On Afghanistan fiasco, even CNN points the finger straight at Joe Biden - Monica Showalter

 

​ by Monica Showalter

A CNN analyst has a devastating analysis. Something scare CNN into going straight?

Afghanistan is a disaster of untold dimensions.  It's a story so big that it's actually drawing mainstream media interest, given the monumental scale of failure from our country's sorry leadership.

Nothing beats this analysis from a CNN contributor who blasts Joe Biden to smithereens in the most damning presentation of facts so far.  That CNN would publish this is almost as newsworthy as the unfolding Afghanistan fiasco.

Peter Bergen is an old war correspondent who was onto bin Laden back in the 1990s and actually interviewed the monster.  He knows his stuff.

In his analysis, he puts all of the blame squarely on Joe Biden.

His most important points:

One, Biden's sudden pullout from Afghanistan is identical to the sudden U.S. pullout from Iraq in 2011.  That was when ISIS began its blitzkreig and almost toppled Baghdad.  Who was behind that?  Sure enough, Joe Biden, who learned literally nothing from that fiasco.  As a matter of common sense, President Obama sent the troops back, bailing Biden out.  But it made no impression on Biden.  He went on to repeat his disastrous mistake in Afghanistan.  Bergen writes:

Now Biden is presiding over a debacle entirely of his own making in Afghanistan — and one that has unfolded more swiftly than even the most dire prognostications.

Two, the ISIS blueprint is obvious.  It's not just in the blitz with toppling regional capitals; it's in the strategy and tactics.  It's obvious at least to everyone but Joe Biden.  Bergen notes that the Taliban has been attacking prisons and releasing their inmates, who go on to join the Taliban and fight with them, giving them a big bank of recruits.  The government says most are criminals.  But that's significant.  As Eric Hoffer wrote in The True Believer, those are precisely the kind of people who seek to erase their ruined lives and become fanatics in charge of a revolutionary movement.  Biden of course is clueless.

Three, Biden's current strategy of negotiating with the Taliban, hoping they'll turn into nice swamp creatures addicted to cocktail parties, foreign aid, and consultant contracts, is idiocy.  The stupid approach did start with President Trump, but considering all the Trump actions Biden has thrown out, it's pretty amazing that Biden kept this one.  This is how bad it's been: 

Khalilzad traveled to Doha this week where he has led "peace" negotiations with the Taliban for the past three years "to help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan."

Good luck with that. During the last rounds of negotiations that started under the Trump administration, Khalilzad entered into agreements with the Taliban that stated in exchange for a total US withdrawal, they would break with al Qaeda and enter into genuine peace talks with the Afghan government. The Taliban have reneged on those agreements, according to the United Nations and the Afghan government.

The Taliban doesn't follow agreements any more than a wild animal would.  Biden is clueless.

It gets worse.  Bergen then gets into the prisoner issue again, and his conclusion is a doozy:

Meanwhile, Khalilzad agreed to pressure the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, several of whom simply rejoined their old comrades on the battlefield once they were released. It's hard to recall a more failed and counterproductive diplomatic effort. Maybe British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to reach a lasting peace agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938 in Munich on the cusp of World War II?

Neville Chamberlain is about Biden's speed, except that Chamberlain was a reasonably honorable man and in the end understood his failure.  Biden never learns.

Bergen forecasts some horrible things coming down the pike based on these idiotic decisions from the U.S.'s commander in chief.

One, the Taliban is going to dance around and carve out a "victory" for itself on 9/11 as Biden withdraws U.S. troops entirely.  It's not been like Iraq, where troops were eventually kept there under another name, and ISIS was eventually destroyed by President Trump.  Biden is staying his disastrous course and claims he has "no regrets."

Two, the Taliban, like Iraq, is going to make itself a magnet for "foreign fighters" and I suppose "Taliban brides," and all the other crap that came of that wretched era.  President Trump shut it all down in a matter of months.  But Biden is actually setting the stage for the whole thing to flourish all over again.

Bergen is a polite writer and scratches his head in his conclusion:

Why Biden chose one path in Iraq and another in Afghanistan isn't clear. But what is clear is that a predictable debacle is now unfolding under Biden's watch in Afghanistan.

Conclusion: Biden is a disaster as a leader, and he's the author and owner of the fiasco in Afghanistan.

Bergen may be scratching his head as to why Biden could be so foolish, but what many of our readers will be scratching their heads about is how this piece got published on CNN.

Perhaps they're looking for credibility these days, and they've easily got it in Bergen.  Perhaps they're looking to go mainstream.  The other thing is, the Biden clown show can't be ignored anymore — too many news agencies on it.  It all might come down to their recent past, which got them in this predicament: turning themselves into a fourth-rate Democrat propaganda organ didn't work out so well for them ratings-wise.  The network must know this and have concluded that their only recourse to draw back listeners is to publish credible analyses like this.

Image:  Screen shot from CNN video via shareable YouTube.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

 

Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/on_afghanistan_fiasco_even_cnn_points_the_finger_straight_at_joe_biden.html

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The Four Horsemen of the Biden Apocalypse - Jeff Crouere

 

​ by Jeff Crouere

Any one of these alone would be terrifying to contemplate. We're dealing with all four at once.

In the waning days of the Trump administration, the country was showing signs of economic improvement, people were feeling more confident about battling COVID, and the border was relatively secure as the wall was finally being constructed.

What a difference seven months can make.  It has been a horrific 207 days since President Joe Biden and his radical administration were unleashed on the country.

In effect, a political apocalypse is approaching.  In the New Testament Book of Revelation, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are revealed to be "Conquest, War, Famine, and Death."  In the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, the four horsemen are referred to as "sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague."

In the era of Joe Biden, the four horsemen of our political apocalypse are the border invasion, the economic catastrophe, the assault on our families, and the use of the COVID plague to eliminate our constitutional rights.

1. Invasion.  Biden inherited a secure border and immediately decided to destroy the progress of President Donald Trump and create an unmitigated disaster for Americans.  The border wall was foolishly stopped, the policy of "catch and release" was reinstituted, the "Remain in Mexico" policy was ended, and illegal aliens were given an invitation to enter the United States.

