslim Brotherhood and the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisation (FEMYSO). On October 8, 2026, lawmakers voted 381-167, with 15 abstentions, to address Islamist networks and tighten European Union (EU) funding checks, ensuring that funds are not misappropriated to support political Islam.

Right-wing members emphasize the threat posed by Islamist infiltration, citing the Muslim Brotherhood's influence in shaping policies that could undermine European secular values.  French French MEP Majdouline Sbaï highlighted the need to stop naive dialogue and recognize the dangers of political Islam, which often masquerade as legitimate civic activities but aim to replace democratic principles with religious doctrines.

Resolution sparks controversy:  The resolution faced opposition from leftist and Muslim parliamentarians, who criticized it as Islamophobic, arguing that it stigmatizes the Muslim community as a whole.

Yet, Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, an expert on the Muslim Brotherhood, warned the Left will politicize the issue as much as it can, hindering the adoption of measures. MEPs will need to train themselves on the subject. Above all, they must not turn it into a partisan political issue.......

Must not turn this into a partisan political issue?  Florence already acknowledges the left has made this a partisan political issue so her warning means what..... exactly.  Perhaps her message is the right must not be too harsh in their views and further inflame those already totally inflamed with their multiculturalist suicidal insanity?  She must be high on stupid.     

The Spanish have had a wake up call with the immigration jihad of Ceuta and the socialist they elected and thought was just great is now is being called a son of a b***h and booed during Spain's national day parade.  Sanchez has previously called for a snap election, apparently in a effort to get support from the people.   He may find that's not going to work. 

1. Watch — Ceuta Residents Stage Protest Sit-In: ‘It’s an Invasion’
2. Socialist PM Blames ‘Inequality’ and ‘Misinformation’ for Ceuta Migrant Invasion Spain Will Not ‘Turn Migrants into Enemies’ 
3. Watch: Spaniards Protest at City’s Border with Morocc ‘SOS Ceuta Invaded’

Iran's terrorist cats paw, the Houthi, are still attacking Saudi Arabia, with Houthi leaders "denouncing" attacks against them by the Saudi air force warning "any direct attack on Sana’a would trigger an escalation in the targeting of key economic and civilian sites in the country."  Now that's brass, and ya gotta admit, when it comes to brass, no one has more brass than Muslim terrorists.  They hate you and say the want to kill you, and have been acting on that for the last 47 years since the fall of the Shah of Iran, and we can thank Jimmy Carter for that, but don't you dare do anything to prevent them from murdering innocent people and destroying property on a massive scale, or they'll really get mad.  Ya just can't make this stuff up.  

 Saudi Arabia signed a defense treaty with Pakistan and Turkey and it will be interesting to see just how well that's going to work out.  The Saudi's have already asked Turkey for military support against the Houthi. Turkey said they'll have to vote on that.  

1. Turkish President Erdoğan’s Government Appears to Have Enabled the Rise of the New Alleged Mafia Powerbroker - The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, already under international scrutiny over documented contacts between senior political figures and Turkey’s criminal underworld, appears to have enabled the rise of a new alleged mafia powerbroker, Ali Uğur Uzun, an organized crime figure whose name has surfaced in criminal cases involving money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, assault, armed intimidation and the forcible seizure of businessmen’s assets.
2. Turkish Intelligence Linked to Counterfeit Glock Distribution Networks Across Europe - The Scheme May Be Designed to Give the Government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Leverage Abroad and Arm Criminal Proxies That Could Be Tapped for Violent Assignments, Intimidation, or Attacks on Dissidents. A growing series of weapons seizures across Europe, along with Turkey-linked Glock cases extending into the Americas, has raised concerns that an industrial-scale trade in counterfeit Glock-style pistols may be part of a clandestine operation overseen by Turkey’s intelligence apparatus, designed to give the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leverage abroad and arm criminal proxies that could be tapped for violent assignments, intimidation or attacks on dissidents. 

 How good is Turkey as an ally?   Let's take this piece and look for an answer to that question: Will Turkey Double Down on Somalia as Mogadishu’s African Partners Depart?:

While Turkey reportedly has trained nearly 35,000 Somali soldiers, the Turkey-backed forces hardly bring security. Basra, about 18 miles from Mogadishu, has changed hands more than a dozen times since 2011. In August 2026, the army and Haramcad, a Turkish-trained police unit, fought there for over a week, but by September 9, local sources told the Somali broadcaster Kaab that government troops had withdrawn toward Dayniile, a district of the capital, leaving al-Shabaab to take ground along the Afgooye road without a fight............ Turkey has been reluctant to put its own soldiers on the front line, though, for two reasons. The first is simple: It does not want to get drawn into clan warfare. As important, it wants to avoid conflict with Ethiopia, which has forces in the region as part of the African Union Mission. Instead, Turkey apparently uses drones and jetfighters based in Mogadishu. This most recently came into play with a mysterious September 3, 2026, airstrike in Doolow. Somalis do not view Turkey’s denials of its responsibility as credible............. Either way, the cost of Turkey’s Somalia investment appears to be on the verge of skyrocketing, in terms of both blood and treasure.

I've always said Africa Is a Bad Investment.  The best anyone can hope for is a make a quick buck and get out while you still have your pants.  

I have no doubt there's going to be an outright war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, as both are lining up their forces with heavy artillery for that purpose, and if that happens it's unlikely this conflict doesn't begin or end in Ethiopia:

U.S. analysts should not interpret the fighting in northern Ethiopia as just the latest chapter of Ethiopia’s previous internal conflicts. Ethiopia’s political and ethnic vulnerabilities are real, but they now constitute the opening through which external actors pursue their own strategic interests. Egypt, Eritrea, and elements of Sudan’s military establishment have converging interests in constraining Ethiopia, while Somalia has become part of the diplomatic geometry.

 Finally, the  U.S.: Treasury has placed long overdue "sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court.  A cats paw of corrupt leftists and antisemites who forgot in spite of their arrogant and self assured conviction they're going to run, they're going to find out the hard way.... they don't.  Rubio has called them a "rogue court", and sanctions will include penalties for companies who provide services to the ICC.  The sanctions are intended cut of the ICC's resources and cripple it's ability to function.  Good, since in my view the ICC is corrupt to its core, and these sanctions don't go far enough.  

