The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, a Twitter user with the handle @redfrnn, who has since deleted his or her or xis account, tweeted:
“i’m going to assassinate supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.” The
same Twitter user had just before that tweeted a photo of a gun, saying:
“im considering buying a mac mini.” Twitter, however, did not find this
murderous psychopath to be in violation of their rules, despite the
fact that those rules say,
“You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of
people.” Well, sure. You can’t threaten violence against an individual, but Clarence Thomas, he’s a conservative.
And not only does Thomas dare to dissent from the Left’s agenda, but he
is one of the most powerful individuals in the country who is actively
working against it. So would the Twitter fascists mind if @redfrnn or
someone else actually did kill him? It’s unlikely that they’d shed a
tear, even for the fallen rule of law in our staggering republic.
In case anyone was wondering, threatening to assassinate a Supreme Court Justice doesn’t violate @Twitter rules. But people get suspended for stating scientific facts. pic.twitter.com/DYvWTts8jn
This is, after all, Twitter, which banned a sitting president of the United States and hasn’t reinstated him. The Washington Post
reported on Jan. 13, 2021, that “Twitter banned Trump’s account, which
boasted 88 million followers, last Friday after first suspending him for
12 hours the day of the Capitol siege. On Friday Trump again tweeted
that he wouldn’t attend the inauguration, as well as saying that his
supporters would not be disrespected ‘in any way, shape, or form.’
Twitter immediately dismantled his account, saying the tweets could
incite violence.”
So Twitter was ostensibly worried that Trump’s words would somehow incite violence, even though he didn’t call for any and had told
the Jan. 6 protesters to proceed “peacefully.” But when it comes now to
an open and explicit call for violence against someone who is out of
favor with the Leftist elites, Twitter says “redfrnn hasn’t broken our safety policies.”
Twitter has demonstrated this same malicious inconsistency before. On
New Year’s Day 2022, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, tweeted,
“Martyr Soleimani is an eternal reality that will live on forever. His
assassins – including Trump & the like – will go down in history’s
garbage bin, but of course after receiving retribution in this world for
the crime they committed.” That “retribution in this world” bit was a
clear threat, but Twitter did nothing to restrict Khamenei’s account.
Nor did Twitter do anything to the account of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps when it tweeted
nine days later, “The Islamic Republic of Iran considers vengeance
against those responsible for the Baghdad crime to be the right of all
believers; whether they are drops in the ocean or bits of sand in the
desert they’ll seek vengeance next to the criminals’ homes.”
So the hardcore Leftists who run Twitter allowed Khamenei and the IRGC
to threaten Trump, but banned Trump himself after he called for a
peaceful protest. And now Twitter is allowing open threats against
Clarence Thomas. So whatever happened to Elon Musk’s bid to take over
Twitter? It seems to have simply faded away, and the Twitter fascists
are just as much in the saddle as they always were.
Twitter’s blasé response to the threats to Thomas, however,
demonstrates anew how deeply corrupt the platform really is, and how
desperately an alternative is needed. The primary means of public
discourse today are in the hands of ideologues who don’t believe in the
freedom of speech and, as is increasingly clear, don’t even believe in
the rule of law.
If their hegemony isn’t broken, this is a sure pathway to an
authoritarian or even a totalitarian state, in which enemies of the
powerful elites, such as Trump and Thomas, can be silenced and even
killed if they stray too far from what the guardians of acceptable
opinion have delineated as acceptable things to say. Twitter has
likewise in the past banned numerous people, including PJ Media’s own Matt Margolis,
for enunciating obvious truths such as the fact that Lia Thomas and
Rachel Levine are not women but men. Twitter will indulge and enforce
these Leftists’ fantasies and forcibly silence people for dissenting
from them, while simultaneously remaining completely sanguine about
death threats to prominent conservatives.
Enough is enough. If we had a lion-hearted, courageous opposition
party, it would open hearings aimed at shutting Twitter down altogether.
If we had a Justice Department, it would be looking into prosecuting
Twitter for allowing these threats.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the agreement as "a big step forward in the energy supply to Europe" and "the first step leading to a Mediterranean-wide agreement."
Over time the agreement could
spur new investment in gas exploration and infrastructure in Cyprus,
Egypt, Greece and Israel and potentially transform the Eastern
Mediterranean into an energy powerhouse.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the
agreement as "a big step forward in the energy supply to Europe" and
"the first step leading to a Mediterranean-wide agreement."
"The war in Ukraine has really changed the equation in a way,
including for the EU where they're willing to overlook, at least in the
short term, the desire to go green as soon as possible." — Dov Lieber, The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2022.
The
European Union has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel and
Egypt that paves the way for potentially significant quantities of
Israeli natural gas to be shipped to Europe. Pictured: European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (back) looks on as EU
Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson (L), Egyptian Minister of Petroleum
Tarek el-Molla (C), and Israeli Minister of Energy Karine Elharrar (R)
sign a trilateral natural gas deal in Cairo on June 15, 2022. (Photo by
Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)
The European Union has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel and Egypt that paves the way for potentially significant quantities of Israeli natural gas to be shipped to Europe.
The trilateral agreement, signed on June 15 in Cairo at a meeting of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum
(EMGF), an intergovernmental organization, calls for Israeli gas to be
sent to liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Egypt. From there, the
gas in liquid form will be transported across the Mediterranean Sea on
LNG vessels to markets in Europe.
Initially, the volumes of Israeli gas sent to Europe will be
relatively low due to a combination of factors, including infrastructure
limitations, the high costs of producing and shipping LNG, and the
politics of climate change and clean energy. Over time, however, the
agreement could spur new investment in gas exploration and
infrastructure in Cyprus, Egypt, Greece and Israel and potentially
transform the Eastern Mediterranean into an energy powerhouse.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described
the agreement as "a big step forward in the energy supply to Europe"
and "the first step leading to a Mediterranean-wide agreement."