As a result, the flood of illegal aliens has been unprecedented.  The number of new apprehensions is increasing each month at the border, reaching the highest level in 25 years in July.  Over 210,000 illegal aliens were apprehended on the southern border last month.  Simultaneously, an untold number of people have been entering the country without detection.  Coupled with ongoing legal immigration efforts, the United States of America is being radically and quickly transformed.

These illegal aliens are not being tested for COVID, are not being vaccinated, and are being sent all over the country.  This is spreading the virus across the country while cynically changing the demographics of many "red" states.  Although most citizens living in these areas are opposed to this resettlement, they have been powerless to stop it.

2. Catastrophe.  Upon entering office, Biden should have continued Trump-era economic policies that were working.  Instead, he stopped the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and displacing thousands of workers from their jobs.  Biden also placed a moratorium on the issuance of new oil and gas drilling leases on federal territory, both onshore and offshore.

As a result, America is transitioning from being energy independent for the first time in decades, under President Trump, to being energy-dependent once again.  Ironically, Biden is now asking OPEC members to increase their oil production.

Biden has also happily supported radical legislation in Congress that will add to the national debt while spending trillions of dollars that will create severe inflationary woes in our county.  During the Biden administration, prices on a wide range of items such as gasoline, lumber, and groceries are rapidly escalating.  This has created the sharpest rise in inflation in 20 years.

If it passes in the U.S. House of Representatives, the new $1.2-trillion "infrastructure" bill that just was approved in the U.S. Senate will be an economic disaster.  It includes very little real infrastructure, but it does include tax increases, at least $256 billion in additional federal debt that will exacerbate inflationary pressures, and a grab bag of liberal proposals.  The bill advocates zero-emission vehicles, combats "racist" highways, and for good measure uses the word "equity" 64 times.

It sets the stage for an even bigger monstrosity, the "human infrastructure" bill that will cost over $3.5 trillion.  It is being advertised as a de facto "Green New Deal" that will include a staggering number of climate change initiatives.  The economic chaos that such a bill will institute is mind-boggling to contemplate.

3. Assault.  Across America, our cities are on fire as crime is exploding.  An increasing number of innocent Americans are being victimized each day.  Incredibly, liberal politicians have used the opportunity to demand the defunding of police departments.  This has only increased the number of police officers resigning and retiring.  As a result, police departments are understaffed, and recruitment is becoming extremely difficult in urban areas that are viewed as being anti-police.

The answer, according to Biden and the Democrats, is always more gun control and never more criminal control.

Citizens are unsafe on the streets of our cities, and our children are unsafe in our public-school classrooms.  Families are facing hostile environments in schools as teachers are using Critical Race Theory to educate students about American history.  Instead of celebrating the greatness of our founding documents and the uniqueness of our system of government, teachers are demonizing our Founding Fathers and casting blame on white Americans for racism and unfair treatment of minorities.  In many schools, students are being separated by race, and white students are being made to feel guilty for the color of their skin.  While parents are expressing their anger, too many school boards remain committed to the divisive curriculum.

4. Plague.  Schools are also one of the focal points of the insane battle over how to deal with the COVID pandemic.  Teacher unions and Biden officials are touting masks in classrooms, while a growing number of parents are fighting this nonsense at school board meetings across the country.

The Biden administration is not stopping at mask mandates but is considering COVID vaccine requirements for all Americans.  The Defense Department will be requiring vaccines for all the members of the respective branches.  This obligation will be enforced starting in mid-September.

The president has also mandated vaccinations for members of the United States Department of Veterans' Affairs.  Surely other government agencies will face similar mandates in the foreseeable future.

Whenever he addresses the media, Biden pushes vaccinations on the public.  He implies that unvaccinated Americans are not only unpatriotic but also contributing to the deaths of their fellow citizens.  In addition, the president is actively encouraging businesses to implement vaccine mandates at their workplaces.

All these initiatives are quite disturbing, as Americans should have medical privacy and the right to make their own health decisions.  In a "free" country, a citizen should not be forced to inject any sort of experimental vaccine into his body.  Americans should have the freedom to say "no," without any negative repercussions.  

Individually, each of the four horsemen of the Biden apocalypse is extremely worrisome.  Unfortunately, Americans are facing all four of them simultaneously.

In addition, we must deal with a mentally incompetent president; a biased press; social media sites that censor conservatives; and a "woke" corporate, entertainment, and Big Technology culture that are promoting these dangerous trends in our country.

It is crunch time for America, and "We the People" must stand up to protect our rights, our families, and our futures.  This Biden agenda must be stopped immediately.  Otherwise, we can say goodbye to America and say hello to Venezuela. 

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

 

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian.  His award-winning program, Ringside Politics, airs nationally on Real America's Voice Network, AmericasVoice.News weekdays at 7 A.M. C.T. and from 7 to 11 A.M. weekdays on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com.  He is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance, and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net.  For more information, email him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/the_four_horsemen_of_the_biden_apocalypse.html

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Iranian Mullahs' Deadly War at Sea, Biden Administration Silent - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

If it were Israel that carried out such a deadly attack, the international community would be up in arms trying to take tough actions against the tiny state.

• While the Iranian mullahs have been busy breaching two critical international laws, the international community -- especially the United States, EU and UN Security Council -- have remained silent.

• If it were Israel that carried out such a deadly attack, the international community would be up in arms trying to take tough actions against the tiny state.

• Worse, the Biden administration and the EU probably still want to revive the catastrophic nuclear deal and lift sanctions against Iran's lawless and predatory regime.

Iran's regime has been attacking commercial oil tankers at sea, killing crew members and blatantly violating international law while the Biden administration, the EU, and the UN Security Council say not a word. On July 30, the oil tanker MV Mercer Street (pictured) was attacked by an armed drone 280km from the port of Al-Daqam in the Sea of Oman. Two crew members, one British and one Romanian, were killed in the attack. (Photo by Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images)

The Iranian regime has ratcheted up its assaults at sea while the Biden administration and the European Union continue pressing to revive the disastrous Obama nuclear deal and lift sanctions against the ruling mullahs.

