Reader links for Oct. 19 – 2015 (Think twice and vote once Canada)

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About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

103 Replies to “Reader links for Oct. 19 – 2015 (Think twice and vote once Canada)”

  1. from here:

    http://www.medias-presse.info/larmee-irakienne-trouve-des-missiles-americains-abandonnes-par-les-djihadistes-de-letat-islamique/41243

    http://media.medias-presse.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/TOW-missile.png

    The Iraqi army finds US missiles abandoned by the jihadists of the Islamic State

    The Iraqi army has uncovered a warehouse filled with American weapons, including TOW-2 missiles in an area just recently liberated from jihadists of the Islamic State.

    This is far from the first time that this kind of US tech equipment has been found among jihadists. TOW-2 missiles have already been discovered among both, the fanatics of the Islamic State than their competitors the Al-Nusra Front.

    The Pentagon claims that these weapons “disappeared last year.” However, Iraqi media reported that ammunition and rockets had been parachuted in by the Americans.

    “It is unfortunate that our American colleagues are not on the side of those who fight against terrorism and who are condemning terrorist attacks. Double standards. Unfortunately, we are seeing this again” the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said.

  2. This is not all new and I dont know how credible this is? But I’m reminded of someone saying once:?
    ” What would Obama do differently if he was a Muslim?”

    • More people are recognizing this fact and are speaking out, hopefully freedom will survive the current betrayal by out leaders.

    • Here is an old saying for you that I don’t hear much anymore, actions speak louder then words.

  3. Female suicide bombers strike fleeing villagers in northeast Nigeria (france24, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.france24.com/en/20151019-nigeria-female-suicide-bombers-villagers-boko-haram

    “Two female suicide bombers killed at least 11 people in northeast Nigeria after hiding among residents fleeing a suspected Boko Haram attack on a remote village, police and a local official said on Sunday.

    The attack happened in Dar village, in the north of Adamawa state, on Saturday evening, the former head of the Madagali local government council, Maina Ularamu, said.

    Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked the area, which is near the border with Borno state to the north and the Islamists’ Sambisa Forest stronghold, prompting calls for better security.

    “Residents fled to the bush. After a while, two women who disguised as fleeing locals blew themselves up… while the gunmen shot at survivors,” he told reporters.

    Ularamu said “so far 12 corpses have been found” but the Adamawa state police spokesman, Othman Abubakar, confirmed 11 dead…”

  4. Maldives woman wins reprieve from death by stoning (france24, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.france24.com/en/20151019-maldives-woman-wins-reprieve-death-stoning

    “The Maldives’ highest court has overturned an unprecedented sentence of death by stoning for a woman convicted of adultery, a crime in the Muslim island nation, media reports said Monday.

    The woman, identified by local media as a mother of five, was convicted by a local judge on a remote island in the Maldives, a popular tourist destination that has seen a rise in Islamic extremism.

    The Haveeru news site said the woman had confessed to the crime after giving birth on the remote equatorial islet of Gemanafushi, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of the capital Male.

    The Supreme Court annulled the case on Sunday night, ruling that the judge had failed to consider the legal as well as Islamic procedures of the nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims, the Maldives Independent website said.

    The Maldives, a popular Indian Ocean honeymoon destination, observes elements of Islamic Sharia law as well as English common law.

    Sex outside marriage is against the law in the Maldives, although the ban does not apply to tourists visiting the upmarket holiday destination.

    The sentence was unusually harsh even for the Maldives, which has frequently sentenced those convicted of extramarital sex to public flogging…”

  5. Eeyor, there was this video you posted a few hours ago of the new Finnish Hitler that I hoped was to allow us the chance to see what was happening in England with their voicing of the White British working man’s discrimination – to if necessary by law hang a few self-loathing guilt-trip leaders as traitors, (this common sexual deviency of loving death more than they love life) – or to become the Master Race. They chose the latter.

    Capitalism, is hated by the Right and the Left because needs only talent, hard work, team playing, and innovation. It does not feed pseudo clockmakers like fascism and Socialism do, by playing the Man or the shadow.

    • The whole thing about free speech, enshrined in the American Constitution, is that it is capitalist in nature. If you Google a product or movie you can quickly learn from the dissenting voices their true worth.

      So here’s the rub. When you silence hate speech on the internet you then direct search traffic only to those sites and countries that give it a five star rating.

      Want to know about Marxism? Get a glowing review from Communism Tomorrow.

      It would have been good to spar with White inverts just as we had with Mohammed’s submitters. And then someone reading between the lines might invest their time and energies more fruitfully.

      Canada may one day make this list.

      http://listverse.com/2015/07/16/10-authoritarian-government-attempts-to-control-the-internet/

    • Richard, you wrote you liked this speaker… I didn’t record his name… would you please share his name?

      • I have some explaining to do later today. Yeah, the guy is Hitler. I need to watch more carefully before I post and ask people what they send me sometimes. More on that in the first post.

      • Kai Murros. He may be HItler but he is the only one calling for open rebellion, the rebellion is coming to the west no matter who calls for it, in fact the people who respond and start leading the fight for freedom are more important then the ones making the early calls for rebellion. The ISp has (hopefylly) fixed the problem with my net access and I will check on him from other speeches he has made.

        Right now the willingness to fight for their home nations is more important then ideological purity. I know this is ging to let some real nasty racists gain poewr in some nations but I don’t see that we have any other option. We are living in the real worl and will have to accept some true SOBs in on our side. Yes this will probably sow the seeds of WWIV but do you thinhk we have any other choice?

        • Islam has inverted truth into dogma, and Socialism perverted love into sensuality, so that these two corruptors can openly parade together: “Look, I’m only behaving as devious as Mohammad,” or, “I’m only being as manipulative as the LGBTQ community.” For which, with such low standards of morality and accountability, they get plaudits and passes when briefly taking stock as respite.

          They are not the Sons of Man.

          To side with the ‘devil you know’ for protection, I would not sign up to, for one has enabled the other as to who will take over the middle ground. For a while ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ will form an Anti-Fascist Alliance to hide their intentions. Political-weakness has enabled both to rise and flex their might on the world stage.

          Kai Murros has taken the very justified grievance of the British People and seeks to turn it into a killing machine. The Communists intend to use them likewise. Revile or Denial: aggression or passive-aggression; two ways to distract and boost an inferiority complex having been openly flaunted by a of leadership of freeloaders that depression, intoxication, loose-sex, gambling and tattoos comforts them. The West is sick. Pride is not the plaster of hope and change it needs.

          The Jewish Leaders watching their society fall into decadence, repented and wore sackcloth and dirt on their heads.
          http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Sackcloth-And-Ashes

          If the Western Leaders don’t find in their ranks any honest souls, the best they can look forward to is to be tarred and feathered. Otherwise it is the Gulag or Konzentrationslager for these Useful Idiots.

          • The war is here and the killing is just starting, we have to fight to survive buthaving listened to a portion of a radio program he was on I am not sure he can be useful. The killing machine you are talking about is going to be built no matter what we may want, what we have to do is ensure that it doesn’t turn into a genocidal machine.

            I will have to do more research but it seems Murros is at the minimum willing to appear on jew hatred radio shows , that doesn’t mean he is a jew hater but he may be one. What we have to do is bring nationalism to the front but keep national socialism out of the fight on our side. One of the reasons say the war is going to last a long time is that we probably won’t be able to keep national socialism and Jew Hatred from entering the war, Islam hates all races other then the Arabic race and it is natural that some of the opponents of Islam will turn to hatred of all races that they aren’t part of. It is also to be exected that the national socialist racist will try to infiltrate and take control of the anti jihad movement.

          • Yes he is beyond the pale, which is unfortunate since he has a good speaking style and would be helpful if he wasn’t such a racist. I can no longer multitask as many tasks as I use to.

