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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Italy</title>
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		<title>EU Hangs On with Hookers, Drug Dealers &amp; Gun Runners</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/eu-hangs-on-with-hookers-drug-dealers-gun-runners/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=eu-hangs-on-with-hookers-drug-dealers-gun-runners</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/eu-hangs-on-with-hookers-drug-dealers-gun-runners/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 04:43:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[black market]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prostitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recession]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recovery]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243249</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The questionable accounting gimmick countries are using to claim economic progress. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20140531_FNP0021.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243252" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20140531_FNP0021.jpg" alt="20140531_FNP002" width="302" height="247" /></a>Karl Marx was wrong about virtually everything, but he was spot on when he <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/k/karlmarx382655.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">said</span></a>, &#8220;history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.&#8221; For the <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/2014/08/25/triple-dip-recession-for-the-european-union/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">third time</span></a> in six years, the European Union (EU) is on the verge of recession, a tragedy fueled by slow or non-existent growth, a strong possibility of continent-wide deflation, and debt burdens that remain onerous, if not catastrophic. Enter farce: the economic doyens of the EU have determined that Italy is no longer in recession due to a new way of measuring economic growth and GDP—one that <a href="http://en.mercopress.com/2014/06/06/italy-planning-to-boost-economy-by-including-shadow-economy-as-part-of-gdp"><span style="color: #1255cc;">counts</span></a> illegal activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution and arms smuggling as part of the mix.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The new method of measuring economic data is called <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/esa_2010/introduction"><span style="color: #1255cc;">SEC2010</span></a> (also known as ESA2010) and is occasioned by the differing laws individual EU nations have regarding the legality of dubious activities. SEC2010 was originally published in June 2013, but it was implemented beginning last month. It is aimed at realizing &#8220;developments in measuring modern economies, advances in methodological research and the needs of users,” according to a statement by Eurostat.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As a result, the third largest EU economy has seen its “growth” rate revised by the Italian National Institute of Statistics from a 0.1 percent first quarter decline, to zero. Italy also had a 0.2 percent <a href="http://www.independent.ie/business/world/europe-italy-revises-gdp-and-is-out-of-recession-30667594.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">decline</span></a> in the second quarter which was left unrevised. But because of the first quarter’s revision, the two consecutive quarters of negative growth necessary to define a recession has now been averted.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The move ostensibly gives Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi a brief respite in his effort to boost the economy, while staying below European Central Bank’s (ECB) <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/eaec/fiscal/html/index.en.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">requirements</span></a> that budget deficits not exceed 3 percent of GDP, and gross debt not exceed 60 percent of GDP. Italy is one for two in that regard as its national debt remains more than double the ECB limit at 132 percent, even when black market activity is taken into account.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Renzi is attempting to reform Italy’s economy with a budget containing tax cuts for businesses and lower-income individuals, which he characterizes as “the biggest tax cut ever done by a government in a year,” and &#8220;a sign of Italy’s great strength, solidity, and determination.” But the government will remain saddled with debt and despite spending reductions to fight it, the budget deficit will rise from 2.2 percent to 2.9 percent. Moreover, Italy still intends to maintain its delay in reaching a structurally-adjusted balanced budget until 2017.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Italy is far from the EU’s only basket case. Germany, the EU’s largest economy, has seen its recovery falter and it endured an economic contraction of its own in the second quarter. France, the EU’s second largest economy, was flat over the same period, and growth in the EU as a whole was near zero.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Adding fuel to the debt-laden EU fire is an <a href="http://rt.com/business/196540-europe-recession-inflation/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">anemic rate</span></a> of inflation, moving precipitously towards deflation. It has fallen to 0.3 percent in Sept. in the 18-member Eurozone, a level not seen since 2009. It is only marginally better in the EU as a whole at 0.4 percent. By comparison, inflation in the Eurozone in Sept. 2013 was 1.1 percent, with the EU at 1.3 percent during the same time frame, Eurostat <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-16102014-AP/EN/2-16102014-AP-EN.PDF"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reported.</span></a> This marks the 20th straight month the ECB has missed its target inflation rate of 2 percent. Moreover, it looks like the region’s GDP will contract in the third quarter, precipitating the aforementioned triple-dip recession.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">During an August 7 press conference, ECB president Mario Draghi promised the bank’s monetary policies would <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/2014/08/25/triple-dip-recession-for-the-european-union/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">remain</span></a> “highly accommodative.” “We are strongly determined to safeguard the firm anchoring of inflation expectations over the medium to long term,” he said. And once again, and equally as farcical, the ECB will embrace quantitative easing to “fix” the problem, which is also once again being blamed on too much “austerity.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As Steve H. Hanke, professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-h-hanke/eu-austerity-you-must-be-_b_5948476.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">explains</span></a>, the EU definition of austerity is a joke. &#8220;The leading political lights in Europe&#8211;Messrs. Hollande, Valls and Macron in France and Mr. Renzi in Italy&#8211;are raising a big stink about fiscal austerity,” he writes. &#8220;They don&#8217;t like it. And now Greece has jumped on the anti-austerity bandwagon. The pols have plenty of company, too. Yes, they can trot out a host of economists&#8211;from Nobelist Krugman on down&#8211;to carry their water.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Hanke supplies a <a href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-10-07-EUandUSGeneralGovtExpasofGDP.PNG"><span style="color: #1255cc;">chart</span></a> showing a continent sinking “under the weight of the State,” with the percentage of government spending relative to GDP that comes in at 58.5 percent for Greece, 57.1 percent for France, and 50.6 percent for Italy. In fact, out of the 30 European nations listed, only Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia spend less than 40 percent of their respective GDPs on government.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In a column for Bloomberg News, Leonid Bershidsky <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-08-19/european-austerity-is-a-myth"><span style="color: #1255cc;">presents</span></a> an equally compelling chart. It reveals that between 2007 and 2013, spending in the 28-member EU &#8220;reached 49 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, 3.5 percentage points more than in 2007,” Bershidsky writes. He further notes it was slightly higher than 50 percent in 2009, but the subsequent decline had nothing to do with spending cuts. &#8220;Rather, the spending didn&#8217;t go down as much as the economies collapsed, and then didn&#8217;t grow in line with the modest rebound,” he explains.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">So much for austerity and spending “cuts.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Which brings us to why the EU <i>really</i> fears deflation. As economic correspondent Ambrose Evans-Pritchard <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11154553/Dam-breaks-in-Europe-as-deflation-fears-wash-over-ECB-rhetoric.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">illuminates</span></a> in an Oct. 10 column for <i>The Telegraph, </i>it is debt-addled governments that need inflation to manage their irresponsible debt burdens. All of this is framed in “eco-speak,” such as &#8220;demand stimulus&#8221; and &#8220;deflationary traps,” but the bottom line is clear: unless many of these governments can “inflate away their debt&#8221; with monetization, sovereign default becomes a genuine possibility.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Investment advisor Peter Schiff puts this lunacy in terms most people can understand, noting that &#8220;politicians and central bankers (and their academic, journalistic, and financial apologists) have concocted a variety of tortured theories as to why inflation is not just good for overly indebted governments, but an essential economic good for all. In a propaganda victory that even Goebbels would envy, it is now widely accepted that purchasing power must decrease for an economy to grow,” he writes.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The clearest current example of this propaganda is the semi-hysteria surrounding the fall in global oil prices. CBS News <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-oil-prices-shake-up-global-economies/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">speaks</span></a> to worldwide &#8220;economic and political shockwaves” related to government “budget shortfalls,” even as it is forced to admit such price cuts are an absolute boon for fuel consumers. One suspects most ordinary Europeans (and Americans as well) prefer lower fuel prices than “taking one for the government/banker team” desperate to substitute inflation for the kind of staggering tax increases and genuine cutting it would take to balance budgets throughout the EU. Thus, Andrew Roberts, credit chief at the Royal Bank of Scotland, sounds the predictable alarm. “We are reaching the end game in Europe,” he warns. &#8220;If they don’t launch real QE and start reflation by the end of the year or soon after, the consequences are too awful to contemplate.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Compared to what? In Greece, the current unemployment rate is 26.7 percent. In Spain, it is 25.3 percent. Even in “recovering” Ireland, 11.8 percent of the workforce remains unemployed. What Roberts is really talking about is a massive debt crisis, one where the proverbial can must be continually kicked down the road—lest the true scope of the fiscal fecklessness engendered by years of unsustainable government spending be revealed.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Hence the continuing desire to mask the truth by literally throwing money at the problem, all in the name of saving the Euro and in turn the European Union, despite the reality that the marriage of spendthrift nations such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, with the relatively level-headed nation of Germany is a triumph of politically-motivated fantasy over fiscal reality. And while the bankers and politicians undoubtedly bear the lion’s share of the blame for the current predicament, the people themselves are hardly blameless. Their appetite for big government knows no bounds, and thus, what constitutes “courageous” behavior by politicians to get a handle on the problem assumes comical proportions. The Economist <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21611154-parliamentary-workers-are-facing-cut-their-generous-pay-high-class-errand-boys?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/highclasserrandboys"><span style="color: #1255cc;">cites</span></a> a great example, noting that Italy employs ushers in gold-braided uniforms at the Italian Parliament whose top salary for carrying messages to lawmakers used to be $181,590 a year, before Renzi imposed “austerity” by cutting it—to $140,000. Using email is apparently out of the question.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">So is genuine austerity. Instead, the specter of deflation will be held up as the ultimate bogeyman, and the debt crisis that never really went away, despite the mainstream media’s lack of attention, will continue. And if it becomes necessary to calculate the economic output of hookers, gunrunners and drug dealers to boost GDP, so be it.</p>
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		<title>Muslim &#8220;Refugees&#8221; in Italy Reject Pasta, Demand Food from Own Countries</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-refugees-in-italy-reject-pasta-demand-food-from-own-countries/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=muslim-refugees-in-italy-reject-pasta-demand-food-from-own-countries</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-refugees-in-italy-reject-pasta-demand-food-from-own-countries/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 31 Aug 2014 14:33:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=239892</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“There are thousands of Italians living in poverty."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/UpkPfA5XLjg2NdXnuBCEGUdXQpHnPnzk4zjdUcehpNY-.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-239893" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/UpkPfA5XLjg2NdXnuBCEGUdXQpHnPnzk4zjdUcehpNY--450x299.jpg" alt="UpkPfA5XLjg2NdXnuBCEGUdXQpHnPnzk4zjdUcehpNY=--" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>This is what Muslim Supremacism looks like. It&#8217;s an endless sense of entitlement. The boatloads of migrants aren&#8217;t refugees, they&#8217;re colonists. And like all colonists, they feel entitled to demand that everything be<a href="http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2014/08/migrants-invaders-washing-up-in-italy.html"> done according to their cultural expectations</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>A protest held by refugees against “monotonous” Italian food was “excessive”, especially at a time when thousands of Italians go hungry, the president of a police organization told The Local.</p>
