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Saturday, June 4, 2022

Points that Putin Apologists Miss

 


 



  • The second charge related to NATO's alleged rush to included Ukraine, or what [Professor John] Mearsheimer calls "reckless expansion", provoked Putin is equally absurd.

  • For almost two decades, Russia made no objection to NATO enlargement that included former members of the Warsaw Pact. Under Putin, Russia even concluded a deal for cooperation with NATO on issues of mutual security with the Helsinki Accords as historic reference. In 2002, Putin met NATO Secretary-General George (Lord) Robinson and quipped that "maybe it is time NATO invited Russia to become a member."

  • In NATO's 2008 Bucharest summit, both Georgia and Ukraine expressed the desire to apply for membership but were quietly told not to submit formal applications. The undeclared reason was the persistence of irredentist problems both had with Russia. Putin interpreted that as a rebuff to Kiev and Tbilisi by NATO and invaded Georgia, snatching South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

  • What would Putin do if China invaded Russia to regain control of territory that was once Chinese?

  • If we accept that what once belonged to one state can never belong to another, Crimea must be handed over to Turkey as successor to the Ottoman caliphate....

What would Russian President Vladimir Putin do if China invaded Russia to regain control of territory that was once Chinese? If we accept that what once belonged to one state can never belong to another, Crimea must be handed over to Turkey as successor to the Ottoman caliphate, or, even better, the Tatar khans who ruled it before the Ottomans. Pictured: Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on February 4, 2022. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

Who do you think is to blame for the war in Ukraine?

For the Blame-America-International the answer is simple: the culprit is the United States.

At one end of the Blame-America International (BAI), we find usual suspects such as the Khomeinist mullahs, the Sudanese and Burmese jackboots, the Maoists of Eritrea, the Assad clan in Damascus and the bad boys of Belarus. These one could dismiss if only because their mercenary status is clear.

It is at the other end of the spectrum that one finds a potentially more dangerous narrative at a time that what is euphemistically referred to as the world order is facing its biggest challenge since World War II. For here we find individuals and groups that try to use, or rather abuse, such labels as "public intellectuals" and/ or "elder statesmen" to legitimize Vladimir Putin's invasion.

That narrative is peddled by people like former UK Foreign Secretary David Lord Owen, professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, British columnist Peter Hitchens, and a string of lesser known figures in Europe and the United States.

They all build their narrative around three charges.

The first is that Putin and his Russia must be seen as victims of the United States' insatiable quest for global hegemony by constantly trying to downgrade Russia's status.

The second is that, by trying to include Ukraine in its ranks, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) posed a direct threat to Russia's national security, a threat that no Russian leader could ignore.

The third is that Ukrainian leaders, prompted by Washington, refused to recognize Russia's right to "reintegrate" the Crimean Peninsula, a part of Russian homeland that Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian chauvinist disguised as a Bolshevik, snatched away from Mother Russia.

As for the first charge, the opposite may be nearer to the truth.

Four successive US administrations starting with George WH Bush's went out of their way not only to soften the shock caused by the collapse of the Soviet Empire but also to recognize Russia as its legitimate successor with "superpower" status.

Although post-Soviet Russia was diminished in terms of demographic, economic, diplomatic and military power, all treaties and procedural agreements concluded with the USSR remained in force. The US worked closely with Moscow to smooth the difficult transition that Europe faced as the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and the European Union enlarged.

Anxious to keep Russia "on board," the US campaigned for Russia's membership of the G7 (which became G8) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), helped open global capital markets to Russia, and encouraged American businesses to heavily invest in developing the post-Soviet economy.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the American stamp of approval played a key role in encouraging other foreign investment, especially European, followed by the biggest transfer of technology witnessed in Russian history.

The second charge related to NATO's alleged rush to included Ukraine, or what Mearsheimer calls "reckless expansion", provoked Putin is equally absurd.

To start with, NATO never invites any state to join. It is up to other states to apply for membership and, to this day, Ukraine has not done so and, if it did, it is clear that its application would be unacceptable under NATO's rules, which exclude any country with unresolved irredentist and/or other territorial disputes with any other nation.

For almost two decades, Russia made no objection to NATO enlargement that included former members of the Warsaw Pact. Under Putin, Russia even concluded a deal for cooperation with NATO on issues of mutual security, with the Helsinki Accords as historic reference. In 2002, Putin met NATO Secretary-General George (Lord) Robinson and quipped that "maybe it is time NATO invited Russia to become a member."

Robinson wasn't sure whether that was a serious approach or Russian black humor but reminded Putin that NATO never issues invitation but would consider applications.

In NATO's 2008 Bucharest summit, both Georgia and Ukraine expressed the desire to apply for membership but were quietly told not to submit formal applications. The undeclared reason was the persistence of irredentist problems both had with Russia. Putin interpreted that as a rebuff to Kiev and Tbilisi by NATO and invaded Georgia, snatching South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The "provocation" charge is equally nonsensical.