On July 30, 2021, the oil tanker MV Mercer Street was attacked by an armed drone 280km from the port of Al-Daqam in the Sea of Oman. Two crew members, one British and one Romanian, were killed in the attack. The ship is Japanese-owned and Liberian-flagged, and is managed by Zodiac Maritime, a British company that is one of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer's businesses.

Many countries -- including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Israel -- concluded that the Iranian regime was behind the deadly attack. Following an investigation by an expert team from the US Defense Department, which inspected the MV Mercer Street following the attack, the US Central Command wrote in a statement:

"The use of Iranian designed and produced one way attack 'kamikaze' UAVs is a growing trend in the region. They are actively used by Iran and their proxies against coalition forces in the region, to include targets in Saudi Arabia and Iraq."

A few days after the attack, instead of taking appropriate action against the Iranian regime, the European Union stated it is optimistic view that it could revive the nuclear deal with Iran. In spite of the deadly attack and in spite of the fact that the Iranian regime made a mass murderer its new president, a senior EU official pointed out that:

"We still think that the most likely scenario is an agreement. What I cannot tell you is when and [under] what conditions. They [the Iranian leaders] will come back the moment they have completed all the different steps in the new administration. So my understanding is [that] we are talking about sometime at the beginning of September".

If it were Israel that carried out such a deadly attack, the international community would be up in arms trying to take tough actions against the tiny state.

This is not the first time that the Iranian regime has been implicated in attacking commercial oil tankers in the recent years. In May of 2019, for example, four tankers were targeted close to the port of Fujairah, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. A month later, on June 13, 2019, two tankers -- the Japanese Kokuka Courageous and the Norwegian Front Altair ­-- crossing the Gulf of Oman were also sabotaged with explosives. One tanker went up in flames and both were left adrift. A few weeks later, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), emboldened, broadcast a video boasting about how its commandos, wearing black ski masks and military fatigues, descended from a helicopter onto a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and victoriously seized the ship.

While the Iranian mullahs have been busy breaching two critical international laws, the international community -- especially the United States, EU and UN Security Council -- have remained silent. The Iranian regime is violating the internationally agreed UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under part three of UNCLOS, "Straits Used For International Navigation," Article 44, the agreement stipulates that:

"States bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage and shall give appropriate publicity to any danger to navigation or over flight within or over the strait of which they have knowledge. There shall be no suspension of transit passage."

UNCLOS also clarifies:

"Transit passage means the exercise in accordance with this Part of the freedom of navigation and overflight solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of the strait between one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone and another part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone."

Second, Iran's aggressive behavior and its assaults are a blatant violation of the UN General Assembly's "Definition of Aggression," which "calls upon all states to refrain from all acts of aggression and other uses of force contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among states in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." This resolution clarifies that the following can be classed as acts of aggression: "The blockade of the ports or coasts of a state by the armed forces of another state," and "an attack by the armed forces of a state on the land, sea or air forces, or marine and air fleets of another state."

In short, Iran's regime has been attacking commercial oil tankers at sea, killing crew members and blatantly violating international law while the Biden administration, the European Union, and the UN Security Council say not a word. Worse, the Biden administration and the EU probably still want to revive the catastrophic nuclear deal and lift sanctions against Iran's lawless and predatory regime.

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Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17633/iran-sea-war

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Communist China Continues Illegal Actions in the South China Sea - Judith Bergman

 

​ by Judith Bergman

Five years ago, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in a legally binding decision, ruled against Communist China's claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea. China continues vehemently to reject the ruling in its entirety.

• "The Chinese government's position on the arbitration is clear, 'not accept, not participate, and not recognize'... The 'arbitral award' deemed by China as 'a piece of scrap paper' has long been thrown into the dustbin of history." — Wu Shicun, President of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Global Times, July 12, 2021.

• "China's military recently deployed electronic warning and surveillance aircraft and helicopters on two disputed islands in the South China Sea in what analysts say is a sign that the People's Liberation Army has begun routine air operations from the bases." — The Washington Times, July 13, 2021.

• In March, a huge Chinese fishing fleet descended on Whitsun Reef, which lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. The Philippine government called on China to cease "militarizing the area".

• China also claims sovereignty over -- and has militarized some of -- the Paracel Islands, which it has occupied since 1974, and are also claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan.

Five years ago, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in a legally binding decision, ruled against Communist China's claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea. China continues vehemently to reject the ruling in its entirety. In March, a huge Chinese fishing fleet descended on Whitsun Reef, which lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. The Philippine government called on China to cease "militarizing the area". Pictured: Whitsun Reef, as seen from space. (Image Source: United States Geological Survey/NASA/Wikimedia Commons)

It has been five years since the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in a legally binding decision known as the South China Sea Arbitration Case, ruled against Communist China's claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.

The Philippine government filed the case against China in 2013 after China seized a reef over which both countries claim sovereignty. In addition to ruling against China's claim of historic rights to the South China Sea, the court found that China had violated the Philippines' sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by interfering with its fishing and petroleum exploration, as well as by constructing artificial islands in the Spratly Islands archipelago, which had caused "severe harm to the coral reef environment".

China has constructed artificial islands around seven reefs in the Spratly Islands archipelago. The islands are central to Beijing's apparent ambition to "have absolute control" over the South China Sea, which holds an estimated 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil in proven and probable reserves, in addition to maritime resources such as fish. Crucially, the South China Sea is also an essential sea route, which sees a third of the world's global shipping pass through it every year. Already in 2018, US Navy Admiral Philip Davidson, then Commander of United States Indo-Pacific Command, said that China's construction of the artificial islands meant that China is capable of "controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States".

On the fifth anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitration's decision, China continues vehemently to reject the ruling in its entirety. According to Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies:

"The Chinese government's position on the arbitration is clear, 'not accept, not participate, and not recognize.' This has come to be widely recognized and accepted by the international community. The 'arbitral award' deemed by China as 'a piece of scrap paper' has long been thrown into the dustbin of history."

China's actions contravening the ruling continue in a number of areas. According to a July 13, 2021 report in The Washington Times:

"China's military recently deployed electronic warning and surveillance aircraft and helicopters on two disputed islands in the South China Sea in what analysts say is a sign that the People's Liberation Army has begun routine air operations from the bases.