What the ICC needs is a Good Smack in the Mouth.  If these leftist loons should ever arrest and attempt to try any American with their scurrilous claims the United States should issue international warrants for kidnapping for those who undertake to arrest them, those who issued the warrants, and any jurist of the ICC.  Every one of them should be dealt with as criminals.

Furthermore, such an action should be considered a hostile act by any nation that hosts such a trial.  As for any prosecutor or judge involved in such a trial, their host nation should be aware that we will view it as a hostile act against the United States.  The first steps will be to put an entire trade embargo on their nation. 

In order for the embargo to be lifted, they must end their hostile actions, apologize to the world, assure the United States, and all nations who are not members of the ICC that this was an illegal and hostile act, and such an illegal hostile act will never occur again.  Followed by substantial restitution. 

However, behind the scenes someone should say to them:  Listen kids, if necessary the Navy Seals, supported by a field battalion of United States Marines, will be more than happy to visit you in the middle of the night in order to release our people and potentially arrest the offending parties. All of whom will be tried and found guilty in a military court, and they will be happy to shoot anyone who attempts to stop them.

Update, 10/14, 26:

•  A Houthi missile strikes Aramco’s headquarters complex in Dhahran, four are wounded in Riyadh by debris from intercepted missiles, Iranian officials tell Reuters the aim in Hormuz is to keep oil high until the American vote, and the President says of Iran: “We’ve had it”.......“Wait until you see what we do to Iran.”......

P&D Geopolitical Edition

By Rich Kozlovich

As is well known Hamas launched a surprise attack against an unarmed defenseless civilian population performing vile acts on men, women, and children, even baking a baby alive in an oven and filming it to the great pleasure of Gazans.  They initially attacked wearing some form of uniform, but as soon as they became the targets they dumped those uniforms as they had no desire to have a standup fight with armed and trained military personnel.  Killing defenseless men, women and children is so much easier.   

Now it's a war of attrition, and some are questioning who will survive, Hamas or Israel?  Get real, Hamas is doomed in Gaza, and even the Gazans are marching against them.  Not in favor of Israel mind you, just in favor of their own self interests, they would still dance in the streets if more coffins with dead Israeli hostages were paraded through the streets.   There are no innocents in Gaza, and in spite of Hamas claims 70% of casualties have been women and children, that's another lie, it turns out "72% of casualties are male, a demographic that aligns with Hamas combatants."

 In Turkey President Erdogan arrested his political opponent in the upcoming election and Erdogan's regime has taking on all the ear marks of the Iranian model of government, and an awful lot of people are really unhappy about that, triggering massive demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people, as the author goes on to say:

The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the leading political rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on corruption charges — after being accused of both corruption and terrorism — marks yet another sign that Turkey is becoming the next Iran: A state where elections are tightly controlled, rigged in advance and reduced to a democratic façade without free and fair campaign conditions.

Turkey’s Islamist ruler has not yet established an official Turkish equivalent of Iran’s Guardian Council — a 12-member body that vets all candidates in elections and disqualifies those who pose a perceived threat to the mullah regime. However, the arrest of İmamoğlu, following the earlier imprisonment of popular Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been in jail since 2016, confirms that a de facto Guardian Council is taking shape in Turkey.

Turkey is becoming a state where elections are tightly controlled, rigged in advance, and reduced to a democratic façade without free and fair campaign conditions.

Notice the pattern playing out here worldwide.  Erdogan weaponized the justice system, wants to rewrite their constitution eliminating their legislative structure to install him as the absolute ruler, a "theocratic dictator".

While there may be some validity to charges of corruption against İmamoglu, corruption is so wide spread in Turkey's political sphere that would be expected, but it's only allowed for those who support Erdogan.

Will these demonstrations alter Turkey's political structure?  We'll see, as every tool of oppression is being used against anyone who stands against Erdogan.  But I think it needs to be understood none of this is really about Democracy as we know it.  It's about changing who's in charge for their own benefit.  Corruption in government isn't an anomaly throughout the Middle East and Africa, it's the rule, and it's a rule the group in power wants to exploit to the limits, and even beyond.

Anything said by Erdogan that may sound reasonable and conciliatory, is simply not to be taken seriously.  Remember, Iran is the model for what Erdogan is doing, and just like Khomeini who talked about bringing democracy to Iran and had no desire to become Iran's ruler, it was a deliberate lie.  A lie that was reported by a gullible media, after all they really liked the idea the pro-American government of the Shah of Iran was deposed.

In Turkey Erdogan has manipulated the tax system to punish anyone who disagrees or challenges him and fines any newspaper massively for reporting the facts about his polices, aims, and goals.   The media that remains spews out adoring accolades of Erdogan's greatness, and the tens of millions of children who've gone through their education system have been properly indoctrinated to be pro Erdogan supporters, all of which makes these massive demonstrations even more amazing.

Support for terrorist groups is part of Erdogan's foreign policy, and it's time the west recognized that, but Turkey is a member of NATO and that can't be ignored.  Their support of violent terrorist jihadi groups has to be addressed by declaring Turkey a supporter of terrorists, and such a designation should be the touchstone for all negotiations and dealings with Turkey. 

Observations From the Back Row

By Rich Kozlovich  

Well, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election has been resolved, the far left radical, Susan Crawford has won, which was characterized with verbiage the outcome would "affect the entire destiny of humanity," because it would impact the outcome of the midterms.  Well, three things.  First, I think that's hyperbole.  Second, Wisconsin has an issue with voter fraud, so the outcome shouldn't be that much of a shocker.  Third, Wisconsin isn't going to carry the the nation or the world anywhere.  

It's clear neither Russia, Ukraine, or the rest of Europe want a peace deal, and there's even been talk if it looks as if Russia starts running over Ukraine, they'll explode their nuclear plants making Ukraine uninhabitable.  Now that's really insane.  

We already know about the corrupt efforts in the US to put Trump in jail to prevent him from running for a second term, and the corrupt judicial coup d’etat’ Democrats are employing to destroy Trump's presidency, and this is clearly a pattern of behavior for leftists/tyrants worldwide.  Lawfare, corruption of the rule of law, and worse against political opponents.  In Russia Putin's rival, Alexei Navalny, was arrested and died in prison, and no one doubts he was murdered.  In Brazil they've arrested Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly plotting a coup and asks, where's my crime? 