However, even if there was provocation shouldn't one apportion blame between the provoker and the provoked? Isn't the rapist who claims he was provoked because his victim wore provocative dress at least as much to blame as the victim?

Without saying so, the pro-Putin chorus is advocating a new concept, that of limited sovereignty for countries that were once part of the Tsarist and/or Soviet empires. That concept would apply not only to Ukraine and Georgia but also to the Baltic republics and the Eastern European members of the defunct Warsaw Pact. In his latest rhetoric, Putin has extended that concept to Central Asian republics, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania in the Balkans.

More importantly, perhaps, should the "threat to national security" be regarded as an excuse exclusive to Vladimir Putin?

The Montevideo Convention of 1933-34, in its Article 8, stipulated that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal and external affairs of another." Later, it became a fundamental principle of the United Nations and the world order that has shaped the global system for seven decades.

Mercifully, not even Éric Zemmour repeats Putin's absurd claim that Ukraine is governed by neo-Nazis, implying that the current war is a sequel to World War II.

However, the claim that Ukraine's refusal to accept the loss of Crimea, and presumably also of Donbas, left Putin with no choice but to invade is equally questionable. What would Putin do if China invaded Russia to regain control of territory that was once Chinese?

If we accept that what once belonged to one state can never belong to another, Crimea must be handed over to Turkey as successor to the Ottoman caliphate, or, even better, the Tatar khans who ruled it before the Ottomans. As for Donbas and chunks of southern Russia returning to "original owners", this means the revival of the Cossack state that once controlled both.

It is a pity, not to say a shame, that hatred for America has led so many otherwise sane people to endorse Putin's authorship of a great tragedy.

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.

This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

 

China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding U.S. to Defeat

 


 

  • "The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020." — Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2021, US Dept. of Defense.

  • "In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate." — General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations, quoted in The Washington Post, November 30, 2021.

  • "Look at what they [CCP) have today.... We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed." — General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, breakingdefense.com, November 4, 2021.

  • "[T]he Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time." — Timothy Heath, senior international and defense researcher at Rand Corporation, Business Insider, January 4, 2022.

  • "To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well." ­­ — Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.

  • There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination.... a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.

  • This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine.

  • "The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad." — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Associated Press, March 7, 2022.

  • "For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently." ­­ — Admiral Charles Richard, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.

  • [T]his is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.

  • Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," said Milley. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."

  • "Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation. Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability." — Representative Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.) House Armed Services Committee, Defense News, April 5, 2022.

The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Pictured: DF-17 hypersonic missiles at a military parade in Beijing, China, on October 1, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

When the Pentagon assessed China's nuclear arsenal in its annual report to Congress on China's military power in November 2020, it projected that China's nuclear warhead stockpile, which the Pentagon then estimated to be in the low 200s, would "at least double in size" over the next decade. The Pentagon also estimated that China was "pursuing" a "nuclear triad", meaning a combination of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear capabilities.

Just one year later, in November 2021, the Pentagon found itself acknowledging that China's nuclear buildup was taking place at an astonishing speed, with the nuclear warhead stockpile now possibly quadrupling from the estimated low 200s in 2020 over the next decade:

"The accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020."

In addition, China is no longer merely "pursuing" a nuclear triad but appears to have already achieved the basics of it:

"The PRC has possibly already established a nascent 'nuclear triad' with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities."

China, according to the report, is also "constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this force expansion, including increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities," while "building hundreds of new ICBM silos, and is on the cusp of a large silo-based ICBM force expansion comparable to those undertaken by other major powers."

The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Last summer, for instance, China tested its first hypersonic weapon. In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate," according to General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations. China and Russia's combined in-orbit space assets grew approximately 70% in just two years, following a more than 200% increase between 2015 and 2018 according to Kevin Ryder, Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst for space and counterspace in the U.S.

According to General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"If you look at, again, 40 years ago, they had zero satellites...They had no ICBMs...They had no nuclear weapons... They had no fourth or fifth-generation fighters or even more advanced fighters, back then... They had no navy...They had no sub-force. Look at what they have today... So if you look at the totality, this test [of a hypersonic weapon] that occurred a couple weeks ago, is only one of a much, much broader picture of a military capability with respect to the Chinese. That is very, very significant. We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed."

According to Timothy Heath, a senior international and defense researcher at the Rand Corporation think tank:

"It's important to see the modernizing nuclear arsenal as part of the bigger picture, in which the Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time."

On April 20, 2021, U.S. Strategic Command's chief Admiral Charles Richard made it clear in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that China is no longer a lesser nuclear threat than Russia:

"While China's nuclear stockpile is currently smaller (but undergoing an unprecedented expansion) than those fielded by Russia and the United States, the size of a nation's weapons stockpile is a crude measure of its overall strategic capability. To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well. They are no longer a 'lesser included case of the pacing nuclear threat, Russia." (Emphasis in original).