<p>“There are thousands of Italians living in poverty and who aren’t even eating one meal a day, let alone two or three,” he said.</p>
<p>For two days, a group of about 40 asylum-seekers staying at a refugee centre in the Veneto province of Belluno refused to eat the “pasta with tomato sauce, bread and eggs” meals they were given and called to be fed food from their own countries, Libero Quotidiano reported.</p>
<p>To reinforce their point, they blocked a street with a wooden bench, put their lunch on the ground along with bags of clothes and threatened to leave the centre in La Secca, a hamlet in Ponte nelle Alpi.</p>
<p>They reportedly said “we do not eat this stuff”.</p>
<p>The refugees, said to have been staying at the centre for the past four months, also reportedly slashed the tires of cars belonging to staff working there in protest against living conditions.</p>
<p>Sam, a migrant from Gambia who has been staying at a centre on the outskirts of Rome for almost a year, told The Local that the food, which mainly consists of pasta, “is not good” and that some have started making their own meals.</p>
<p>“We need the diet from our country,” he said.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Gambia is 95% Muslim.</p>
<p>The obvious retort that if they want food from their own countries, they should go back there will fall on deaf ears since they are expanding the territory of their former countries to new countries.</p>
<p>They aren&#8217;t immigrating. They&#8217;re colonizing.</p>
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		<title>Italy Meets EU Standards with a Drugs and Prostitution GDP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/italy-meets-eu-standards-with-a-drugs-and-prostitution-gdp/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=italy-meets-eu-standards-with-a-drugs-and-prostitution-gdp</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/italy-meets-eu-standards-with-a-drugs-and-prostitution-gdp/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 31 May 2014 13:25:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226506</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Meet the new world economy. It's as fake as a three-dollar bill.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/the-godfather-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-226507" alt="the-godfather-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/the-godfather-1-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Just when you thought that Italy&#8217;s crazy government couldn&#8217;t get any more insane, it hit on a gimmick for improving the international perception of its economy. Just include the black market in its GDP. Never mind that the black market<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/27/italy-drugs-prostitution-economy-gdp/9631573/"> isn&#8217;t taxable, difficult to estimate and not exactly a good thing</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Italy is changing how it calculates its gross domestic product, a measurement of the overall economy, to include black market activity — everything from prostitution to illegal drug sales to smuggling and arms trafficking. Economists predict illegal sales will add 1.3 percentage points to GDP this year.</p>
<p>Hey, it&#8217;s one way to boost growth.</p>
<p>By including the black market, for which there are no concrete ways to measure and accurately determine value, the Italian government will be able to manipulate its GDP numbers in a way that&#8217;s bound to open it to criticism and agitate its Northern neighbors. Simultaneously, investors will learn to dismiss, or at least, discount, Italy&#8217;s statistics, since they won&#8217;t be regarded as &#8220;real.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>So Italy is creating a fake GDP based on imaginary numbers linked to organized crime. And this will not convince any investors of anything (except maybe in Russia, which is already buying into Italy).</p>
<blockquote><p>A larger overall economy will enable Italy to lower its debt-to-GDP ratio, which is an essential part of meeting the EU&#8217;s financial standards. EU countries are not supposed to let their yearly bills reach more than 3% of the overall economy (or their debt exceed 60% of GDP.) If they do, they&#8217;re hit with hefty fines.</p>
<p>The other benefit of lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio, is that Italy should theoretically be able to borrow more money.</p></blockquote>
<p>No, no and no.</p>
<p>Is Germany going to look at Italy&#8217;s new drugs and prostitution numbers and sign off on them? Is the City? I don&#8217;t think so.</p>
<p>This is a pointless gimmick that makes Italy look worse than before by an utterly insane government that could be replaced by zoo animals on cocaine with no one being the wiser.</p>
<blockquote><p>While Italy&#8217;s move may be considered unorthodox, even shady, it&#8217;s not illegal. The EU seems to encourage the creative accounting; To give countries such as Italy a lifeline, new EU rules require member states to include the value of all income-producing activity in GDP calculations — and illegal activity is often income-producing. Italy is the first and only country to take advantage. Others, such as Spain (for which 20% of the overall economy is believed to be black market), and Greece, may soon follow.</p></blockquote>
<p>You can see why the EU is on its last legs. It&#8217;s a giant fraud machine.</p>
<blockquote><p>Last month, Nigeria declared itself the biggest economy on the continent of Africa by recalculating GDP. Ghana added 60% to its economy in 2010 by establishing new GDP accounting rules. Even the U.S. managed to tack on an additional $504 billion to our economy last year by giving credit to Hollywood and creative industries.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meet the new world economy. It&#8217;s as fake as a three-dollar bill.</p>
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		<title>2% of Italy is Muslim, 35% of Italian Prisoners are Muslim</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/2-of-italy-is-muslim-35-of-italian-prisoners-are-muslim/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=2-of-italy-is-muslim-35-of-italian-prisoners-are-muslim</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/2-of-italy-is-muslim-35-of-italian-prisoners-are-muslim/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Feb 2014 15:28:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamizationofeurope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218661</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There are 181 Imams in Italian prisons.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/islam-will-conquer-rome-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-218663" alt="islam will conquer rome (1)" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/islam-will-conquer-rome-1.jpg" width="320" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>Muslims make up less than 2 percent of the population of Italy, but <a href="http://halalporkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/35-of-prison-inmates-in-italy-come-from.html">more than 35 percent of its prisoners</a> since the 35 percent only counts Muslim immigrants, not Muslim settlers who were already born in Italy or Italians who defected to Islam.</p>
<blockquote><p>At least 35% of Italian prison inmates come from Muslim-majority countries, and one in four prisons has a prayer area set aside for them, a government report obtained by ANSAmed showed Monday.</p>
<p>The joint report by Italy&#8217;s Justice ministry and department of corrections is titled &#8216;Mosques in Penal Institutions&#8217; and is to be released Tuesday in Rome at a Niccolò Cusano University conference on &#8216;Muslims in Italy&#8217;. Of the 64,760 detainees as of September 30 (that number decreased to 62,500 people behind bars as of the end of 2013) approximately 23,000 were foreign, and 13,500 of these came from Muslim-majority countries, mostly Morocco and Tunisia.</p>
<p>Most were doing time for drug dealing, theft, falsifying documents and resisting arrest, the report showed. Of these, just under 9,000 were observant Muslims, including 181 imams or spiritual leaders, and 53 out of 202 prisons surveyed had mosques set up for them. In prisons lacking adequate space, people pray in their cells or in the yard.</p></blockquote>
<p>181 Imams. That&#8217;s reasonably impressive. It also suggests that Imams may have a higher rate of criminality than the general population which is not surprising.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Italian lefties are still stewing over the US expropriation of Imam Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr while their government welcomes in Muslim settlers.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/muslims-in-milan-duomo-soeren-kern.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-218662" alt="muslims-in-milan-duomo-soeren-kern" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/muslims-in-milan-duomo-soeren-kern-450x338.jpg" width="450" height="338" /></a></p>
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		<title>Female Politician Attacked by Muslim Over Burka Protest May be Jailed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/female-politician-attacked-by-muslim-over-burka-protest-may-be-jailed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=female-politician-attacked-by-muslim-over-burka-protest-may-be-jailed</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/female-politician-attacked-by-muslim-over-burka-protest-may-be-jailed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 23 Nov 2013 00:02:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Burka]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamizationofeurope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=211279</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obviously it's the native Italian woman protesting the Burka who will be jailed]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/n-SANTANCHE-large570.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-211280" alt="n-SANTANCHE-large570" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/n-SANTANCHE-large570-450x187.jpg" width="450" height="187" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2013/11/hamas-warns-of-future-genocide-of.html">Obviously</a> it&#8217;s<a href="http://www.giornalettismo.com/archives/1224871/daniela-santanche-deve-bruciare-allinferno/"> the native Italian woman protesting</a> the Burka who will be jailed, not the Muslim immigrant male who attacked her.</p>
<blockquote><p>A Milan prosecutor has requested a one-month prison sentence and €100 fine for Daniela Santanchè, an ex-leader of the Movement for Italy party, now a faction of Silvio Berlusconi&#8217;s People of Freedom party, for organizing an anti-burqa protest in 2009 without permission.</p>
<p>Santanchè protested against the burqa as 3,000 Muslims gathered to celebrate the end of Ramadan at Milan’s La Fabbrica del Vapore, a cultural centre, in September 2009.</p>
<p>&#8220;I saw dozens of women walking around with this portable prison that is the burqa,&#8221; said Santanché.</p>
<p>Daniela Santanchè said that she went to see &#8220;in person&#8221; if Muslim women respected the &#8220;law of the Italian state&#8221; that they can not go in the street with their faces covered. And since that day she has seen &#8220;dozens in a burqa&#8221;, partook in a discussion with the men of the Muslim community who insulted her. &#8220;I&#8217;d gone there to tell them that the law must be respected.&#8221;</p>
<p>Santanchè, along with 12 other activists, reportedly asked women entering the building to “uncover their face”. She also called on Italian police to apply a law that has been in place since the 1970s forbidding any dress that hides a person’s face.</p>
<p>The protest provoked anger among the Muslim community, ending with an Egyptian man, Ahmed El Badry, assaulting Santanchè. El Badry was fined €2,000.</p>
<p>&#8220;Santanchè went at the end of Ramadan to remove the burqa,&#8221; said the Imam of Segrate. &#8220;Ramadan is an important holiday for one million Muslims in Italy, she has offended them,&#8221; he continued wishing that Santanchè burn in the &#8220;fire on the day of judgment&#8221;.</p></blockquote>
<p>Until then, he can be satisfied that an Italian woman protesting the Burka will be jailed, but not the Muslim immigrant who attacked her to defend his right to abuse women with the Burka.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/images-13.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-211281" alt="images (1)" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/images-13.jpg" width="332" height="220" /></a></p>
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		<title>Italian Election Proves European Union is Doomed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/italian-election-proves-european-union-is-doomed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=italian-election-proves-european-union-is-doomed</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/italian-election-proves-european-union-is-doomed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:31:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=179130</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Italian election has shown once again that the European Union is unworkable. Given a choice in democratic elections, the Greeks, the French and now the Italians, have voted for extremist and populist parties promising them that the debts will never have to come due.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/italian-election-proves-european-union-is-doomed/a10_17294585/" rel="attachment wp-att-179131"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-179131" title="a10_17294585" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/a10_17294585-450x279.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="279" /></a></p>
<p>The Italian election has shown once again that the European Union is unworkable. Germany might prefer that Italy be governed by unelected IMF technocrats like Mario Monti, but that way lies open tyranny.</p>
<p>Given a choice in democratic elections, the Greeks, the French and now the Italians, have voted for extremist and populist parties promising them that the debts will never have to come due. And that&#8217;s only human nature. The problem isn&#8217;t with the citizenry who have been told that they can have the good life without having to work hard for it. It&#8217;s with the entire structure of the European Union which promised paradise for all.</p>
