Dry Bones: A General's Advice

Tommy Robinson: I think it's gonna have to eventually come from the people

Tommy Robinson is not your Eton and Oxford or Cambridge educated  Brit,  but everything he says is true and  it is scary that the political  elite are ignoring him, if not harassing him

Is Europe Helpless?

The Wall Street Journal

A civilization that believes in nothing will ultimately submit to anything.

La Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, the day after the attack

By BRET STEPHENS

At last count, members of the European Union spent more than $200 billion a year on defense, fielded more than 2,000 jet fighters and 500 naval ships, and employed some 1.4 million military personnel. More than a million police officers also walk Europe’s streets. Yet in the face of an Islamist menace the Continent seems helpless. Is it?

Was France helpless in May 1940?

Let’s stipulate that a van barreling down a seaside promenade isn’t a Panzer division, and that a few thousand ISIS fighters scattered from Mosul to Marseilles aren’t another Wehrmacht. But as in France in 1940, Europe today displays the same combination of doctrinal rigidity and loss of will that allowed an Allied army of 144 divisions to be routed by the Germans in six weeks. The Maginot Line of “European values” won’t prevail over people who recognize none of those values.

So much was made clear by French Prime MinisterManuel Valls, who remarked after the Nice attack that “France is going to have to live with terrorism.” This may have been intended as a statement of fact but it came across as an admission that his government isn’t about to rally the public to a campaign of blood, toil, tears and sweat against ISIS—another premature capitulation in a country that has known them before.

Mr. Valls was later booed at a memorial service for the Nice victims. It would be heartening to think this was because he and his boss, President François Hollande, have failed to forge a strategy to destroy ISIS. But the public’s objection was that there hadn’t been enough cops along the Promenade des Anglais to stop the attack. In soccer terms, it’s a complaint about the failure of defense, not the lack of a proper offense.

Then there is Germany, site of three terror attacks in a week. It seems almost like a past epoch that Germans welcomed a million Middle Eastern migrants in an ecstasy of moral self-congratulation, led by Angela Merkel’s chant of “We can do it!” Last summer’s slogan now sounds as dated and hollow as Barack Obama’s “Yes we can!”

Now Germany will have to confront a terror threat that will make the Baader-Meinhof gang of the 1970s seem trivial. The German state is stronger and smarter than the French one, but it also surrenders more easily to moral intimidation. The idea of national self-preservation at all costs will always be debatable in a country seeking to expiate an inexpiatable sin.

Thus the question of whether Europe is helpless. At its 1980s peak, under François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, the European project combined German economic strength and French confidence in power politics. Today, it mixes French political weakness with German moral solipsism. This is a formula for rapid civilizational decline, however many economic or military resources the EU may have at its disposal.

Can the decline be stopped? Yes, but that would require a great unlearning of the political mythologies on which modern Europe was built.

Among those mythologies: that the European Union is the result of a postwar moral commitment to peace; that Christianity is of merely historical importance to European identity; that there’s no such thing as a military solution; that one’s country isn’t worth fighting for; that honor is atavistic and tolerance is the supreme value. People who believe in nothing, including themselves, will ultimately submit to anything.

The alternative is a recognition that Europe’s long peace depended on the presence of American military power, and that the retreat of that power will require Europeans to defend themselves. Europe will also have to figure out how to apply power not symbolically, as it now does, but strategically, in pursuit of difficult objectives. That could start with the destruction of ISIS in Libya.

More important, Europeans will have to learn that powerlessness can be as corrupting as power—and much more dangerous. The storm of terror that is descending on Europe will not end in some new politics of inclusion, community outreach, more foreign aid or one of Mrs. Merkel’s diplomatic Rube Goldbergs. It will end in rivers of blood. Theirs or yours?

In all this, the best guide to how Europe can find its way to safety is the country it has spent the best part of the last 50 years lecturing and vilifying: Israel. For now, it’s the only country in the West that refuses to risk the safety of its citizens on someone else’s notion of human rights or altar of peace.

Europeans will no doubt look to Israel for tactical tips in the battle against terrorism—crowd management techniques and so on—but what they really need to learn from the Jewish state is the moral lesson. Namely, that identity can be a great preserver of liberty, and that free societies cannot survive through progressive accommodations to barbarians.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER JIHAD MASSACRE

FRONTPAGE MAG

This time in Munich.