China's nuclear acceleration is not all, however. There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination: In February, the two powers declared that they were entering into a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.

This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine. China has not only supplied material support through a variety of deals with Russia, it has also refrained from condemning Russia's invasion and has criticized the sanctions.

In March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Russia the "most important strategic partner" for China.

"No matter how perilous the international landscape, we will maintain our strategic focus and promote the development of a comprehensive China-Russia partnership in the new era... The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad."

On April 19, China reassured Russia that it will continue to increase "strategic coordination."

China-Russia cooperation is going to affect US strategic deterrence. Admiral Richard told the Senate Armed Services Committee in early March that the US needs to have plans for scenarios in which the two powers cooperate militarily, adding:

"I'm very concerned about what opportunistic aggression looks like. I'm worried about what cooperative aggression looks like... We do not know the endpoints of where either of those other two are going either in capability or capacity. We're just now starting to work out what three-party stability looks like, what three-party deterrence dynamic works out."

In his April 20, 2021 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard said:

"For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low."

In the light of China's accelerating nuclear buildup -- and the nuclear threat that Russia poses with its thousands of tactical nuclear weapons -- this is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.

The missile, according to the Wall Street Journal, "is considered a 'tactical' nuclear weapon that has a lower yield than 'strategic' options and might be used on battlefield targets. The missile could be launched from submarines or destroyers" and "is needed to deter Russia and others" and, according to the article, would also be useful "in dissuading China from using a nuke on Taiwan, without the longer and fraught debate of, say, putting American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil... [and] reduce proliferation at a volatile moment."

The acceleration of China's nuclear and military modernization, and the new situation of tri-polar deterrence that the U.S. finds itself in for the first time, necessitate increases in US military research and development, acquisition and procurement. Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Gen. Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," Milley noted. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."

"Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation," Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said. "Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability."

Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

 

Concerning 'China's Master Plan to Destroy America'

 


 

(Image source: iStock)

China has been unabashed about making its intentions known. Already in 1999, two colonels in China's People's Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiansui, wrote, "Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America." In it, the authors "suggest the significance of alternatives to direct military confrontation, including international policy, economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure and networks, and terrorism. Even a relatively insignificant state can incapacitate a far more powerful enemy by applying pressure to their economic and political systems." Ideally, "one might not even know that one is the target."

There seem to be so many policy decisions now that would appear to help America's adversaries such as Russia and especially China, rather than what is best for America, that, on February 2, 2022, the Republican Leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy -- despite a disagreement with former President Donald Trump and a subsequent "genuflection" by way of apology -- after mentioning the current administration's "self-created crises," noted that "Almost every page," of the Biden Administration's 3000 page America Competes Act "has a provision that helps China but hurts America." McCarthy cited, among other matters:

On page 1689, it provides a new, unlimited green card program for the Chinese Communist Party to exploit. It also allows research funds to freely flow to colleges and universities that host Confucius Institutes – which are essentially CCP propaganda centers that censor our campuses.

These policies would make our nation more vulnerable to Chinese espionage, which is already widespread.

In fact, the threat of Chinese spying in America is so widespread that the FBI has 2,000 active cases to counter it, and opens a new case every 12 hours. "

On page 1392, it gives $8 billion of taxpayer money to the unaccountable UN Green Climate fund, which has already funneled at least $100 million to China.

And to make matters worse: when Republicans offered amendments to prevent China from accessing that money, Democrats said no.

Now, American tax dollars could be used to fund solar panels and batteries made by slave labor.....

Just three years ago, there were bipartisan discussions to start a China Task Force. Discussions lasted for a year.

But when we were ready to launch the group in February 2020, Speaker Pelosi walked away.....

On the issue of COVID – perhaps the greatest offense China has committed – House Republicans offered eight reasonable solutions to achieve justice for Americans and hold China accountable

"One of those solutions was to relocate the Olympics from Beijing. This has been House Republicans' firm position from the beginning.....

The actions of the majority tell you all you need to know about who they truly want to help:

Themselves. Their corporate allies. And the Chinese Communist Party.

Well, if that's how America competes with China, then America is going to lose.

I implore my colleagues to take some time and think deeply about what our country stands for....

The future of our country is at stake.... [Emphases in the original.]

We saw, in addition, how the Biden administration closed virtually all energy exploration and development as well as thousands of American jobs, its first day in office. This was reportedly done to help create a clean planet free of carbon emissions and to promote the manufacture of solar panels and electric vehicles. It turns out however that planes do not yet fly by using windmills or solar panels. In fact, the leading country manufacturing solar panels and the batteries needed for electric vehicles is... China. The Chinese Communist Party, the leading manufacturer of batteries needed for electric vehicles, not only has what has been called an obsession about acquiring rare earth minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries, but has also building more than half the coal plants than the rest of the world combined.