<p>Equality can&#8217;t be maintained without productivity and financial responsibility. And the only way for the European Union to achieve that is tyranny. The EU has danced fairly close to that spike, but if it moves on it, then it will face real revolutions.</p>
<p>The Greeks and the Italians have been all too willing to believe that they aren&#8217;t responsible for the economic mess, but that it can all be attributed to a conspiracy of banks. It&#8217;s the same cheap Paultard-OWS sentiment gone mainstream in bankrupt countries. And while the banks are not free from guilt, the banking infrastructure runs on top of the political infrastructure of the European Union.</p>
<p>The worst performers in the European Union have made it clear that they will not accept financial responsibility, but will instead turn to radical rightists and leftists to escape responsibility.</p>
<p>The European Union has few options now. Germany profited from the EU, but it&#8217;s now being drained by it. Europe&#8217;s functional economies can either continue to subsidize the mess or pull out and let each European country find its own economic path to recovery. Or the technocrats in Berlin and Brussels can redouble their efforts to control the economies of unwilling and irresponsible countries. And the result might be even worse than the rise of a Golden Dawn or a Beppe Grillo.</p>
<p>The European Union can either come apart in peace or in conflict.</p>
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		<title>Drunk Muslim Attacks Italian Fiance W/Broken Vodka Bottle for &#8220;Taking Name of Allah in Vain&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/drunk-muslim-attacks-italian-fiance-wbroken-vodka-bottle-for-taking-name-of-allah-in-vain/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=drunk-muslim-attacks-italian-fiance-wbroken-vodka-bottle-for-taking-name-of-allah-in-vain</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:22:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamizationofeurope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=174475</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Gazetta Iblea had the headline: "Paki handcuffed in the name of Allah".  Insula Report was more exact: "Rage in the name of Allah and Vodka"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/drunk-muslim-attacks-italian-fiance-wbroken-vodka-bottle-for-taking-name-of-allah-in-vain/allah-500x653/" rel="attachment wp-att-174477"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-174477" title="Allah-500x653" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Allah-500x653-267x350.jpg" alt="" width="267" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>No one expects the drunk Pakistani Muslim Inquisition</a>. But when Muslim migrants begin filling up a country, then it comes anyway.</p>
<blockquote><p>On Wednesday night, a woman, described by local journalists as &#8220;a 32-year-old Ragusan&#8221; received a visit in her home from her &#8220;fiancé&#8221;, Amran Jhah Syed Ali, a 23-year-old unemployed Pakistani asylum seeker. The Paki had arrived with a friend from Chad to watch a film on the television. They took advantage of the opportunity to empty a bottle of vodka between them.</p>
<p>This touching scene of multi-ethnic fraternisation was brutally interrupted when the Italian woman pronounced the name of Allah in vain. Her &#8220;fiancé&#8221; then attacked her after having broken the vodka bottle in fury. The Chadean, who tried to calm him down, was injured in the hand.</p>
<p>The woman took refuge in her bedroom, where she locked herself in and called the carabinieri for help, at around 1 am, while the fiancé tried to break the door down.</p>
<p>When they arrived, the carabinieri noted that the two immigrants were in a state of intoxication and that the furniture in the flat had been devastated. The Paki had also injured himself in the hand, either when breaking the bottle or punching the door. An ambulance took him to the emergency ward with the Chadean. The Italian woman, still in shock, went to stay with a friend.</p></blockquote>
<p>But like a true warrior of Allah and lion of Pakistan, Amran Jhah Syed Ali, didn&#8217;t give up just because he had been taken away in an ambulance. For Amran knew that the infidel justice system is weak. The infidels would provide him with free medical care and then he would be back on the street again&#8230; that very night.</p>
<blockquote><p>But the night continued to be agitated for everyone. Once his had been treated, the Paki then started looking for his fiancée. He went to the house of the friend where his shouting forced the carabinieri to intervene again, at 3 am. &#8220;A patrol brought the individual, visibly agitated and still under the effects of alcohol, to the asylum seeker community centre&#8221;.</p></blockquote>
<p>Arman had tried to violently assault his girlfriend twice. The first time he got free medical treatment. And was not arrested. The second time he was still not arrested, but was taken to a community center for migrants. If this isn&#8217;t liberalism in action, I don&#8217;t know what is.</p>
<p>And no, it wasn&#8217;t over.</p>
<blockquote><p>He went to the friend&#8217;s house again and smashed in the front door with a large rock. Two cars of carabinieri came to the rescue. The Paki was finally arrested, not without difficulty, and he was placed in handcuffs, after which he attacked one of the officers and fought to the ground with him. He was placed in provision detention in Ragusa prison.</p>
<p>Amran Jhah Syed Ali was charged with resistance and violence to an agent of public order, assault and wounding, aggravated threats, damage to property.</p>
<p>Among the local newspapers, the Gazetta Iblea had the headline : &#8220;Paki handcuffed in the name of Allah&#8221;. The Corriere di Ragusa is more descriptive : &#8220;He attacked his fiancée who pronounces the name of Allah in vain&#8221;. Insula Report is more balanced and without doubt more exact: &#8220;Rage in the name of Allah and vodka&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Vodka, domestic abuse and theocracy. It&#8217;s the perfect combination for the new Europe.</p>
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		<title>52% of Rapes in Rome Committed by Immigrants, 59% in Milan, 40% in Italy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/r-of-rapes-in-rome-committed-by-immigrants-y-in-milan-in-italy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=r-of-rapes-in-rome-committed-by-immigrants-y-in-milan-in-italy</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Dec 2012 02:13:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rape Jihad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170934</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["He was horrible, he had no teeth, his face disfigured by scars". This is how one of the latest victims of rape in Milan, a businesswoman of 42, described her attacker, Mohamed K., 32, an Iraqi illegal immigrant already convicted for theft, assault and wounding]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_170935" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/%52-of-rapes-in-rome-committed-by-immigrants-%59-in-milan-%40-in-italy/2yvoqz7/" rel="attachment wp-att-170935"><img class="size-medium wp-image-170935" title="2yvoqz7" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2yvoqz7-450x255.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="255" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Muslims in Milan doing their part to keep Milan violent and rapey</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;He was horrible, he had no teeth, his face disfigured by scars&#8221;. This is how one of the latest victims of rape in Milan, a businesswoman of 42, described her attacker, Mohamed K., 32, an Iraqi illegal immigrant already convicted for theft, assault and wounding. Last week, when she was going out to see a friend so they could prepare for Christmas, Mohamed K. followed her, caught her in a public garden where she had tried to hide, threw her to the ground, beat her and raped her on the spot while shouting &#8220;Filthy Italian bitch&#8221;, before fleeing and stealing her purse.</p></blockquote>
<p>Immigrants account for only 6 percent of Italians, but for <a href="http://sheikyermami.com/2012/12/25/rape-jihad-updates/">an impressive 40 percent of Italy&#8217;s rapes</a>. <a href="http://fr.novopress.info/128698/violeurs-etrangers-en-italie-les-comptes-fantastiques-des-immigrationnistes/">6.3 percent of the rapes</a> in Italy are <a href="http://italia.panorama.it/I-dati-del-Viminale-sono-italiani-sei-stupratori-su-dieci">carried out by Moroccans</a>. The numbers really pack up around urban areas.</p>
<p>In Rome, immigrants are responsible for 52 percent of rapes. In Milan the number goes up to 59 percent. 8 percent of the rapes in Milan are carried out by Egyptians and 7 percent by Moroccans. In Bologna, 53 percent of the rapists were immigrants, of whom 11 percent were Moroccans.</p>
<p>Romanian immigrants still top rape statistics due to the huge number of Romanians who moved to Italy and make up nearly a fifth of its immigrants. But the Romanians do not make up more than a fifth of rape statistics in any city, meaning that despite the seemingly high numbers, Romanians are actually proportionally underrepresented in Italy&#8217;s rape statistics.</p>
<p>While there are nearly a million Romanians in Italy, there are only half as many Moroccans, but when it comes to rape statistics, Moroccans are only a few points behind Romanians.</p>
<p>Nationwide, 7.8 percent of rapists are Romanians and 6.3 percent are Moroccans, meaning that even though there are only half as many Moroccans as Romanians, they manage to account for only 1.5 percent fewer rapes.</p>
<p>Bologna has 6,200 Romanians and 3,400 Moroccans and Moroccans are responsible for 11 percent of the rapes and Romanians are responsible for 10 percent.</p>
<p>With statistics like these, it would appear that Italy doesn&#8217;t have a problem with sexual violence, it has a problem with Muslim immigration.</p>
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		<title>Spain Is the New Greece</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/spain-is-the-new-greece/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=spain-is-the-new-greece</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/spain-is-the-new-greece/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:40:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bailout]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The EU debt crisis moves to a new location.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/spain.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-124621" title="spain" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/spain.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" /></a></p>
<p>The socialist-inspired traveling circus more commonly known as the EU debt crisis is moving from Greece to Spain. Last Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/business/global/spain-unable-to-meet-goal-for-deficit-cuts-this-year.html" target="_blank">announced</a> that a deepening recession in that country would make it impossible to meet the EU-mandated deficit reduction target of 4.4 percent of GDP for FY2012. He proposed a target of 5.8 percent instead. The latest &#8220;readjustment&#8221; is similar to the one that occurred in 2011, when Spain&#8217;s target of 6 percent gave way to the reality of 8.5 percent. Ironically, Rajoy made his announcement on the same day 25 European leaders signed a fiscal pact&#8211;aimed at strengthening budgetary discipline among its member nations.</p>
<p>Yet it is the choice between budgetary discipline that would require previously prepared sanctions against Spain, or once again making them an exception to those rules that <a href="http://forexalliance.com/2012/03/spain-eus-test/" target="_blank">reveals</a> the EU&#8217;s Catch 22 dilemma: new sanctions would undoubtedly induce further unrest in a nation already beset by a 22.85% unemployment rate and an economy that has contracted economy by 0.3% on a year over year basis. On the other hand, another exemption to supposedly rigid budget rules would likely undermine confidence in the EU&#8217;s overall recovery plans, as yet another incarnation of  &#8220;too big to fail&#8221; would be playing itself out on the world stage.</p>
<p>The actual numbers are <a href="http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=d6198a16-6381-442c-ae5c-34ee216e763b" target="_blank">daunting.</a> In 2011, Spain&#8217;s national and state governments spent $120.72 billion more than they took in during 2011. This is only a modest reduction compared to the $129.75 billion budget deficits the country ran in 2010, underscoring the reality that austerity measures imposed on that nation have yielded precious little in the way of genuine savings. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that two-thirds of the current shortfall was accrued by the nation&#8217;s regional&#8211;and autonomous&#8211;governments. Absent the ability to compel regional governments to fall in line, the idea that Spain&#8217;s national government can meet fiscal targets imposed by the EU appears dubious at best.</p>
<p>Yet if the EU insists that Spain adhere to the promises it made on December 30th, an additional $33 billion of deficit reduction must be found on top of the $19.8 billion in savings already accrued from a combination of $11.9 billion in spending cuts, and $7.9 billion in tax increases. That number represents a staggering increase of <em>167 percent</em> of additional austerity measures imposed only two months after the original pledge. In addition, Spanish economic output will fall 1.7 percent this year, making a mockery of the 1 percent drop recently forecast by the EU, along with the 1.5 percent predicted by the Bank of Spain only <em>two weeks</em> ago. And unemployment is now expected to hit a mind-boggling 24.3 percent in 2012.</p>
<p>Rajoy insists that Spain remains within the proposed EU guidelines because it intends to meet the public deficit goal of 3 percent of GDP by 2013. Yet it reportedly rankled many EU leaders when the Prime Minister publicly announced his intentions without first holding private negotiations with the European Commission. Last November, the European Commission <a href="http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/finance-economy.dnh" target="_blank">demanded</a> the power to override budgets enacted by individual EU nations, and its members are no doubt irked by Rajoy&#8217;s characterization of his failure to meet the 2012 guidelines as a “sovereign decision by Spain.”</p>