"Satellite images obtained by The Washington Times show deployments in May and June of PLA KJ-500 airborne warning and control aircraft to Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands. Other satellite photos showed the stationing of a Y-9 transport aircraft and Z-8 helicopter to Subi Reef in June and this month...

Satellite imagery of the military aircraft was obtained by J. Michael Dahm, a former Navy intelligence officer currently with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, known as APL.

'The most significant change in military posture in 2021 is the appearance of Chinese special mission aircraft and helicopters at Subi and Mischief Reefs, indicating the PLA may have commenced routine air operations from those airfields,' Mr. Dahm said in an interview."

According to Newsweek:

"These artificial islands 'fill critical gaps in PLA navy capabilities in the South China Sea, especially in terms of reconnaissance and airpower,' Dahm said."

"This shows that China is attempting to increase its control over the region," Dr. Bryce Wakefield, national executive director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA), said. "These aircraft will allow China to use assets in the region more effectively, its so-called maritime militia, for example, to wage their campaign of harassment in scenarios short of war."

Also in 2018, breaching a pledge that Chinese President Xi Jinping made not to militarize the islands, China equipped several of its military bases with advanced missiles.

China also claims sovereignty over -- and has militarized some of -- the Paracel Islands, which it has occupied since 1974, and are also claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan. China has built military installations, including an airfield and artificial harbor, on Woody Island, the largest of the Paracels. In July, Vietnam announced that Chinese plans to deploy one of its largest oceanographic research and training vessels to the Paracel Islands without Vietnam's permission would constitute a "violation of the sovereignty and relevant rights of Vietnam".

In addition to the militarization of the South China Sea's islands, reefs and shoals, China continues to ignore the conclusion of the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling, that its actions in the South China Sea are destroying the coral reef environment and local maritime life. According to a July 12, 2021 article from Associated Press:

"Satellite images over the last five years show how human waste, sewage and wastewater have accumulated and caused algae in a cluster of reefs in the Spratlys region where hundreds of Chinese fishing ships have anchored in batches, said Liz Derr, who heads Simularity Inc., a software company creating artificial intelligence technologies for satellite imagery analysis.

"At least 236 ships were spotted in the atoll, internationally known as Union Banks, on June 17 alone, she said at a Philippine online news forum on China's actions in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed virtually in its entirety.

"'When the ships don't move, the poop piles up,' Derr said. 'The hundreds of ships that are anchored in the Spratlys are dumping raw sewage onto the reefs they are occupying.'

"'This is a catastrophe of epic proportions and we are close to the point of no return,' Derr said."

Earlier, in March, a huge Chinese fishing fleet descended on Whitsun Reef, which lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. The Philippine government called on China to cease "militarizing the area".

China has by far the world's largest fishing fleet, consisting of anywhere between 200,000 to 800,000 fishing boats, which account for nearly half of the world's fishing activity. Approximately 17,000 of them belong to China's distant-water fishing fleet.

China has recently also made incursions into Malaysia's exclusive economic zone and near its airspace. Malaysia, according to Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, usually "bends over backwards" to accommodate China. In June, however, the Malaysian government said that it would summon China's ambassador regarding "16 People's Liberation Army Air Force planes that flew over a Malaysian 'maritime zone.'"

Coinciding with the incursions into Malaysia's exclusive economic zone and near its airspace, China Coast Guard vessels have been harassing new Malaysian oil and gas developments at the Kasawari field offshore Malaysia since early June -- the third time in 18 months that China sought to harass Malaysia's oil and gas efforts. According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative:

"It demonstrates again Beijing's persistence in challenging its neighbors' oil and gas activities within their own exclusive economic zones. And the air patrol, which was likely not a coincidence, suggests Beijing's willingness to engage in parallel escalation to pressure other claimants to back down."

These tactics are familiar aspects of China's "gray zone" warfare, meant to coerce, intimidate or simply exhaust a country into doing China's bidding. The tactic has perhaps become most well-known through China's continued and escalating campaign to intimidate and exhaust Taiwan and other neighbors both from the air and from the sea. Unless China is stopped, it seems safe to assume that it will continue its aggression.

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

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17619/china-illegal-actions-south-china-sea

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All eyes on Biden's response to COVID variants, Afghanistan, border crisis, inflation - Audrey Conklin

 

​ by Audrey Conklin

New fears are rising among Americans, and critics are condemning some of the president's earliest actions in his first term.

Terrell: Biden committing 'dereliction of duty' amid multiple crises

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell sounds off amid Afghan collapse, border crisis, on 'Hannity'.

All eyes are on President Biden as he responds to threats facing the U.S. and other countries, including COVID-19 variants, the Taliban's growing stronghold over Afghanistan, the U.S.-Mexico border crisis and inflation.

The spring of 2021 presented an optimistic outlook for the new president's administration as COVID-19 cases dwindled, millions were vaccinated, consumer spending rose and officials planned their move to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 1.

But new fears are rising among Americans, and critics are condemning some of the president's earliest actions in his first term.

BIDEN VACATES DC AS AFGHANISTAN, IMMIGRATION CRISES ACCELERATE

"His dereliction of duty is as undeniable as ever: From the disaster at the southern border to rising inflation to rising gas prices and rising crime all across the country, Joe Biden is failing on every front," civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said while hosting "Hannity" on Friday.

"And overseas, the Biden Doctrine appears to be more interested in appeasing our enemy than it is for standing up for the American people. Frankly, it is an absolute disgrace."

Afghan security personnel arrives at the area where the director of Afghanistan's Government Information Media Center Dawa Khan Menapal was shot dead in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Critics have taken aim at Biden's first major policy decision in office to shut down construction of the Keystone XL pipeline project that killed as many as 10,000 union jobs while soon after allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to finish a major pipeline that will allow the Kremlin to sell and supply energy to Germany and Central Europe.

More recently, critics have expressed concern that the president's move to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 1 will revert the U.S. military's two decades of work in the country.

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan on Friday seized Kandahar and Herat, the country’s second- and third-largest cities, hours after Fox News confirmed that the U.S. military will help evacuate Americans from the embassy in Kabul.