That leads to the subject of dark (anonymous) money, funneled to politicians and officials through Bermuda, where privacy policies do not require donors to disclose their identities, thereby creating the captivating potential for them to be the ones who determine America's policies -- possibly policies that help those donors but that set America back. An earlier article on these pages noted that:

"The loophole has apparently been serving as an open invitation for Russia -- in particular its largest oil and gas company, Gazprom -- to channel unlimited, unaccountable millions in dark money (anonymous donations) to American non-governmental organizations; these then fund 'green' programs that discourage 'dirty' energy exploration, and encourage the use of 'clean' energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines. Unfortunately, even if they were able to meet all energy needs -- which is disputed -- they are not widely available or ready for use."

Why did Biden effectively close the US oil spigots so that he is now imploring America's adversaries, such as Iran and Russia and Venezuela, for oil, and offering to provide them with jobs and profits rather than Americans? The planet's air will be just as carbon-filled.

Is it possible , as Peter Schweizer has reported here, here, here and here, , that there are many people inside America, like a fifth column, willing to sell out our country for profits and their quarterly shareholder reports? Every investment in China not only supports a country that takes its profits from slave labor and organ-harvesting from live prisoners until they died when their heart were removed, but also is developing an advanced war machine to displace America as the world's leading superpower. If we want an America like that, all we have to do is look at what the Chinese Communist Party has done in Tibet, Hong Kong and the lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities. No safe spaces there.

Recently it emerged that the president himself offered amendments to an upcoming bill to be voted on by the World Health Assembly the week of May 22. Alarmingly, the bill would reportedly make all US policy on healthcare legally dependent on the World Health Organization (WHO). When Taiwan informed the WHO early on that the COVID-19 virus was transmissible human-to-human, the WHO chose to disregard the warning. The WHO instead proceeded, apparently at the behest of China, to lie to the world about the warning. According to reports based on US intelligence, China has also been busy gene-splicing to create "super soldiers," as well as collecting DNA from people around the world, possibly to develop a virus that is even more lethal for biowarfare against the US.

Domestically, why is the national debt being run up beyond a ruinous $30 trillon? From whom are we borrowing that much and to whom will we be paying "the interest rate comet"? China?

Why are is our government allowing, without any reaction, the deaths of more than 107,000 of its own citizens from fentanyl and other drugs, largely from China, that are smuggled in daily through our open southern border?

Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.

 

More Islamic Death Threats in Europe: Dutch MP Geert Wilders Targeted Twice

 


 

 

  • Geert Wilders has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance...

  • What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. To others, it seems, this commitment, is not a plus. Radical cleric Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan, for instance, recently proclaimed: "The rascals like Geert Wilders can't be stopped by mere condemnation. He must be handed over to Muslims for public execution to ensure world peace."

  • "It is no use threatening me, Muslims in Pakistan, Netherlands or anywhere else. Fatwas won't stop me.... Freedom is my ideology. And no one will stop me." — Geert Wilders, Twitter, April 15, 2022.

  • "An Imam who wants a politician dead is—however reprehensible—allowed to say so." — Geert Wilders, NIS News Bulletin. March 15, 2005.

  • Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe." — Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch Parliament, September 6, 2007.

  • "There is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'. As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said the other day, and I quote, 'There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it."' — Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch Parliament, September 6, 2007.

  • "We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us." — Geert Wilders, Middle East Online, May 31, 2011.

  • "'I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the less freedom we get.' He opened the press conference with a quote from George Orwell's preface to Animal Farm: 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear'". — Margaret Davis, quoting Geert Wilders, in The Independent, October 16, 2009.

  • The American version [of George Orwell's Ministry of Truth, the US Disinformation Governance Board] is to be headed by a supposed "expert" on disinformation, Nina Jankowicz, who already has a record of unexpertly dismissing Hunter Biden's easily verifiable laptop as a "Trump Campaign product;" supporting the notoriously false "Steele Dossier;" saying on National Public Radio: "I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms," and, while discussing "online abuse" against women, she actually recommended deploying the police...

  • "Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." — Frederick Douglass, freed slave, December 9, 1860.

  • Freedom of speech in free nations should supersede imposing even more limitations on freedom.

  • As the powers that be continue clamping down on the free speech we all should cherish, we must recognize the value and strength that people like Wilders, and even those who burn flags, bring to the public square. We may or may not agree with their views, but should recognize that through their freedom of expression they enrich the debate and discourse. They make us stronger, not weaker.

Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament, has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance... What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. Pictured: Wilders speaks to the media outside the Dutch Parliament on March 22, 2021. (Photo by Phil Nijhuis/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Last month, a Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders -- the leader of the Party for Freedom, which is the largest opposition party in the Netherlands' Parliament -- received two fatwas. Fatwas, officially, are Islamic religious opinions; they sometimes contain calls, however, to kill whomever might be considered insufficiently supportive of Islam or its prophet, Mohammad.