<p>An official not authorized to discuss the issue described the move as reflective of Rajoy&#8217;s political inexperience. “He thinks that most of the people around the table are political allies who will support him,&#8221; the official said. &#8220;But here you put your political considerations away because the dynamic that counts is that of national interests.”</p>
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		<title>The EU Approaches Critical Mass</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/arnold-ahlert/the-eu-approaches-critical-mass/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-eu-approaches-critical-mass</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/arnold-ahlert/the-eu-approaches-critical-mass/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:30:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[angela merkel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Euro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greece]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Portugal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[National sovereignty may be the next casualty in the bid to save the union.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/111015_occupy_frankfurt_reu_328.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-113674" title="111015_occupy_frankfurt_reu_328" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/111015_occupy_frankfurt_reu_328.gif" alt="" width="375" height="255" /></a></p>
<p>Last week, a parade of events have set the stage for what may become one of the most volatile economic periods of the 21st century. On Wednesday, Germany, the linchpin nation of the European Union, had a disastrous <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/german-bond-auction-falls-short-in-new-eruo-debt-worry/2011/11/23/gIQAO7LwoN_story.html">bond auction</a>, raising only $5.2 billion of the $8.1 billion it expected to raise. On Thursday, Portugal&#8217;s debt was reduced to junk status. On Friday, Italy&#8217;s borrowing costs <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-eurozone-idUSTRE7AM0VR20111126">soared</a> again, reaching their highest levels since joining the EU. Belgium, which has been unable to form a government for 18 months, had its credit rating lowered from AA+ to AA. Spain, where the People&#8217;s Party will be forming a government in the coming weeks, may apply for international aid to maintain its solvency. In short, the EU is going to hell in a socialist hand basket.</p>
<p>Yet it is precisely the denial of that odious reality that prevents any real progress from taking place. It is a denial born of ideologically-inspired hubris, economic illiteracy, and an entitlement mentality that afflicts everyone from the top of the so-called economic food chain to the bottom. It began with the fantasy that nations with completely different cultural values could be yoked to a common currency, primarily for the purpose of preventing another World War. It was viewed as a way to prevent Germany from ever again becoming the dominant force in Europe.</p>
<p>It hasn&#8217;t worked. It is Germany that has <a href="http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/ecb-independence-threatened-by-govt-pressure-stark_625027.html">blocked</a> the European Central Bank&#8217;s (ECB) effort to make massive &#8220;eurobond&#8221; purchases from Europe&#8217;s debtor nations. Last Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated that the ECB was only responsible for monetary policy. This stance sets her apart from the rest of the EU leaders. They want the ECB to do what Ben Bernanke and the U.S. Federal Reserve have been doing: &#8220;quantitatively ease&#8221; their way out from under, by financing debt with more debt. This is the socialist-inspired &#8220;too big to fail&#8221; scheme that keeps the banks and markets afloat while they look for a soft landing. A soft landing that ostensibly gives debtor nations time to get their acts together, lower their debt-to-GDP ratios, and regain some measure of solvency.</p>
<p>Such a scheme brings us to the other end of the fiscal food chain. This is the end, in countries like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, affectionately known as the PIIGS of Europe, where the bottom end of the chain, aka the &#8220;little people,&#8221; will be forced to endure years of austerity in order to realize such a transformation.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a transformation that has engendered chaos. In Italy, riots <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-18/502c0000-march-on-athens-over-austerity-measures/3678510">broke out</a> earlier this month when the new government, led by technocrat Mario Monte, outlined reforms to dig that country out from under $2.6 trillion of national debt. In Greece, the latest of many riots <a href="http://www.euronews.net/2011/11/24/new-taxes-spark-more-riots-in-greece/">occurred</a> last Thursday when workers at the country&#8217;s largest power company, PPC, clashed with police. They don&#8217;t want to be tasked with collecting property taxes via electricity bills, in a country notorious for tax evasion. Yet Greece needs $10.7 billion by Christmas, or the country will run out of money. Furthermore, their newly-formed government has yet to agree on terms for a far larger bailout of $174 billion, necessary to maintain national solvency.</p>
<p>On the same day in Portugal, a major strike engineered by the nation&#8217;s two largest trade unions took place, due to public outrage over austerity measures there. Portugal needs $104 billion of bailout funds. In Spain on Saturday, thousands of demonstrators <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-105333/Demonstrators-riot-Spain.html">massed</a> in Barcelona to participate in a planned anti-globalization rally. As a result, border controls made unnecessary by integration into the EU were reinstated to prevent outside agitators from entering the country. And in Britain, a public sector union strike is also <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/16/unions-public-sector-strikes">scheduled</a> for this coming Thursday, because the government is proposing to raise the retirement age and increase employee contributions to their pensions.</p>
<p>While the peoples&#8217; anger seems justifiable, there is something missing. It is their inability to recognize that they are every bit as responsible for the current crisis as those they seek to blame for it. Ironically, both ends of the fiscal food chain have enabled each other&#8217;s demise. It was the massive amounts of credit issued by lending institutions at the top, who made billions of dollars by making easy credit available to the bottom end of the chain. It was the easy credit that enabled the socialist government spending sprees that quickly, but artificially, raised the living standards of people who were more than happy to live the good life, even if it was built on a mountain of accumulating debt. It is that debt that has now become unsustainable, putting both ends of the food chain on the brink of insolvency in the process.</p>
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		<title>The Fate of the European Union</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/arnold-ahlert/the-fate-of-the-european-union/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-fate-of-the-european-union</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:33:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Euro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greece]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prime Minister George Papandreou]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister silvio berlusconi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=112095</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[New governments in Greece and Italy won't stop the demise of the EU.]]></description>
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<p>The magic number in the European Union (EU) is seven. Seven percent represents the level of interest on Italian bond yields where refinancing that nation&#8217;s debt becomes <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/11/10/rebound-in-stocks-with-italian-bond-yields-dipping-below-7-crisis-level/">unsustainable</a>, according to most economists. Although Greece was the problem child of yesterday, Italy has become the main focus for the simplest of reasons: while the EU&#8217;s third largest economy may been seen as &#8220;too big to fail,&#8221; it may also be too big to save &#8212; and the fate of the European Union itself likely hangs in the balance.</p>
<p>Thus, it was of little surprise on Wednesday, when Italian bond yields surged to 7.4 percent, that both the European and American stock markets tanked, with the Dow shedding 389 points before the day ended. Nor was it any surprise that both markets stabilized on Thursday, when those yields dropped below the 7 percent threshold.</p>
<p>But the reason they dropped is no cause for optimism, despite the fact that the European Central Bank (ECB) bought Italian bonds, and Italy also <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-10/italy-sells-5-billion-euros-of-12-month-bills-at-highest-rate-in-14-years.html">sold</a> $6.8 billion of one-year bills at 6.087 percent. Why? ECB Governing Council member Klaas Knot <a href="http://www.moneynews.com/FinanceNews/Italy-Yield-ecb-bonds/2011/11/10/id/417556">said</a> the bank can’t do “much more” to stem the debt crisis, and the yield on the one-year bills is as high as its been since 1997, up more than 2.5 percent from the 3.57 percent they were sold at during the last auction <em>only a month ago</em>. Thus, despite any temporary reassurances to the contrary, the European Union remains the epicenter of fiscal instability.</p>
<p>And the fiscal instability has led directly to the political instability. Both Greece and Italy are undergoing dramatic transitions, virtually simultaneously. In Greece, former ECB vice president Lucas Papademos was <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2011/11/10/new-greek-pm-named-now-what/">named</a> Prime Minister after getting the go-ahead from Greek President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias, whose position is largely ceremonial. His appointment follows the <a href="http://www.kxly.com/politics/29733886/detail.html">resignation</a> of current Prime Minister George Papandreou. Papandreou, who triggered an EU-wide crisis last week when he announced that he would allow the Greek people to hold a referendum on the latest bailout package, was far more conciliatory on Wednesday. In a nationwide address, he said Greece would do whatever it takes to pull the country out of its economic doldrums.</p>
<p>According to the latest plan, the new government will be sworn in today at 9 AM EST, at which point the names of the new, or surviving, cabinet ministers will be announced. A key question to be answered is whether or not Evangelos Venizelos remains Finance Minister. Reports are that Papademos <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/90664/interim-prime-minister-named-in-greece">has accepted</a> him staying on. Once the government is sworn in it must be formally approved, with that approval dependent on how soon the new government can put together its policy declarations. This can be likely done relatively quickly because most of what the new government chooses to do is constrained by the conditions of the bailout agreement forged in Brussels on October 27th.</p>
<p>Since the new government is being formed precisely for the purpose of meeting those conditions, the 300 members of the Greek parliament will more than likely move to a confidence vote as quickly as possible. Greece allows for three days of debate, or more if a large number of members wish to speak. The vote of approval takes place at midnight on the final day of debate. If everything proceeds as expected&#8211;a big if&#8211;Greece could have a new government sometime next week.</p>
<p>In Italy, after much political wrangling aimed at saving his job, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/world/europe/shaken-italy-is-poised-to-name-new-government.html">expected</a> to formally step down on Monday. Berlusconi had originally pledged to relinquish power after the Italian government passed the same kind of austerity measures the EU is demanding from Greece. Berlusconi was undoubtedly hoping that government dysfunction, epitomized by a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/1969/12/31/eurozone-crisis-fist-fight_n_1032716.html">fist fight</a> among members of parliament last month, would enable the embattled prime minister to hold on into 2012.</p>
<p>Enter the magic number seven, or more precisely, the 7.4 interest Italy&#8217;s bond yield reached on Wednesday. The infighting of entrenched politicians determined to preserve their status quo of power and privilege, which had held up the transitional process, could no longer be sustained. The breakthrough occurred yesterday when Mr. Berlusconi’s People of Liberties party backed the idea of an emergency national unity government led by a non-politician or &#8220;technocrat.&#8221; This idea was backed by the center-left opposition Democratic Party and a centrist bloc of parties as well, including Future and Liberty, and the Union of the Center, comprised of former Christian Democrats.</p>
<p>The technocrat most likely to lead the emergency government is former European Commissioner Mario Monte, who was promoted by Italian president and respected elder statesman, Giorgio Napolitano. The 86-year-old Napolitano named Monte a &#8220;senator for life&#8221; on Wednesday, and the technocrat-turned-politician is expected be on hand in the senate today for the passage of Italy&#8217;s latest austerity measures. The senate is expected to approve those measures today, followed by the lower house on Saturday. If all goes according to plan&#8211;once again, a big if&#8211;Berlusconi steps down by Monday.</p>
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		<title>Italy on the Brink</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/jlaksin/italy-on-the-brink/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=italy-on-the-brink</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/jlaksin/italy-on-the-brink/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:40:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eurozone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greece]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor Unions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister silvio berlusconi]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Will a debt crisis force Italy to go the way of Greece?]]></description>
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<p>An embattled prime minister struggling to hold the government together. Rocketing public debt. An economy on the brink of collapse. That may sound like a description of Greece, the most recent sick man of Europe, but it sums up equally well the dire political and fiscal realities facing Italy, where the government of Silvio Berlusconi this week was clinging to power as the country’s debt crisis spiraled out of control. <em></em></p>