Non-Russian Energy
The EU has been scrambling to reduce its dependence on gas from
Russia since February 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin
invaded Ukraine. In 2021, Russia supplied the EU with around 155 billion
cubic meters (bcm), or 45% of the bloc's total gas imports, according to the International Energy Agency.
On March 8, the European Commission, the EU's administrative arm, unveiled an ambitious proposal
to reduce imports of Russian gas by two-thirds before the end of 2022,
and to make the EU independent from Russian fossil fuels by 2030. It
called for increasing LNG imports from non-Russian sources by 50 billion
cubic meters (bcm) in 2022.
Since then, non-Russian gas producers — including Algeria, Angola, Congo, Nigeria, Qatar, and the United States — have agreed to supply the EU with gas to reduce the bloc's dependence on Russia.
The amount of natural gas that Israel can deliver immediately is
relatively small: over the short term, it could supply Europe with
around 10 bcm per year (approximately 2.5% of the EU's total gas
consumption of 350 bcm per year).
Based on the new agreement with Egypt and Israel, the European Union
expects to import 7 bcm of LNG from Egypt in 2022, 2 bcm more than
originally planned, according to an EU spokesman quoted by the Financial Times. The EU could import up to 10 bcm of LNG from Egypt in 2023.
Most of the LNG exported to Europe by Egypt originates
in Israel, which has increased gas production but does not have
large-scale export facilities of its own. Israel delivers 5 bcm of gas
annually to Egypt by means of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline
(EMG), which runs from Ashkelon in southern Israel to Arish in the
northern Sinai Peninsula. The pipeline has a maximum capacity of 7 bcm
per year.
In February 2022, Israel began shipping an additional 2.5-3 bcm to Egypt by means of the Jordanian section of the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP), which runs from Aqaba to Arish.
Israel and Egypt are discussing the construction of additional
pipelines that would more than double Israel gas exports to Egypt. The
two countries recently agreed
to build a second undersea pipeline that would transport 10 bcm of gas
annually from Israel's offshore Leviathan field directly to LNG
facilities in northern Egypt.
Israel is also considering
building a new onshore pipeline that would connect the Israeli and
Egyptian natural gas grids. The pipeline would allow Israel to increase
supplies to Egypt by an additional 3-5 bcm per year.
The existing and future pipelines could result in Israel and Egypt
shipping approximately 30 bcm of LNG annually to the EU in coming years.
This would amount to 8.5% of the EU's total gas consumption and roughly
20% of the amount previously supplied by Russia.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Jonathan Miller, the special envoy for energy at Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said:
"Israel is willing to do as much as possible in
supporting the European energy challenges. The big question is how does
this gas get to Europe, and this remains one of the challenges. In the
short term, these are not big figures because we have to rely on
existing infrastructure, but I think it's an important time for Europe,
Israel, Egypt and partners to look to mid-term and long-term solutions
on how we get to the European market."
LNG Alternatives
Most energy analysts agree that LNG imports are only a temporary
solution for Europe's gas needs. Over the long term, undersea pipelines
between Israel and Europe could offer a less expensive and more stable
source of gas compared to LNG. Two gas pipeline alternatives are
currently under discussion.
One option
is the construction of a $1.5 billion, 500-kilometer (300-mile)
pipeline between Israel's largest offshore natural gas field, Leviathan,
and Turkey, from where Israeli gas would be forwarded to southern
Europe through existing pipeline infrastructure. This option, involving
up to 15 bcm annually, would leave Israel strategically dependent on
Turkey, whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been hostile to the Jewish state.
The Turkish government has always insisted that Israeli gas can only
be sold to Europe through Turkey. In 2016, Turkish and Israeli officials
tried
to sign a deal to deliver gas, but Erdoğan's demand that Israel lift
its blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip made it impossible to reach an
agreement. Israeli President Isaac Herzog recently visited
Ankara for talks with Erdoğan to repair bilateral relations that have
long been strained due, among other issues, to the Turkish leader's
anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian terrorism.
The second option involves the 2,000-kilometer (1,242-mile) Eastern
Mediterranean (EastMed) pipeline, a $6 billion project aimed at shipping up to 20 bcm of gas annually natural gas from Israeli and Cypriot waters to Greece and Italy.
The EastMed pipeline has been in the planning stages for more than a decade. The Israel-Greece-Cyprus project — joined
by Bulgaria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia — has long
been seen as a way to diversify natural gas supplies to Europe.
In January 2020, the leaders of Israel, Greece and Cyprus — with strong support from the Trump administration — signed
the EastMed intergovernmental agreement, which aimed at reaching a
final investment decision by 2022 and completing the pipeline by 2025.
The EastMed project could eventually supply up to 10% of Europe's
natural gas needs.
In November 2021, the European Commission included
the EastMed pipeline in its list of so-called Projects of Common
Interest (PCI), priority cross-border energy projects aimed at
integrating the EU's energy infrastructure.
In January 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden
administration abruptly announced that it no longer supported EastMed
because the pipeline was antithetical to its "climate goals." Some
analysts said that Biden's decision effectively killed the project
because without American political support, such a costly project would
be difficult to finance.
The war in Ukraine may lead to the revival of the EastMed project,
regardless of opposition from the White House. Former Israeli Energy
Minister Yuval Steinitz, a key proponent of EastMed, recently called on the Israeli government to "urgently promote" the building of the pipeline as quickly as possible.
On May 23, at a conference — "Energy and the Eastern Mediterranean in 2022"
— organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Steinitz said
that EastMed is economically and technically feasible and "makes sense."
Speaking at the same conference, Italian energy executive Fabrizio
Mattana said that EastMed was the most secure option compared to other
gas export solutions. He estimated that EastMed would take up to four
years to complete after an investment decision is reached.
Boosting Production
Whether investments in new infrastructure projects such as pipelines
are made depend on several factors, including the amount of gas
available for export, and future demand from the European Union.