Wilders has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance, and pointing out problems in radical, violent Islamist extremism. Because of this, he has been the target of frequent death threats by Islamist leaders. There are many who appear to prefer religious conformity, restricted speech and often the death penalty for what they might consider blasphemy.

As for this author, born in the Netherlands, it was always a particular pleasure for many years, while serving as a member of the US Congress, to meet with political visitors from the Netherlands to the US. A special one, with whom I often met, is Wilders.

What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. To others, it seems, this commitment, is not a plus. Radical cleric Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan, for instance, recently proclaimed: "The rascals like Geert Wilders can't be stopped by mere condemnation. He must be handed over to Muslims for public execution to ensure world peace."

Another radical Islamist leader, Saad Hussain Rizvi Sahib, according to an online post, "issued a fatwa against the Arrogant [sic] Greet [sic] Wilders, to Kill [sic] him and he ordered Ummat-a-Muslima to spread this message to Muslims of Haaland and kill him as soon as possible."

In response to these latest threats, Wilders tweeted: "It is no use threatening me, Muslims in Pakistan, Netherlands or anywhere else. Fatwas won't stop me..... Freedom is my ideology. And no one will stop me."

After years of countless threats, Wilders, since 2004, has been forced to live with around-the-clock security, generously provided by the Dutch government. "It is a situation," he has said, "that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy". "I am in prison," he has said privately; "they are walking around free."

"An Imam," Wilders has noted, "who wants a politician dead is—however reprehensible—allowed to say so."

Wilders' first alleged "offense," in 2004, was to have been part of a team that created a ten-minute film, Submission, produced and directed by Theo van Gogh, to dramatize the abuse of Muslim women that sometimes takes place based on three Quranic suras: 4:34, 2:222 and 24:2.

Film critic Phill Hall wrote:

"'Submission' was bold in openly questioning misogyny and a culture of violence against women because of Koranic interpretations. The questions raised in the film deserve to be asked: is it divine will to assault or kill women? Is there holiness in holding women at substandard levels, denying them the right to free will and independent thought? And ultimately, how can such a mindframe exist in the 21st century?"

After Submission (the English for the word "Islam") was released, a 26 year old Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, Mohammad Bouyeri, murdered van Gogh by shooting him and slitting his throat. Bouyeri later told a Dutch court, "If I ever get free, I would do it again." Papers on a knife stuck in van Gogh's body warned that Wilders, among others, would be next. Since then, for 18 years, Wilders has had constantly to move from one safe house to another, unable to live in his own home or with the freedom to go out alone in public. His life, every minute, is in extreme danger.

Wilders, nonetheless, sees the personal sacrifice as the price to be paid to advocate for a free society and free speech, saying:

"[T]he point is, if you really speak out in favour of freedom, let alone if you use the freedom of speech. ... [a]nd why Islam (I'm not talking about the people, but the ideology of Islam) why they are not free. ... [y]ou either get fatwas as I got; you are taken to court by people who hate your guts. You are silenced in parliament...."

Free speech, he comments, is "absolute for the people who talk according to the wishes of the elite that are in charge. But if you diverge from that, it's very relative, it's non-existent."

Wilders is indeed extremely outspoken. To the Dutch Parliament, he said, "Islam, is the Trojan Horse in Europe, and, "there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'. As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said the other day, and I quote, 'There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it.'"

In New York, after the 9/11 attacks, he said, "We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us."

In London, he said, "I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the less freedom we get [and quoting George Orwell]: 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear'".

Yet, despite years of death threats and a lifestyle no one would want, he remains a passionate advocate for free speech. This conviction -- aligned with America's First Amendment and dating back to our founding fathers, flies in the face of today's trends in the West where "cancel culture" runs rampant and people try to silence those with whom they disagree.

Here in the US, you were not allowed to talk freely about the very real possibility that the Covid virus, which has killed more than six million people worldwide, may have escaped from a Chinese laboratory; and you were blocked from making any statements about treatments for Covid that were not approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You also could not, in the middle of a national campaign for the presidency, talk about Hunter Biden's laptop computer, filled with potentially damaging evidence that voters might find useful as they assessed which candidate to vote for.

The most recent assault on freedom of speech in the US now comes from the Department of Homeland Security, which is armed: the Disinformation Governance Board. According to its website, it supposedly "protects free speech." The great American public, evidently sensing something awry, immediately renamed it "The Ministry of Truth" after the government's propaganda center in George Orwell's novel, 1984.