<p>It would be difficult to overstate the extent of Italy’s problems. Although the third largest member of the Eurozone, Europe’s 17-member economic and monetary union, Italy appears headed for a Greek-style financial calamity. Weighed down with a runway public debt of $2.6 trillion, a figure more than 120 percent of GDP, Italy has indulged in a massive borrowing spree. Now the borrowing has reached danger levels. Borrowing costs, as measured by Italy’s interest rates, rose to 6.67 percent this week, the highest since the euro was established in 1999. For some perspective on that number, consider that it is around the same level that forced Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to seek bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Alarm is growing that Italy could be the next country to need rescuing – a strain that, given the size of Italy’s economy, would almost certainly overwhelm the other Eurozone countries and send shockwaves throughout global markets.</p>
<p>Italy’s current troubles are a long time in the making. Financial analysts have long urged the country to overhaul its rigid labor market, which makes it difficult to hire and fire workers. That in turn contributes to high unemployment, particularly among the country’s youth, and stalls economic growth. Combined with Italy’s plunging birth rates, the effect is to tilt the ratio of pensioners to workers heavily toward the former. By some estimates, Italy’s retirees will actually outnumber its active workers by 2030. The future looks as bleak as the present.</p>
<p>Resolute action does not seem forthcoming, however. Partly out of fear of the country’s powerful government labor unions and partly out of a refusal to undertake unpopular reforms, successive Italian governments have done little to change the status quo. Berlusconi has been no exception. Forced by market pressures, his government passed a modest austerity package in August, but there is no evidence that it has the will or the political support to implement it. Due to defections in his party, Berlusconi does not have the backing needed to pursue reforms. It is not even certain that Berlusconi will be around to see them through. This week he barely survived a no-confidence vote in the Italian parliament, and it is now clear that he does not command a majority. With his control slipping, Berlusconi is largely powerless to enact required reforms quickly.</p>
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		<title>Italy Faces Up to the Evil Within</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/bruce-bawer/italy-faces-up-to-the-evil-within/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=italy-faces-up-to-the-evil-within</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:18:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Bawer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[report]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A new Italian report on anti-Semitism dares to tell the truth.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/italy.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-110731" title="italy" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/italy.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>There is no question that anti-Semitism in Europe has been on the rise during the last few years.  The European left, for a range of reasons, has gotten into the habit of viewing Israel, and by extension all Jews, as the foremost challenge to peace on earth and goodwill toward men.  As Europe&#8217;s Islamic communities have expanded, moreover, and their members grown less and less shy about expressing – and acting upon – their opinions, the articulation of anti-Semitic sentiments and the commission of anti-Semitic acts by young Muslim men has increased accordingly.</p>
<p>While all this has been going on, a number of European governments have chosen to look the other way.  Many political leaders in Europe, indeed, have fueled anti-Semitism by word and deed.  The Italian government, however, has been an exception.</p>
<p>It was in October 2009 that two committees of the Italian Parliament voted to commission an in-depth study of anti-Semitism in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.  They established a sub-committee to perform the inquiry, and put the Jewish writer and parliamentarian Fiamma Nirenstein (whom I profiled here recently) in charge.  Now the sub-committee&#8217;s report has been released, and its findings are well worth attending to.</p>
<p>The report acknowledges “a strong resurgence of anti-Semitism in European societies” in recent years – a new kind of anti-Semitism that is “less overtly racist, and therefore more subtle and insidious,” than previous varieties, and that is being spread especially through online social networks.  As a consequence of this new brand of anti-Semitism, “Jewish communities in various Western countries have had to deal for the first time with a new atmosphere of insecurity” and “a new cultural climate.”  Though Italy is nowhere near as severely plagued with anti-Semitism as many other European countries, recent years have nonetheless seen a rise in anti-Semitism on the Italian far left, which, like its counterparts elsewhere in the West, has come to view Israel as “a state based on apartheid against the Palestinians,” takes the view that “the victims of the past have become today&#8217;s executioners,” and relativizes the Shoah by essentially equating it to what is routinely, and absurdly, depicted as a “Palestinian Holocaust.”</p>
<p>The report offers its share of sobering statistics.  It references a 2010 study showing a steady rise in Italian anti-Semitism between 2001 and 2009, and another study indicating that “44 percent of Italians express attitudes and opinions in some way hostile to Jews and 12 percent are fully-fledged anti-Semites.”  Fully 22% of Italians between the ages of 18 and 29 were hostile to Jews, and the figure was even higher among males in northern Italy.  One-fourth of Italians surveyed agreed with the statement: “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews.”  (In other European countries the figure was even higher: 35% in Germany and Britain, 41% in the Netherlands, 48% in Portugal, and no less than 55% in Poland.)  One-third of Italians regard Jews as “not very nice,” and one-fourth don&#8217;t consider them “fully Italian.”  Among Italians between the ages of 18 and 34, 22% were anti-Semitic, even though 71% of them “had never had any direct contact with Jews.”  Of Italians in this age group, 51% balked at the idea of their daughter being in a relationship with a Jew, 38% didn&#8217;t want a Jewish boss, and 25% didn&#8217;t care for the idea of having Jewish neighbors.</p>
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		<title>A Brightly Burning Flame</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/bruce-bawer/a-brightly-burning-flame/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-brightly-burning-flame</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Oct 2011 04:02:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Bawer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fiamma]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flame]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parliament]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[One Italian parliamentarian stands out as a straight-talking, fearless heroine of freedom.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Fiamma.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-110009" title="Fiamma" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Fiamma.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="556" /></a></p>
<p>“Her name is Fiamma,” the young man said to me over dinner, “and that is what she is to us – our <em>fiamma! </em>What is that in English?”</p>
<p>It took me a second.  “Flame,” I said.</p>
<p>“Yes, that is what she is.  Our flame!  Our heroine!”</p>
<p>The year was 2007.  I was in Rome for a conference called “Fighting for Democracy in the Islamic World” and the man speaking to me was a conference participant and a member of Italy&#8217;s Jewish community.  The woman he was speaking of with such enthusiasm, who was sitting at a nearby table (a bunch of us from the conference had pretty much taken over the restaurant), was Fiamma Nirenstein.</p>
<p>If you don&#8217;t know her name, you should.  A prolific newspaper columnist, author of widely read books on Israel, Islam, democracy, and anti-Semitism, and winner of a long list of awards (most recently from the Israeli Knesset and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), she is one of the most prominent members of Italy&#8217;s Jewish community and has held a seat in the Italian Parliament since 2008.  She has used her government position as a bully pulpit, speaking out in support of freedom and human rights, against terror and anti-Semitism, and for a clear-eyed view of Israel and Islam.  On a continent where most politicians hesitate to say certain things for fear of offending certain groups, Nirenstein is a straight shooter of the first order, standing up foursquare for Western values and against the “leftist ideologies” which, she proclaims, have been used to “justify&#8230;violent crimes” and “disgusting verbal attacks” against Jews and Israel.</p>
<p>She is also an exceedingly gutsy woman.  That evening in 2007, when three or four dozen of us from the conference made our way to that restaurant to have dinner, we were accompanied by two armed men – Nirenstein&#8217;s bodyguards – who checked the place out before we went in, and who, while we ate our dinner, sat together at a strategically placed table with their eyes on the door.  Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, Nirenstein has said things about Islam that have earned her death threats.  And like Hirsi Ali and Wilders, she has refused to be silenced.  Witnessing her immense energy and charisma, her grit and eloquence, and her ever-present warmth and humor and charm, you would never know she was a marked woman.</p>
<p>She was born in Florence. “I&#8217;m the daughter of a soldier named Aron,” she told me recently, “a very young Polish Zionist who lost half of his family in the Holocaust and had the other half saved in Israel, and who in 1945 came to Italy from Palestine with the Jewish brigade. He wanted to save Europe from Nazism, and in Florence he met a young Jewish partisan, my mother, Wanda, and they called me Fiamma so that I would remember forever the value of resistance.”  The lesson she learned from her parents about the importance of fighting for freedom was further nourished, she says, “in the streets of Florence were I was born, nourished by the marvelous art that I was blessed with, and grew in Jerusalem where I lived for twenty years before coming to the Italian parliament. I came here with a beautiful set of baggage.  I’m very lucky.”</p>
<p>I first met Nirenstein at that 2007 conference.  I was reunited with her two years later at the International Conference on Violence against Women, also in Rome.  That remarkable event, sponsored by the Italian government and helmed by Nirenstein, focused largely on the status of women in Islamic countries and communities.  Last year I was honored to be invited to another important gathering she put together, also in the Eternal City, called “For the Truth, for Israel,” at which several dozen politicians, writers, and other public figures from across Europe made remarks in support of Israel before an audience of thousands.  (Alas, I wrote a speech but missed my plane.)</p>
<p>Nirenstein has spent much of her life observing, and contemplating, the anti-Semitism that infects today&#8217;s Left.  A few years ago, she wrote in a long, incisive essay on the subject about how her experience in Israel during the Six-Day War converted her from “a young Communist” – a person whose politics made her an <em>acceptable</em> Jew in the eyes of her left-wing Italian friends – to the <em>wrong </em>kind of Jew, “because I simply thought that Israel rightly won a war after having been assaulted with an incredible number of harassments.”  She has since learned her lessons about the Left.  Once upon a time, she writes, the Left “blessed the Jews as the victim &#8216;par excellence,&#8217; always a great partner in the struggle for the rights of the weak against the wicked.”  But now “the game is clearly over. The left has proved itself the real cradle of contemporary anti-Semitism.”</p>
<p>All too many people on the Left, she has come to realize, are fond of Jews who suffer: they define Jews as a people who are “bound to bear the worst persecutions without even lifting a finger,” and who, by suffering helplessly, earn “compassion and solidarity.”   But the Jew who rejects this role, who does not wish to suffer, and who “can and wants to defend himself, immediately loses all his charm in the eyes of the Left.”  To be sure, the Left “wants to continue being considered the paladin of good Jews. It pretends to continue mourning the Jews killed in the Holocaust, crying together with the Jews shoulder to shoulder. And it does so because this gives it the moral authorization to go on a second later and speak of the &#8216;atrocities&#8217; of Israel.”</p>
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		<title>Losing Turkey</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 04:30:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The frightening strategic consequences.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/turkey_islamism.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62723" title="turkey_islamism" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/turkey_islamism.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="286" /></a></p>
<p>The most significant outcome of the <em>Mavi Marmara</em> incident is that there can no longer be any doubt that Turkey has joined the anti-Western bloc that includes Hamas,  Iran and Syria. The Muslim country was once devotedly secular, an ally of Israel, and remains a member of NATO, but under the direction of Prime Minister Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (often referred to as the AKP), Turkey has gone in the completely opposite direction with enormous strategic consequences.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, the AKP government of Mr. Erdogan and the oil-rich regime of Qatar joined the regional bloc opposing the more traditional governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco,” Dr. Walid Phares told FrontPage.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s turn to the other side is not the result of a single incident such as Operation Cast Lead or the Israeli raid on the flotilla, but is the culmination of an agenda long held by Erdogan and the AKP.</p>