 By  Robert Spencer

The events unfolded in predictable fashion: a young Iranian Muslim opened fire at a shopping mall in Munich while screaming “Allahu akbar,” and initial mainstream media reports were that the gunman was a “right-wing extremist,” lashing out on the fifth anniversary of the Norwegian madman Anders Breivik’s massacre, while screaming out his hatred for foreigners. 

As it happened, it was someone else screaming his hatred for foreigners at the jihad murderer, not the other way around, but once again, the lie had gotten halfway around the world before the truth had a chance to put on its shoes.

And the same old comedy, the familiar one that plays out every week now in modern, multicultural Europe and North America, duly played out again, to an increasingly bored and indifferent crowd. Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae informed the world that the young jihadi had no known links to jihad terror groups, and added: “The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear.” 

Unclear? Really? What is it about “Allahu akbar” and the gunning-down of innocent civilians that you don’t understand, Herr Andrae? And the answer, of course, is: everything. Hubertus Andrae, and Angela Merkel, and Theresa May, and Manuel Valls, and John Kerry, and Barack Obama, and every last one of the other Western leaders are resolutely and determinedly ignorant about what it means when a young Iranian Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” opens fire in a shopping mall.

What, after all, could it possibly mean? This young man must have come from a troubled home, no? He must have grown up in poverty and been denied access to all sorts of economic opportunities that were open to native Germans of his age, right? He must have been “radicalized on the Internet” by shadowy forces that somehow possess the magic power to turn benign, peaceful Muslims who are a benefit and asset to every Western nation into misunderstanders of their own religion who suddenly and inexplicably discard the peaceful Islamic teachings they have imbibed from youth in their Western mosques, in favor of a twisted and hijacked version of their religion that leads them to think that treason and mass murder are not only commendable, but blessed by the Almighty – isn’t that the case?

The Munich shooter’s motive is completely unclear, because we don’t yet know if he was teased in school or on the job, or if he had trouble getting a job in the first place, or if he had psychological problems, or if he was a brooding loner who always left his moderate Muslim friends disquieted – the only thing we do know is that he couldn’t possibly have been motivated by a religion that exhorts its adherents to “slay them wherever you find them” (cf. Qur’an 2:191, 4:89, 9:5).

No, none of that is true, and one wonders if even the European and North American political and media elites believe in their own nonsense anymore. The Munich mass murderer was motivated by Islam, pure and simple – by its teachings of warfare against unbelievers and the necessity to subjugate them. His war cry of “Allahu akbar,” revered by jihadis for its power to “strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60), demonstrates that. 

The Islamic State’s repeated calls for the mass murder of civilians in Western countries also demonstrate that. Hubertus Andrae, and Angela Merkel, and Theresa May, and Manuel Valls, and John Kerry, and Barack Obama, and every last one of the other Western leaders persist in pretending that incidents such as the mass murder in Munich on Friday, and the mass murders in Nice, Orlando, Brussels, Paris, San Bernardino, Chattanooga, and elsewhere recently are all separate, discrete criminal acts, unrelated to one another and all requiring extensive investigation to determine the motives of the perpetrators.

That proposition is not only false; it’s a Goebbelsian Big Lie. These are not criminal acts. These are not the acts of the psychopathic or the disenfranchised. These are acts of war, battles in a larger war that has been going on for 1,400 years and is picking up speed in our own age, courtesy of our willfully myopic and feckless leaders. Unless and until Western authorities begin to treat each of these incidents as part of a larger war, they will continue to misdiagnose the problem and apply the wrong solutions.

And that is the one thing they are certain to do. And so there will be many, many more Munichs. Watch this space next week for my comments on the next jihad massacre and the next flurry of predictable denials and obfuscations. My comments next week will be much like my comments here, because the actions of the elites after the next jihad attack will be much like what they have been today. What is it going to take to get leaders who are in touch with reality? Seriously, is that really too much to ask?

The lone wolf

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2016  

Yossi Melman wants to know how to stop a terrorist operating on his own (“How to stop a lone wolf,” Analysis, July 18). The answer? You have to be winning a war, not losing it, so that the lone wolf sees he is on the losing side.