The American version is to be headed by a supposed "expert" on disinformation, Nina Jankowicz, who already has a record of unexpertly dismissing Hunter Biden's easily verifiable laptop as a "Trump Campaign product;" supporting the notoriously false "Steele Dossier;" saying on National Public Radio: "I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms," and, while discussing "online abuse" against women, she actually recommended deploying the police:

"We need to at least upskill police officers and local law enforcement to deal with these things and perhaps start some collaboration... Online, that just doesn't exist yet. So I'm hopeful for that architecture to come into play."

The historian Robert Spencer commented:

"'[D]isinformation' and 'hate' re entirely subjective categories, based on the point of view of the person who is doing the evaluating.... [and] who gets to decide what 'hate speech' is? Nina Jankowicz, apparently."

As the freed slave Frederick Douglass said in 1860:

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money."

Who really believes that the rhetoric of Wilders -- or just about all of us, for that matter -- would ever pass the scrutiny of the new Orwellian-sounding federal Disinformation Governance Board? Certainly not those who embrace free speech. In my years in Congress there were frequent votes about flag desecration, well-intended attempts by colleagues to ban defiling the American flag. I love our flag as much as anyone can, but voted every time against making flag desecration a crime. Freedom of speech in free nations should supersede imposing even more limitations on freedom.

As Wilders receives still new fatwas, we would do well recognize the price that he and others have paid for expressing their points of view. As the powers that be continue clamping down on the free speech we all should cherish, we must recognize the value and strength that people like Wilders, and even those who burn flags, bring to the public square. We may or may not agree with their views, but should recognize that through their freedom of expression they enrich the debate and discourse. They make us stronger, not weaker.

Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.

 

Europe: Demography Governs Democracy

 


 

  • There is a replacement of civilization and the media is not even covering it.

  • "By 2050, 50 percent of the French population will be mixed." — Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Radio Classique, May 17, 2021.

  • "The mayor of Grenoble adopts the arguments and rhetorical formulas of the Muslim Brotherhood: talking about freedom to impose sexism". — Céline Pina, Le Figaro, May 4, 2022.

  • This wokeism talk pretends to be "inclusive" but carefully excludes entire groups on the clearly racist basis of skin color (whites) or ethnicity (Jews). Wokeism, filled with progressive, racist talk, pretends not to be racist but meanwhile is imbued with the syrupy racist ideology of "diversity" -- which advocates replacing a society by immigration. It also promotes political correctness, a deadly virus that paralyzes the vital reflexes of the West. Wokeism is the ideal ground for the debut of political Islam in Europe.

  • This ever-increasing percentage of Turkish, Bosnian, Kosovar, Iranian and Iraqi politicians in Germany will increasingly influence the choices of the first European power in matters of immigration and multiculturalism.

  • "What we see in big cities today will be normal for the whole country in the future. In a city like Frankfurt, we will have between 65 percent and 70 percent." — Herbert Brücker, head of migrant research at the Federal Institute for Employment Research, Die Welt, April 11, 2019.

  • "The massive vote for Mélenchon is proof that the strategy of community victimization that began in the 1990s produced what it was intended to produce in one or two generations. Mélenchon gathered a large part of the Muslim vote, which obviously does not make it a Muslim or Islamist party, but only a 'cuckoo' party. Like the cuckoo hatching its eggs in the nest of a bird of another species, a cuckoo party shelters and protects ideas that are not its own. The Muslim Brothers have a strategy that they expressed in their plans from the 1980s: to form an alliance with the most docile parties to propagate their ideas". — Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, anthropologist, Marianne.net. April 22, 2022.

There is a replacement of civilization in Europe and the media is not even covering it. (Image source: iStock)

There is a replacement of civilization and the media is not even covering it.

Sept pas vers l'enfer ("Seven Steps to Hell"), the new book by Alain Chouet, the former number two of the DGSE, the powerful French counter-intelligence service, is an indictment of the European élites. Chouet recalls:

"I have been invited every year to give a lecture on the problems of the Arab world in Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels. One day I was there... when Philippe Moureaux, the city's socialist mayor and big boss of the Belgian Socialist Party, took the front row flanked by two imposing bodyguards in djellabas, beards and white berets. To the audience, Moureaux said I was not qualified to discuss the Arab world, as I came from a country that had tortured Muslims in Algeria. His reasoning is significant in the way in which, since the late 1980s, the European left has allowed itself to be taken by the sirens of militant Salafism. The management of Molenbeek is exemplary in this sense: authorizations granted easily and without any control for the opening and functioning of mosques, Islamic private schools, cultural and sports clubs generously subsidized by Saudi Arabia".

25 out of 89 member of the Brussels Regional Parliament are not of European origin.

Chouet continues:

"I accuse political leaders of never wanting to understand the rise of radical Islam and of deliberately ignoring it because of the electorate and 'politically correctness'. I accuse them of allowing several municipalities to develop jihadist radicalism for years, to the point that a socialist official told me: 'We know Molenbeek's problem, but what do you want, it is an electorate that cannot be neglected'".