LIVE UPDATES: TALIBAN GAIN MORE GROUND IN AFGHANISTAN AS THEY CLOSE IN ON KABUL

The Taliban has overtaken a number of large cities in recent days and now controls more than two-third of Afghanistan, and thousands of Afghani citizens have fled their homes.

"This rapid and haphazard withdrawal of American troops — before we knew that our embassy would be safe, before we had our Afghan interpreters and other friends out of Afghanistan — to allow it to fall like this without any sort of plan or recourse, it is shameful," Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the first female combat veteran elected to the U.S. Senate, told Fox News' "The Story" on Friday. "Again, it is all on President Biden"

Internally displaced Afghans from northern provinces, who fled their home due to fighting between the Taliban and Afghan security personnel, take refuge in a public park Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) (Rahmut Gul)

Biden had been warned by other Republicans he would risk a "Saigon moment" — in reference to how the Vietnam War ended — if he went ahead with a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The president is also facing criticism for response to the crises happening within the United States' own borders.

Across the country, fears of COVID-19 variants and rising inflation are growing.

SENATE ADVANCES $1.2T INFRASTRUCTURE BILL; REPUBLICAN SENATOR CRAMER DEFENDS ‘CRITICAL’ SPENDING

So far, health officials have argued, and studies have shown, that vaccinated individuals remain protected from serious illness, hospitalization and death due to current variants of COVID-19. But experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci have cautioned that unvaccinated individuals will allow the virus to circulate and continue to mutate, potentially giving rise to a variant that could harm even vaccinated individuals. 

While the president has succeeded in helping to get more than 70% of Americans vaccinated with at least their first dose, his administration still faces challenges in how to address the growing number of cases despite high vaccine rates.

Health officials have also warned that variants, as the virus continues to mutate, may become more contagious, as is the case for the delta and lambda strains of the virus. Some states are seeing new surges of the virus, and major cities like New York City, Philadelphia and San Fransisco have reinstated indoor mask mandates, leading some to wonder whether the country will experience another lockdown.

Medical workers prepare to manually prone a COVID-19 patient in an intensive care unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

A key inflation measure surprised economists by hitting yet another record high, with producer price inflation rising 7.8% over the 12 month period ending in July. That number was the highest recorded in the over ten-year history of the metric, raising fears inflation could stick around longer than some predict. Consumer prices rose 5.4% in July compared to July of 2020.

Critics have blamed heavy government spending (about $5 trillion since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020), as well as uneven supply and demand, for rising inflation.

MASSIVE BORDER NUMBERS FORCE OFFICIALS TO KEEP ADDING LAYERS TO STAT CHART

The Federal Reserve has said the recent price increases are "transitory" and that cost pressures will subside as supply chain issues caused by the pandemic are resolved.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been working to send millions of vaccines to other countries to help the virus from spreading and mutating outside U.S. borders before they eventually find their way inside U.S. borders, as the delta and lambda variants did.

Variants from other countries and continents are also prompting fears of migrants traveling into the U.S. who are testing positive for COVID-19. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called the border crisis "unsustainable" on Thursday in leaked audio obtained by Fox News.

"A couple of days ago I was down in Mexico, and I said look, you know, if, if our borders are the first line of defense, we're going to lose and this is unsustainable," Mayorkas said in the audio obtained by Fox News' Bill Melugin. "We can't continue like this, our people in the field cant continue and our system isn't built for it."

Migrant women carry children in the rain at an intake area after turning themselves in upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, late Tuesday, May 11, 2021, in La Joya, Texas.  (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

More than 212,000 migrants were encountered in July – the latest consecutive month in which border numbers have skyrocketed under the Biden administration and another serious blow to the White House's border strategy, Mayorkas announced Thursday.

The Homeland Security secretary said that 212,672 migrants were encountered at the southern border in July, a 13% increase over the already massive 188,000 migrant encounters in June. In July 2020, there were just 40,929 encounters.

He emphasized that many of those 212,000 resulted in expulsions under Title 42 public health protections, with 95,788 Title 42 removals. However, that number is lower than in June, where 104,907 migrants were removed under Title 42. He also said that 27% of those encountered had at least one prior encounter in the past 12 months.

While the majority of single adults were expelled under Title 42, he said just 12% of migrant families were removed under the public health order.

Mayorkas appeared to acknowledge that the situation at the border was grim, describing it as "one of the toughest challenges" the administration is facing.

The president tweeted a video on Friday night touting his progress during his first term in office. Biden listed several successes, including the fastest economic growth "in 20 years," the lowest unemployment rate since April of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan "to fight the virus and fight the economic mess" his administration "inherited." 

"As a result, we've been able to make progress on both fronts against grave challenges," he said.

Fox News' Charles Creitz, Houston Keene, Peter Aitken, Adam Shaw and Jonathan Garber contributed to this report.

 

Audrey Conklin

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-response-covid-afghanistan-border-inflation

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Israel will pay a price for being on wrong side of the US-China fight - Yaakov Katz

 

​ by Yaakov Katz

America's greatest adversary is not Iran, Islamic terrorism, or even Russia. It is China, and Israel is on the wrong side of those battle lines.

 

Naftali Bennett during a visit to China in 2014 when he served as Israel’s minister of economy.

(photo credit: Courtesy)

When Prime Minister Naftali Bennett flies to Washington in the coming weeks – a final date has not yet been set – he will meet a president who is riding high and ready to face off against America’s greatest adversary.

 

That adversary is not Iran, Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, or even Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It is China, and Israel is on the wrong side of those battle lines.

 

Bennett should bear this in mind, because while he will be entering the Oval Office hoping to secure security commitments on Iran and Syria, President Joe Biden and his senior staff are looking for Israel to cut back on its relationship with China. They will be happy to talk about Iran, the Palestinians, and retaining the IDF’s qualitative military edge, but they also want secure commitments about China.

 

“We need to wake up,” one top government official said this week.

 

That is the prism through which one should view the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that Biden pushed through the Senate this week. Yes, it will upgrade America’s deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new broadband initiatives; but it will also help the US remain in competition with China, which has been beating the West’s investments in infrastructure for years. As Biden warned a group of senators in February about Beijing: “If we don’t get moving, they are going to eat our lunch.”