          • Thank you for the discussion, Richard. This seducer of the vain, perverted and outraged – the dispossed working-tax credit humiliated poor – needs to be watched, for with some speculation, he may align with Islam if they are given Northern Ireland to vacate and relocate to, called New Pakistan, if they would join the fight against the government with bombings, exactly like the IRA did with Libya, and now deep old scores are going to be settled.

            Such are the emasculated given the freedom of Jihad.

  6. German anti-migrant rally highlights European backlash

    http://news.yahoo.com/merkel-heads-turkey-over-migrant-crisis-031355850.html

    Istanbul (AFP) – Germany’s PEGIDA movement holds an anti-migrant rally Monday a year on from its formation, highlighting a European backlash towards a massive influx that has heaped pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

    The demonstration comes a day after Swiss voters returned a historically strong result for a populist party known for its virulent campaigns against immigrants and Islam, and following a knife attack on a German mayoral candidate who championed refugee issues.

    Monday’s rally, due to start at 1600 GMT in PEGIDA’s stronghold of Dresden, marks a contrast to efforts by Merkel who over the weekend made a crucial one-day trip to Turkey, where she hailed progress in helping Ankara deal with the migrant crisis and vowed to push forward its long-stalled EU membership bid.

    • The picture with the article shows Merkel in a Nazi uniform, a brown shirt, the ones that turned into the Gestapo.

  7. As winter looms, Germany struggles to find homes for refugees

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/18/us-europe-migrants-germany-winter-insigh-idUSKCN0SC0NY20151018

    At a sprawling camp in the German town of Celle, refugees wearing thick sweaters sit around a heater smoking cigarettes as rain beats down on the cramped white tent that has become their home. Some of them are ill and worried it will snow.

    “The weather is so cold that I can’t even leave the tent,” said Taher, a 25-year-old Syrian farmer. Sitting on his camp bed surrounded by wet washing that hangs limply from tent poles, he reaches for a box of cough medicine.

    With the approach of winter, authorities are scrambling to find warm places to stay for the thousands of refugees streaming into Germany every day. In desperation, they have turned to sports halls, youth hostels and empty office buildings.

  8. Thousands stranded on borders of new European migrant route

    http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151019/eu-europe-migrants-9a98a13d0e.html

    TRNOVEC, Slovenia (AP) — Thousands of beleaguered migrants, including many women and children, have spent a night in rain and cold in the Balkans as the countries quarrel over how to handle the large influx of people.

    Many were stranded at Croatia’s border with Slovenia after Croatia sent a train there despite Slovenia’s refusal to take the people into the country. The train carrying about 1,800 people arrived in the early hours of the morning Monday.

    Hundreds of migrants were also left waiting in the mud on the border between Serbia and Croatia, after Croatian police put up gates to control their influx.

    Croatian police ordered the migrants off the train, but Slovenian police were deployed to the border and put up iron barriers to prevent a mass entry. For hours, the migrants sought ways to sneak into Slovenia on foot while Croatian police on the other side prevented them from turning back.

  9. Muslims condemn Britain’s plans to combat extremism

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/muslims-condemn-britains-plans-combat-extremism-115933511.html

    LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled a new strategy on Monday to combat extremism, saying the battle was “perhaps the “defining one of this century”, but his proposals were condemned by Muslims as demonizing their communities and set to fail.

    The Counter-Extremism Strategy has been promised by Cameron’s government for months, designed primarily to counter the ideology promoted by Islamic State militants, al Qaeda and other Islamists which the authorities say can lead young Britons onto a path of violence.

    “Subversive, well-organized and sophisticated in their methods, Islamist extremists don’t just threaten our security, they jeopardize all that we’ve built together – our successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracy,” Cameron wrote on his Facebook website.

    “So we have to confront them wherever we find them.”

  11. Teen stoner says he hacked CIA director’s AOL account

    http://nypost.com/2015/10/18/stoner-high-school-student-says-he-hacked-the-cia/

    Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email scandal didn’t stop the head of the CIA from using his own personal AOL account to stash work-related documents, according to a stoner high school student who claims to have hacked into them.

    CIA Director John Brennan’s private account held sensitive files — including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance — until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated, the hacker told The Post.

  12. Stalin portraits, Soviet nostalgia in Ukraine’s rebel regions

    http://news.yahoo.com/stalin-portraits-soviet-nostalgia-rule-ukraines-rebel-regions-052534004.html

    Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) – Three portraits of former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin are on display in the centre of Donetsk, the rebel capital of eastern Ukraine, as the separatist authorities fuel a mood of Soviet nostalgia.

    The portraits, adorning a main square, seem to go down well with one young woman walking past.

    “I think the portraits of Stalin are a good thing. It’s our history and a lot of people have forgotten he even existed,” said Yekaterina, a 22-year-old student.

    The previously taboo display comes as the rebels revive Soviet customs to cement their Moscow-backed rule — while glossing over Stalin’s atrocities.

  13. Russia retreats to autarky as poverty looms

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11937348/Russia-retreats-to-autarky-as-poverty-looms.html

    Russia is running out of money. President Vladimir Putin is taking a strategic gamble, depleting the Kremlin’s last reserve funds to cover the budget and to pay for an escalating war in Syria at the same time.

    “Our policies are not frozen. They adapt to circumstances”
    President Vladimir Putin

    The three big rating agencies have all issued alerts over recent days, warning that the country’s public finances are deteriorating fast and furiously. There is no prospect of an oil revival as long as Saudi Arabia continues to flood the market. Russia cannot borrow abroad at a viable cost.

    Standard & Poor’s says the budget deficit will balloon to 4.4pc of GDP this year, including short-falls in local government spending and social security. The government has committed a further $40bn to bailing out the banking system.

  14. 5,000 migrants reach Slovenia on Monday

    http://www.oann.com/5000-migrants-reach-slovenia-on-monday-official/

    LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – Some 5,000 migrants reached Slovenia on Monday from Croatia, with another 1,200 on their way by train, the Slovenian interior ministry said, accusing Croatia of ignoring efforts to contain the flow.

    Interior Ministry state secretary Bostjan Sefic said Germany was accepting fewer arrivals and Austria in turn was asking Slovenia to stem the flow.

    “So far about 5,000 migrants arrived in Slovenia today,” Sefic told a news conference. “We expect another train with 1,200 migrants, which would mean more than 6,000 today. Croatia is ignoring our pleas, our plans.”

  15. Syrian rebels say receive more weapons for Aleppo battle

    http://www.oann.com/syrian-rebels-say-receive-more-weapons-for-aleppo-battle/

    BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies south of Aleppo say they have received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states that oppose President Bashar al-Assad since a major government offensive began there on Friday.

    Rebels from three Free Syrian Army-affiliated groups contacted by Reuters said new supplies had arrived since the start of the attack by the army backed by Iranian fighters and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

    But officials from one of the groups said that while new quantities had arrived, the supplies were not enough for the scale of the assault. They declined to be identified due to the sensitivities of the matter. “A few will not do the trick. They need dozens,” said one of the officials.

    A number of rebel groups vetted by states opposed to Assad have been supplied with weapons via Turkey, part of a program supported by the United States and which has in some cases included military training by the Central Intelligence Agency.

  16. Balkans struggle with growing backlog of migrants

    http://www.oann.com/balkans-struggles-with-growing-backlog-of-migrants/

    BERKASOVO, Serbia/LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – The Balkans struggled with a growing backlog of migrants on Monday as thousands of people waited on cold, wet borders after Hungary closed its southern frontier and diverted them to Slovenia.

    Slovenia imposed a daily limit of 2,500, forcing fellow European Union-member Croatia to also ration entry from Serbia, which the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said was hosting more than 10,000 migrants on Monday, with more on the way.

    “It’s like a big river of people, and if you stop the flow, you will have floods somewhere. That’s what’s happening now,” UNHCR spokesman Melita Sunjic said from the Serbia-Croatia border, where about 2,000 people were stranded in desperate and deteriorating conditions.