It now is France's turn. "Is the Muslim vote decisive?" the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud asked in the French weekly Le Point.

The re-election of Emmanuel Macron was predicted. The real shock from the last French presidential election was the resounding boom of the radical left. The candidate of the pro-immigration party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of "La France Insoumise" ("Rebellious France"), made dramatic progress compared to 2017. He received 22.2% of the vote, just one point behind Marine Le Pen. Notably, he received 69% of Muslim vote.

"Mélenchon," said the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in an interview with French television Europe 1 "is betting on the Great Replacement to acquire more power". Finkielkraut had also mentioned the "Great Replacement" in January, when he said that the replacement of the European people by Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners was "obvious."

"This is in fact a fragmentation and yes, this risk does exist and in any event, I think the demographic change of Europe is extremely spectacular. The historical people in certain municipalities and regions are becoming a minority."

France's suburbs and large cities with a high rate of immigration have been the heart of Mélenchon's political project, and where he received 60% of the votes in the elections.[1]

What do these numbers tell us? That many have gotten on the bandwagon of political Islam, and the feeling of communal solidarity has yielded the desired results. Mélenchon, who participated in "marches against Islamophobia" and compared Muslims in 2022 to Jews in 1942, predicted the "creolization" of France: "By 2050, 50 percent of the French population will be mixed".

"I am the only one who defended the Muslims", Mélenchon openly claims . He was heralded in working-class neighborhoods, in particular thanks to the Muslim vote, according to Le Figaro.

Although other candidates had also supported the claims of political Islam, "There is a category in which Jean-Luc Mélenchon is very strong, where he is the strongest", Brice Teinturier (Ipsos) warned. "[T]hese are French Muslims, where he is between 45% and 49%..."

In short, a new national dynamic can be seen: demography governs democracy. The common theme between supporters of these candidates and supporters of Islam appears to be an aversion to Western societies, which, using the progressive language and symbols of "woke", they apparently want to displace -- ostensibly to impose a more "inclusive" and "cosmopolitan" society that would be austere, forbidding and fundamentalist.

When the city of Grenoble, for instance, recently approved wearing burkinis in its public swimming pools, the mayor justified the change as a form of social inclusion. "The mayor of Grenoble", Céline Pina wrote in Le Figaro, "adopts the arguments and rhetorical formulas of the Muslim Brotherhood: talking about freedom to impose sexism."

This wokeism talk pretends to be "inclusive" but carefully excludes entire groups on the clearly racist basis of skin color (whites) or ethnicity (Jews). Wokeism, filled with progressive, racist talk, pretends not to be racist but meanwhile is imbued with the syrupy racist ideology of "diversity" -- which advocates replacing a society by immigration. It also promotes political correctness, a deadly virus that paralyzes the vital reflexes of the West. Wokeism is the ideal ground for the debut of political Islam in Europe.

France Strategy, an autonomous institution accountable to the Prime Minister, published a shocking study last October, which showed that there are 25 cities in France where the percentage of non-European young people is between 70% and 79%. More than 70% reside in four Seine-Saint-Denis cities.[2]

"There is an extraordinary correlation between Mélenchon's vote and the share of immigrants of non-European origin in the Paris region," wrote the analyst Sylvain Catherine.

In Montpellier, "there are more practicing Muslims than practicing Christians, and while the churches are not very crowded, the mosques are full", the Midi Libre newspaper reported. There, Mélenchon found an immense reserve of votes. In Créteil, for instance, a symbolic city of immigration in the Marne Valley, Mélenchon received 40%.

Erwan Seznec, the author of the book Nos élus et l'islam ("Our Elected and Islam"), detailed how so many of the French leadership have allowed Islamism to flourish in these cities. From Denain to Perpignan, sizeable numbers of elected officials have ambiguous relations with their Muslim voters. In exchange for votes, they watch out for their homes, jobs and prayer rooms. Islamist activists, in turn, fight to care for their supportive politicians. Bernard Rougier, author of the book Les territoires conquis de l'islamisme, ("The Territories Conquered by Islamism") cautioned two years ago that "In the next elections, in Mélenchon's party, there will be candidates of this Islamist fabric..."

Mélenchon received 61% percent in centers such as Trappes, a symbol of the Islamization of provincial cities:

"70 percent Muslim, 40-50 different nationalities that take on the appearance of some Lebanese localities, microworlds enclosed in the perimeter of another religious reality and civilization. The ethnic grid of the Balkans is also not far off."

In Roubaix, in a city already 40% Muslim, Mélenchon received 50% of the vote. In Mulhouse, the Alsatian city chosen by Macron to launch a project to contain political Islam, Mélenchon won 36% of the vote. In Nîmes, where Mélenchon effortlessly won, non-European immigration is expanding and, according to Le Monde, "the share of inhabitants born outside Europe rose from 7.3% to 16.3% of the population between 1990 and 2017".