Israel's proven natural gas reserves are estimated to be 600 bcm, according
to BP's Statistical Review of World Energy. Israel expects to find
another 2.2 trillion cubic meters in its offshore fields, Steinitz told a World Energy Congress in Istanbul.
Over the next few years, Israel is on track to double gas production
to about 40 bcm from 20 bcm currently as it expands existing projects
and brings new fields online, according to industry officials interviewed by the Reuters news agency.
On May 8, the exploration company Energean reported
that it had discovered 8 bcm in the Athena well off the coast of
Israel, and that the area around the well could contain up to 58 bcm of
gas.
The European Union, as part of the memorandum of understanding, has
pledged to encourage European energy companies to participate in
projects to explore for new gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In an interview with the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency, Elai
Rettig, professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel,
said that Europe's demand for energy could potentially become a windfall for the Eastern Mediterranean:
"Europe needs as many alternative sources as possible.
The more export deals that are made, the more infrastructure will be
built, the bigger the chances are that new energy companies will come to
look for more gas in the Eastern Mediterranean."
Speaking to the Financial Times, Martijn Murphy, principal analyst for North Africa at Wood Mackenzie, the oil and gas consultancy, said that the deal could help foster further development of Israeli gas fields:
"It will help Israel in terms of attracting international
oil companies into the country who can be confident that there's going
to be a market to sell the gas on."
Israel's Energy Minister Karine Elharrar said the agreement with the EU could cement Israel's role on the global energy stage:
"This is a tremendous moment in which little Israel is
becoming a significant player in the global energy market. The
memorandum of understanding will allow Israel to export Israeli natural
gas to Europe for the first time, and it is even more impressive when
one looks at the string of significant agreements we have signed in the
past year, positioning Israel and the Israeli energy and water economy
as a key player in the world."
Israel correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Dov Lieber, said that the EU deal would be beneficial to Israel and Egypt:
"This isn't going to make up for the loss of Russian gas,
not even close, but it's part of the EU's diversification efforts. They
will get at least some of their gas from the Eastern Mediterranean
rather than relying on one partner. But for Israel and Egypt, it's
actually a major significance for both countries.
"This is the first time Israel is exporting gas to Europe, obviously a
major customer. Up until not too long ago, Israel itself was an
importer of natural gas, and all the natural gas discoveries basically
happened in the last decade or so. It's basically turned around its
whole energy image of an importer to now an exporter on the world stage
exporting to clients like the EU.
"Egypt also has benefited from all these discoveries of natural gas
in the Eastern Mediterranean. But because it has such a large
population, it needs to reserve a lot of its own gas for its local
market, but it has these liquification facilities that Israel doesn't
have that allows it to be the exporter of the gas to Europe. So it will
help Egypt become basically this regional hub for gas."
The EU agreement states that natural gas will play a key role in the
energy economy of EU countries only until 2030, at which point its
consumption is to gradually decrease until 2050, when the bloc hopes to
reach its zero-emissions target.
The Wall Street Journal's Dov Lieber concluded that the EU's urgent need to find enough supplies to replace Russian gas is outweighing longer-term goals to slash emissions:
"Exploration for natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean
only began producing results up to about two decades ago, and slowly
the major discoveries have started to come through. But at the same
time, these discoveries of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean
really happened at a time when the world was looking to transition away
from fossil fuels, transition away from natural gas and towards more
greener options, to decarbonize.
"The war in Ukraine has really changed the equation in a way,
including for the EU, where they're willing to overlook, at least in the
short term, the desire to go green as soon as possible. They're willing
to build out the continued exploration, for example, and to build out
infrastructure a little more in order to keep the gas flowing for now,
but they haven't really invested too much in this industry because it
looked like energy was going in a very different direction."
Maher Abdel Qader of the Palestinian American Congress is the Leonard
Zelig of the modern Democrat Party; he seems to know everyone, has
appeared in photos with most of them, and is connected to everything. He
has hosted
numerous fundraisers for New York City Mayor Eric Adams; he was part of
a committee putting together a fundraiser for Jesse Jackson’s son
Jonathan Jackson, who is running for the House in Illinois; and he is
close to Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) and Cori Bush (D-Race Hate),
as well as a prominent former congressman, Minnesota Attorney General
Keith Ellison. Abdel Qader is also a virulent anti-Semite, which should
surprise no one, given the bent of today’s Democrat Party.
It is odd, however, that Adams, who has courted New York’s Jewish community and appointed
two Orthodox Jews to his administration, would have close ties to Abdel
Qader. Early in 2021, Abdel Qader was one of only six community leaders
to speak with Adams on a Zoom call and talk over the then-candidate’s
“campaign vision [and] issues,” as well as to “engage in his campaign.”
Abdel Qader noted
in an Instagram post that has apparently been removed that Adams was
“on board with our community and will stand to support us.” Then in
September 2021, Abdel Qader posted on Instagram in another post that was
later removed or concealed: “Arab and Muslim community leaders met at
Marriott hotel - LaGuardia and held a Fundraising for Eric Adams the
democratic nominee for New York City mayor….Event was organized by the
Muslim Agenda 2021 Coalition.”
Thus it is clear that Adams was publicly friendly with Abdel Qader years after Abdel Qader posted an article on Facebook in 2016 that charged Jews with being “satanic” and claimed that they “practice subversion and treason.” In 2017, Abdel Qader posted a list
of the Jewish members of Congress, headed “U.S. Senators and
Congressmen with Duel [sic] Citizenship with Israel,” strongly implying
that those listed have dual loyalty to Israel and the U.S., as Rep.
Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) alleged back in 2019. In November 2019, he shared a video
that repeated the claim that Jews are “satanic” and added the paranoid
anti-Semitic trope that they control the media, while minimizing the
Holocaust.