Romania arrested Câlin Georgescu, which halted elections because it looked as if he was going to win.  In Turkey the demonstrations are huge, numbering hundreds of thousands, and some are claiming over a million, because Erdogan arrested his opponent, Ekrem Imamoglu, on trumped up charges, and now in France's Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement and the court is forbidding her from running in the election.  But this is France, and Le Pen is surging in the polls and she's adamant she will not let the election be ‘stolen’ by judges.

One outrage after another: Europe is lost - From banning Marine Le Pen from the French presidency to negating Romania's election, Europe is a mess.

 Vance Vindicated: Warnings About EU Proven Prophetic After Le Pen Ban - Vice President JD Vance was correct in warning of attacks on democracy and liberty in Europe, supporters claimed, as populist National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was banned from running in the French presidential election..

Democracy Denied - Democracy is imperiled across what used to be known as the Free World. In France, Marine Le Pen, who likely would have won that country’s next presidential election, has been prosecuted and found guilty of embezzlement, and barred from running for office for five years–until after the 2027 presidential election, in other words............In Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro is charged with attempting a coup, after some of his supporters “stormed” government buildings following his 2022 re-election defeat. Bolsonaro was out of the country when the alleged “storming” occurred. ............In Germany, the entire political system has been distorted to achieve a single goal: keeping the Alternative For Germany...............

From the beginning of the covid scare I stated it was scare mongering for political purposes, and it wasn't long before we knew these shots were not vaccines, but genetic manipulating chemical compounds that were going to impact humanity negatively for many years to come.  I had said this was our thalidomide era, only much, much worse, and every week more information comes forth to prove that to be true.

The nitwit brigade is ever with us as  Yvette Clarke  Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus claims Trump and Musk are nuts getting rid of all these amazing people in these agencies since these bureaucrats are efficiency experts!  Remarkable! Well, why were they caught destroying evidence of funding to the Taliban?   Why was the FBI trying to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop scandal?

1. Department of Education Investigates California for Allowing Schools to Hide Students’ ‘Gender Identity’ from Parents
2. DOGE Updates Leaderboard Showcasing Savings of $130 Billion
3. DOGE Leader Speaks Out About Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Musk: Law Says Money Can’t Be Wasted, Has to Be ‘Spent Correctly ‘One Outrageous Thing After Another’
4. DOGE: Department of Labor Cancels $577 Million in ‘America Last’ Grants Includes Funding for ‘Gender Equity in the Mexican Workplace’
5. State Department Officially Notifies Congress That USAID Has Been Dissolved
6. DOL Cancels $577M in Useless Grants…

None of that seems to indicate competence at any level, or perhaps they were just dogging it?  Personally I go for both, incompetence and sloth.  

The real insurrection wasn't January 6th, it's the judicial misconduct that's destroying the rule of law.

“Currently, district court judges have assumed the mantle of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and Commander-in-Chief. Each day, they change the foreign policy, economic, staffing and national security policies of the Administration. Each day, the  nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be. It is madness. It is lunacy. It is pure lawlessness. It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must end and will end.” —Stephen Miller, U.S. Homeland Security Advisor

Personally, I get a kick out of this.  ICE Walks Into a Boston Courtroom, Arrests an Illegal Alien During His Trial and Hauls Him Away.  Apparently the judge was outraged and found them in contempt, but I doubt if they care, this was a message that needed to be sent.  You can't hide!  We will find you, and we will arrest you!  The secondary message is the courts may make pronouncements, but it's the executive that carries out enforcement.  At some point the judiciary needs to start asking themselves some pertinent questions.

1. What happens when the executive branch simply starts saying "no" to their pronouncements?  The Pravda media can no longer help them as no one cares what they have to say.
2. What happens when the Congress starts passing laws to restrict their jurisdiction, which the Constitution gives them the right to do?  
3. What happens when the public has so little respect for the judiciary they refuse to adhere their pronouncements?  That's the question that should scare everyone. 
   

Is western civilization on the verge of upheaval and pushback over the insanity the left has imposed on the world?  Lars Møller thinks so saying:

American politics, not to mention European, has long been characterized by leaders who dared not stand up for Western civilization in an unequivocal way. At last, however, Americans may declare to the rest of the world where anti-Western forces are constantly on the lookout for signs of weakness: “You shall know us by our resolve.”

One of the things these demonstrations in Turkey are generating is a serious concern for economic stabilization and Turkey’s foreign relations.  In South East Asia China's sabre rattling conduct is causing kick back from it's neighbors, and that will have a long term negative impact on China in a lot arenas.  As for their military build up and antics around Taiwan.... it just doesn't matter, that's all show and no go.  They they know it, and so to does Taiwan, and they're making sure China keeps understanding it's all for show by adding their first bunch of 66 F-16 fighters to their air force.  Unlike Ukraine, they get it. 

 

Trump's tariffs initially cause a lot of chest thumping haranguing, but everyday the geopolitical sites tell how after their virtue signally, they quietly come to terms, and that will be the story that's going to play out from now on. 

 

Finally, Sen. Cory Booker talked on the Senate floor for over 24 hours because.... he's an idiot.  It was called a hyperbolic, theatrical rant against Trump, but it wasn't a filibusterer, it was a stunt. To do what? Show off?

 

 The end result?  Trump is still President, the Congress is still controlled by the Republicans and no one cared what he had to say.   How do I know?   Can anyone show me one quote the Pravda media feels is so compelling it's repeating it?  The "Democrats are still stuck in the muck, with a toxic brand", and their approval ratings are continuing to drop.  Imagine that!

 

Sweden’s Path to NATO Accession and Its 40-year PKK Problem

By: Colonel (ret.) Rich Outzen

February 2, 2023

The Turkish government insists that Sweden significantly change its permissive approach to the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan (PKK, or Kurdish Workers’ Party) and other anti-Turkey groups as a condition for Ankara’s approval of Stockholm’s application for NATO membership. Western commentators have attributed the position of the Turkish government to upcoming Turkish elections, opposition to free speech, and/or visceral reaction to political provocateurs (Associated Press, January 19; Bloomberg, January 26; jonathanturley.org, January 24). However, the demands laid out by Ankara in the June 2022 Trilateral Memorandum stem from longstanding Turkish concerns over PKK support activities in Sweden and decades of Sweden formally proscribing, but still practically tolerating, the group (tccb.gov.tr, June 28, 2022). Most Western analysts have begun covering this story recently, but a look at the backstory is necessary when considering Turkish objections to the PKK’s presence in Sweden and its implications for NATO enlargement................To Read More....