    Groups of migrants fought with each other in the morning, aid workers said, after a night spent under open skies lashed by autumn wind and rain. “Open the gate, open the gate!” they chanted, their passage barred by lines of Croatian police who on Monday erected an improvised fence to control access.

  17. Turkish PM Davutoglu says downed drone was Russian-made

    http://www.oann.com/turkish-pm-says-downed-drone-was-russian-made-tv/

    ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A drone shot down by Turkish warplanes in Turkish air space near Syria on Friday was Russian-made, but Moscow has told Ankara the unmanned aircraft did not belong to Russia, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday.

    The drone was downed on Friday after it continued on its flight path despite three warnings, the Turkish military said. Earlier this month, Russian jets violated Turkish air space on two occasions and Ankara warned it would respond if such incursions recurred.

    “The downed drone is Russian-made but Russia has told us in a friendly manner that it doesn’t belong to them,” Davutoglu said in an interview with Turkish broadcaster AHaber.

    A U.S. official said Washington believed the drone was of Russian origin. Davutoglu said it could have belonged to Syrian government forces, whose biggest arms supplier is Russia, or to the Syrian Kurdish PYD militia or other elements.

  18. Islamic State TRAINING CAMPS IN TURKEY – near ISTANBUL

    Turkish police raid ISIL camp in Istanbul, 29 adults and 24 children detained

    An Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) training camp established in Istanbul’s Pendik neighborhood by militants from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has been raided by Turkish police, who have detained 29 adults and 24 children training to join the fight in Syria and Iraq.

    Turkish authorities have for some time been conducting physical and technical surveillance of a terrorist training group, consisting mostly of Uzbek nationals but also including some Tajik nationals; members of the group had snuck into Istanbul from Turkey’s eastern provinces and established their base of operations in the neighborhood of Pendik, on the city’s Asian side.

    Having determined that the group was preparing to leave for Syria and Iraq to join the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), units from the Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau conducted simultaneous late-night raids over the weekend at several locations that were purportedly operating as schools.

    Assisted by special ops units as well as helicopter air support, counterterrorism police raided 13 locations in Pendik and five different addresses in a luxury residence compound in the Kayasehir neighborhood.

    53 Uzbek and Tajik nationals were detained in the operations, of whom 24 were under the age of 18. The 29 adults were taken to the Counterterrorism Bureau at the Istanbul Aksaray Police Station for questioning. The 24 juveniles were taken to the Pendik Police Department Juvenile Bureau. Police are investigating claims that the children were to be sent to join ISIL.

    Earlier surveillance by the counterterrorism bureau reportedly revealed that the Uzbeks and Tajiks had rented out basements, particularly in the Pendik area, and converted them into training camps. The children, meanwhile, had received education at special schools, where they were taught about the Islamic State and trained as to how they would live after moving to ISIL territory.

    Searches of the homes also uncovered maps of the battle grounds in Syria and Iraq to which the group would have relocated, as well as documents pertaining to their contacts.

    The Uzbekistan Islamic Movement, an offshoot of al Qaeda that usually operates around the Afghan border, declared its allegiance to ISIL last August. At the time, Uzbek intelligence reported that over 5,000 Uzbek nationals were fighting in the ranks of ISIL in Syria. In order to secure the allegiance of Islamic groups in Uzbekistan, ISIL had reportedly offered militants payments of between $20,000 and $30,000.

    http://national.bgnnews.com/turkish-police-raid-isil-camp-in-istanbul-29-adults-and-24-children-detained-haberi/10408

    ISIL child training camp discovered in Istanbul: Report

    A total of 24 of around 50 suspects of Tajik and Uzbek origin, who were detained for having links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Istanbul on Oct. 18, have been revealed to be children being trained in basement apartments in Istanbul’s Pendik and Basaksehir districts, daily Vatan has reported.

    The suspects were reported to have trained children in basement apartments in Pendik and Basaksehir, using the apartments as militant training camps, according to physical and technical surveillance collected by Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Unit officers before raiding 18 separate homes in Pendik and Basaksehir’s Kayasehir neighborhood.

    The suspects, mostly Uzbeks, who were detained in the Oct. 18 raids were reported to have lectured children on the basics of ISIL as well as how to live in an Islamic state.

    In August, the Uzbekistan Islamic Movement, an al-Qaeda offshoot based near the Afghan border, announced allegiance to ISIL.

    Uzbek intelligence sources reported that more than 5,000 paid Uzbek militants were fighting in Syria alongside ISIL.

    Turkey has stepped up anti-terror police operations against ISIL militants in the country, as the Oct. 10 twin blasts in the Turkish capital sent shockwaves through the country, with at least 102 civilians dead and hundreds of others injured.

    Thirteen ISIL-linked suspects have reportedly been detained so far within the investigation launched into the Ankara bombing.

    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/isil-child-training-camp-discovered-in-istanbul-report-.aspx?PageID=238&NID=90052&NewsCatID=341

  19. CAIR awards ‘American Muslim of the Year’ to clock kid

    Ahmed Mohamed, also known as “Clock Kid,” has just won another title: “American Muslim of the year.”

    The Council for American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country, recognized Mohamed at a ceremony in Arlington, Va.

    “I just want to stop discrimination for everyone, not just for religious, but for all races as well,” Mohamed said at the event.

    His award was in the shape of a clock.

    http://therightscoop.com/cair-awards-american-muslim-of-the-year-award-to-clock-kid-after-he-meets-with-genocidal-war-criminal/

  22. This is a must read

    The future of our time: Rewriting ‘Westphalianism’
    Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/18/the-future-of-our-time-rewriting-westphalianism/

    Reading Henry Kissinger’s typically well-considered and intelligent article for the Wall Street Journal this weekend (“A Path out of the Middle East Collapse”), I had a growing sense that it isn’t so much a prescription for the future as a description of the past.

    The sense began with the first paragraph, in which Kissinger defines the scope of what’s collapsing, and dates it only to 1973, when the U.S. moved to stabilize the Middle East during the Yom Kippur War.

    But far more than recent U.S. policy on the Middle East is collapsing today. What we’re seeing is more like the collapse of “Rome” itself: the organization of Western power as a Europe-centric territorial phenomenon, setting unbreachable boundaries north, south, and west of a restless and perennially “unorganizable” Middle East.

    Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/18/the-future-of-our-time-rewriting-westphalianism/

    • A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse

      http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-path-out-of-the-middle-east-collapse-1445037513

      The debate about whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran regarding its nuclear program stabilized the Middle East’s strategic framework had barely begun when the region’s geopolitical framework collapsed. Russia’s unilateral military action in Syria is the latest symptom of the disintegration of the American role in stabilizing the Middle East order that emerged from the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

      In the aftermath of that conflict, Egypt abandoned its military ties with the Soviet Union and joined an American-backed negotiating process that produced peace treaties between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan, a United Nations-supervised disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, which has been observed for over four decades (even by the parties of the Syrian civil war), and international support of Lebanon’s sovereign territorial integrity. Later, Saddam Hussein’s war to incorporate Kuwait into Iraq was defeated by an international coalition under U.S. leadership. American forces led the war against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States were our allies in all these efforts. The Russian military presence disappeared from the region.

          • That geopolitical pattern is now in shambles. Four states in the region have ceased to function as sovereign. Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq have become targets for nonstate movements seeking to impose their rule. Over large swaths in Iraq and Syria, an ideologically radical religious army has declared itself the Islamic State (also called ISIS or ISIL) as an unrelenting foe of established world order. It seeks to replace the international system’s multiplicity of states with a caliphate, a single Islamic empire governed by Shariah law.

            ISIS’ claim has given the millennium-old split between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam an apocalyptic dimension. The remaining Sunni states feel threatened by both the religious fervor of ISIS as well as by Shiite Iran, potentially the most powerful state in the region. Iran compounds its menace by presenting itself in a dual capacity. On one level, Iran acts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy, even invoking the safeguards of the international system. At the same time, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemony based on jihadist principles: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria; Hamas in Gaza; the Houthis in Yemen.