In the second round of the elections, most Mélenchon voters opted for Macron. During Ramadan, the Great Mosque of Paris even organized for Macron's re-election an iftar-dinner. Christophe Castaner, Macron's former interior minister and president of his party, attended it. The votes for Macron rolled in. Trappes voted 74%, for Macron, 20 points above the national average; in Roubaix, 70%; in Grigny, 70%; in La Courneuve, 77%; in Bondy 74%; in Colombes, 80%; in Les Lilas, 83.5%; in Bobigny, 75.5%.... These are the symbolic cities of Saint-Denis.

In the northern districts of Marseille, which had largely voted for Mélenchon in the first round, Macron easily won. Those are the neighborhoods that are home to a large part of the Islamic community -- 30% of the total population of the city and a quarter of all the inhabitants of the city. "The northern districts of Marseille", wrote: Le Figaro, "a 'small city' where communitarianism is a daily reality..."

------------------

The same dynamic can also be seen in Germany. Research by MedienDienst Integration noted that 83 parliamentarians in the newly elected German Bundestag -- 11.3% of the total -- have foreign origins. The percentage of German parliamentarians of foreign origin has increased for the third consecutive time since the national elections of 2013 (by 5.9%) and 2017 (by 8%). 18 new Members of Parliament are of Turkish origin, and 24 have Balkan roots.... The number of Social Democratic MPs (the winners of last September's elections) who have an immigrant background went from 10% to 17% in one election.

This ever-increasing percentage of Turkish, Bosnian, Kosovar, Iranian and Iraqi politicians will increasingly influence the choices of the first European power in matters of immigration and multiculturalism. The left-wing party Die Linke has the highest percentage of parliamentarians with an immigrant background: 28.2%. And tomorrow? Herbert Brücker, the head of migrant research at the Federal Institute for Employment Research, told the German newspaper Die Welt:

"Currently a quarter of the people in Germany have an immigrant background. In 20 years, it will be at least 35 percent, but it could also exceed 40 percent... What we see in big cities today will be normal for the whole country in the future. In a city like Frankfurt, we will have between 65 percent and 70 percent".

"The result of the presidential election reveals that Mélenchon's strategy aimed at the Muslim community paid off," noted the anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Blackler. But with what consequences in the future?

"The massive vote for Mélenchon is proof that the strategy of community victimization that began in the 1990s produced what it was intended to produce in one or two generations. Mélenchon gathered a large part of the Muslim vote, which obviously does not make it a Muslim or Islamist party, but only a 'cuckoo' party. Like the cuckoo hatching its eggs in the nest of a bird of another species, a cuckoo party shelters and protects ideas that are not its own. The Muslim Brotherhood have a strategy that they expressed in their plans from the 1980s: to form an alliance with the most docile parties to propagate their ideas".

What will happen in France in five years with demographics turning upside down? Will there be a scenario as in the novel Submission by Michel Houellebecq, with a "moderate" Muslim Brother elected as president? Or those with similar policies who take the lead thanks to their pact with the Muslim communities?

"Today," the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut reflected, "there are 145 mosques in Seine-Saint-Denis compared to 117 churches." The former are overcrowded, the latter are half-empty.

The future is here already.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.


[1] To be exact, Mélenchon received 61.13% percent in Saint-Denis, 17 points more than in 2017. In Montreuil, Mélenchon collected 55.35%. In Bobigny, 60% of the vote. Across the Seine-Saint-Denis, Mélenchon reached 49.09% -- a dramatic increase compared to 2017, when he gained only 34.02%. In Argenteuil, the third largest city in Île-de-France, he came first with 49.89%. Across Île-de-France, the largest French department which also includes Paris, Mélenchon largely defeated Macron.

In the Islamized Seine-Saint-Denis, Mélenchon won in 37 out of 40 cities. Mélenchon won in Marseille (31%), Le Havre (30%), Lille (40%), Lyon (31%), Montpellier (40%), Saint-Etienne (33%), Toulouse (36%), Strasbourg (35%), Rennes (36%) and Nantes (33% ). In Marseille and Lyon (second and third largest cities of France) Muslims already make up 30% percent of the population, and a quarter of the students of public schools in Strasbourg are Islamic. In Mulhouse the Muslim community is already 25% percent of the population. In Paris, Mélenchon came in second with 29%of the vote. In Aubervilliers there was a plebiscite. "Here the municipality is working with Muslims to build a large mosque", said the panel installed on a piece of land in Rue Saint-Denis in Aubervilliers. Islamic clientelism is in evidence in "9-3", the French department where 30% of the population is now Muslim.

[2] La Courneuve (64%), Villetaneuse (73%), Clichy -sous-Bois (72%), Aubervilliers (70%). In La Courneuve, Mélenchon had 64% of the votes, in Clichy-sous-Bois 60%, and so on.