Was Adams’ campaign so careless that it didn’t pick up this material
about Abdel Qader? Or was Adams’ election such a sure thing, since New
York is essentially a one-party state with a moribund Republican Party,
that the campaign figured that Abdel Qader’s anti-Semitism simply didn’t
matter? The worst possibility is that Adams’ campaign calculated that
Abdel Qader’s anti-Semitism would resonate with the Democrats’ hateful,
far-Left, pro-BDS base, and counterbalance the street cred the candidate
lost for being a former police officer?
Whatever the case may be with Adams, other Democrats haven’t hesitated
to associate themselves with Abdel Qader, either. In May, Abdel Qader
posted on Instagram: “May 18, 2022, Fundraiser for Keith Ellison the
30th attorney general of the State of Minnesota in Manhattan- New York.
Also attended by Michael J. Garner, Chief Diversity Officer, MTA
Department of Diversity and Civil Rights.” Of course it was.
Of Jonathan Jackson, Abdel Qader wrote: “Jonathan Jackson son of Jesse
Jackson/ Chicago is running for congress and needs our support. He is a
staunch supporter of Palestine, Palestinians and our Arab American
community.”
As for Bush, Fox News reported that “in early November, Abdel Qader
posted a Bush fundraising flier for a reception hosted by the St. Louis
Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Muslim Community of St. Louis,
which solicited donations between $100 and $2,500 for Bush’s campaign,
according to the flier. It appears he donated $250 to her campaign for
the fundraiser.” Generous guy.
Abdel Qader appears to be closest, however to Tlaib, who has, according
to Fox, “participated in several events with Abdel Qader over the
years, with the most recent fundraiser posted to his Instagram
account on September 25, 2021. One day after the fundraiser, Abdel Qader
posted a picture of himself alongside Tlaib on a Manhattan, New York,
rooftop.” In contrast to his parsimoniousness with Bush, “Abdel Qader
has not only been a key fundraiser for Tlaib, donating $6,500 to her campaign since 2018, but he was also the chairman of her finance committee during her successful 2018 Congressional campaign. Tlaib introduced Abdel Qader by the title at a campaign event. And in 2018, Tlaib presented Abdel Qader with a medal as a sign of gratitude for his help with her inaugural campaign.”
Tlaib, a vociferous critic of Israel, was likely untroubled by Abdel
Qader’s anti-Semitism. Apparently the other Democrat candidates Abdel
Qader supported weren’t bothered by it, either. Is anti-Semitism now so
mainstream on the Left that an open Jew-hater such as Maher Abdel Qader
can become an influential mover and shaker for Democrat candidates? The
answer is obviously yes.
The transgender pronouns, diversity training, and lesbian wedding ads aren't working.
The military is facing the worst recruiting environment since the end of the Vietnam War.
The Army is at only 40%
of its recruiting numbers for the fiscal year despite raising its
maximum enlistment bonus from $40,000 to $50,000. It now offers new
recruits up to $10,000 for showing up to basic training in 30 days. And is no longer even asking them for a high school diploma.
"We've never offered $50,000 to join the Army," Maj. Gen. Kevin Vereen, head of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said.
While the Army runs anime lesbian wedding
ads, it’s pushing away the recruits it needs, young patriotic men from
traditional backgrounds. When the Biden administration’s brass decided
to mandate vaccinations, they automatically rejected the 60% of potential recruits who aren’t.
By Obama’s second term, male Army ROTC cadets were being forced to march in women’s high heels. Under Biden, that escalated to mandatory transgender pronoun training while figuring out living arrangements for men who suddenly decide that they’re really women.
The Army has stopped worrying about winning wars and is instead working to establish the “Army as a global leader in DEI”. That’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Obama's Army Secretary Eric Fanning’s had already
ordered mandatory implicit bias training for “soldiers and employees in
senior leadership and management positions”. The Army is now preparing
for the prospect of accommodating men in women’s housing and deploying HIV positive men.
While the Army brass complains that it can't find recruits, even with
gay wedding ads, transgender housing and HIV positive deployment, it's
been kicking out unvaccinated soldiers.
In February, it reported that commanders had
"relieved a total of six Regular Army leaders, including two battalion
commanders, and issued 3,073 general officer written reprimands to
Soldiers for refusing the vaccination order." As of June, 60,000 Army
Reserve and National Guard soldiers are unvaccinated. That's 12% of the
Army Guard and 10% of the Army Reserve.
“Army readiness depends on soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy,
fight and win our nation’s wars,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth
claimed. “Unvaccinated soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize
readiness.”
HIV positive soldiers don’t present a risk or jeopardize readiness, but unvaccinated soldiers do.
Instead of spending $684 million on recruitment, and a $4 billion 10
year contract with Omnicom, one of whose subsidiaries worked on the
Biden campaign, the Army could try to stop actively alienating and
firing the young men actually willing to fight and die on the
battlefield.
And maybe then the Army might be able to stop lowering standards and
issuing moral waivers for criminal records. Or forcibly extending the
assignments of recruiters and making them work on federal holidays in
the hopes of recruiting 60,000 active duty soldiers.
A Quinnipiac poll earlier this year found that only 40% of Democrats
would stay and fight if America were invaded, while 52% would run away.
68% of Republicans would stay and fight. 70% of men would stay and
fight in contrast to, understandably, 40% of women, and 61% and 57% of
Hispanic and white people would stay and fight, in contrast to only 38%
of black people.
Polls like these provide obvious common sense guidelines as to whom to
recruit. Instead the woke army, like the rest of the woke military,
keeps trying to recruit the wokes who don’t want to fight for their
country and don’t even think their country is worth fighting for.
While the Army is the most troubled of the military branches, the Air Force is 4,000 personnel underwater.
“We have warning lights flashing," Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas warned. “Our ‘qualified and waiting’ list is about half of what it has been historically."
Good thing the Air Force, like other branches, is screening recruits
for “extremism” and the unvaccinated, and focused above all else on
increasing its diversity quotas. The Air Force is less interested
in recruiting in the South and bemoans the fact that 86% of Air Force
aviators are white men. And those are exactly the people whom the Air
Force brass no longer want.