            Thus the Sunni Middle East risks engulfment by four concurrent sources: Shiite-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologically and religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalent political structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic and religious groups arbitrarily assembled after World War I into (now collapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimental political, social and economic domestic policies.

            The fate of Syria provides a vivid illustration: What started as a Sunni revolt against the Alawite (a Shiite offshoot) autocrat Bashar Assad fractured the state into its component religious and ethnic groups, with nonstate militias supporting each warring party, and outside powers pursuing their own strategic interests. Iran supports the Assad regime as the linchpin of an Iranian historic dominance stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean. The Gulf States insist on the overthrow of Mr. Assad to thwart Shiite Iranian designs, which they fear more than Islamic State. They seek the defeat of ISIS while avoiding an Iranian victory. This ambivalence has been deepened by the nuclear deal, which in the Sunni Middle East is widely interpreted as tacit American acquiescence in Iranian hegemony.

            These conflicting trends, compounded by America’s retreat from the region, have enabled Russia to engage in military operations deep in the Middle East, a deployment unprecedented in Russian history. Russia’s principal concern is that the Assad regime’s collapse could reproduce the chaos of Libya, bring ISIS into power in Damascus, and turn all of Syria into a haven for terrorist operations, reaching into Muslim regions inside Russia’s southern border in the Caucasus and elsewhere.

            On the surface, Russia’s intervention serves Iran’s policy of sustaining the Shiite element in Syria. In a deeper sense, Russia’s purposes do not require the indefinite continuation of Mr. Assad’s rule. It is a classic balance-of-power maneuver to divert the Sunni Muslim terrorist threat from Russia’s southern border region. It is a geopolitical, not an ideological, challenge and should be dealt with on that level. Whatever the motivation, Russian forces in the region—and their participation in combat operations—produce a challenge that American Middle East policy has not encountered in at least four decades.

            American policy has sought to straddle the motivations of all parties and is therefore on the verge of losing the ability to shape events. The U.S. is now opposed to, or at odds in some way or another with, all parties in the region: with Egypt on human rights; with Saudi Arabia over Yemen; with each of the Syrian parties over different objectives. The U.S. proclaims the determination to remove Mr. Assad but has been unwilling to generate effective leverage—political or military—to achieve that aim. Nor has the U.S. put forward an alternative political structure to replace Mr. Assad should his departure somehow be realized.

            Russia, Iran, ISIS and various terrorist organizations have moved into this vacuum: Russia and Iran to sustain Mr. Assad; Tehran to foster imperial and jihadist designs. The Sunni states of the Persian Gulf, Jordan and Egypt, faced with the absence of an alternative political structure, favor the American objective but fear the consequence of turning Syria into another Libya.

            American policy on Iran has moved to the center of its Middle East policy. The administration has insisted that it will take a stand against jihadist and imperialist designs by Iran and that it will deal sternly with violations of the nuclear agreement. But it seems also passionately committed to the quest for bringing about a reversal of the hostile, aggressive dimension of Iranian policy through historic evolution bolstered by negotiation.

            The prevailing U.S. policy toward Iran is often compared by its advocates to the Nixon administration’s opening to China, which contributed, despite some domestic opposition, to the ultimate transformation of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The comparison is not apt. The opening to China in 1971 was based on the mutual recognition by both parties that the prevention of Russian hegemony in Eurasia was in their common interest. And 42 Soviet divisions lining the Sino-Soviet border reinforced that conviction. No comparable strategic agreement exists between Washington and Tehran. On the contrary, in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear accord, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the U.S. as the “Great Satan” and rejected negotiations with America about nonnuclear matters. Completing his geopolitical diagnosis, Mr. Khamenei also predicted that Israel would no longer exist in 25 years.

            Forty-five years ago, the expectations of China and the U.S. were symmetrical. The expectations underlying the nuclear agreement with Iran are not. Tehran will gain its principal objectives at the beginning of the implementation of the accord. America’s benefits reside in a promise of Iranian conduct over a period of time. The opening to China was based on an immediate and observable adjustment in Chinese policy, not on an expectation of a fundamental change in China’s domestic system. The optimistic hypothesis on Iran postulates that Tehran’s revolutionary fervor will dissipate as its economic and cultural interactions with the outside world increase.

            American policy runs the risk of feeding suspicion rather than abating it. Its challenge is that two rigid and apocalyptic blocs are confronting each other: a Sunni bloc consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; and the Shiite bloc comprising Iran, the Shiite sector of Iraq with Baghdad as its capital, the Shiite south of Lebanon under Hezbollah control facing Israel, and the Houthi portion of Yemen, completing the encirclement of the Sunni world. In these circumstances, the traditional adage that the enemy of your enemy can be treated as your friend no longer applies. For in the contemporary Middle East, it is likely that the enemy of your enemy remains your enemy.

            A great deal depends on how the parties interpret recent events. Can the disillusionment of some of our Sunni allies be mitigated? How will Iran’s leaders interpret the nuclear accord once implemented—as a near-escape from potential disaster counseling a more moderate course, returning Iran to an international order? Or as a victory in which they have achieved their essential aims against the opposition of the U.N. Security Council, having ignored American threats and, hence, as an incentive to continue Tehran’s dual approach as both a legitimate state and a nonstate movement challenging the international order?

            Two-power systems are prone to confrontation, as was demonstrated in Europe in the run-up to World War I. Even with traditional weapons technology, to sustain a balance of power between two rigid blocs requires an extraordinary ability to assess the real and potential balance of forces, to understand the accumulation of nuances that might affect this balance, and to act decisively to restore it whenever it deviates from equilibrium—qualities not heretofore demanded of an America sheltered behind two great oceans.

            But the current crisis is taking place in a world of nontraditional nuclear and cyber technology. As competing regional powers strive for comparable threshold capacity, the nonproliferation regime in the Middle East may crumble. If nuclear weapons become established, a catastrophic outcome is nearly inevitable. A strategy of pre-emption is inherent in the nuclear technology. The U.S. must be determined to prevent such an outcome and apply the principle of nonproliferation to all nuclear aspirants in the region.

            Too much of our public debate deals with tactical expedients. What we need is a strategic concept and to establish priorities on the following principles:

            • So long as ISIS survives and remains in control of a geographically defined territory, it will compound all Middle East tensions. Threatening all sides and projecting its goals beyond the region, it freezes existing positions or tempts outside efforts to achieve imperial jihadist designs. The destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who has already lost over half of the area he once controlled. Making sure that this territory does not become a permanent terrorist haven must have precedence. The current inconclusive U.S. military effort risks serving as a recruitment vehicle for ISIS as having stood up to American might.

            • The U.S. has already acquiesced in a Russian military role. Painful as this is to the architects of the 1973 system, attention in the Middle East must remain focused on essentials. And there exist compatible objectives. In a choice among strategies, it is preferable for ISIS-held territory to be reconquered either by moderate Sunni forces or outside powers than by Iranian jihadist or imperial forces. For Russia, limiting its military role to the anti-ISIS campaign may avoid a return to Cold War conditions with the U.S.

            • The reconquered territories should be restored to the local Sunni rule that existed there before the disintegration of both Iraqi and Syrian sovereignty. The sovereign states of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Egypt and Jordan, should play a principal role in that evolution. After the resolution of its constitutional crisis, Turkey could contribute creatively to such a process.

            • As the terrorist region is being dismantled and brought under nonradical political control, the future of the Syrian state should be dealt with concurrently. A federal structure could then be built between the Alawite and Sunni portions. If the Alawite regions become part of a Syrian federal system, a context will exist for the role of Mr. Assad, which reduces the risks of genocide or chaos leading to terrorist triumph.

            • The U.S. role in such a Middle East would be to implement the military assurances in the traditional Sunni states that the administration promised during the debate on the Iranian nuclear agreement, and which its critics have demanded.