<p>“In fact, it is not secular Turkey that we see moving against the U.S., West, Israel and Arab moderates. It is the AKP Islamist cabinet which is uncovering its long-term ideological agenda. The West should have projected this since 2002,” Dr. Phares said, referring to the year in which Erdogan’s party won a majority in the Turkish parliament.</p>
<p>Erdogan was imprisoned in 1998 for his involvement with the banned Welfare Party, which the Turkish government considered Islamist. Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy <a href="http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2009/10/26/89250.html">describes</a> the Welfare Party as the “motherboard of Turkish Islamists since the 1980s,” saying it was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan was specifically punished for <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2270642.stm">reading</a> a poem at one speech with the lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.”</p>
<p>In 2001, he founded the AKP, which took a more moderate line, portraying itself as committed to separation of mosque and state but “faithful governance,” as Dr. Essam El-Erian, the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political bureau, <a href="http://www.ikhwanweb.net/article.php?id=1035">described</a> the AKP’s “moderate Islamist” ideology. There was no anti-Western rhetoric and the party strongly supported membership in the European Union. The group won a large victory in the 2002 elections, resulting in Erdogan taking the post of Prime Minister.</p>
<p>Dr. El-Erian praised Erdogan’s victory, saying that it was the result of the “exposing of the failure of the secular trend.” El-Erian confirmed that the Muslim Brotherhood had close ties to the AKP, but the West treated Turkey as if nothing had changed. It wasn’t until Turkey steadfastly refused to allow U.S. soldiers to transit their territory to overthrow Saddam Hussein that the West began questioning the allegiance of Erdogan’s government.</p>
<p>The Erdogan government soon began a concerted effort to fuel anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment, knowing that such feelings help the AKP politically and hurt its opponents in the secular military that have long ties to the West. The Turkish media consistently <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704875604575281392195250402.html">reported</a> alleged U.S. atrocities, fanning the already massive anti-war sentiment. The outrageous claims can only be compared to the anti-Israeli propaganda seen in the Arab world and Iran, echoing similar themes such as the use of chemical weapons against civilians and the harvesting of organs from killed Iraqis.</p>
<p>The AKP won an even larger share of the vote in the July 2007 election and had even more dominance over the government. Since then, the ideology of Erdogan has become more apparent as Turkish opinion has become less hostile to anti-Western Islamism.  Shortly after the victory, Turkey’s moves towards Iran and other enemies of the West became more visible and aggressive.</p>
<p>Turkey began entertaining the prospect of Iran’s natural gas being delivered to European markets through its territory, and the two countries launched joint military attacks against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. The Party of Free Life for Kurdistan, or PJAK, claimed it actually saw Turkish officers working alongside the Iranian military. Newsmax.com <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/2007101522389.htm">reported</a> that eight Turkish officers were in Iran coordinating the attacks with the Revolutionary Guards.</p>
<p>In the spring of 2009, Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian-backed militia leader whose followers killed dozens of American soldiers in Iraq, <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/05/20095115592374529.html">met</a> with Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul for “political consultations.” Most recently, Turkey has opposed sanctions on Iran and helped put together a deal with Brazil meant to delay any United Nations measures despite Iran’s lack of cooperation on the nuclear issue.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s government simultaneously became more anti-Israeli, particularly once the Israeli military offensive into Gaza began in response to the rocket attacks of Hamas. Erdogan went so far as to <a href="http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/12/1002170/turkeys-harsh-criticism-of-israel-raises-questions">predict</a> that Israel’s actions “would bring it to self-destruction,” saying “Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents.” He <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/01/erdogan-bares-his-fangs">accused</a> Jewish-controlled media outlets of “finding unfounded excuses to justify targeting of schools, mosques and hospitals.”</p>
<p>On January 29, 2009, Erdogan publicly <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUGhomzXdFM">confronted</a> Israeli President Peres at the World Economic Forum over the Israeli offensive. When he was denied extra time to continue his criticism of Israel, he stormed out. Erdogan was a hero overnight in the Muslim world.</p>
<p>Soon after, an exhibit <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1258">opened</a> in a major state-controlled metro in Istanbul that included many viciously anti-Israeli and anti-American cartoons, portraying Israeli soldiers as massacring innocent people with American weapons. The AKP won the March 29 local elections, further cementing their hold and convincing Erdogan that he was politically safe to follow the agenda he held from the beginning. Later that year, Israel had to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/12/turkey.israel/index.html">confront</a> Turkey over anti-Israeli propaganda on prime-time state-controlled television.</p>
<p>In October, Turkey refused to allow Israel to participate in annual military exercises also involving Italy and the U.S. Instead, Turkey and Syria <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/after-snubbing-israel-turkey-to-hold-defense-drills-with-syria-1.6129">announced</a> that they would hold their own joint exercises. The Turkish-Syrian alliance began shortly after Erdogan came to power, with Syrian President Bashar Assad visiting Turkey and a free trade agreement being signed.</p>
<p>Turkey has also moved closer to Sudan, <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/134297">refusing</a> to describe the situation in Darfur as a genocide. Erdogan’s government also opposes the International Criminal Court’s indictment of President Omar al-Bashir for human rights violations. His defense of Bashir is that “no Muslim could perpetrate a genocide.”</p>
<p>Now, Turkey is taking center stage in the wake of the <em>Mavi Marmara</em> incident. Turkey is openly considering cutting off all diplomatic ties with Israel and is saying that its warships will escort future convoys to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. There are reports that Erdogan himself may actually join a convoy. Erdogan now openly <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=177496">says</a>, “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization…They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land.”</p>
<p>He was among the first to accept Hamas after it was elected in Gaza, and he is <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=177512">calling</a> their rule a “democracy” based on elections alone. Democracy is much more than elections, but Erdogan, like the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, want to equate democracy with elections so as to give themselves legitimacy as they move against the other pillars of democracy. Professor Barry Rubin <a href="http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/06/turkish-regime-changes-sides">says</a> that as the AKP won election victories, the Erdogan government “repressed opposition and arrested hundreds of critics, bought up 40 percent of the media, and installed its people in the bureaucracy.”</p>
<p>Today, the government has begun the country’s “largest-ever crackdown” on the military, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/27/MNQ21C7OKE.DTL&amp;feed=rss.news_world">prosecuting</a> 33 current and former military officers for allegedly planning a coup to overthrow the AKP government in 2003 including the former head of the special forces. Those arrested have been accused of planning to carry out acts of terrorism including the bombing of mosques, which they deny. Given the military’s pride in acting as the guardian of Turkey’s secularism, it isn’t surprising that elements of the military would desire to see the AKP overthrown. However, this could be an Islamist attempt to weaken the military and paint them as dangerous and anti-Muslim.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s defense of the vessel owned by the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7544">IHH,</a> a Turkish Islamist group tied to Hamas and other terrorist activity, is particularly insightful. Any true opponent of terrorism and radical Islamism would ban the group or at least officially investigate them. In 1997, the Turkish authorities raided the IHH’s office in Istanbul and made numerous arrests. IHH operatives were found with weapons-related materials and the French counterterrorism magistrate said that they were planning on supporting jihadists in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.</p>
<p>“The essential goal of this Association was to illegally arm its membership for overthrowing democratic, secular, and constitutional order present in Turkey and replacing it with an Islamic state founded on the Shariah,” the French magistrate’s report <a href="http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010/06/shooting_the_messenger_a_look.php">said.</a></p>
<p>If the goal of the IHH is to establish Sharia Law in Turkey, and Erdogan’s government is describing them as a “charity,” what does that say about Erdogan’s plans? <em>The Washington Post</em> has raised <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060404806.html">alarm</a> over this connection, noting the IHH leadership’s praise for Erdogan.</p>
<p>The West’s loss of Turkey has frightening strategic consequences. They are so frightening that the West refused to acknowledge the trend until it became undeniable in recent weeks. Professor Juan Cole, who already was a strident critic of Israel, bluntly <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2010/06/erdogan-israel-in-danger-of-losing-its-best-friend-in-the-region-nato-hq-seething.html">states,</a> “Strategically, if the U.S. had to choose between Turkey and Israel, it would have to choose Turkey.” The pressure on the U.S. to restrain Israel so as to court the stronger bloc has now become greater than ever.</p>
<p>The situation is even more precarious for other countries in the region previously bonding together to oppose Iran. Egypt, Saudi   Arabia, Jordan, and other countries in the Middle East and North  Africa that are hostile to Iran’s ambitions now face an even more threatening bloc that has been enlarged by the defection of Turkey. The temptation for them to surrender the mantle of leadership to the Iranian-Syrian-Turkish bloc in order to save themselves will now reach unprecedented levels, regardless of whether Iran obtains nuclear weapons or not.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, Erdogan’s prestige as the preeminent challenger of Israel will lead to competition with Iran, sparking an escalation where each side tries to establish superior anti-Israeli and anti-Western credentials. Israel is now in its most isolated and dangerous situation since its birth in 1948.</p>
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		<title>Turkish Jihadists Attack Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/phyllis-chesler/turkey-attacks-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=turkey-attacks-israel</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:10:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Phyllis Chesler]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[There were no freedom seekers aboard the anti-Israel “freedom flotilla.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/weaponsmarmara1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61675" title="weaponsmarmara1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/weaponsmarmara1.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="266" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/">NewsReal</a></strong></p>
<p>One may describe Hitler as a “vegetarian” (which he apparently was) but he was still a genocidally exterminationist Jew-hater whose relentless racism and imperial ambitions led to the death of more than 60 million people.</p>
<p>One may also describe the Turks on board the “freedom flotilla” (Orwell himself could not have suggested a better logo) as “humanitarian activists.” But they are still pro-terrorist Turkish jihadists whose mission was to kill Jews, one way or the other. This was a mission which aimed to further demonize the already shamefully tarnished reputation of the Jewish state. This mission planned to force a violent confrontation; were Israeli soldiers to dare defend themselves and if Muslims are therefore martyred—even better public relations, even better for international lawfare against the Israel.</p>
<p>The so-called “humanitarians,” at least on one boat, came armed with metal bars and knives. They were fighters, not pacifists, and they called out traditional Islamic battle cries: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!&#8221; According to <a href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&amp;doc_id=2323">Palestinian Media Watch</a>:</p>
<p>“Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad&#8217;s army in 628. Many Jews were killed in that battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see that as a precursor for future wars against Jews. At gatherings and rallies of extremists, this chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims.”</p>
<p>“This <a title="http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DgYjkLUcbJWo" href="http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DgYjkLUcbJWo" target="_blank">video</a> shows Israeli soldiers being beaten with long and heavy metal rods on one of the Turkish boats.<span style="color: blue;"> </span>Jeff Dunetz (“<span style="color: navy;"><a title="http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/" href="http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">YidWithLid</a></span>”) has a series of disturbing and informative videos in which we can see the planned nature and intensity of the Turkish-Palestinian violence against Israeli soldiers—an attack which involved stabbings, beatings, firebombing attempts, throwing soldiers overboard, etc.”</p>