“As Airmen in the U.S. Air Force, it’s our duty to acknowledge our
biases whether we realize they exist or not,” airmen who are accused of
being racist because they’re white are being told.
No wonder there are warning lights flashing in recruitment.
Navy recruiters are focused on the popularity of Top Gun Maverick to
bring in new recruits. But the hit Tom Cruise movie has little
relationship to the reality of a woke Air Force whose racialist brass
are obsessed with critical race theory and whose planes don’t actually fly.
In the movie, the pilots fly F/A-18s and no one screams at them about
their pronouns and their unconscious racial biases. Or their vaccination
status. In real life, F/A-18E/F's have a 51% mission capable rate. And the Navy’s woke leadership is focused on fighting “systemic racism:”
The Navy is offering a $25,000 "quick ship" bonus to recruits. "The
Navy is the only U.S. military branch currently offering this high of an
enlistment bonus for any new enlistee," it brags, and suggests that the "the enlistment bonus could be as high as $50,000."
But the Navy, like the Army and other services, can’t buy its way out of a morale crisis.
The United States military is never going to win a bidding war against
corporations. Amazon warehouse team members make more than starting
recruits. And they're generally less likely to die. The only real
military recruiting edge is a patriotic commitment to defending your
country.
Military recruiters blame a national manpower shortage and their
advertising strategy follows the familiar one of corporations going
woke, appealing to the perceived wokeness and narcissism of Gen Z. Major
corporations are being roiled by the radical activists they have
recruited this way who are demanding that corporate leaders adopt not
only their values but their agenda. Or else.
The brass trying to dress up the military in woke colors to make it
appear that it shares their values are writing a big blank check that no
one, not even Gen. Milley, wants to cash.
The Obama and Biden administrations appointed brass who gutted the
services and replaced patriotic and nationalistic values with woke
virtue signaling and radical politics. Now they’re discovering that when
jobs are going begging, no one wants to join a woke military.
Patriots don’t and wokes won't either.
Wokes willing to die for a cause are a lot more likely to join riots
than the military. Those who see the military as serving their cause
are, like actual white supremacists, exactly the kinds of “dangerous
extremists” who are just joining up to gain experience for domestic
terrorism.
There is a solution to the recruiting crisis. It doesn’t involve
spending hundreds of millions on ad campaigns or anime lesbian weddings.
The place to start is with the reasons for serving.
In the aftermath of the disgraceful Afghanistan retreat and of a War on
Terror that has been effaced by political correctness, military service
appears more senseless to many than it did after Vietnam. And in a
nation riven with division, the military has come to reflect those
divisions, with its brass firmly putting their thumbs on the partisan
scale and adopting the leftist ideas and woke cultural values that are
hostile to the majority of the men under their command.
The military, like so many institutions, went woke, now it’s finding out that woke leads to broke.
Rebuilding morale begins with a renewed commitment to national values
and patriotism, to serious warfighting and meritocratic striving, and to
a culture built on teams, not racial divisions.
And while the woke brass stay, the recruits stay away.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and
Islamic terrorism.
The vital importance of fighting off "semantic infiltration."
Anyone who regularly comments on current political affairs will
eventually end up repeating himself. Usually that’s because politicians
and pundits keep making the same errors of thinking, and displaying the
same lack of critical self-awareness of those mistakes. Some, like
Capote’s Holly Golightly, are true believers who sincerely believe all
“this crap” they believe, and “can’t be talked out of it.” Or they are
conscious liars who don’t care that their ideas and beliefs are
incoherent or pernicious, as long as they win them more power and
privilege.
That truth is a commonplace. But as novelist André Gide once said,
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no
one was listening, everything must be said again,” in the hope that
somebody will be listening, since using the dishonest,
politicized words of progressives helps to spread the malign concepts
and ideologies like a virus, infecting the body politic.
Recently columnist George Will called this phenomenon “semantic
infiltration . . . the tactic by which political objectives are smuggled
into discourse that is ostensibly, but not actually, politically
neutral. People who adopt a political faction’s vocabulary also adopt —
perhaps inadvertently, but inevitably — the faction’s agenda.”
Will’s example is the “woke” economic term “stakeholder,” a synonym for
“stockholder.” Extending a “stakeholder” to include anybody and
everybody whom a business even slightly affects is to indulge a false
analogy, the logical fallacy favored by those who are up to no good or
smuggling their ideology into an argument––which, as Will points out, is
exactly what the “stakeholder” metaphor does: “Stakeholder capitalism
violates fiduciary laws that require those entrusted with investors’
money to employ it ‘solely in the interest of’ and ‘for the exclusive
purpose of providing benefits to’ the investors.”
Most of us can cite a whole catalogue of scare-words and
question-begging epithets, like “racist” and “sexist,” used not to
communicate precisely but to demonize a political enemy or advance a
dangerous ideology under cover of invective. One scare-term nearly a
century old is “fascist” or “fascism.” George Orwell in his 1944 essay
“What is Fascism?” showed how in everyday usage, the term is over-broad
and often historically incorrect. Especially in political rhetoric,
“this word has lost the last vestige of meaning.”
For example, “All Conservatives, appeasers or anti-appeasers, are held
to be subjectively pro-Fascist. British rule in India and the Colonies
is held to be indistinguishable from Nazism.” Those who use this term so
vaguely, Orwell continues, “mean, roughly speaking, something cruel,
unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and
anti-working-class.” Today we would add “racist,” “sexist,”
“homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” and “cis”-whatever to that list.
Seventy-eight years later, “fascist” remains the Left’s favorite smear.
The political ascent of Donald Trump set off an orgy of
“fascism”-mongering by progressives and NeverTrump Republicans alike. It
was disappointing during Trump’s term to read otherwise savvy and
respectable Republicans indulge such an obviously empty word.