            • In this context, Iran’s role can be critical. The U.S. should be prepared for a dialogue with an Iran returning to its role as a Westphalian state within its established borders.

            The U.S. must decide for itself the role it will play in the 21st century; the Middle East will be our most immediate—and perhaps most severe—test. At question is not the strength of American arms but rather American resolve in understanding and mastering a new world.

            Mr. Kissinger served as national-security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

      • It is scary, but it isn’t too late to stop the decline, although that time is rapidly approaching.

  23. The Georgia Guidestones from 1980 no less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

    Aka The Ten Enchantments:

    1. You shall have no other gods before Me./ 1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

    1. You must submit to the priest’s or politician’s standards. (Because there is no: ‘eternal God’; no ‘perpetual balance with Gaia’).

    2. You shall not make idols./ 2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.

    2. God or Gaia must be kept pristine.

    3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain./ 3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

    3. United under one language: Holy or Collectivist.

    4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy./ 4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.

    4. Conform with dhimmitude behavior.

    5. Honor your father and your mother./5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

    5. Obey your Guardians.

    6. You shall not murder./6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

    6. Be a Good Citizen.

    7. You shall not commit adultery./7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

    7. Don’t take advantage of your situation.

    8. You shall not steal./8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

    8. When tempted, think of the punishments by God or State.

    9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor./9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.

    9. Get on with each other.

    10. You shall not covet./10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

    10. Have no possessions too.

      • Palestinian children taught the right way ‘to stab a Jew’
        Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/19/palestinian-children-taught-how-to-stab-a-jew/

        This episode of “Sharie Alssamsm” (Arabic for “Sesame Street”) is brought to you by the letter alssura (“s”), which stands for taean (“stabbing”). Sky News reports that Palestinian children are learning the latest Jew-killing techniques, which include the use of a good hunting knife (so much less noisy than a gun and mucho effective in last week’s spate of bus attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem).

        Even as the Obama administration continues to spread its make-believe narrative that the Palestinians crave a two-state solution, Israel Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon is urging the Security Council to speak out against what he describes as “incitement that fuels terror.

        Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/19/palestinian-children-taught-how-to-stab-a-jew/

        • Israel: Palestinians ‘Brainwashed With Hate’

          http://news.sky.com/story/1571110/israel-palestinians-brainwashed-with-hate

          Palestinian children are being “brainwashed” with “incitement and hate”, according to an Israeli spokesman.

          Danny Danon, Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations, is urging the Security Council to make a statement against what he described as “the incitement that fuels terror”.

          During his speech, Mr Danon held up a piece of card with a diagram of a human body entitled “How to Stab a Jew”, which he said was “an example of what Palestinian children are being exposed to day in and day out, in school, after school”.

          Sky News has been unable to verify Mr Danon’s claims, in which he said: “When a Palestinian child returns from school and opens (sic) the television, he doesn’t see Barney or Donald Duck, he sees murderers portrayed as heroes.

  25. ‘Frustrated’ Muslims Can’t Stop Killing Jews… and Everyone Else

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260495/frustrated-muslims-cant-stop-killing-jews%E2%80%A6-and-daniel-greenfield

    As Jews were being butchered in the streets of Jerusalem, Secretary of State John Kerry blamed them.

    “There’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years, and now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing,” the nation’s greatest diplomat said.

    “Settlements” are Jews living in parts of Israel captured by the invading Muslim armies in 1948, from which Jews were ethnically cleansed, and then retaken and liberated by Israel in 1967. A Jew living in a part of Jerusalem from which Jews were driven out in 1948 is a “settler” who “frustrates” Muslims.

    And who can blame Muslims for taking an axe or a knife to those frustrating Jews? Not John Kerry.

    Back before 1967, Muslim terrorism had to be attributed to “frustration” at Jews living anywhere in Israel. Before Jews had an independent state or any realistic possibility of achieving one, Muslims were frustrated at Jews living. And so they strove to make the Jews into the “unliving” by murdering them.

  26. Fox’s Greta Van Susteren Lets Huma Abedin off the Hook

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260501/foxs-greta-van-susteren-lets-huma-abedin-hook-matthew-vadum

    A Fox News Channel report last week examining Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s role in the deadly Benghazi affair curiously ignored the troubling, well-documented ties that Abedin and her family have to the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Instead, the Friday broadcast of “On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren” centered on the legal and ethical issues surrounding Abedin and the extremely unusual working arrangement she enjoyed while serving as a top aide to Clinton during her tenure as U.S. secretary of state.

    Certainly the mountain of allegations of corruption against Clinton and her longtime hatchet woman, Abedin, and employment best practices in the U.S. government merit scrutiny, but so does the fact that Abedin was an editor for 12 years at an al-Qaeda-funded Muslim Brotherhood magazine.

    The FBI is investigating whether classified information was mishandled on the so-called home-brew Internet server that Clinton and Abedin both used to send emails concerning official government business. But Van Susteren’s show did not pay much attention to exactly what Abedin did for Clinton out of public view while serving in a sensitive, senior government post. Abedin was depicted somewhat sympathetically as a controversial, though possibly corrupt, public figure who aggressively pursued personal revenue streams separate from government employment. She was shown to have been wronged by her man but to have faithfully stood by him.

  28. Day After Obama Cybersecurity Deal w/China, China Hacked US

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260502/day-after-obama-cybersecurity-deal-wchina-china-daniel-greenfield

    Smart power. So much smart power. I don’t know if anyone has ever tapped into this much smart power before.

    Picture a nerd screeching about “smart power” while the school bullies beat him up and you’ve got a picture of Obama’s awesome smart power foreign policy. America’s enemies now make a special point of humiliating him after each fake agreement and deal.

    Iran tests ballistic missiles and convicts a US reporter right after ratifying the nuke deal. And China makes a point of slapping Obama around right after his latest fake agreement with China.

  29. Some Swedish Municipalities are at 10% Migrants

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260500/some-swedish-municipalities-are-10-migrants-daniel-greenfield

    These are really bad numbers. But this is what a consensual invasion looks like.

    Sweden is set to take 180,000 asylum seekers this year, more than twice as many as in 2014, and local authorities are buckling under the strain as they run out of housing and put up new arrivals in tents.

    Sweden’s total population is below 10 million. It’s taking in a significant percentage of its population. Its young male population is probably not much over a million. And that’s the category in which most of the Muslim migrants are in.

  30. The ‘Jerusalem Awakening’

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260478/jerusalem-awakening-richard-l-cravatts

    The carnage in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel continued this week with an increased ferocity and barbarity, with stabbings, shooting, bombings, car ramming, rocket attacks, and other assaults on Israeli citizens claiming the lives of five Israelis and twenty-five Palestinians in the past two weeks alone. While the violence intensifies and seems to be spiraling out of control, not only touching Jerusalem but also the West Bank, Gaza, and other Israeli towns, officials are intent on identifying the inspiration for the latest escalation of jihad against Jews.

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was quick to assign blame, not to the perpetrators of the deadly attacks—psychotic young men acting in the name of Allah to purge the land of Jews—but to the victims themselves, Israelis. Speaking at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, Kerry disingenuously observed in a question and answer session after his talk that, “There’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years and there’s an increase in the violence because there’s this frustration that’s growing.” Blaming the settlements for being an obstacle to peace is a favorite refrain for this administration, of course, and it puts the responsibility for the outbreak of violence squarely on Israel, and Netanyahu, instead of where it more justifiably belongs: namely, with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority, and a culture of death where “resistance” and martyrdom are promoted as virtuous rather than inhumanly counterproductive.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more accurate in identifying the inspiration of the current uprising, this so-called “Jerusalem Awakening,” that has increased the tension of everyday life for Israelis and Arabs alike. At a weekly cabinet meeting Netanyahu correctly observed that Israel is “. . . in the midst of a wave of terrorism originating from systematic and mendacious incitement regarding the Temple Mount – incitement by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the Islamic Movement in Israel.”