 

While some see Biden just continuing Donald Trump’s anti-China policy, the new president seems to be led by a clear strategy and not just statements. He is working to undermine Beijing on multiple fronts – sanctions, advisories against doing business in Hong Kong, and openly accusing China’s Ministry of State Security of launching cyberattacks against the West.

 

Israel received a taste of that cyber threat this week when the international cybersecurity company FireEye announced that China had hacked dozens of public and private Israeli tech and infrastructure companies as part of a plan to steal technology and information.

 

This is the same China that has been eating Israel’s infrastructure for the last decade. Ports, power stations, bridges, tunnels and more have all been built by China. All indications are that Biden will bring this up with Bennett when the two meet. Some in Israel’s government have recommended convening the security cabinet to discuss the issue. It is that important.

 

While Trump officials tried to move the previous government to crack down on Chinese investments in Israel, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not do much except buy time, with the establishment of a weak oversight mechanism in 2019 that officials admit is impotent. The Americans have noticed too, and want to see tougher action.

 

Which brings us to the delay in announcing which construction companies won the tender to build the Tel Aviv light rail’s new Green and Purple Lines. NTA, the government-funded company responsible for the design and construction of the transit system – which is run by former Prisons Service officer Haim Glick – has been dragging its feet in making a final decision.

 

(Officially, NTA Spokesman Avi First claimed on Thursday that the company was waiting for the Finance Ministry to allow it to open the envelopes. Asked about the claim, Finance Ministry Spokesperson Lilach Weissman, who represents Dir.-Gen. Ram Belinkov who also serves as the chairman of NTA, refused to respond).

 

The delay in announcing the winner makes diplomatic sense for Israel, if the tender has been won by the China Railway Construction Company (CRCC), a member of one of the groups competing for the multi-billion-dollar deal.

 

CRCC is well-known in Israel, and has worked here for years. One of its subsidiaries, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC), dug the Gilon Tunnel in the North in 2014 at a cost of about $200m, worked as a subcontractor on the Carmel Tunnel project for about $150m. in 2010, and for the last couple of years has been working on the Tel Aviv light rail’s Red Line to the tune of $500m.

 

Biden issued an executive order in June banning these companies from receiving any US investment, due to suspected ties to the Chinese defense industry. So Americans cannot do business with the CRCC, but Israel seems to think that it can.

 

The winner of the tender was originally scheduled to be announced in June. Some industry experts have speculated that Bennett wants to delay the announcement until after his meeting with Biden.

 

If that is his strategy, the prime minister might want to rethink it. Yes, once the tender winner is announced it is almost impossible to annul the decision. But Bennett would be wise to avoid the NTA announcing that CRCC has won the tender just a few weeks after he returns from giving assurances in Washington that he will cut back Israel’s ties with China. That will only cause Israel greater trouble.

 

Whatever the case, Israel needs to tread carefully in the years to come. America is going up against China with all of its economic prowess. Israel won’t be able to say that it didn’t know.

 

Yaakov Katz

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-is-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-us-china-fight-676607

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Hezbollah has inter-regional tunnel network stretching hundreds of km. - Anna Ahronheim

 

​ by Anna Ahronheim

The large-scale network was built with the help of North Korea and is much larger than Hamas' 'metro' network in Gaza.

 

View of a Hezbollah tunnel that crosses from Lebanon to Israel, on the border between Israel and Lebanon in northern Israe

(photo credit: SRAYA DIAMANT)

Hezbollah has a large-scale inter-regional tunnel network stretching across Lebanon designed to move personnel and weapons, according to a new report released by the ALMA Center over the weekend.

 

According to the report, titled “Land of Tunnels” and authored by Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, Hezbollah began its tunnel project after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 with the help of the North Koreans and Iranians and “is much larger than the Hamas ‘metro’ project in the Gaza Strip.”

 

The network supposedly connects the Beirut area, Hezbollah’s central headquarters, the Bekaa area used by the group as its logistical operational rear base, to southern Lebanon. According to the report by ALMA Center, which researches security challenges facing Israel on its northern front, the tunnels allow for “hundreds of fully equipped combatants to pass stealthily and rapidly underground.”

 

The tunnels are also large enough for motorcycles, ATVs (all-terrain vehicles), and other small vehicles to move through them to allow for troops to maneuver from place to place “for the purpose of reinforcing defense positions or for carrying out an attack in a safe, protected, and invisible manner.”

 

The cumulative length of the network may be hundreds of kilometers and in one area stretches some 45 kilometers, connecting the area of Sidon to the Bekaa.

 

“According to our findings, it seems that part of the project was conducted in the geographical area of the Jensnaya Wadi’s, the valley between al- Hasania and Wadi el Leymoun, Barti al-Sfenta (between Sniyeh and Bouslaiya), Mizra Kafra, south Zhalta. In addition, in the geographical area of al-Tswuan– al-Roummaneh, Jabal Toura (radar), Louaizeh , Sejoud , Mizra’a al-Zaghrine , al-Aishia, al-Qotrani, al-Sriri, Bracha Jabour, Meidoun  and continuing to the western Bekaa,” the report read.

 

Like Hamas, the tunnels contain underground command and control rooms, weapons and supply depots, field clinics and specified designated shafts used to fire missiles of all types (rockets, surface-to-surface missiles, anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles).

 

Beeri wrote that the tunnels are also used for artillery attacks, with the shafts opening for a short period before being shut. These shafts are hidden and camouflaged and cannot be detected above ground.

 

The tunnels in Lebanon, which do not cross the border with Israel, are the same as the tunnels in North Korea.

 

The report stated that Hezbollah’s tunnel network was built with the assistance of a North Korean company called the “Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation,” a company that specializes in the development of underground infrastructure. The actual construction of the tunnels was done by Hezbollah’s Jihad Construction Foundation.

 

In 2018, the IDF launched Operation Northern Shield to discover and destroy all cross-border tunnels dug by Hezbollah into northern Israel. The military said it found and destroyed six such tunnels.  

 

The destruction of those cross-border tunnels was a significant hit to the group, and according to the IDF, they haven’t tried to rebuild them.