For example, the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens wrote a
whole column on superficial historical parallels with the 1930s, linking
Trump to Italian fascism. In the Washington Post, the
Brookings Institute’s Robert Kagan explained “this is how fascism comes
to America.” Arch-NeverTrumper Jonah Goldberg accused conservatives of
giving in to the “fascist temptation.” Likewise, NR’s’s Jay Nordlinger’s
meditated on whether or not the “F-word” applies to Trump, and
concluded, “I’m not sure”––a cringing cop-out.
Reading these hyperbolic slanders, one might conclude that these
commentators don’t know that even during the Great Depression, fascism
has never had the sort of political influence and presence in our
culture, education, and politics that communism had and still has today.
Misusing this word bespeaks an undiscriminating and lazy mind.
Then there are “imperialism” and “colonialism,” and their postmodern
variant “post-colonialism.” The great scholar of Soviet terror, Robert
Conquest, called out this linguistic corruption decades ago. Historical
terms like “imperialism” and “colonialism,” Conquest wrote, now refer to
“a malign force with no program but the subjugation and exploitation of
innocent people.” As such, these terms are verbal “mind-blockers and
thought-extinguishers,” which serve “mainly to confuse, and of course to
replace, the complex and needed process of understanding with the
simple and unneeded process of inflammation.”
Worse, they are weapons of propaganda used to denigrate the West,
especially the U.S., even though actual colonialism and imperialism were
brief episodes in American history. Moreover, it was American President
Woodrow Wilson who put anticolonialism and anti-imperialism, as well
as national self-determination, at the forefront of the “new world
order” created by the Versailles settlement. Yet today these terms have
little to do with historical reality, and everything to do with Leftist
anti-Americanism and globalist “new world order” hatred of Western
nationalism.
More dangerously, these terms have underwritten the reflexive guilt of
the West, the idea that “every Westerner is presumed guilty until proven
innocent,” as French philosopher Pascal Bruckner writes, for the West
is guilty of an “essential evil that must be atoned for,” colonialism
and imperialism. The cringing acceptance of these specious charges
compromises our foreign policy by giving our rivals and enemies a
linguistic weapon for influencing our policies and blackmailing us into
subordinating our interests and security to their own.
Another misleading politicized phrase is “income inequality,” a verbal
bludgeon that big-government progressives wield to support tax-and-spend
redistributionist policies, and to expand entitlements that are already
bankrupting the country. But it is a simplistic statistical artifact
that doesn’t capture the reality of Americans’ economic condition. For
example, census data are used to decry that for 2017, the top 20% of
earners had 17 times more income than the bottom quintile, a damning
indictment, so progressives argue, of our heartless free-market
cowboy-capitalism.
But as Phil Gramm and John F. Early pointed out,
that datum ignores the fact that the richest 20% pay about two-thirds
of all taxes, lost income that is not accounted for in the reckoning of
income disparities. Nor is the $1.9 trillion redistributed to citizens,
mostly to the bottom quintile, 89% of whose resources come from 95
federal programs that redistribute wealth, 80% of which comes from the
top 10% of taxpayers.
Moreover, even after taking into account the state and payroll taxes
the bottom quintile pays, Gramm and Early continue, when these transfers
are added to household income it jumps from the official $4,908 to
$50,901. Contrary to lurid leftist rhetoric about the selfish rich who
need to pay their “fair share,” “America already redistributes enough
income to compress the income difference between the top and bottom
quintiles from 60 to 1 in earned income down to 3.8 to 1 in income
received.”
The phrase “income inequality,” then, indulges an emotional rhetoric
more suitable for a Dickens novels or rural America during the 1930s, in
order to camouflage the reality that we live in a society in which the
“poor” enjoy a material existence superior to 99% of all the human
beings who ever existed. But for phony class-warrior senators like
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, “income inequality” is useful for
increasing the power and reach of the federal Leviathan, not to mention
perfuming their own privilege and wealth.
Finally, no catalogue of Orwellian linguistic lies would be complete
without including the word “gender.” Beginning in the early Sixties,
“gender” has replaced the word “sex” to mean “male” or “female.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “gender” is a
feminist “euphemism” that is “often intended to emphasize the social and
cultural, as opposed to biological, distinctions between the sexes.”
This change in usage was popularized to reinforce the dubious, and
unscientific idea that biological sex-identity is not binary by nature,
but a spectrum comprising multiple variations, just as linguistic gender
is not restricted to masculine or feminine, but can classify nouns by
other qualities such as “animate” or “inanimate.” Male and female,
masculine and feminine, the “woke” tell us, are not facts of nature, but
social, cultural, and political “constructs” that serve the selfish
interests of the prevailing regime of power. This unscientific
antinaturalism is a hallmark of postmodern and poststructuralist
ideology, as well as Marxism and its “epiphenomena” and the “false
consciousness” they create in the oafish bourgeoise.
Using the word “gender,” then, to mean biological “sex”––which today
just about everybody does, including Republicans––insidiously and
relentlessly reinforces and validates the notion that human will and
scientism can override and ignore the restraints of nature and nature’s
God, and that human reality can be manipulated, changed, and perfected
by “technicians of the soul,” as Stalin euphemized the thuggish agents
of “improvement.” Of course, that malignant idea produced not utopia and
social justice, but mass murder and dehumanizing tyranny.
Trying to avoid corrupted words that are constantly in circulation is
nearly impossible, especially when these words and phrases serve
political interests. But even though people may not be listening, we
should continue to warn our fellow citizens about the dangers of what
Will calls the “semantic infiltration” of our language, which always is
followed by the big battalions of tyranny.
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
On the final day of the term, the court handed down two highly anticipated rulings for the administration
Supreme Court on Thursday handed President Biden split decisions on the EPA and the Trump-era remain in Mexico policy.
The Court ruled in favor of Biden's decision to eliminate the
Trump-era remain in Mexico policy, but curbed the authority of the EPA
The court in the immigration policy decision overturned a lower
court's decision that required the Biden administration to terminate the
Trump-era policy.