<p>Earlier today, Israel&#8217;s Deputy Foreign Minister <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=176968">Danny Ayalon</a> said that the Turkish-led flotilla was: “An armada of hate and violence in support of Hamas’ terror organization and was a premeditated and outrageous provocation. The organizers are well known for their ties with global jihad, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas. They have a history of arms smuggling and deadly terror. On board the ship we found weapons prepared in advance and used against our forces. The organizers intent was violent, their method was violent, and the results were unfortunately violent. Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the death count currently stands at an estimated nine (mainly Turkish) dead and 34 wounded. Predictably, the Arab, European, and liberal media are viewing Israel as the vicious aggressor; as committing “<a href="http://www.opednews.com/flyer/news_20100531_1.html">obscene</a>” acts. <a href="http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6B75044C-34A6-4672-88F5-DEC519326043.htm">Al-Jazeera’s website</a> calls what happened “a massacre.” They refer to the dead as “martyrs.”</p>
<p>Some say that the Israeli commandos could have used taser guns, rubber bullets, or simply sent far more soldiers onto each boat. But the Israelis initially boarded the boats armed with paintball guns. And one wonders: How many Israeli soldiers can fit on a boat? One Israeli now suggests that Israel should have surrounded all the boats, stopped them dead in their tracks, shot out their motors.</p>
<p>Said I: And then done what with them?</p>
<p>Said he: Negotiate.</p>
<p>Said I: Are you crazy? Negotiate with terrorists? And then feed them, house them, coddle them—terrorists who would not even agree to bring food and a note to Gilad Shalit? Incredibly, Israel has been doing just that, treating the wounded terrorists in Israeli <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=176977">hospitals</a> and preparing to intern the remaining “activists” in <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-gaza-aid-convoy-can-unload-cargo-in-ashdod-for-inspection-1.292560">air-conditioned tents</a> in Ashdod.</p>
<p>Said he: There should have been better military planning.</p>
<p>I am sure that Monday morning quarterbacking is always more ingenious than what happens in the moment of battle. The problem is that, once again, the Israelis are being attacked for having defended themselves and the jihadists are still being seen as “martyrs.”</p>
<p>Why did Turkey attack Israel? How much Iranian support did they have? Turkey was once a haven for Jews in flight from the Christian Inquisition.</p>
<p>Once, long ago, Muslim Turkey gave asylum to <a href="http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/nasi-dona-gracia">Dona Gracia HaNasi</a>, the noble and generous leader of the Jews who had fled from Christian Spain and Portugal. Dona Gracia, a widow, was the wealthiest Jew of her time and, after living in Italy, found final refuge in Constantinople in 1552. Some wealthy Jews still live in Turkey today—yes, despite the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,103157,00.html">bombing</a> of two Turkish synagogues in 2003. I wonder how safe they are and for how long.</p>
<p>As to women? Locked up in harems—but if they were lucky/most unlucky, perhaps in the Sultan’s own harem or seraglio. For example, in 1784, a French girl, <a href="http://ottoman-empire.suite101.com/article.cfm/aimee-dubucq-de-rivery-the-french-sultana">Aimee Dubucq de Rivery,</a> was kidnapped on the open seas by Algerian pirates who sold her into the Turkish Sultan’s harem. Aimee became known as “Naksh,” The Beautiful One, for her fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Improbably, incredibly, Aimee became the mother of the next Sultan, whose name was Sultan Mahmoud II, the Reformer. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wilder-Shores-Love-True-Life-Eberhardt/dp/0786710306">Some see</a> the influence of the Sultan Valideh (The Veiled Sultan) in Selim’s letter of friendship to King Louis XVI—and in other pro-European gestures and customs.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dhimmi.org/English.html">Myths</a> die hard. People still believe that Jews, Christians and other infidels lived safe and happy lives in Muslims lands. This is a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Islamic-Antisemitism-Sacred-History/dp/1591025540/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1275323769&amp;sr=1-2">Big Lie</a>.</p>
<p>As a matter of historical fact, the Turks have a long and bloody history of cruelty and genocide. They colonized the entire Middle East, forced conversions or murdered those who resisted. Islamic gender and religious apartheid flourished.</p>
<p>To this day, the Turks continue to deny the Armenian genocide. And, the days of Kemal Ataturk are long gone. In the early 1920s, Ataturk imposed a secular democracy upon the Islamists and unveiled the women.  Now, the Islamists are winning again: Women are veiling, honor killings are on the rise (both in Turkey and among Turks in Europe). Recently, a father and grandfather heartlessly <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/7161701/Teenage-girl-buried-alive-in-Turkey-for-talking-to-boys.html">buried</a> a 16-year-old daughter and granddaughter alive for the “crime” of presumably talking to boys. I have also written about a great Turkish feminist hero, my friend <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/11/30/“i-hope-the-west-does-not-give-in”-an-interview-with-seyran-ates/">Seyran Ates</a>, here; Ates was shot for her work among Turkish immigrant girls and women in Berlin. Her 15-year-old client died. Ates, a lawyer, was left for dead—but miraculously survived.</p>
<p>And we nearly admitted Turkey into the European Union. One wonders if they would have intensified their anti-Israel Islamism had they been accepted as “Europeans,” or whether their candidacy was merely a calculated move in tandem with pre-existing pro-Iranian plans. For years, Turkey has <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/turkey-pm-if-you-don-t-want-iran-to-have-nukes-give-yours-up-1.5055">opposed</a> sanctioning Iran for its nuclear program. Turkey was among the first to <a href="http://www.euronews.net/2009/10/27/spotlight-on-iran-turkey-relations/">congratulate Ahmadinejad</a> on his re-election victory. During 2009, Turkey improved its economic ties to Iran.</p>
<p>I am waiting for the United Nations and for the United States to condemn this unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Empty Gestures</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rick-moran/obamas-empty-gestures-3/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-empty-gestures-3</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2010 04:01:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Moran]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[When will the administration honor Daniel Pearl's memory with real action on global free press?]]></description>
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<p>There was an emotional ceremony at the White House on Monday when President Obama welcomed slain journalist Daniel Pearl&#8217;s surviving family members to witness the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act.</p>
<p>Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was brutally murdered in Pakistan as he was following up some leads on al-Qaeda financing in early 2002. Four Pakistanis <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/world/4-in-pearl-murder-are-found-guilty-in-pakistan-court.html">were convicted</a> in Pearl&#8217;s murder in July of that year. The mastermind of the kidnapping and murder, however, may have been Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to the murder under interrogation by the CIA.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/world/18press.html">New York Times</a>, the Freedom of the Press Act &#8220;requires the State Department to expand its scrutiny of news media restrictions and intimidation as part of its annual review of human rights in each country. Among other considerations, the department will be required to determine whether foreign governments participate in or condone violations of press freedom.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is certainly good news. According to Freedom House&#8217;s <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&amp;release=1177">annual survey</a>of press freedom in 196 countries, the indicators fell for the 8th straight year:</p>
<ul>
<li>Significant declines outnumbered gains by a 2-to-1 margin. Notable regional declines were registered in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, as well as the Middle East.</li>
<li>Declines in important emerging democracies demonstrate the fragility of press freedom in such environments. Namibia and South Africa, two of the new democracies, dropped from Free to Partly Free. Worrying declines were also registered in Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal.</li>
<li>The only area to show overall improvement was the Asia-Pacific region, spurred by notable gains in South Asia that included status changes in Bangladesh and Bhutan from Not Free to Partly Free and a numerical score jump for the Maldives.</li>
<li>Governments in China, Russia, Venezuela, and other countries have been systematically encroaching on the comparatively free environment of the internet and new media. Sophisticated techniques are being used to censor and block access to particular types of information, to flood the internet with antidemocratic, nationalistic views, and to provide broad surveillance of citizen activity.</li>
<li>Journalists are increasingly the victims of assault and murder, a trend fueled by impunity for past crimes.</li>
</ul>
<p>We give Egypt billions of dollars in aid every year and yet, President Mubarak and his security services have gotten into the very bad habit of arresting journalists and even <a href="http://egymonitor.blogspot.com/2010/04/egyptian-blogger-arrested.html">bloggers</a> who write on subjects that the state deems &#8220;dangerous.&#8221; It&#8217;s certainly dangerous to the journalists but beyond that, there doesn&#8217;t seem to be much rhyme nor reason to the practice except to clamp down on dissent.</p>
<p>Of course, you take your life in your hands if you write anything against the regime in Iran. Entire newspapers have been shut down by the mullahs since the disputed election last year and there is no sign that they are letting up in their campaign to silence critics.</p>
<p>Perhaps President Obama will want to do something about his friend Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, who has shut down <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV">opposition TV stations</a>and engaged in media intimidation. Freedom House lists Venezuela as &#8220;Not Free,&#8221; <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/fop/2010/FOTP2010Global&amp;RegionalTables.pdf">ranking it a dismal 163</a> our of 196 nations. Just don&#8217;t let Sean Penn hear you call Hugo a &#8220;dictator,&#8221; though. He favors having <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV">journalists arrested </a>who call Chavez the &#8220;D&#8221; word.</p>
<p>Mexico, South Africa, India, and Italy are all listed as &#8220;Partly Free.&#8221; Freedom House uses a broad range of criteria to determine it&#8217;s rankings<a href="http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/fop/2010/Methodology2010--final5May10.pdf">based on a point system.</a> The legal, political, and economic environment for the press in each country is given a numerical score of 0-40 in each. The totals reveal whether a country is &#8220;Free,&#8221; &#8220;Partly Free,&#8221; or &#8220;Not Free.&#8221; Only 69 countries are judged as having a &#8220;Free&#8221; press in their 2010 survey.</p>
<p>While a welcome addition to our criteria for giving aid and adjudging a level of support our State Department can offer a nation, one has to wonder how seriously the president and his appointees will actually take this new law. As Jennifer Rubin points out in a piece in <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/295551">Commentary&#8217;s Contentions blog</a>, this administration has fallen down in its support for press freedom in countries where the weight of our words is desperately needed:</p>
<blockquote><p>Has Obama done anything about the suppression of media critics in Egypt (other than prepare a lucrative financial package for the Egyptian government)? Has Obama made this a priority with any thugocracy? No. And when signing a bill in the name of someone who elevated and personified the freedom of expression, Obama at least could have departed from his campaign to delete the name of our enemies from the public lexicon.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, at the United Nations, it&#8217;s business as usual for the enemies of the free press. <a href="http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=9b8e3a6d-795d-440f-a5de-6ff6e78c78d5">Anti-blasphemy measures </a>are being pushed by the usual suspects in the Muslim world in a clear effort to stifling criticism of Islam.</p>
<p>In addition, the UN Human Rights Council <a href="http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/04/spencer-the-un%E2%80%99s-jihad-against-free-speech/">has drafted rules</a> designed to &#8220;protect&#8221; Islam from &#8220;political cartoonists and bigots.&#8221; This attitude seems widespread at the United Nations, who recently celebrated &#8220;World Press Freedom Day&#8221; on May 3rd. How devoted the UN is to press freedom is a matter open for debate. UNESCO, sponsor of World Press Freedom Day, defines &#8220;Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media&#8221; in what must be considered a <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13176&amp;URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&amp;URL_SECTION=201.html">novel manner:</a></p>
<blockquote><p>2. Access by the public to information should be guaranteed by the diversity of the sources and means of information available to it, thus enabling each individual to check the accuracy of facts and to appraise events objectively. To this end, journalists must have freedom to report and the fullest possible access to information. Similarly, it is important that the mass media be responsive to concerns of peoples and individuals, thus promoting the participation of the public in the aggregation of information.</p>
<p>3. With a view to the strengthening of peace and international understanding, to promoting human rights and to countering racialism, apartheid and incitement to war, the mass media throughout the world, by reason of their role, contribute to promoting human rights, in particular by giving expression to oppressed peoples who struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism, foreign occupation and all forms of racial discrimination and oppression and who are unable to make their voices heard within their own territories.</p></blockquote>