My Take - As you read this it becomes obvious Sweden got themselves in this mess with their stupid immigration policies, and now the Kurds have so much power they can actually threaten Sweden's leaders with renewed terrorist actions if the don't go along with what they want.  Maybe they deserve the Russians.  

As for Turkey, if NATO's leadership had any backbone they'd threaten to refuse aid to Turkey over this last massive earthquake if they didn't knock off their demands over Sweden, but truth be told, there's not a nation in Europe with NATO membership right now that deserves to be there.  

They're all a bunch of losers hiding under America's umbrella of defense, all the while undermining America every step of the way.  America needs to go home and let this whole gaggle of babbling idiots suffer the consequences of their stupidity. 

Stop and think about this.  If Russia actually dominated all of Europe how long before Europe became bankrupt?  If Russia dominated all of Europe, how long before Russia went broke?  If Russia dominated all of Europe how long could they control it?  Russia's broke, it's demographically collapsing, and their entire leadership is almost as incompetent as the Biden administration. 

 

 

Turkey’s Crimes Against Humanity Under ICC Spotlight

Sinan Ciddi  |  Mar 07, 2023 

Turkey is facing difficult times, really difficult times. The numerous earthquakes which struck ten provinces in the southeastern part of the country killed tens of thousands, made 1.25 million homeless and destroyed entire cities. Pre-earthquake Turkey was already amid a crippling economic crisis, rapidly eroding the country’s middle class, typified by high inflation (85 % in 2022). If all this was not bad enough, the country is now under a different but not altogether unfamiliar spotlight: The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has been asked to investigate the extent to which the Turkish government has committed crimes against humanity. 

To recap, the ICC is a “permanent international court established to investigate, prosecute and try individuals accused of committing the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole: the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.” According to the Guardian newspaper, legal experts are accusing the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of having carried out “torture, state-sponsored kidnapping, and wrongful imprisonment of about 200,000 people.” .............To Read More....

Erdogan: Sweden Can’t Join NATO if Quran-Burning Is Allowed

Suzan Fraser and Jari Tanner, Associated Press, February 1, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed Wednesday that Turkey won’t allow Sweden to join the NATO military alliance as long as the Scandinavian country permits protests desecrating Islam’s holy book to take place.

Turkey, which had already been holding off approving Sweden and Finland’s membership in the Western military alliance, has been infuriated by a series of separate demonstrations in Stockholm. In one case a solitary anti-Islam activist burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy, while in an unconnected protest an effigy of Erdogan was hanged. Even before that, Ankara had been pressing Sweden and Finland to crack down on exiled members of Kurdish and other groups it sees as terrorists, and to allow arms sales to Turkey.

Turkey has indefinitely postponed a key meeting in Brussels that would have discussed the two Nordic countries’ NATO entry.  “Sweden, don’t even bother! As long as you allow my holy book, the Quran, to be burned and torn, and you do so together with your security forces, we will not say ‘yes’ to your entry into NATO,” Erdogan said in a speech to his ruling party’s legislators...........To Read More...

Turkey Seeks to Bury the ‘Current Byzantines’

July 5, 2022 By Raymond Ibrahim

On May 29, 2022 in Istanbul and other cities in Turkey, elaborate celebrations were held to commemorate the 569th anniversary of the Islamic conquest of Constantinople in 1453.  During these neo-Ottoman celebrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that “As our ancestors buried Byzantium, let us hope that today, by building our vision for 2053, we also manage to put in the time warp of history the current Byzantines who are plotting against us.”

In order to understand the troubling significance of this otherwise cryptic remark -- most Westerners are today totally unaware of the history between Muslim Turkey and Christian Byzantium -- some background is necessary.

Towards the end of the first millennium, the Turks, whose origins lay in the steppes of Asia, had become Muslim and began to raid and conquer portions of Asia Minor, which was then and had been for a millennium Greek and Christian.  By the end of the 14th century they had conquered it entirely and began eying Constantinople, just across the Bosporus.  Although generations of Turks repeatedly besieged it, it would fall to Muhammad II (or “Mehmet”), Erdogan’s hero............Turkey Seeks to Bury the ‘Current Byzantines’

 

Turkey: Freedom of Religion Only for Islam

The ideological refusal to recognize the freedom of speech of “kafirs” and “infidels.”

Wed May 11, 2022 Uzay Bulut 9 comments

Turkey has long been heralded by the international media as a “secular” and “modern” country. But in reality, it is the absolute opposite. Non-Muslim communities – Christians, Jews, Alevis, Yazidis, agnostics, deists, atheists, and all others – are systematically victimized by discriminatory acts, including violations of their human rights, their convictions, their faith, and their freedom of speech.

A 2022 report by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Freedom of Belief Initiative, entitled “An Appeal to Move Forward from Aspirations to Actions: Monitoring Report on the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Turkey,” reveals Turkey’s decades-long abuses against non-Muslim communities across the country.

The Committee lists some of the violations of the rights of non-Muslims:...........

Islam does not allow freedom of religion and threatens the death penalty for apostasy. As the website “The Religion of Peace” (ROP) puts it, “The only freedom of belief in Islam is the freedom to become Muslim.” The ROP website also notes: .......... 

It is the Islamic government of Turkey and much of its Islamic society that are responsible for this continual prejudice and abuse of human rights. Dissidents living under such Islamic dictatorships, however, are not allowed to have public debates about these issues, because of the ideological refusal to recognize their freedom of speech if they are “kafirs” or “infidels” and ever dared to question historic facts, and above all, Islam...............To Read More....

 

Turkey Praises—and Seeks to Emulate?—a Mass-Murdering, Pedophilic, Slave-Trader

What a people’s “hero” says about them.

Jun 10, 2021 Raymond Ibrahim 25 comments

Turning churches into mosques is very much on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s mind these days. Last Friday, June 4, he “spoke of the Turkish legacy of conquest and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia [into a mosque] during a mosque opening in the city of Zonguldak on Friday.” In his own words, “the re-opening of the Hagia Sophia as a mosque is important, as it is a legacy of conquest.” Thus, while the West falls all over itself to disavow any “conquest” its ancestors may have engaged in—for example, the “conquest of the Americas” at the hands of the “genocidal” Columbus—here is the president of Turkey praising the violent conquests committed by his Muslim ancestors. 