Texas and Missouri both challenged the administration's decision to
end the policy, arguing that choosing to not enforce it was a violation
of federal immigration law.
A lower court agreed, ordering the executive to continue enforcing
the policy. The administration asked the Supreme Court for expedited
review of federal law to determine if the lower court’s decision is
correct. The Court sided with Biden, paving the way for elimination of
the remain in Mexico policy.
The dispute at the center of this decision came as a result of the
Biden administration's efforts to roll back Trump era policies, labeled
the Migrant Protection Protocols.
Under the MPP’s, non-citizens apprehended at the southern border were
returned to Mexico during their immigration proceedings, as opposed to
being released within the United States.
In the EPA decision, the court ruled the EPA has much more limited
authority than previously thought to restrict emissions from power
plants.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion of the court,
while Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent, joined by Justices Stephen
Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
The lawsuit in this case was brought as a disagreement about the
Clean Air Act, a law that tasks the EPA with protecting air quality by
regulating pollution.
The act has been used by both the Obama and Trump administrations as
justification for the executive branch to set guidelines for power plant
emissions.
Case was brought by North Carolina's GOP House speaker
The
Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a major election case regarding
North Carolina GOP lawmakers having the authority to draw a partisan
election map without state judges' interfering.
The decision could impact future congressional and presidential
elections. The high court will take up the case when its next term
begins in October.
North Carolina GOP House Speaker Timothy Moore asked the high court
to consider the case on appeal of his own state Supreme Court’s decision
earlier this year to strike down the theory relating to a
gerrymandering case.
Critics of the theory argue that it would reduce judicial oversight of election rules.
The theory "would give state legislatures wide authority to
gerrymander electoral maps and pass voter suppression laws,"
according to the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice think tank.
Justice Thomas has been a target since the Reagan administration
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been the
subject of sharp attacks throughout his tenure, but his opinion
concurring with the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade last week has whipped his critics into a frenzy and put a spotlight on a decades-long trend.
"The
mainstream liberal media hates Clarence Thomas. Water is wet, news at
11. The demonization of Thomas always has been bad, but has become even
more pernicious in light of the Supreme Court's abortion decision,"
Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
"Thomas
did not author the majority Opinion, but has received much more focus
and hate than Samuel Alito, who was the author. Thomas also has been the
subject of racial slurs, including by the likes of actor Samuel L.
Jackson, who referred to Thomas as ‘Uncle Clarence,’" Jacobson added.
"This is a continuation of a decades-long liberal attack on Thomas that
is highly radicalized."
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has been the subject of sharp attacks throughout his tenure since 1991.
(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Indeed, Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson called the justice "Uncle Clarence," in a tweet on Saturday, echoing the same slur
that MSNBC’s Joy Reid used in 2020. Shock jock Howard Stern called
Thomas a "lightweight" who was "sitting there like Darth Vader, dormant,
waiting for other kooks to join the Supreme Court."
Thomas has
been a target of the left since the Reagan administration and was
memorably accused of sexual harassment that year by Anita Hill while he
supervised her at the Department of Education and Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission. In one of the most wrenching confirmation
processes in modern history, Thomas staunchly denied Hill's claims and
went on to be narrowly confirmed.
On PBS in 1994, the political
commentator Julianne Malveaux said of Thomas: "I hope his wife feeds him
lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many Black men do, of
heart disease." She eventually apologized, but frequent and brutal
criticism of Thomas hasn’t slowed down. He’s been compared to the Ku
Klux Klan, depicted in a racially charged cartoon and regularly referred
to as "Uncle Tom," and that was before his opinion concurring with the
majority that overturned Roe v. Wade last week.
Michael Eric
Dyson, a longtime MSNBC commentator, said in 2015 that he believed more
Black people support Rachel Dolezal over Justice Thomas. Dolezal is a
former college instructor and activist who gained infamy for presenting
herself as a Black woman, despite the fact she is White. After backlash,
Dolezal said she "identified" as Black and admitted to using hair and
skin darkening treatments.
Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson called Justice Thomas "Uncle Clarence" in a tweet on Saturday.
(Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Thomas wrote that past Supreme Court decisions affirming the rights to same-sex marriage and
married couples using contraception should be revisited, due to their
similar legal bases to Roe. Liberal pundits, hosts and columnist has
since turned their sights back on Thomas – putting a spotlight on
something they have been doing for years.
"Language
of SCOTUS decision on Roe has an ominous tone of anger and revenge —
especially Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion," Beschloss tweeted.
"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg berated Thomas’ concurring opinion and suggested the GOP might "come for" him.
"As
Clarence Thomas is signaling, they would like to get rid of
contraception," Goldberg said. "Do you understand, sir? No- because you
don't have to use it… you better hope that they don't come for you,
Clarence, and say that you should not be married to your wife, who
happens to be White, because they will move that."
"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg berated Justice Clarence
Thomas’ concurring opinion and suggested the GOP might "come for" him.
(Screenshot/ABC/TheView)
In
January, Goldberg's co-host Sunny Hostin, when discussing who should be
the next nominee to the Supreme Court, said that current Justice Thomas
"doesn't really represent the Black community."
Former U.S.
Senator-turned-podcast host Al Franken appeared to criticize Thomas’
wife Ginni Thomas, who is a conservative activist, by tweeting that the
justice’s "conflicts of interest" should be revisited.
New York
Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about "The Radical Reign of Clarence
Thomas" in a column that essentially criticized every step of his
career.
"On
the court he has been cruel, pushing opinions that would grind down the
poor and underprivileged," Dowd wrote. "The court is out of control. We
feel powerless to do anything about it. Clarence Thomas, of all people,
has helped lead us to where we are, with unaccountable extremists
dictating how we live. And that is revolting."
Mark
Paoletta, co-author of "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own
Words," believes liberals and many corporate media members "hate"
Justice Thomas because he is a Black conservative who dares to have his
own views.
