Reader’s Links for April 22, 2020

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Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

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

161 Replies to “Reader’s Links for April 22, 2020”

  2. 112 PKK terrorists neutralized in Turkey in a week
    https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/112-pkk-terrorists-neutralized-in-turkey-in-a-week-154110

    “Turkey “neutralized” 112 PKK terrorists in domestic operations since last week, the Interior Ministry said on April 22.

    The counter-terrorism operations, being carried out by gendarmerie and police forces, began on April 15 to thwart terrorist attacks, the ministry said in a statement.

    Nearly 6,000 anti-terror operations are planned to be conducted until Oct. 1 in rural areas and in cities.

    Turkish authorities often use the term “neutralized” to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

    The statement said a soldier had been martyred and 19 security forces wounded so far during recently launched operations.

    Also, the Turkish forces have seized 333 improvised explosives and 451 hand grenades in 738 shelters and caves.

    The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey as well as the U.S. and the European Union. In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants, have been
    killed.”

  3. Bosnia celebrates Turkish parliament’s centenary
    https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/bosnia-celebrates-turkish-parliaments-centenary-154098

    “Bosnia and Herzegovina’s historic Mostar Bridge was illuminated with the colors of the Turkish flag late on April 21 to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Turkey’s parliament.

    “The Grand National Assembly of the Republic of Turkey marks its 100th anniversary. We are celebrating with joy,” the Turkish Consulate General in Mostar said in a statement.

    The Turkish Grand National Assembly was established on April 23, 1920.

    The Mostar Bridge was destroyed by intense artillery shelling launched by Croat forces on Nov. 8, 1993 and collapsed into the waters of the Neretva River the following day.

    It was built in 1566 in Mostar city by Mimar Hayreddin, a student of the famous Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan.

    With the support of Turkey, it was rebuilt in accordance with the design of the original bridge in 2004.

    Mostar Bridge was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2005.”

  4. Ankara blasts Greece over maritime jurisdiction remarks
    https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ankara-blasts-greece-over-maritime-jurisdiction-remarks-154095

    “Turkey late on April 21 slammed a statement by the Greek Foreign Ministry concerning the country’s maritime jurisdiction areas and drilling activities.

    “Greece, with today’s statement, once again exhibits its unrealistic perceptions and rights-refusing attitudes regarding the problems in our region,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy said in a statement.

    Aksoy said the Greek/Greek Cypriot side deliberately ignores the fact that Turkey has legitimate and sovereign rights in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.

    “Turkish Cypriots have equal rights, as the co-owner of the Island, on the resources around the island,” he added.

    Aksoy said the actual threat to peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean “is the maximalist and uncompromising attitude of the Greek and Greek Cypriot duo.”

    “We will resolutely continue to protect both our country’s and the Turkish Cypriots’ rights in the Eastern Mediterranean,” he added.”

  5. Is Germany liable in US drone killing of Iran’s Soleimani?
    https://www.dw.com/en/is-germany-liable-in-us-drone-killing-of-irans-soleimani/a-53211397

    “Prosecutors won’t look into Angela Merkel as an accessory to the Iranian general’s killing, which the US may have coordinated via the Ramstein Air Base. The case creates uncomfortable questions for Germany’s government.

    German prosecutors will not pursue a request by members of the Left party to investigate Chancellor Angela Merkel and key Cabinet ministers as accessories to the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a US drone attack in Baghdad, Iraq, in January.

    The decision, made in March but only revealed this week, ends one of the first tests of a 2019 court ruling in Münster that found that the government is obliged to “ascertain” whether the US is using its Ramstein Air Base in western Germany to violate international law. The government has appealed the ruling.

    US military drones are usually piloted from within the United States, but satellite signals steering attacks in the Middle East are relayed via the US Air Force base. The former drone camera operator Brandon Bryant and other whistleblowers say the base is so vital to the US drone system that attacks would not be possible without Germany’s tacit consent.

    The January 3 assassination of Soleimani, one of Iran’s most powerful military leaders and the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s extraterritorial Quds Force, caused a massive escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran, provoking a retaliatory missile strike on US forces in Iraq and increasing tensions throughout the Middle East. At the time, the German Foreign Ministry itself cautiously questioned the legality of the killing, noting that the United States had not offered “information justifying its reasoning.”

    More scrutiny

    Andreas Schüller, director of the International Crimes and Accountability program at the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said it was good that Germany’s government is being forced to take a closer look at Ramstein, even if the criminal charges have been dropped.

    “At least in Germany,” he said, “it should be reported that, every time a US drone strike happens, we can be 80% or 90% sure that Ramstein played a role.”

    “This does at least make visible again the fact that a state like the US is technically able to commit the murder of senior political figures of other countries anywhere in the world,” Schüller added. “If other countries started doing that, we’d be returning to Wild West methods of who shoots the fastest, and diplomacy is shoved aside.”