The significance of this dichotomy, and what it portends for the future, is in need of acknowledgement. As a case study, take Erdoğan’s stance towards Turkey’s greatest jihadis of history—men whose atrocious deeds would shame ISIS. Last summer, while celebrating his decree to transform the Hagia Sophia—which for a millennium had functioned as Eastern Christendom’s greatest basilica—into a mosque, Erdoğan repeatedly saluted Sultan Muhammad al-Fatah (“the Conqueror,” 1432-1481) for violently transforming Christian Constantinople into Islamic Istanbul........To Read More....

The World as I See It: Russia and the Unending "Arc of Instability"

By Rich Kozlovich 

Mr. Ridvan Bari Urcosta, of Geopolitical Futures posted this piece, The Arc of Instability in Eastern Europe, which I thought was an excellent analysis.  A subscription to Geopolitical futures is required, and I highly recommend it, but I'm going to cover the highlights along with my take on the parties and issues involved.

I liked his highlighting the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which isn’t being presented in the news much, if at all, and could become a flash point.  I especially liked his highlighting the Kievan Rus history.  That is, in my opinion, an important piece of history that needs to be understood when dealing with Russia, Eastern Europe, the barrier nations and Turkey.

I will say this.  The West is incapable of resolving the issues surrounding the barrier countries of Russia, and those of what was the Soviet Union.  The social paradigms for the west and these nations are just too different and too far away.

The natural social paradigms - both positive and negative - make Russia and Turkey the natural arbiters there - as much as I hate to admit it.

Furthermore, I keep asking what benefit does America, or the West for that matter, gain from interfering in these countries’ internal problems, which are historically unending?  Not only do we not have the expertise to fix it, neither does anyone else, including themselves, and those efforts are expensive.  Let Russia, Turkey and the countries involved pay to fix it.  If they can!  And understand this. Border disputes are now cropping up constantly in what was once part of the Soviet Union. 

When they became independent, they became aware of their needs, wants, and cultural differences, which were not permitted under the rule of the Soviets.  Now those divisions are highlighted among states like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and that kind of problem is pandemic throughout central Asia, and has always been a problem as long as there was no overriding ruling power. 

The West, that being especially the Western European nations, are leaky vessels as allies, even when doing something is in their own benefit.  They’re disjointed in their thinking and goals, and that’s been the historical paradigm for Europe forever.  Including Western kings helping and supporting the Ottoman Empire attacking Christian kingdoms in Europe when they thought it was to their benefit. 

Here's my take on these events.  Both Russia and Turkey are broke, neither have truly effective militaries, especially Russia, whose demographic pyramid is all out of whack and the 15 to 50 demographic is filled with alcoholics, drug users, victims of AIDS and drug resistant TB.

Neither are natural capital generators, and even if these barrier countries collapse into tyrannies, why does that matter to the United States?  Either economically, militarily or socially?

It's not our job to fix the world.  Jews have a term for it: Tikkun Olam:

 "A Jewish concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world. The phrase is found in the Mishnah, a body of classical rabbinic teachings. It is often used when discussing issues of social policy, ensuring a safeguard to those who may be at a disadvantage."

Well, we've tried that and it fails over the long run due to three things.  Geography, demography, and economics.  

We’re too far away, we’re mostly confused about the issues all these various populations have, as a result we don't have the answers to their problems, and finally, we don’t have the money.  If we did understand the social complexities, and if we did have the money, it wouldn’t matter as all these endeavors are Lewis Carroll rabbit holes that can never be fixed or filled, and all that's presented here is applicable to Afghanistan and the western and American military units leaving, which I will address in another piece. 

History is the foundation of truth, because truth has a historical foundation and context, and everything we're told should have some resemblance to what we see going on in reality.  If what's presented to us fails in either of those categories - it's wrong.  And we need to start understanding that.

The Dissident - Sundance's Hottest Documentary is Turkish Government Propaganda

By Daniel Greenfield  Wednesday, April 01, 2020 2 Comments @ Sultan Knish Blog

“If you haven’t seen The Dissident, I hope you will," Hillary Clinton told the folks at the Sundance Film Festival. The Dissident is Sundance's hottest documentary. It's also Turkish government propaganda.

Hillary's comments at Sundance exposed a chunk of the fake news problem surrounding The Dissident.

"We just learned about the pacing of malware on Jeff Bezos' phone, ironically technology created in Israel and sold to the Saudi government," she falsely claimed.

Despite these false claims made by the Washington Post, a paper owned by Bezos, which has spread conspiracy theories trying to blame the exposure of his affair on entire countries, the actual report when reviewed by cybersecurity experts found no actual malware of any kind on the billionaire’s phone.

The hack of the billionaire’s phone that wasn’t is an example of the fake news vortex surrounding the death of Jamal Khashoggi. Bezos cronies have alleged that the Amazon boss had his affair exposed by the Saudis in retaliation for the Post’s decision to run Qatari Islamist propaganda by Khashoggi.

The Dissident is the latest effort at mythologizing Khashoggi, a former Saudi stooge, terror propagandist, bigot, and friend of Osama bin Laden, by Islamist interests operating out of Qatar and Turkey. Jamal Khashoggi was not a journalist: he was producing pro-Islamist and anti-Saudi propaganda for the Qatar Foundation, a pro-terror organization, which helped draft his articles and dictated their content.

There are actual dissidents and actual journalists in prison in Islamist tyrannies like Turkey. But instead of telling their stories, The Dissident and its director, Bryan Fogel, turned to Turkey’s Islamist regime.

Bryan Fogel claims to care deeply about human rights. He cares so deeply that he ignored the tens of thousands of political prisoners in Turkey, journalists, judges, professors, and Kurds, to lobby the regime to help him make a propaganda flick about Khashoggi. Nor is Fogel at all ashamed of toadying to Turkey.

Articles about The Dissident boast of how Fogel received “unprecedented access” to material from the Turkish government and its intelligence apparatus. Any filmmaker gushing about getting exclusive access to CIA materials while making a completely uncritical documentary about its role would face a torrent of criticism. Yet The Dissident has met with equally uncritical praise even as it boasts of its access and parrots propaganda from a despotic regime which is engaged in ethnic cleansing at home and abroad.