  31. India: Israel’s Promising New Friend
    A relationship that’s bound to flourish.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260479/india-israels-promising-new-friend-joseph-puder

    For Israelis, it is refreshing to know that Israel has an important new friend, India. In the midst of a wave of terror engulfing Israel, orchestrated by both the Hamas leadership and the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, it has resulted in the random knifing of Israeli-Jews by Arab-Palestinian youths. And, while there appears to be deafening silence at the United Nations, the president of the world’s largest democracy, India, will be paying a state visit to Israel.

    India’s President Pranab Mukherjee will arrive in Israel on Tuesday (October 13, 2015) for a four day official visit, the first of its kind by an Indian president in the Jewish state. Following his visit to Jordan he will fly to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and proceed to Ramallah to meet with the Palestinian Authority leadership. In Israel, President Mukherjee will be the official guest of Israel’s President Reuben Rivlin. Mukherjee will be bringing a top academic delegation with him. During his stay, Mukherjee will meet with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein and Yitzhak Herzog, leader of the Opposition Labor party. On Wednesday, the Indian president will address the Israeli Knesset. Later, President Rivlin will host Mukherjee at a special state dinner in the Presidential residence, with 120 specially invited guests. On his final day in Israel, Mukherjee will receive an honorary doctorate. Mukherjee hopes to signs three large agreements with Israel pertaining to water, energy, and education.

    When, in July, 2015, the UN Human Rights Council voted to approve a report criticizing Israel for its alleged conduct in the latest Gaza war, only the U.S. voted against it. What was surprising however turned out to be India’s abstention. For the first time in a major anti-Israel vote, India did not vote with the Arabs. India’s abstention was a reflection of Israel’s realignment in its international relations. After decades of Jerusalem focusing its diplomatic and trade efforts on Europe and America, Israel is pivoting toward Asia. The payoff came during Israel’s ‘Protective Edge’ operation in Gaza, when the Indian Foreign Ministry issued a balanced statement that expressed “alarm over the civilian loss of life,” but at the same time voiced its concern over “cross-border provocations resulting from (Hamas’) rocket attacks.” In recent years India has been a key player in the Non-Aligned Movement – a body of states that was founded by Marshall Tito (of Yugoslavia) Nehru, and included Egypt’s President Abdul Nasser. As a result, India voted automatically for the Palestinians and against Israel in international forums.

    • Given the way China is acting they have an enemy in common, and given Russia’s long term goal of taking Afghanistan and using it as a back door to India both have a reason to fear Russia.

  32. ‘We’re under water’: Germany shows signs of strain from mass of refugees

    Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/18/were-under-water-germany-shows-signs-of-strain-from-mass-of-refugees/

    Der Spiegel

    The road to the reception camp in Hesepe has become something of a refugees’ avenue. Small groups of young men wander along the sidewalk. A family from Syria schleps a clutch of shopping bags towards the gate. A Sudanese man snakes along the road on his bicycle. Most people don’t speak a word of German, just a little fragmentary English, but when they see locals, they offer a friendly wave and call out, “Hello!”

    The main road “is like a pedestrian shopping zone,” says one resident, “except without the stores.” Red-brick houses with pretty gardens line both sides of the street, and Kathrin and Ralf Meyer are standing outside theirs. “It’s gotten a bit too much for us,” says the 31-year-old mother of three. “Too much noise, too many refugees, too much garbage.”

    Now the Meyers are planning to move out in November. They’re sick of seeing asylum-seekers sit on their garden wall or rummage through their garbage cans for anything they can use. Though “you do feel sorry for them,” says Ralf, who’s handed out some clothes that his children have grown out of. “But there are just too many of them here now.”

    Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/18/were-under-water-germany-shows-signs-of-strain-from-mass-of-refugees/

  33. The French Education Minister a young Muslim woman unveiled some reforms, which included something along the lines of give equal respect to religious views and science and do not force science on people if against their faith, and not say that science comes before faith, so now science is being dumbed down to meet faith, I guess I better tell children that the sun will set in a muddy pond, aka Mohammed…

    And a plan to bus white rich children from their home areas to go to schools which are Muslim majority in poor areas with the object to try to get people to mix, sure not to end well.

    • Amazing how so many policemen want to build fences to stop immigration, don’t they know the left has proclaimed that fences don’t work? Of course the left never lets facts interfere enter their belief system.

  36. Germany’s Anti-Islam PEGIDA Rallies Surge Amid Migrant Crisis (nbcnews, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/europes-border-crisis/germanys-anti-islam-pegida-rallies-surge-amid-migrant-crisis-n447026

    “MAINZ, Germany — One year after the emergence of the PEGIDA anti-Islam movement in Germany, experts fear there has been a surge in support amid the historic influx of migrants and refugees.

    After a decline in the numbers of protesters over the summer, the regular Monday night gatherings of “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West” have seen a recent resurgence, with up to 9,000 participants.

    “Today we see an inner hardening among the movement, participants have become angrier and more upset, which can be described as a radicalization,” Professor Werner J. Patzelt told NBC News.

    He said there was a risk that German society was being polarized — and not only by Europe’s immigration crisis.

    In a study published earlier this year, Dresden’s Technical University found that the main motives for participation in the demonstrations were primarily “discontent with German politics,” followed by “fundamental resentments against migrants and asylum seekers.”

    Analysts from the university found that nearly 20 percent of PEGIDA rally participants are young, far-right extremists, but the majority of its followers “are not right-wing radicals.”

    “I am concerned about the general problem, a polarization within the German public, which PEGIDA is only a symptom of,” Patzelt said….”

  37. Anti-immigration SVP wins Swiss election in big swing to right (BBC, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34569881

    “The right-wing, anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party (SVP) has won Switzerland’s parliamentary election with a record 29.4% of the vote.

    Its victory translates into 11 extra seats, giving it 65 out of the total 200 in the lower house.

    Europe’s migrant crisis boosted support for the SVP, commentators say – though Switzerland is taking in far fewer migrants than Germany.

    The right-wing liberal FDP also got an electoral boost, coming third.

    Swiss media are speaking of a “Rechtsrutsch” – a “slide to the right” – because the SVP, FDP and some small right-wing parties can now command a majority in the National Council (lower house).

    No such slide has occurred yet in the 46-seat upper house (Council of States), as a second round of voting is required in many cantons.

    The SVP won the 2011 vote with 26.6%, becoming the largest party, but now it has made further gains.

    The SVP is sceptical about Switzerland’s many bilateral agreements with the EU, telling voters that the country is better off remaining outside the 28-nation bloc.

    In Sunday’s election the leftist Social Democratic Party (SP) came second, winning 44 seats – two fewer than last time.

    “The vote was clear. The people are worried about mass migration to Europe,” said SVP leader Toni Brunner…”

  38. Syria conflict: ‘Thousands flee Aleppo offensive’ (BBC, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34570938

    “Tens of thousands of Syrians have fled a government offensive on rebel-held areas south of the city of Aleppo in the past three days, an activist says.

    Dr Zaidoun al-Zoabi, head of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations, told the BBC that several villages he had visited were empty.

    He saw thousands of people on the move, with no shelter or medical support.

    The government offensive is the latest of at least four launched with Russian air support in the past two weeks…”

  39. Indonesian authorities demolish churches in Aceh (BBC, Oct 19, 2015)

    “Indonesian authorities have begun tearing down churches in Aceh province amid rising religious tension.

    Last week, hundreds of Muslim men burnt down three churches. Defending Christians killed one Muslim attacker.

    Indonesian authorities say they are demolishing the churches because they lack building permits.

    Parishioners looked on as government workers used sledgehammers to destroy three churches, with a further seven due to be demolished.

    Authorities say the Christian community had agreed to the demolition.

    About 200 military and police guarded government workers as they knocked the churches down. The congregation of the churches had been requested to demolish them but refused.