Commentator Alexis Brezet wrote in Le Figaro after last week’s terror attack in Nice: “Merah, Charlie, Bataclan, Magnanville and now Nice. How long before our eyes are opened? How many wild attacks, indiscriminate massacres before our leaders admit that Islamist fanaticism has initiated a fight to the death against our country and our civilization? We are at war!” After much procrastination, the words are now on everyone’s lips: “To arms, citizens!” we shout lustily. But really, who believes it? Our weapons are those of peace candles, hashtags, processions and subtleties of our Code of Criminal Procedure.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC Beersheba

Israel Is Fighting Your War

Le Figaro: A ruthless response

Le Figaro

Below is an improved google translate of the editorial in Le Figaro by   Alexis Brézet followed by the original text in French:

Merah, Charlie, Bataclan , Magnanville ,  and now Nice. How long before our eyes are opened ? How many wild attacks , indiscriminate massacres before our leaders admit that Islamist fanaticism initiated a fight to the death against our country and our civilization? How many innocent victims - men , women and children - before our leaders finally decide to take ruthless measures  called for by the barbarity  of these madmen of Allah?   

Merah, Charlie, Bataclan  Magnanville  and now Nice ... More than two hundred names engraved in the memory of our country, and always the same surprise reactions , the same solemn declarations , the same quavering voice. After that? Some additional soldiers in the streets , some legislative patches, some distant bombing, and then nothing ...

" We are at war ! " Now it is said. After much procrastination , the term is now on everyone's lips . But really, who really believes it  ? " To arms, citizens," we shout lustily , but our weapons are those of peace candles, hashtags , processions and subtleties of our Code of Criminal Procedure.

Phoney war , indeed! We leave our borders ( our lines, say the soldiers ) open to our enemies. The jihad recruiters preach their ideology of hatred with  impunity  in mosques financed by the enemy. "Traitors" who went to fight in Syria are subjected to a single stage of " de-radicalization ". As for the " S file," that could "form a fifth column ", they gambol in the wild on the grounds that they " have not yet committed any crime " ...

War, what war ? But we live as if we were in peace! The state of emergency does not prevent either the trade union demonstrations or the festive gatherings , which some claim without laughing that they are " the best response to the Islamic State " ... The president himself does not seem to believe in it  and so  he has calmly announced , on 14 July, the end of the state of emergency and relief device " Sentinel", before turning back at night, when the tragic reality caught up.  

For the soldiers of the Caliphate, they do not  wage wars half way .   They come right into our arms " To cut the throats of our sons, our women! ," and we offer them protection of our laws - to the very people who want to destroy us! Never in history has  an enemy received so much complacency on the part of the one he fights. 

This willful blindness has lasted too long . To win the war , we must lead without half measures or  cowardice . And to give to those whose mission it is a chance to win , we must rearm. . Military and police rearmament, of course. Legislative reset wherever necessary. Moral  rearmament  especially , to collectively overcome this perverse syllogism draped in the trappings of "living together " which claims to disqualify , in France , any action against  strong roots of radical Islam on the grounds that "it would help the  terrorists. " As if we were fighting the best by offering our neck to their knife! As if the surest path to communal clashes was not exactly the resignation of the state, the only holder of legitimate force , and the only guarantor of civil peace ...

Obviously, to overcome the Islamist hydra there is no miracle weapon. We will never escape the risk of attack. Is that a reason not to try everything ? Of course, this war that has been declared will be long and difficult. We will probably suffer other defeats. All the more reason not to lose more time . Merah , Charlie , Bataclan , Magnanville , Nice ... Now is the time to act if.we are ever to stop the sinister litany .  

Note.  The text  in dark red is  a modified quote  from " La Marseillaise" 

Une riposte sans pitié

L'ÉDITORIAL D'ALEXIS BRÉZET

Merah, Charlie, le Bataclan, Magnanville, et maintenant Nice… Combien de temps avant que nos yeux se dessillent? Combien d'attentats sauvages, de massacres aveugles avant que nos dirigeants se résignent à admettre que le fanatisme islamiste a engagé une lutte à mort contre notre pays et notre civilisation? Combien de victimes innocentes - hommes, femmes et enfants - avant que nos gouvernants se décident enfin à prendre contre ces fous d'Allah les mesures sans pitié qu'appelle leur barbarie?