    In late February, eight parliamentarians from the Left party filed the charges against Merkel and other members of her government for neglecting to intervene. According to the accusation, which was controversial enough within the Left party for some leaders to distance themselves, the killing showed that the government has “clearly failed” to meet its constitutional obligations to uphold international law on Germany’s soil.

    But federal prosecutors have now declined to launch an investigation. In a letter published on the website of Alexander Neu, one of the Left Bundestag members behind the charges, prosecutors said the German government did not have an obligation to actively do anything to prevent extrajudicial killings abroad, even if Ramstein had been used.

    Paulina Starski, senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, sees the charges mainly as a politicized attempt to increase the pressure on the government and said the prosecutors’ argument was sound. But, Starski said, last year’s court ruling means that the government can’t be let off the hook from a constitutional perspective — Germany must investigate what is happening at Ramstein.

    “Doing absolutely nothing is not possible,” Starski said. “But the question we’re all trying to figure out is: what does ‘ascertain’ mean?” She added that she could imagine that more cases and charges could easily be filed in the future.

    ‘The individual responsibility’

    Heiko Sauer, a constitutional law professor at the University of Bonn, told DW that the court ruling has taken away the government’s argument that it doesn’t know anything about what the United States does at Ramstein. But, he said, the Left party’s charges were bound to fail.

    “My impression is that criminal law is not an appropriate medium to force this through,” Sauer said. “It’s difficult because under criminal law in this case, you would need to prove the individual responsibility of a certain person for a crime that someone else committed.”

    Sauer said a more fruitful legal course of action might be for the victims of such attacks to pursue compensation from Germany. The government voluntarily granted compensation to families of the about 90 people killed by a US fighter plane in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in 2009 while responding to a call from German forces in the area.

    Complicating the issue is the fact that, from the courts’ point of view, and despite the testimony of whistleblowers such as Bryant, it remains unclear what exactly goes on at Ramstein, which helps Germany’s government stonewall media. It appears clear that the drones in the Middle East are not controlled at Ramstein, nor are orders issued there. And yet, according to Schüller, Ramstein is certainly a key element of the drone system, as it is one of the very few US Air Force bases outside the United States equipped with a “Distributed Common Ground System” — a hub for intelligence data.

    But, Schüller said, the US military has been working to make itself less dependent on the base, and has built more data relay stations since then. In fact, it is not clear to him that information was relayed via Ramstein in the killing of Soleimani. “Probably no one knows that except for the US itself, and only if they can trace the data streams, as they come from various sources,” he said.

    As it stands, US secrecy helps Germany maintain its own plausible deniability, even if more court cases are likely.”

  6. Dozens die in clashes across Afghanistan as US struggles to broker Taliban cease-fire
    https://www.france24.com/en/20200422-afghanistan-taliban-clashes-mes-aynak-copper-mine-logar-usa-peace-deal

    “Clashes between Afghan forces and Taliban militants killed dozens nationwide over the past 24 hours, authorities said on Wednesday, even as the United States tries to broker peace talks between the warring sides.

    Eight security force members were killed in a Taliban attack on a checkpoint at the Mes Aynak Copper Mine in eastern Logar province on Tuesday evening, Abdul Qadeer Mutfi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Mine and Petroleum Ministry, said in a tweet.

    The insurgent group also attacked several checkpoints in northern Sar-e-Pul province, provincial governor spokesman Zabihullah Amani said, killing 11 Afghan security force members, wounding 19 and resulting in one being captured by the Taliban.

    Attacks are threatening to derail a fragile peace process, with the Taliban rejecting the Afghan government’s repeated calls for a ceasefire as the country also attempts to deal with a growing coronavirus outbreak and prisoner exchanges to take place with an eye to formal peace talks.

    After a week-long reduction in violence leading up to the signing of a troop withdrawal agreement with the United States in February, the Taliban resumed attacks on Afghan forces, though it has held back on attacking foreign forces.

    The United States and other foreign powers have called for the militant group to reduce its attacks, with the commander of U.S. forces this month meeting the Taliban leadership in Qatar over the issue.

    The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump and Qatari leader Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani agreed in a phone call on Wednesday on the importance of the Taliban reducing violence in Afghanistan.

    The two leaders also agreed on the importance of continuing discussions on prisoner releases in Afghanistan, the White House added in a statement.

    The Afghan Ministry of Interior said in a tweet that a clearance operation in Logar had resulted in 20 Taliban fighters being killed.

    In southern Kandahar province, clashes in three districts killed four Afghan security force members and 31 Taliban fighters, according to a provincial police statement.

    A roadside blast also killed at least four civilians in central Ghazni province late Tuesday night, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, accusing the Taliban of planting a bomb.

    A Taliban spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. The group has not made any public claim of responsibility for Tuesday’s attacks.”

  7. BBC – Coronavirus advice ignored by Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro

    Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has come under criticism for his response to coronavirus, most recently for attending an anti-lockdown rally where he was seen coughing without covering his mouth.