"I was building a relationship with the Turkish government who at the end of the day saw the power they could have in this story if they allowed me to tell it, rather than it coming out through Turkish media," Bryan Fogel admitted.

What Fogel was offering Erdogan and his cronies was a credible whitewashing of their propaganda.

The false narrative of Khashoggi as a political dissident, rather than an Islamist bigot, would be more effective if it came from a seemingly independent filmmaker rather than the Turkish state which, after Erdogan’s Reichstag coup, had destroyed the country’s last vestiges of an independent press.

Asked about Erdogan's human rights abuses, Fogel shrugged them off.

"You have to know when to pick your battles depending on that story you’re telling… This was not the film to focus on other political matters and in this case Turkey has been a superhero. I felt very strongly that this wasn’t the film to go down political rabbit holes," he insisted.

Turkey’s lack of an independent press, its ethnic cleansing of Kurds, and its 48,924 political prisoners would be one of those “political rabbit holes” that Fogel didn’t want to explore. The Leni Riefenstahl of Sundance was telling a story about the regime’s political martyr, its Horst Wessel, and noting that Hitler and Goebbels aren’t very nice people would be a political rabbit hole that would ruin the whole tale.

You either care about human rights or you don’t. If Fogel cared about human rights, then the UN special rapporteur’s report documenting the Erdogan regime’s torture of professors, journalists, officers, and many others would have made a much better and more important documentary than The Dissident. It’s a story that has never been told, and, unlike Khashoggi’s myth, never will be told at any major level.

Fogel pawning out his camera to Erdogan’s regime while refusing to discuss its abuses is an indictment.

Orwell Productions, Fogel’s company, mistakes 1984 for a guide, rather than a warning. The Dissident is Orwellian, political propaganda, the same discredited lies, dressed up with special effects and a human interest angle, on behalf of a dictator who has eliminated actual dissidents in his own country.

"I needed the world to see and fall in love with Jamal and understand this man was not Muslim Brotherhood or an al-Qaeda sympathiser or all these things being presented by Saudi Arabia or being written about by the alt press in the United States," Fogel tells an interviewer.

The plain facts of the matter are that Khashoggi was both of these things which The Dissident is denying.

Fogel, the director of Jewtopia, may be in love with Khashoggi, but the Islamist would have loathed him.

Jamal Khashoggi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had allied with Nazi Germany and continues to celebrate Hitler, promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and defended Holocaust denial. He tweeted, “everything can be ended by the rule of Assad and the rule of the Jews.”

All this vile stuff could be found on Khashoggi’s own Twitter account, not the “alt press”.

The Dissident is yet another exercise in historical revisionism by a powerful industry built on repeating the same lies: in Fogel’s Riefenstahlesque case with digital special effects and Turkish propaganda.

Khashoggi's journalistic career began when he followed his old friend Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan on behalf of a man listed by the Treasury Department as one of “the world’s foremost terrorist financiers”. There he churned out Jihadi propaganda like, “Arab Mujahadeen in Afghanistan II: Exemplifies the Unity of Islamic Ummah”. Afterward he became a stooge for the Saudi state for the likes of Prince Turki bin Faisal, who was linked to Al Qaeda, and blamed 9/11 on American support for Israel.

Jamal Khashoggi became a dissident, not because he wanted a freer Saudi Arabia, but because Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had turned on Islamists like Khashoggi and his Muslim Brotherhood pals.

“Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should get rid of his complex against the Muslim Brotherhood and stop treating them as the enemy or a threat to Saudi Arabia,” Khashoggi had complained, and urged a confrontation with Israel instead.

After the Saudis were no longer interested in funding Islamist dreams of world conquest, Khashoggi went to work for the regimes in Qatar and Turkey who were more than happy to step in. He was a dissident in the same way that former Communists in Russia or old Nazis in Argentina are dissidents.

Saudi Arabia under MBS has become more liberal for the average person while Turkey under Erdogan has become more tyrannical. In Saudi Arabia, women have become more able to vote and drive. Meanwhile the number of women being murdered in Turkey for their gender is continuing to rise. And the perpetrators under Erdogan’s Islamist regime often receive little more than a slap on the wrist.

The Dissident and Fogel weigh in on the side of dragging Saudi Arabia back while tossing away the reforms that Islamists loathe, all the while falsely depicting this as a struggle between autocracy and democracy. This same Islamist lie led to the Arab Spring and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the rise of ISIS, the rape of little girls, and the use of chemical weapons against civilians.

But the liars can’t get enough of that lie.

The Dissident is not a courageous defense of human rights. It’s another echo in an echo chamber run by Qatar and Turkey. Instead of telling the stories of the protesters who battled Erdogan’s thugs in the streets, professors tortured in gymnasiums, and journalists jailed for reporting on the regime’s corruption, Bryan Fogel chose the profitable route of amplifying the narratives of Erdogan’s regime.

In interviews, Bryan Fogel had the chutzpah to suggest that his life is at risk for making The Dissident.

"So far I’m OK,” the self-promoting hack claimed. "I have this strange nightmare that Putin calls Mohammed bin Salman and goes, ‘Hey buddy, this American filmmaker, he’s causing us lots of problems. You know, look, maybe we do something.’"

There will be no assassins coming to the Orwell Productions offices in Santa Monica near the beach. The praise from figures like Hillary Clinton will keep rolling in as the echo chamber pressures Netflix to distribute The Dissident as part of a larger campaign of informational warfare against a reformist Saudi government. If it wins, a new Saudi government will be more likely to support terrorism against Americans, Europeans, and Israelis. Like Horst Wessel, Jamal Khashoggi is an Islamist martyr whose death is being used as the engine to overthrow a government and kill hundreds of thousands of people.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.  Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading.

The Humanitarian Weapons of Refugees

Posted by Daniel Greenfield Thursday, March 12, 2020 5 Comments @ Sultan Knish Blog

71 years after NATO was founded to watch for an invasion, the invaders came from a NATO country.

After Turkey’s brutal Islamist regime suffered setbacks in its grandiose scheme to rebuild the Ottoman Empire by invading Syria, it decided to launch an invasion of a much softer target.

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has, with sublime chutzpah, kept a running count of the number of Muslim migrants invading Europe through Adrianople (renamed Edirne by its Turkish Islamic occupiers) on his Twitter account. At last count, the number of invaders was 100,577.

Soylu’s tweets are the equivalent of sending ransom notes while holding a gun to the head of the EU.