Merah, Charlie, le Bataclan, Magnanville, et maintenant Nice… Plus de deux cents noms gravés dans la mémoire de notre pays, et toujours les mêmes coups de menton, les mêmes déclarations solennelles, les mêmes trémolos dans la voix. Et ensuite? Quelques soldats supplémentaires dans les rues, quelques rustines législatives, quelques bombardements lointains, et puis, plus rien…

«Nous sommes en guerre!» Désormais, c'est dit. Après bien des atermoiements, l'expression est désormais sur toutes les lèvres. Mais, au fond, qui le croit vraiment? «Aux armes, citoyens!», crions-nous à pleins poumons, mais nos armes sont celles de la paix: des bougies, des hashtags, des cortèges et les subtilités de notre Code de procédure pénale.

Drôle de guerre, en vérité! Nous laissons nos frontières (nos lignes, diraient les soldats) ouvertes à nos ennemis. Les agents recruteurs du djihad prêchent impunément leur idéologie de haine dans des mosquées financées par l'ennemi. Les «traîtres» partis combattre en Syrie sont soumis à un simple stage de «déradicalisation». Quant aux «fichés S», susceptibles de se constituer en «cinquième colonne», ils gambadent dans la nature au motif qu'ils «n'ont encore commis aucun crime»…

La guerre, quelle guerre? Mais nous vivons comme si nous étions en paix! L'état d'urgence n'empêche ni les manifestations syndicales ni les rassemblements festifs, dont certains prétendent sans rire qu'ils sont «la meilleure réponse à l'État islamique»… Le président de la République lui-même semble ne pas y croire: il a tranquillement annoncé, le 14 Juillet, la fin de l'état d'urgence et l'allégement du dispositif «Sentinelle», avant de faire machine arrière toute dans la nuit, quand la tragique réalité l'a rattrapé…

Car les soldats du califat, eux, ne font pas la guerre à moitié. Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras «égorger nos fils et nos compagnes», et nous offrons la protection de nos lois à ceux-là mêmes qui veulent nous détruire! Jamais dans l'Histoire un ennemi n'a bénéficié d'autant de complaisance de la part de celui qu'il combat.

Cet aveuglement volontaire n'a que trop duré. Pour gagner la guerre, il faut la mener sans demi-mesure ni pusillanimité. Et pour donner à ceux dont c'est la mission quelque chance de l'emporter, il nous faut réarmer. Réarmement militaire et policier, bien sûr. Réarmement législatif, partout où cela est nécessaire. Réarmement moral, surtout, pour surmonter collectivement ce syllogisme pervers drapé dans les oripeaux du «vivre ensemble» qui prétend disqualifier, en France, toute action un peu énergique contre les racines de l'islamisme radical au motif que «ce serait faire le jeu des terroristes». Comme si nous les combattions mieux en tendant notre cou à leur couteau!Comme si le plus sûr chemin vers des affrontements intercommunautaires n'était pas précisément la démission de l'État, seul détenteur de la force légitime, et seul garant de la paix civile…

Évidemment, pour venir à bout de l'hydre islamiste il n'existe aucune arme miracle. Nous n'écarterons jamais tout risque d'attentat. Est-ce une raison pour ne pas tout tenter? Bien sûr, cette guerre qui nous a été déclarée sera longue et difficile. Nous essuierons sans doute d'autres défaites. Raison de plus pour ne pas perdre davantage de temps. Merah, Charlie, le Bataclan, Magnanville, Nice… C'est maintenant qu'il faut agir si nous voulons un jour interrompre la sinistre litanie.

Truth Catches the Iran Deal

The Wall Street Journal

By  BRET STEPHENS

What diplomats call the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—known to the rest of us as the Disastrous Iran Deal—was agreed in Vienna a year ago this week. Now comes a status update, courtesy of our friends at the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV.

In its fascinating 2015 annual report, published late last month, the German domestic intelligence service reports a “particularly strong increase” in the number of Salafists, describes the reach of Russian and Chinese espionage efforts in Germany, and notes a growing number of right-wing extremists.

Then there’s this:

“The illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities [by Iran] in Germany registered by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution persisted in 2015 at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level. This holds true in particular with regard to items which can be used in the field of nuclear technology.”