    “How can we do it? It is the church we built to pray. It is impossible [for us to take it down],” said Paima Berutu, a leader of one the churches destroyed.

    “Some of us watched [the demolition] from afar. Man and women. It was painful,” he told the BBC.

    Last week’s violence saw one Catholic and two Protestant churches burnt down.

    In response, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo tweeted: “Stop the violence in Aceh Singkil. Any background of violence, especially religion and belief, destroys diversity.”

    The week before the attack, protesters calling themselves Aceh Youth Concerned for Islam held a demonstration demanding that what they claimed were unlicensed churches be torn down by authorities.

    Tension in Aceh has been rising amid increasing Islamic conservatism in the province and Indonesia as a whole.

    Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, although it also has significant Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian minorities.

    Aceh is the only province to have officially introduced Sharia law, which is increasingly being applied to non-Muslims too.

    Thousands of Christians are believed to have fled to neighbouring provinces…”

  40. Pakistan bus blast kills 11 in Quetta (BBC, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34576350

    “A bomb explosion on a bus in the Pakistani city of Quetta has killed at least 11 people and wounded a further 22, police say.

    A senior police official in the western city told the BBC the device was planted on the roof of the vehicle.

    The blast comes at a time of relatively diminished violence in Pakistan. No-one has so far claimed responsibility.

    Balochistan province suffers from separatist, sectarian and Islamist insurgencies.

    There is a heightened alert against sectarian attacks in the region, as it is the Shia month of mourning.

    Reports suggested the passenger bus was carrying workers from the centre of Quetta to their homes in the suburbs at the end of the working day.

    “This is a cowardly act that has targeted innocent people,” the provincial Interior Minister Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti told Reuters news agency…”

  41. Hajj deaths ‘almost triple’ official Saudi toll (BBC, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34576035

    “A crush near Mecca last month killed nearly three times as many people as Saudi Arabia has admitted, according to a tally by the Associated Press (AP).

    AP said on Monday that at least 2,110 people died in the tragedy at the annual Hajj pilgrimage – far more than the official Saudi death toll of 769.

    The new figure comes from media reports and statements from 30 countries who lost citizens, AP said.

    The crush was the deadliest incident to strike the Hajj in 25 years.

    Saudi officials have not updated their death toll – or the number of injured, which stands at 934 – since 25 September.

    Iran says it lost 465 of its citizens, making it the worst affected nation. Many of the dead also came from Africa: Nigeria said it lost 199 people, while Mali lost 198, and Egypt 192, according to the AP count.

    The AP tally comes after Saudi officials said they held a meeting about the disaster late on Sunday night.

    According to the country’s state press agency, SPA, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdul Aziz, who is also the kingdom’s interior minister, oversaw the meeting.

    An investigation into the incident ordered by King Salman in ongoing.

    “The crown prince was reassured on the progress of the investigations,” the SPA report said.

    Previously, the deadliest incident at the Hajj was a 1990 stampede that killed 1,426 people.”

  42. U.S. fighter jet hit during Afghanistan mission (CNN, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/19/politics/afghanistan-u-s-fighter-f-16-jet-hit/index.html

    “Washington (CNN)An American F-16 took fire over Afghanistan last Tuesday, forcing the pilot to make an unscheduled landing.

    The Pentagon did not disclose the incident until media reports emerged.

    According to Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis, the plane was hit by small-arms fire, damaging one of the plane’s stabilizers. That forced the pilot to jettison two external fuel tanks and three pieces of munitions before landing safely.

    A statement from the U.S.-led NATO coalition later on Monday said the F-16 “encountered fire in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan, which hit one of the aircraft’s stabilizers and damaged one of the munitions.”.

    The pilot, U.S. Air Force Capt. Susan Harrington said in the statement, returned the plane safely back to Bagram Airfield, where he landed unharmed.

    “Our pilots routinely face threats from the ground, however they are well-trained and prepared to respond to any threat or attack,” she said.

    She added that until an investigation on the incident has been completed, the military would not know what type of weapons were used.

    A Pentagon official, though, said that the presumption is that it was small arms because if it were a missile, the plane likely would have gone down.”

  43. Libyan Government Rejects UN Power-Sharing Proposal (abcnews, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/libyan-government-rejects-power-sharing-proposal-34580773

    “Libya’s internationally recognized government has rejected a U.N. proposal for a power-sharing arrangement with rival Islamist-led authorities that was intended to bring peace to the north African nation.

    Farraj Abu Hashem, spokesman for the internationally recognized parliament, said Monday that they will not sign the agreement to form a unity government because the U.N. refused to exclude amendments added by the Islamist authorities without their consent.

    Libya slid into chaos after the 2011 toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The internationally recognized government is confined to the far east while a rival Islamist-led government is based in the capital, Tripoli.”

  44. Cyprus to Keep Blocking Full-Fledged EU-Turkey Entry Talks (abcnews, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/cyprus-blocking-full-fledged-eu-turkey-entry-talks-34575988

    “Cyprus will not consent to letting Turkey restart stalled negotiations to join the European Union because Ankara has not done enough to help ongoing talks to reunify the ethnically-split country, its government said Monday.

    Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said there’s nothing yet to compel Cyprus to stop blocking talks between the bloc and Turkey on policy areas, or chapters that deal with justice and security, as well as the judiciary and fundamental rights.

    Earlier Monday, Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides made similar remarks to Greece’s state broadcaster ERT. He told the Cyprus News Agency that although “many other” EU member states want talks with Turkey to resume, Cyprus would stick to its line as long as Ankara doesn’t live up to its obligations.

    Cyprus was divided along ethnic lines in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a Greek junta-backed coup aiming to unite the island with Greece. Turkey doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state and is the only country to recognize a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence while maintaining some 35,000 troops in the breakaway north.

    All EU members must consent to EU entry talks with candidate countries. Cyprus has blocked six of 35 EU-Turkey negotiation chapters since 2009 because of Ankara’s refusal to recognize it and to allow Cypriot ships and airplanes to use its ports and airports.

    But Cyprus’ permanent representative to the EU, Kornelios Korneliou, said Monday that the Cypriot government could agree to EU talks with Turkey on its economy and monetary policy chapter.

    Korneliou told Cyprus’ state radio that the economy and monetary policy chapter isn’t among those that the Cypriot government has frozen.

    Peace talks between Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci are expected to ramp up next month as the leaders delve deeper into the toughest aspects of a deal including rights to property lost during the war.

    On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced her government’s backing for the EU to start entry talks with Turkey on the economy and monetary policy chapter.

    Merkel offered the support after a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss an EU plan offering aid and concessions to Turkey in exchange for measures to halt the flow of irregular migration from that country.

    Anastasiades said he would discuss the issue with Merkel at a European People’s Party congress in Madrid later this week.”

  45. Saudi prince avoids felony charges in sex assault case near Beverly Hills

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-saudi-prince-beverly-hills-20151019-story.html

    Los Angeles County prosecutors will not file charges against a Saudi prince arrested on suspicion of sexual assault at a compound on the edge of Beverly Hills because of insufficient evidence, officials said Monday.

    Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud, 29, was arrested last month for allegedly trying to force a female worker to perform a sex act on him inside a Beverly Glen residence he was renting. Police alleged there were multiple victims and within days of Al-Saud’s arrest, three women sued him.

    But prosecutors said Monday there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Al-Saud with a felony. The case was referred to the L.A. city attorney’s office, which can charge him with a misdemeanor. Officials in the city attorney’s office said they would have to review the case before considering charges.>

    From the beginning, Al-Saud has said he was innocent, said his attorney, Alan Jackson.

  46. Corbyn’s win in not-so-Great Britain is a jolt. Lots of essays generated. This one noted by Mosaic: Coming to Terms with the British Left’s Anti-Semitism.