That 100,000 is a down payment. Turkey’s Islamist regime is threatening an invasion of millions. And NATO is absolutely helpless to stop a NATO country from masterminding an invasion of Europe.

"Hundreds of thousands have crossed, soon it will reach millions," Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the brutal Islamist thug fantasizing about becoming the next Caliph by rebuilding the Ottoman Empire, declared.

There’s nothing spontaneous about this invasion of Greece by tens of thousands of migrants where the new ‘Gates of Fire’ are shoddy fences under assault by mobs throwing stones, bars, and firebombs.

And a moral assault by crying women pinching and burning their children to make them weep.

Turkey’s media, firmly under Islamist control after Erdogan’s Reichstag coup in 2016 allowed the greasy butcher to purge the last resistance to his rule, loudly urged announced that the invasion was here.

The European media, just as firmly under party line control, has been feeding a steady stream of staged photos and videos of crying women and children. Crowd photos show masses of young men. The women and children are there purely as human shields and sacrifices. Women in hijabs wail and cry on photogenic rocky shores while media freelancers elbow each to get the best shots. Children are made to cry by burning them and killed outright to guilt the infidels into selling out the future of their children.

There is already a dead migrant child. Who killed it? The migrants overturned the boat to avoid being returned by the Greek coast guard. The child went in the water and despite the best medical efforts in Europe, died. But mere cold facts like these are impossible for the average westerner to comprehend.

What kind of people are capable of drowning their own children for access to Europe’s welfare state?

To quote Colonel Kurtz, "I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres." Drowning children or strapping bombs to them is a monstrously inconceivable crime to civilized people who no longer really believe in anything anymore.

The Alawites of Syria, their Shiite allies from Lebanon and Iran, will defend their borders. As the Turks discovered the hard way. They will lie, cheat, and steal, and die and kill to protect those borders.

And the Europeans will ask you for your papers. If you refuse, they will eventually let you in anyway.

America lost every war in the last three generations because we were willing to die, but not to kill. The Europeans are neither willing to die nor kill. And so, the continent is being overrun by those who are.

In WW2, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, as a last resort, turned to child soldiers as the war was lost. But being forced to face them did not make us question our morality. We understood that the monsters are the ones who dispatch children to fight their wars, not the soldiers who are forced to face them.

Seeing child soldiers made us determined to end the evil horrors of the Nazi eugenic breeding houses and concentration camps, and the Japanese biological experiments, mass rape, and ritual cannibalism.

By the time Vietnam came around, our elites no longer knew what they believed in anymore. When the enemy did horrifying things, it convinced us that we must be the monsters because they very clearly believed in something so compelling that they could do these things. And we didn’t believe in anything.

Erdogan, in his billion-dollar palace surrounded by costumed guards, understands this. So does the migrant hurling a cinder block at a border guard. Westerners won’t fight for their countries. They will.

When the EU envoys go to negotiate with Erdogan, they will be up against a man who had the last independent military, police, and judicial leaders rounded up, and anally raped by Islamist thugs.

Whom do you want to bet on?

Last time, the Euros gave him nearly $7 billion. This time the price will be a whole lot higher. And no matter how much Danegeld is paid to the Sharia Vikings, the migrant streams will march on.

As to war.

Erdogan and the Islamists of the world are using refugees as a weapon because they know that Europe has the technology and the infrastructure to resist military forces, but can’t resist mere bodies.

Migrants are a weapon. They’re one of the more potent human missiles in the arsenal of globalism which has shifted the future from the technocratic upstarts of western civilization with their skyscrapers and empty houses of worship, to the old civilizations of Asia which have the relentless will to take them.

The latest invasion of Europe is a blatant move to extract more money for Turkey’s corrupt failing economy whose chief purpose appears to be supplying wealth to the Islamist nomenklatura, and to force countries already staggering under the weight of previous migrant invasions to help Turkey out in the Sunni-Shiite war set off by its invasion of Syria. But these are mere details of the political moment.

Western humanitarian nations want to fight their wars with bombs and tanks, but their ruthless eastern enemies prefer to fight them with humanitarian weapons. Muslim countries dispatch refugees, and when they turn terrorist, pay for their lawyers. The Russians and Qataris hack their way into poorly defended databases and disguise the attacks as leaks from journalists, and human rights activists.

Latin American countries send huge chunks of their populations to come to America and send back checks. Our elites blanch at being accused of locking children in cages. But the migrants, knowing that families will be immediately released, buy or steal children, as their golden tickets to the welfare state. And we are the monsters for wanting to apply DNA tests before releasing them to their captors.

Nobody wants to fight us on our own terms. And why should they? Who’s going to try to punch the giant in his armored chest when he has a glass jaw? Why bother equipping 30,000 men with rifles, when you can just dump them ashore, accompanied by a few women and children, for a successful invasion?

Resisting humanitarian warfare requires drawing firm lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’. That’s the line that globalism erases. And if there’s no line, then their crimes are evidence of the evils of our society.

Wars are won only by those nations, peoples, and people who can draw that line.

If there is no “us”, then what are we fighting for? If there are no nations, why defend their borders? If all beliefs are equal, then great conviction establishes moral superiority over those with lesser conviction. It doesn’t matter if the belief is in the supremacy of Sharia law and the descendants of Mohammed.

The EU established that there are no nations. The Ummah and Caliph Erdogan are taking it at its word.

And the Europeans protest against the mass invasion by tens of thousands of migrants, not because it’s bad for Europe, but because it’s bad for the migrants to have the burden of doing all the invading. They tell Erdogan, who would drown every one of them, that it’s not the best solution to the refugee crisis.

Erdogan sees the millions of migrants as Turkish national assets. Cannon fodder to be used in asserting his Ottoman dreams at the expense of Europe. The Europeans care more about them than he does. That’s what makes them effective weapons. When fighting monsters, humanity becomes a weakness.

American police officers were prevented from fighting crime because of all the people who would be locked up and maybe even shot. And now Baltimore has racked up 50 murders in just two months. Our soldiers were prevented from killing terrorists to save civilian lives, and thousands of our soldiers, and countless civilians died, and entire regions devolved into savage bloodlands of ethnic cleansing.

Europe allowed its cities to be swarmed before and thousands of women were raped, bombs and vehicles were used as weapons in crowded streets, and it still hasn’t learned to say “no” and mean it.