"The left believes you are required to hold certain
views based on the color of your skin. They hate Thomas because he has
never bowed to their demands," Paoletta told Fox News Digital. "They
have tried to destroy him, tried to marginalize him, and thirty years
later, he is not just standing strong, his influence is at its zenith.
The left is really enraged they have not been able to make him bow."
Paoletta
said that Thomas "exposes the utter racism of the left" when
celebrities, pundits and politicians get triggered by him. The author
also noted that Thomas himself touched on the subject when speaking in
an interview for his new book.
"He talks about the left’s attacks
on him, and particularly the attacks from the pro-abortion groups, made
up mostly of rich white women, ‘This is the wrong black guy. He has to
be destroyed,’" Paoletta said.
Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife Virginia Thomas while
he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on Oct. 21, 2021, in
Washington.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Fox
News contributor Joe Concha believes liberals need a "boogeyman" with
Trump out of office and Justice Thomas checks all the boxes necessary,
but the strategy is getting stale.
"It’s
easier to attack someone on a patently racist level the way Clarence
Thomas has been attacked then to make adult and sober arguments on the
merits of states' rights and the Roe v. Wade decision in general, a
decision that even Ruth Bader Ginsberg wasn’t a big fan of," Concha told
Fox News Digital.
"The problem for Democrats and their allies in
the media is that when they go full hyperbole up to 14 on a scale of 1
to 10, whether that be on not passing so-called voting rights putting
democracy at risk or not blowing up the filibuster puts democracy at
risk, or this recent ruling by the Supreme Court puts democracy at
risk," Concha continued. "After a while people gonna start turning that
out. And most already are."
Anita Hill testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the
nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill,
Oct. 11, 1991.
(AP)
DePauw
University journalism professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall agrees
that "Abortion activists and partisan Democrats are eager to portray
Justice Thomas as a sort of boogeyman" and feels that establishment
media outlets are happy to participate in the "smear campaign."
"The
producers and reporters of those outlets generally agree with that
portrayal of Justice Thomas, so they allow themselves to be used, giving
voice to the angriest Thomas critics and antagonists," McCall told Fox
News Digital.
"This anti-Thomas reporting is largely lacking in
perspective. Little of the reporting has actually delved into Thomas’
legal reasoning or his writings. The reporting has been characterized
largely by emotion and anger, and has featured little legal analysis,"
McCall continued. "Even if the establishment media disagree with Justice
Thomas, professional standards should dictate that news coverage should
be based on civility and careful, accurate reasoning. It is sad that
the establishment media can’t bring themselves to follow such an ethical
standard."
The media’s allies in the Democratic Party have also
attacked Justice Thomas, including Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot's vulgar
"F--- Clarence Thomas" remark at a pride event in Chicago over the weekend.
"This
is very, very upsetting. The profanity she used at Clarence Thomas
justifies why the Supreme Court justices need protection 24/7. You know
what she did? She sent a coded message by using the F-word, by saying,
'hey, I don't care what happens to him. I don't care. I don't care about
his security. I don't care about his safety,'" Fox News contributor Leo
Terrell said Tuesday on "FOX & Friends."
White
House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ripped Justice Thomas, calling
the opinion his "opinion" during an appearance on MSNBC.
"What
he wrote is absolutely chilling," she told Nicolle Wallace. "If that
were to happen, Nicolle, that would, for sure, for sure, change this
country for decades, I mean, change it by generations… I can’t think of a
more dangerous agenda to put forth."
2016 Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has also singled out Thomas during a
recent interview on CBS’ morning program. Clinton earned her Juris
Doctorate at Yale Law School in 1973, the year Roe v. Wade was decided,
and one year before Thomas did in 1974.
"He's
been a person of grievance for as long as I've known him," Clinton
said." "Resentment, grievance, anger. And he has signaled in the past to
lower courts, to state legislatures, find cases, pass laws, get them
up. I may not win the first, the second, or the third time, but we're
going to keep at it."
Mollie Hemingway noticed a clip of
Clinton’s comments on Twitter and scolded the former Secretary of State
for painting him as an "angry Black man" when criticizing the justice.
"Have
always found the left's use of this racist stereotype against Clarence
Thomas of ‘angry black man’ to be ludicrous. The man is serious and
brilliant, yes, but extremely well known for his exceeding kindness and
joie de vivre," Hemingway wrote.
Paoletta believes liberals get away with racism directed at the justice.
"Justice
Thomas in our new book says, ‘Among the liberal elite, they smile in
your face, but they feel exactly the same way the guy feels with the ‘No
Colored Allowed,’" Paoletta said, noting that Thomas has thick skin.
"The
haters are going to hate. The racists are going to be racist. They
don’t bother him. He does not care about them," Paoletta said.
In his opinion, Thomas speculated that the overturning of Roe would provide a blueprint for revisiting years' worth of decisions that he says are "demonstrably erroneous."
Seated from left are Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas,
Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia
Sotomayor. Standing from left are Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan,
Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
(AP)
"After
overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would
remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad
rights that our substantive due process cases have generated," Thomas
wrote.
Thomas
joined Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and
Samuel Alito in overturning Roe v. Wade in their decision affirming
Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health.
Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the majority in upholding the
Mississippi law but didn't concur with overturning the Roe decision.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Cortney O’Brien, David Rutz and Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.
Brian Flood , Nikolas Lanum
Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood.
The expansion is a direct consequence of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
ATO has formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the western
military alliance, according to a statement from NATO Heads of State and
Government on Wednesday.
"Today, we have decided to invite Finland and Sweden to become
members of NATO, and agreed to sign the Accession Protocols," read the
statement.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said following the formal
invitation, "we need a ratification process in 30 parliaments; that
always takes some time, but I expect also that to go rather quickly
because allies are ready to try to make that ratification process happen
as quickly as possible." The membership process generally takes several
months.
On Tuesday, Turkey lifted its veto on Finland and Sweden joining the U.S.-led alliance.
The expansion of NATO to include Finland and Sweden is largely a consequence of Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