 

Anna Ahronheim

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/hezbollah-has-inter-regional-tunnel-network-stretching-hundreds-of-km-676633

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Israel reduced settler housing plans by 39% to appease US, source says - Lahav Harkov, Tovah Lazaroff

 

​ by Lahav Harkov, Tovah Lazaroff

Israel had initially intended advance plans for 3,623 units but dropped 1,400 from the agenda.

 

Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley heads of councils attend a press conference of the Yesha Council outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, August 12, 2021

(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

 

Israel reduced by 39% the number of West Bank settler homes as the Civil Administration plans to advance next week for authorization with an eye toward appeasing US President Joe Biden’s administration, which opposes such activity.

 

Initial intention was to advance plans for 3,623 homes, but for diplomatic reasons 1,400 units were dropped from the agenda of the Higher Planning Council for Judea and Samaria, a settler source told The Jerusalem Post.

 

The source added that, with an eye to Washington, council plans to advance 2,223 new settler homes was deliberately linked to an unusual Civil Administration hearing next week on the authorization of 863 Palestinian homes in Area C of the West Bank.

 

"We have to be sensitive to the Americans," a senior diplomatic source said in explaining the need for a balanced approach on Area C housing.

 

In the end there is a balanced package that shows that the council is routinely meeting and disproves any claims that there is a "construction freeze," the senior diplomatic source said. 

 

A reasonable amount of Jewish homes will be built, but at the same time Israel has addressed an issue that  concerns the US, which is construction for the Palestinians in Area C, the source added.

 

The State Department, however, still attacked the move.

 

“We believe it is critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and fundamentally undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution,” a State Department official told the Post.

 

“This certainly includes settlement activity which will make achieving a two-state solution much more difficult.  It’s critical to advance steps that will promote calm and reduce tensions,” the official added.

 

Both plans were simultaneously placed on the council’s agenda on Wednesday in what looked like the start of a new paradigm for settlement housing approvals, which would include units for both Jews and Palestinians in Area C.

 

It’s almost an exact duplicate of the actions taken by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he convened the council in January in the waning days of former US president Donald Trump’s administration. At that time the council advanced plans for 780 settler homes as well as a plan that allowed for 140 Palestinian homes in Area C, which is under IDF military and civilian control.

 

Netanyahu at the time would have also had to keep Biden in mind, given that he was days away from inauguration.

 

The announcement of the housing plans comes in advance of Bennett’s upcoming meeting with Biden. But it also follows an unusual amount of conversatons between Israeli and US officials in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been on the agenda.

 

Eyal Hulata, national security adviser-designate, and Shimrit Meir, foreign policy adviser to the prime minister, were in Washington earlier this month. This week, CIA Director William Burns was in Israel, where he met with both Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

 

A source said that Israel notified the US of the settler housing plans in advance and that Gantz has spoken with the Palestinians.

 

A senior Israeli source said that in conversations with the US had not involved nitty gritty details about the number of units that would be advanced. Israel developed a model of how to move forward with settlement construction independently. 

 

"We are managing this ourselves and taking everyone into consideration," the source said.

 

"We are showing that we have a very responsible and balanced policy," the source added. 

 

The Trump administration which supported settlement has been replaced with a government that no longer supports such activity, the senior diplomatic source said.

 

"We have to figure out how to allow building while keeping up relations for the visit to the US and coordination on Iran," the source added.

 

But despite the assurances that settlement activity would continue Foreign Minister Yair Lapid at a press conference in Morocco on Thursday hinted that the authorization of settlement plans should be limited to natural growth.

 

In the history of the settlement movement, population growth has exceeded natural growth, although as the growth rate drops, it becomes increasingly reliant on it. So limiting development to natural growth would be a constriction of settlement expansion.

 

The “natural growth” terminology is a throwback to the Obama and Bush administrations.

 

Trump had largely not constrained settlement growth during his administration.

 

Settler leaders noted the policy change and held two emergency meetings: one on Wednesday night and another on Thursday, when the Yesha Council held a meeting in front of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

 

Yesha Council head David Elhayani said that “when the government makes the correlation between Israeli and Palestinians building in Area C” then a red line has been crossed.

 

“It gives a message to the Palestinians that if you build in Area C, we will authorize it,” Elhayani said.

 

Settler leaders and the Israeli Right hold that all of Area C should be included within Israel’s sovereign borders. The Palestinians in turn hold that all of Area C should be part of their future state. Building is seen as one of the most significant ways to preserve that territory.

 

Out of the 2,223 settler homes that will be advanced, 1,315 will be deposited for further discussion. This include 399 homes in the Revava settlement, 377 in Kedumim, 156 in Givat Ze’ev, 100 in Elon Moreh, 100 in Sansana, 86 in Ofarim, 45 in Vered Yeriho, 27 in Karnei Shomron, 18 in Alon Shvut and seven in Hermesh.

 

Another 908 will be validated for final approval. This includes 292 in the Kfar Etzion settlement, 286 in Har Bracha, 105 in Alon Shvut, 83 in Karnei Shomron, 58 in Beit El, 42 in Givat Ze’ev, 28 in Barkan, 14 in Ma’aleh Michmash.

 

The Palestinian plans for the Civil Administration, which are set for debate next week, include 150 units at al-Masara near Bethlehem and 50 in Khirbat Zakariya in the Gush Etzion region. Three housing approvals in the area of Jenin include 270 units in Bir al-Basha, 233 in al-Masqufa and 160 in Khirbat Aaba.

 

Omri Nahmias contributed to this report.

 

Lahav Harkov, Tovah Lazaroff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/bennett-reduced-settler-housing-plans-by-39-percent-to-appease-us-source-says-676602

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MidEast Powers Vie to Shape the Next Generation of Muslims - Dr. James M. Dorsey

 

​ by Dr. James M. Dorsey

Rival concepts being instilled in the next generation are likely to shape what amounts to a battle for the soul of Islam.

 

A group of schoolchildren from Loydence Academy in Doha attends an Arab Games exhibition at Katara, Doha, image by Vinod Divakaran via Flickr CC

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,122, August 13, 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Education is emerging as a major flashpoint in competing visions of a future Muslim world. Rival concepts being instilled in the next generation are likely to shape what amounts to a battle for the soul of Islam.