    Saul Freeman, a lifelong supporter of Britain’s Labor party, writes of his shock at the growing hatred for Israel in its ranks, which is often indistinguishable from pure anti-Semitism. The recent selection of Jeremy Corbyn—a parliamentarian unapologetic about meetings with his “friends” from Hamas and Hizballah—as the party’s leader made the problem clear:
    It’s the Maths, Stupid

    [M]y wife and I . . . are of the left, but are no longer welcome, unless we become “good Jews” who are not “bad, Zionist Jews.” We worry about our son. He will be confronted by “Israeli Apartheid Week” when he arrives on a university campus in a few years. If he is a Jew who believes that Israel has a right to be, he will be hated by many on the student left. My son is an enthusiastic, articulate, and kind boy. The realization that he will be hated by those who will not see any of these attributes, but instead will see only one attribute—his Jewishness—chills me.

    Strangers feel compelled to say hateful things to me. Others threaten violence to all Jews—“go back to Auschwitz, Zionist scum.” All this from the left.

    We slowly become traumatized by the sheer horror of what has unfolded around us. Mostly, we are distressed because we cannot understand why the left is so silent when Jews call out. . . . None of this makes sense. We have no critical lens through which to view this rupture. . . .

    http://hurryupharry.org/2015/10/16/its-the-maths-stupid/

    • Nazis were leftists. The communist pogroms were leftists. Antisemitism is a thing of the left, even when its left wing Jews like Soros who fund and promote much of it. This “Far right wing extremist” thing is something the left made up to try and put daylight between the Nazis and the socialism which is the 3rd letter in their acronym.

      Far right wing people like me believe in small government who’s main function is to protect the rights of the individuals. Jews are individuals and are free to associate with whoever they want and see themselves as whatever identity they want so long as they do not interfere with my rights to do the same. Zionism was a far left movement initially, but it isn’t now. I think that did its chain-stoking in the 70s. Now Zionism is what it should always have been. About the return of a people to land they homesteaded and that the Romans displaced, and most importantly, a land where they have the most natural right in the world. To fight for their own survival as a people and as individuals against those who would collectivize them as merely ‘Jews’ (as you point out) and destroy each and every one of them.

      • Kings always liked their Jews well enough, I guess. Isn’t that about as right-wing as it gets? Even at the worst of times every court had a few advisors and physicians.

        All that kibbutz-collectivism met a need for some who made their way there from the ashes of the Shoah. Fragile individuals, living e pluribus unum.

        The Soviet Union recognized the tiny pseudo-socialist state with a benign smile. Briefly.

        Leftists were disappointed when kibbutzim became agronomy research institutes. And when the cherry-tomato was perfected they were really turned off.

        Now the entrepreneurial, self-promoting “start-up nation” must be burning ulcers in the bellies of the geriatric red-diaper babies all over Europe.

        You took our Jews and gave us Muslims, plaintive protest to Angela Merkel, quickly hushed-up.

        That’s a lovely thought.

        • You can call Kings Rightists but that is simply for lack of another area to assign them to, very few Kings believed in individual rights or individual freedom besides their own. We really need a new way of assigning where the various groups are politically, right now the socialist/communist are the far left and the libertarians are the far right. That leaves the Royals hanging out there with no place to call home, their authoritarian attitudes fit the left much more then the right. In many ways the 1917 revolution in Russia simply replaced the Royal family and the Noble’s (an oligarchy) with the central committee of the communist party, an Oligarchy. That is why Putin feels so comfortable acting like a Czar and if I am right about what is going to happen why he will declare himself Czar to rally the nation.

          The revival of the ancient Empires may usher in a new era of absolute monarchs, look at how Obama is acting and how the left is praising him for his dictatorial actions.

          If you can come up with a better description then left and right please do so, we are in grave need of one.

  47. Egypt to buy Russian helicopters, hardware for new Mistral warships (ahram, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/161322/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-to-buy-Russian-helicopters,-hardware-for-new.aspx

    “The Kremlin’s Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov announced on Monday that Russia will sell Egypt helicopters and other hardware worth over $1 billion to equip the Mistral aircraft carriers Egypt bought from France recently.
    “Russia will be, if you want, a sub-contractor, who will supply the missing equipment without which the Mistral warships are just tin cans. And of course, all the helicopters,” Ivanov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Sputnik.

    Earlier in October Egypt signed a deal with France to buy two Mistral warships that the French originally built for Russia before scrapping the sale over the Ukraine crisis.

    The two ships are expected to arrive in Egypt by the summer of 2016 and the Egyptian naval crew who will man them will receive training in the first six months of the same year.

    Each ship can carry hundreds of troops, transport dozens of vehicles and tanks, and up to 16 helicopters. Their most significant feature is a modern command and control system that can direct the movement of vehicles during battles at sea or on land.”

  48. Taliban hid inside hospital bombed by US forces, claims Afghan minister (tribune, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://tribune.com.pk/story/975516/taliban-hid-inside-hospital-bombed-by-us-forces-claims-afghan-minister/

    “Afghanistan’s acting Defence Minister Masoom Stanekzai claimed on Monday that the hospital in northern city of Kunduz, which was bombed by US forces on October 3, was being used by Taliban insurgents fighting government forces.

    “Taliban insurgents and possibly Pakistani operatives had used the Doctors Without Borders facility in the city of Kunduz as a safe place,” the Associated Press quoted Stanekzai as saying…”

  49. Police arrest Christian healer for blasphemy in Sargodha (tribune, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://tribune.com.pk/story/975535/police-arrest-christian-healer-for-blasphemy-in-sargodha/

    “LAHORE: Pakistani police have arrested a Christian faith healer under the country’s controversial blasphemy laws for having Quranic verses on a sword he used to treat his clients, officials said Monday.

    Naveed John was arrested in the agricultural town of Sargodha, some 175 kilometres southwest of Islamabad, on October 8 after Muslim residents in the area complained, local police official Ameer Mukhtar told AFP.

    “The arrest was made after residents complained that the Christian man used a sword for healing patients on which Quranic verses were inscribed and it was offending for their religious sentiments,” Mukhtar said.

    A case was registered against John under the blasphemy law, a section of which deals with outraging the religious feelings of citizens, he said.

    The accused regarded the sword as a “sacred” item which had healing properties when placed on patients. Offenders can be imprisoned for up to 10 years under the law.

    Investigator Mahmood Ahmad Khan said that police had completed their investigations and submitted a court report…”

  50. Syrian rebels say they receive more weapons for Aleppo battle (reuters, Oct 19, 2015)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/19/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKCN0SD16O20151019

    “Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major government offensive last week.

    The rebels from three groups contacted by Reuters said new supplies had arrived in response to the attack by the army, which is backed up by Russian air strikes and on the ground by Iranian fighters and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

    The delivery of the U.S.-made TOW missiles to rebels in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria appears to be an initial response to the new Russian-Iranian intervention. Foreign states supporting the rebels include Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

    But officials from one of the Aleppo-based rebel groups said the supplies were inadequate for the scale of the assault, one of several ground offensives underway with Russian air support.

    “A few (TOW missiles) will not do the trick. They need dozens,” said one official, declining to be named due to the political sensitivity of the military support program.

    A number of rebel groups vetted by states opposed to Assad have been supplied with weapons via Turkey, part of a program supported by the United States and which has in some cases included military training by the Central Intelligence Agency.

    These groups fight under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army” – a loose affiliation of rebels that do not operate with a centralized command structure and have been widely eclipsed by jihadist groups such as the Nusra Front and Islamic State.

    “We received more supplies of ammunition in greater quantities than before, including mortar bombs, rocket launchers and anti-tank (missiles),” said Issa al-Turkmani, a commander in the FSA-affiliated Sultan Murad group fighting in the Aleppo area. “We have received more new TOWs in the last few days … We are well-stocked after these deliveries.”

    TOW missiles are the most potent weapon in the rebels’ arsenal. FSA-affiliated groups have also been using TOWs against government forces to fend off another offensive in Hama province, southwest of Aleppo.”