The report also notes “a further increase in the already considerable procurement efforts in connection with Iran’s ambitious missile technology program which could among other things potentially serve to deliver nuclear weapons. Against this backdrop it is safe to expect that Iran will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.”

The BfV report arrived days before Germany arrested a Pakistani national, identified asSyed Mustufa H., accused of spying for Iran. It also corroborates another German intelligence report, this one from the intelligence service of North Rhine-Westphalia, that Iran’s nuclear procurement efforts have increased dramatically in recent years, from 48 known attempts in 2010 to 141 in 2015. Seven other German states have reported similarIranian procurement efforts. This violates Iran’s explicit commitment to go through an official “procurement channel” to purchase nuclear- and missile-related materials.

All this was enough to prompt Angela Merkel to warn the Bundestag last week that Iran “continued to develop its rocket program in conflict with relevant provisions of the U.N. Security Council.” Don’t expect German sanctions, but at least the chancellor is living in the reality zone.

As for the Obama administration, not so much. For the past year it has developed a narrative—spoon-fed to the reporters and editorial writers Ben Rhodes publicly mocks as dopes and dupes—that Iran has met all its obligations under the deal, and now deserves extra cookies in the form of access to U.S. dollars, Boeing jets, U.S. purchases of Iranian heavy water (thereby subsidizing its nuclear program), and other concessions the administration last year promised Congress it would never grant.

“We still have sanctions on Iran for its violations of human rights, for its support for terrorism, and for its ballistic-missile program, and we will continue to enforce those sanctions vigorously,” Mr. Obama said in January. Whatever.

The administration is now weighing whether to support Iran’s membership in the World Trade Organization. That would neutralize a future president’s ability to impose sanctions on Iran, since WTO rules would allow Tehran to sue Washington for interfering with trade. The administration has also pushed the Financial Action Task Force, an international body that enforces anti-money-laundering standards, to ease pressure on Iran, which FATF did last month by suspending some restrictions for the next year.

And then there’s the Boeing deal to sell $17.6 billion worth of jets to Iran, which congressional Republicans led by Illinois’s Pete Roskam are trying to stop. Iran uses its civilian fleet to ferry weapons and fighters to its terrorist clients in Syria and Lebanon.

“The administration is trying to lock in the Iran deal and prevent a future president from doing anything, including pushing back on Iran’s malign behavior,” says the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Dubowitz, who knows more about Iran sanctions than anyone in Washington. “Instead of curbing Iran’s worst behavior, the administration effectively facilitates it.”

One last detail: In June, the Journal’s Jay Solomon reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency had discovered “traces of man-made uranium” at Iran’s military facility at Parchin. The agency reported this finding in a footnote to a report in December, but the administration made no comment then and now dismisses it as old news. The IAEA is no longer allowed to inspect Parchin, or any other military installation, under the deal.

So let’s recap. Mr. Obama says Iran is honoring the nuclear deal, but German intelligence tells us Tehran is violating it more aggressively than ever. He promised “snapback” sanctions in the event of such violations, but the U.S. is operating as Iran’s trade-promotion agent. He promised “unprecedented” inspections, but we’re not permitted to inspect sites where uranium was found. He promised an eight-year ban on Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles, but Tehran violated that ban immediately and repeatedly with only mild pushback from the West. He promised that the nuclear deal was not about “normalizing” relations with a rogue regime. But he wants it in the WTO.

Is Mr. Obama rationalizing a failed agreement or did he mean to mislead the American public? Either way, truth is catching up with the Iran deal.

How to solve the problems in the US

Robert Spencer: The Complete Infidel's Guide to Iran

Our Most Dangerous Enemy
Think it's ISIS? Think again.


Looking forward to this new book by Robert Spencer to be published July 11, 2016 

The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran. Those who recited were spared.

 There have been four jihadi attacks in the last two days across the globe:

  

 Istanbul terror attack  --- 44 killed

 Hallel Yaffa Ariel 13, stabbed to death in her bed at her home    

Rabbi Miki Mark murdered in a drive-by shooting near Hebron

 Dhaka attack: The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran.  Those who recited were spared. 20 hostages killed.

I feel nauseous about today’s West! When will the West drop the PC and face the threat?