Reports published earlier this year by the Israel-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE) chart a notable divergence in educational approaches across the Muslim world.

At one end of the spectrum are Pakistan and Turkey, two of the more populous Muslim countries. Their claim to leadership of the Muslim world is rooted in conservative if not ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam that increasingly shape their education systems.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE reside at the other end of the spectrum with their reduced emphasis on religion in education and emphasis on science as well as religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue.

Straddling the two approaches is Qatar, the world’s only other Wahhabi state alongside Saudi Arabia—even if it adhered to a more liberal interpretation long before the rise of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.

Since coming to office, Prince Muhammad has significantly reduced the role of ultra-conservative religious figures and institutions, cut back on global funding of Wahhabi activity, enhanced women’s rights, and built a Western-style entertainment sector.

Sandwiched between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Qatar sees global support of political Islam, including the Muslim Brotherhood, as its best defense against the Saudi and Iranian governance models.

Qatari textbooks reflect the tightrope the Gulf state walks between professing adherence to concepts of democratic freedoms, human rights, tolerance, and pluralism, yet refusing to break with antisemitic and anti-Christian notions as well as philosophies of jihad and martyrdom prevalent in political Islam.

What the different approaches have in common is what makes both problematic: an endorsement of autocratic or strongman rule by either explicitly propagating absolute obedience to the ruler or the increasingly authoritarian environment in which the Islamicized education systems are being rolled out.

Underlying the different approaches to education are diverging interpretations of what Islam represents and what constitutes a moderate form of the faith as well as seemingly haphazard definitions put forward by various leaders.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in contrast to the values propagated in Turkish and Pakistan school curricula, tackle issues that are widely seen as potentially contributing to breeding grounds for radicalism and extremism.

These include supremacist concepts, discriminatory portrayals of minorities, emphasis on rote learning, and attitudes toward violence.

In an interview in early May, Prince Muhammad expressed seemingly contradictory definitions of what his version of moderate Islam entailed. On the one hand, the crown prince suggested that it involved a liberal application of Islamic law guided by principles of tolerance and inclusivity.

Yet at the same time, when asked about tackling extremism, Prince Muhammad cited a hadith or prophetic saying that urges the faithful to kill extremists. Saudi dissidents charged that the crown prince was justifying the targeting of people who criticize him, such as Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“Today, we cannot grow, attract capital, offer tourism, or move forward with the existence of extremist ideology in Saudi Arabia. If you want millions of jobs, decline of unemployment, economic growth, and better income, then you must uproot this project… Any person who espouses an extremist ideology, even if he is not a terrorist, he is still a criminal who must be held accountable before the law,” Prince Muhammad said, arguing that the days in which religious ultra-conservatism served a purpose were in the past.

The divergence in educational approaches takes on added significance because countries that are competing for leadership of the Muslim world, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, and Iran, export their visions of what the faith stands for in a variety of ways. These include funding religious, cultural, and educational institutions in other countries and lobbying for policies that bolster their approach and counter those of their rivals.

While cutting back significantly on its overseas funding and harnessing the Muslim World League (MWL), once a prime vehicle in the Saudi promotion of ultra-conservatism, to propagate the kingdom’s more recent message of tolerance and inter-faith outreach, Saudi Arabia at times does not shy away from employing those it now denounces as extremists.

Indonesia is a case in point. The World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), another government-sanctioned NGO once used to further Saudi ultra- conservatism, prides itself on the funding of mosques in Indonesia built by the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, or PKS), a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group.

When MWL secretary general Muhammad Issa visited the headquarters in Jakarta of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim movement, he opted to take with him Hidayat Nur Wahid, a leader of the PKS and a staunch rival of the National Awakening Party (or PKB), which is associated with NU.

The Saudi flaunting of its political Islamic Indonesian associate appears designed to counter Nahdlatul Ulama, the single most serious challenger to the various concepts of Islam put forward by Middle Eastern powers, including the kingdom.

Nahdlatul Ulama promotes a concept of humanitarian Islam that is rooted in a reinterpretation of religious texts, recognizes the need for reform to revise or remove what the group calls “obsolete” concepts such as that of the kafir or infidel, and is supported by a broad base of Islamic scholars.

For its part, Turkey’s religious authority, Diyanet, which resides in the office of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has seen its budget increase 23-fold in the last two decades, making it by far one of the best funded government agencies.

Diyanet has funded mosque construction from nearby formerly Ottoman countries in the Balkans to Africa and even Cuba. The Maarif Foundation, a vehicle used to take control globally of schools once operated by followers of Fethullah Gülen, uses school materials supplied by Diyanet.

Turkey accuses Gülen, a preacher who lives in exile in the US and an erstwhile ally of President Erdoğan, of having engineered a failed military coup in Turkey in 2016. Turkey has since arrested thousands of alleged Gülen supporters and removed large numbers of suspected supporters from the government bureaucracy and the military.

Multiple countries have handed local Gülen-operated schools to the Maarif Foundation. At last count, the foundation operated 323 schools, 42 dormitories, and one university in 43 countries.

By the same token, the UAE, supported by Saudi Arabia, has employed its religious soft power and commercial and economic sway to lobby for a tougher French policy toward political Islam prior to the crackdown initiated by President Emmanuel Macron.

The lobbying emphasized common interests in countering political Islam and Turkey, with which France is at odds in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean as well as on the issue of political Islam. It gave the French leader welcome Muslim cover to target political Islam and Turkey as he gears up for an election in 2022 in which Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far right, nationalist, and anti-immigration party National Rally, looms large.

As part of the crackdown on political Islam, France required children to attend school from age three. It also all but eliminated options for home schooling or the operation of privately-funded schools.

President Erdoğan threw down the gauntlet in 2018, declaring that “the joint goal of all education and our teaching system is to bring up good people with respect for their history, culture and values.” Erdoğan spoke of a “pious generation” that “will work for the construction of a new civilization.” It’s that new civilization that is at stake in the battle for the soul of Islam.

View PDF

 

Dr. James M. Dorsey, a non-resident Senior Associate at the BESA Center, is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture.

Source: https://besacenter.org/mideast-powers-vie-to-shape-the-next-generation-of-muslims/

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