The members of the Ummah at the gates of Greece know what they believe. The thugs throwing stones, and the wailing women burning their children to make them cry, combine a perfect conviction in the providence of Allah, with the selfish collectivism of the family group into which they were born.

The EU believes in the selfish collectivism of its bureaucracy. But free health care, free education, and a short work week isn’t something you fight and die for. Once upon a time, hungry people did. But, as Nietzsche said, “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.” The hungry became obese burghers. With their appetites sated, they turned into moralizers filled with platitudes, but no actual beliefs.

They are not about to fight for what they have, because they aren’t hungry yet, and they believe in nothing except the power of socialist goodness that enables them to have their goodies. If they understood how finite those goodies are, they might fight, but then they wouldn’t be socialists.

Refugees are a weapon. But not one that comfortable people in prosperous societies understand. And by the time they come to understand what is happening, it may be because they will be the refugees.

When you believe in nothing, and family is an empty word, then you will only fight for what you have.

Einstein reportedly said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

World War III was fought and won with humanitarian weapons. That’s why World War IV is already being fought with sticks and stones on the borders of Europe.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading.

Claim That Trump Lacks a Strategy Rings False

By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun | January 7, 2020

The Democratic charge that the Trump administration has no strategy for the Middle East is obviously false. It has elaborated a strategy that includes Russia and Turkey.

The problem the administration has faced is that Russia as an issue has been so aggravated by Democratic myth-makers, with the (presumably) inadvertent cooperation of some congressional Republicans, that it has been difficult for Mr. Trump to deal with Russia sensibly without exciting partisan hysteria and crowding the Democratic television news networks with the tiresome faces and voices of President Obama’s now-discredited intelligence chiefs (James Clapper and John Brennan), beating the old tambourines about Russia determining U.S. elections.

The basic American conceptual problem with this whole complex of issues is that the United States has legitimate interests in the Middle East and has reasonable ambitions for a civilized relationship with Russia and Turkey, but the President has also pledged to extract the country from, and stay out of, permanent wars in the region. These are valid objectives that can be reconciled, but not easily.

Nothing could have more perfectly illustrated the stark bankruptcy of George W. Bush’s Iraq War than the Iraqi parliament’s vote over the weekend to tell the United States to withdraw its forces from Iraq. It is a non-binding resolution, taken without the Kurdish and Sunni legislators present, and the next government will presumably not act on it, but it does indicate that in the Middle East, as in Europe, the states patched together after World War I have all failed.........To Read More....

Don’t Romanticize the Kurds

A wake-up call about extensive Kurdish human rights violations.

Oct 16, 2019 Andrew Bostom 154

Uninformed savants across the political spectrum have pilloried President Trump for his eminently rational decision to draw down the U.S. troop commitment (initially, only 25, as it turns out!) to the Syrian morass (whose “dynamic” has remained largely unchanged since the late 1940s).

Most of the ire directed at Mr. Trump has to do with hand-wringing over our “Kurdish allies,” even after the President warned Turkey not to engage in its habitual behaviors — since Ataturk created his ethno-racst state — towards the Kurds. Regardless, here are a few salient points one should bear in mind about the Kurds which the hand-wringers conveniently ignore in their hagiographies:Kurdish predatory mass killings of Christians and Yazidis are well-characterized and went on for centuries. Grinding persecution continues to this day, as can be gleaned from detailed reports by both Assyrian and Yazidi organizations (here; here; here)


[*] Kurdish “region(s)” were ethnically cleansed of Jews by the late 19th/early 20th centuries in a series a pogroms, compounded by constant grinding persecution including enslavement of Jewish families handed over between generations of Kurds as “family property”. (p. 658; p. 108)

[*] The Kurds of Turkey, brutally oppressed (here) by Ataturk’s ugly ethno-racist Turkish supremacist state (here), since the 1920s, ongoing, evolved their own brutal (here) Marxist terror organization, the PKK, to combat this oppression. Those Marxist PKK elements are the fighting backbone of the Syrian Kurds whom the U.S. is now claimed to be “abandoning”.

[*] Kurds of Iraqi “Kurdistan” have enshrined the Sharia (“This Constitution confirms and respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. It considers the principles of Islamic Sharia as one of the main sources of legislation… It is not allowed to enact a law inconsistent with the provisions of the fundamentals of Islam,” Articles 6 & 7) and even apply it to Kurdish conscientious objectors to Islam who escape their Kurdish Muslim paradise and flee to the West. (here; here)

[*] 50% of Kurdistan’s women undergo FGM, sanctioned by the Sharia.............To Read More....
 

Turkey Agrees to Cease-Fire

Will it stop the bloodshed and help prevent the resurgence of ISIS?

Fri Oct 18, 2019 Joseph Klein  144

President Trump’s critics have regularly blasted his style of diplomacy, in which he combines bad cop, good cop rhetoric with the use of sanctions and tariffs to exert maximum economic pressure on the party he is trying to influence. This style was on display again this past week as President Trump tried to navigate the outbreak of conflict between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds that the president’s critics blame on his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast Syria. Before President Trump proceeded with completing the troop withdrawal, he sent a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly encouraging him to make a good deal with the Kurds while threatening Turkey with economic devastation if it persists with its military operation against the Kurds.

Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed up with a visit to Ankara, where they secured an agreement to end the violence for now between Turkey and the Kurds in Syria pending the establishment of an expanded “safe zone” that Turkey has been seeking. While Turkish forces and allied Syrian insurgents halt their offensive, the Syrian Kurd forces would be expected to surrender their positions 20 miles from the Turkey-Syria border. As part of the deal, the U.S. will not put new sanctions in place and end the current sanctions if a real ceasefire endures.

Turkey is referring to the negotiated deal as a “pause,” not a full-fledged “ceasefire.” Vice President Pence used the term “pause” in his own remarks. He declared, “The Turkish side will pause Operation Peace Spring in order to allow for the withdrawal of YPG forces from the safe zone for 120 hours,” referring to the Syrian Democratic Forces' People Protection Units, a primarily Kurdish militia. “All military operations under operation peace spring will be paused, and operation peace spring will be halted entirely on completion of the withdrawal. Our administration has already been in contact with Syrian defense forces, and we have already begun to facilitate their safe withdrawal from the nearly 20-mile wide safe zone area South of the Turkish border in Syria.” ........To Read More....