<p>We Americans prefer the simple, &#8220;Congress shall make no law&#8230;&#8221; found in the First Amendment. It would appear that UNESCO has narrowed that definition considerably.</p>
<p>This is important because of the Obama administration&#8217;s clear preference for bending to the will of the United Nations on a variety of issues, most recently when Iran <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/">was given a seat </a>on the UN Commission on Women&#8217;s Rights and President Obama remained silent. If we acquiesce on this, what other nonsense will the Obama administration put up with?</p>
<p>Despite its noble goals, it would seem to be a pipe dream to expect the State Department to do more than go through the motions when it comes to fulfilling the requirements of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. Given the large number of states who routinely violate that freedom, we should expect a business as usual attitude, especially from this president, whose outreach to thugs and tyrants around the world regardless their treatment of journalists – or their people &#8211; continues.</p>
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		<title>The Rise of the Ignoramus Jihadist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/wm-b-fankboner/the-rise-of-the-ignoramus-jihadist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-rise-of-the-ignoramus-jihadist</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 04:03:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wm. B. Fankboner]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Islamic terrorists are not ignorant and poor, but neither are they truly educated.]]></description>
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<p>It is still widely believed in leftist circles that the generic Islamic terrorist is the product of ignorance and poverty. This idea – that terrorists are a persecuted minority of the ignorant and downtrodden – dovetails neatly with another liberal tenet: that the problem of modern terrorism is amenable to a socioeconomic solution. Typical of this putative class of terrorist is “shoe bomber” Richard Reid. A petty criminal who was arrested in his teens for assaulting an elderly woman, and who was in and out of prison for most his adult life, Reid considered himself a victim of racism. He was thus promising material for conversion to Islam: the Jihadists love to glom onto disaffected and benighted losers to do their dirty work.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>But even liberals are coming around to the view that many acts of terror are being planned and carried out by “educated” members of the Islamic middle class, not a few of whom have come from affluent and privileged backgrounds. Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer, states in his book <em>Understanding Terror Networks</em> that a high percentage of al-Qaeda operatives are college educated (34 percent) and come from skilled professions (45 percent). A governmental report prepared for the CIA in 1999 entitled “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” reached the same conclusion.</p>
<p>However, some qualification of the word “educated” is in order. While secondary education in some Islamic countries like Malaysia is modeled on the Western system, in the Middle East it is largely the responsibility of the <em>madrasahs</em> (religious schools), which are dedicated almost exclusively to religious instruction and indoctrination. Though not all these institutions are stridently anti-Western, the fact that the curriculum is entirely religious-based, i.e., focused on the Quran and the <em>hadith</em>, means that the average <em>madrasah</em> graduate is blissfully unaware of the modern world and thus a receptive vessel for the anti-American narrative promoted by militant jihadists.</p>
<p>For example, if you were to ask a <em>madrasah</em> graduate to explain what role the Christian democracies have played in world affairs in the twentieth century (the Anglo-American alliance that defeated German imperialism in 1918, the Nazi-Fascist Axis in 1945, and international Communism in 1989), they would have no idea what you were talking about. Indeed, so profound is their ignorance of current events and world history, few would even know there had been a Cold War.</p>
<p>If the number of Nobel laureates is any measure—Islam, 20% of the world’s population, has produced 6, while the Jewish community, a tiny minority of 0.2%, has produced 165—intellectual curiosity is not a highly rated virtue in the Koran; “Islam” is a Syriac word meaning <em>submission</em>, which is the surrender of the mind to faith, i.e., the abdication of free conscience and independent thought to the teachings of the Prophet. Most so-called “educated” jihadists, those who see themselves as symbolic emissaries of Islam and are fully convinced of the rectitude of their cause, suffer from a cognitive disorder Thomas Aquinas called “invincible ignorance.” The best (or worst) you can say of graduates of the <em>madrasahs</em> is that their knowledge of history and world affairs is roughly equivalent to that of an average American fourth-grader. In no other culture, society, or religion is the pursuit of knowledge viewed with such virulent contempt and ignorance of the world considered evidence of virtue.</p>
<p>So when we speak of “educated” jihadists we are referring to training and expertise in a specialized technical field or in one of the professions, like medicine. Practically all university-educated jihadists are engineers and technologists. In terms of general education, however, middle-class, university-educated jihadists like Mohammed Atta, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Jordanian double agent Mulal al-Balawi aren’t much better off than ordinary graduates of the illiberal and benighted <em>madrasah</em>, i.e. they reason with the intellectual sophistication of superstitious children. Exposure to Western science and technology does not erase years of obscurantist religious indoctrination and conditioning. Like their fellow supplicants, they have been taught from early childhood to believe that the West, and Israel and America in particular, are their mortal enemies; and that Western Enlightenment values, and the temptations of Western popular culture, constitute a diabolical conspiracy to defile and undermine their religion.</p>
<p>According to a Congressional Research Services report published in 2008, radicalized <em>madrasahs</em> in Afghanistan were incubators for the Taliban movement:</p>
<blockquote><p>In the 1980s, madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan were allegedly boosted by an increase in financial support from the United  States, European governments, Saudi  Arabia, and other Persian Gulf states all of whom reportedly viewed these schools as recruiting grounds for anti-Soviet mujahedin fighters. In the early 1990s, the Taliban movement was formed by Afghan Islamic clerics and students (<em>talib </em>means “student” in Arabic), many of whom were former mujahedin who had studied and trained in madrasas and who advocated a strict form of Islam similar to the Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.</p></blockquote>
<p>The <em>Madrasahs</em> are, in fact, indispensable to the perpetuation of Islam’s medieval worldview. Deprivation of information about life and the ways of the world is an essential tool for infantilizing generations of Muslim students: isolated from reality, these adolescent novitiates never encounter the world as it is and thus never achieve full adulthood. Their maturation into self-actualized individuals is defeated by a distortion field of fanatical dogma and a rancorous hatred of the infidel; while Islam’s demonstrable inferiority to the West fans a searing humiliation and inchoate resentment that cuts them off from every decent human instinct.</p>
<p>Since these embryonic jihadists have no inclination or opportunity to discover their own humanity they will never sense any solidarity with the community of mankind. In the Muslim view the non-Islamic world constitutes “the other,” i.e., the enemy of Islam. In place of humanity Islam offers its young men the spiritual blessings of imams, mullahs, and ayatollahs, and the unsurpassed exhilaration and exaltation of martyrdom.</p>
<p>But while the motivations of information-deprived terrorists are comprehensible, the complacence of Dar al-Islam is unfathomable. One can only gasp with disbelief on learning that in nuclear-armed Pakistan, an ally which the U.S. has bankrolled with over a billion dollars in aid yearly, 64 percent of the population views the U.S. as an enemy. What is to be said of a country where one in five trust Osama bin Laden more than Barack Obama, and of the population that clings to these beliefs after Taliban militias have penetrated to within sixty miles of Islamabad, and after Al Qaeda has, according to estimates of the World Health Organization, killed 150,000 Muslims in Iraq alone? The forces of paranoia, superstition, and ignorance will not be quelled by reason: the roots of anti-Western sentiment are deep, global, and generational in Islamic society. Indeed, how could it be otherwise in Middle Eastern states where outlawing political debate, saturating the media with anti-Western slogans, and propagating hate speech in mosques and in school textbooks, have become institutionalized strategies to maintain political power and prop up incompetent tyrants?</p>
<p>I happened to be teaching at a government prep school in Malaysia, a country that practices a relatively benign version of Islam, during the siege and occupation of the U.S. embassy in Teheran by revolutionaries of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and I was surprised when a devout but gentle Muslim teacher approached me and half-apologetically explained his admiration for the revered Iranian religious leader who had lately occupied the world stage. I hadn’t expected him to repudiate the Ayatollah for fomenting revolution against the Shaw (self-determination is the right of every decent society) but I was disturbed to hear him countenance the storming, and the imprisonment the staff of, an American embassy that was under the protection of international law.</p>
<p>So sacrosanct is the concept of diplomatic immunity that the Italian Minister Bettino Craxi allowed Mohammed Abbass, leader of the <em>Achille Lauro<strong> </strong></em>hijacking, to leave Italy because he had a diplomatic passport issued by Iraq. In the history of revolution, some perpetrated by ruthless and vicious regimes, the taking of hostages of a foreign embassy was unheard of. Moreover, to countenance Ayatollah Khomeini was to countenance his barbaric <em>fatwa</em> against Salmon Rushdie, a criminal incitement to the assassination of a celebrated novelist and blatant attack on the very roots of Western civilization. What did such reckless and defiant acts portend for the future of Islam and the world? The lawless Ayatollah had passed the infallible litmus test for fascism that had been the mantra of every tyrant in history: What&#8217;s Mine is Mine and What&#8217;s Yours is Mine.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>The complacent attitude of my Islamic colleague whose faith in the Iranian Ayatollah was absolute and who believed the revered spiritual leader could do no wrong, was almost as disturbing as the event itself; for me and my generation, his viewpoint bore an eerie resemblance to the mindless adoration of the German people for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. How a gang of inept sociopaths succeeded in taking over the country that gave the world Kant, Goethe and Beethoven is still something of a mystery. When asked about it, most Germans simply shrug and say they awoke one morning and found the Nazis in control. Something like the Nazis’ stealthy seizure of power seems to be taking hold in Islam: a cabal of sociopathic clerics masquerading as a holy religious cause appears to be co-opting Islam in an apocalyptic confrontation with the civilized world with the passive compliance of Islam itself.</p>
<p>The 2005 Pew survey below would seem to indicate that the support of mainstream Islam for violence is diminishing. Such fluctuations in attitude are probably due to increased awareness of the self-liquidating nature of the jihadist philosophy and internal contradictions of Islamic fundamentalism. Such trends can be misleading because the primary cause for jihadist violence still exists, i.e. a culture that has no intellectual tradition, and that uses information deprivation to manipulate the faithful.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/26-1.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60215" title="26-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/26-1.gif" alt="" width="288" height="361" /></a></p>
<p>As the examples of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Khmer Rouge show, unanimity is not a prerequisite for the takeover of a society. With a misinformed, cowed, and submissive populace, a scant minority of determined fanatics can do the job. What Dar al-Islam does not fully understand or refuses to admit, even to itself, is that the rise of child-martyrs and ignoramus-jihadists in its midst holds more peril for Islam than it does for the West.</p>
<p>Dealing with Islamic mentality for the first time can be a startling and eye-opening experience for a Westerner. Confronted with Islam’s negative view of the West, one is beset with an overwhelming sense of futility. The problem lies not in only correcting facts, or in supplanting illusion with objective information; this is a mentality so steeped in obscurantist tradition and ignorance that it has never developed any standard for truth; rather “truth” is something used to hoodwink an opponent. And this is an ignorance so absolute and on a scale so extensive that it is impossible to convey it to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. One quickly realizes that in an ignorance this total any fiction, no matter how outrageous, can not only survive but take permanent residence and flourish.</p>
<p>This is a problem that can only be corrected by a major overhaul of the Islamic educational system. For where there is no concept of truth, there is no idea of free inquiry. Thus, it would appear that the tender-minded liberals had it right after all: this is a socioeconomic problem. The children of Islam are the disadvantaged educationally-deprived victims of deliberate parental abuse and theological violation, and nothing will change until this problem is remedied, either by Islam itself or by the political and cultural disaster that certainly awaits it over the horizon of history.</p>
<p>Finally, for those who question the power of the Mosques and <em>madrasahs</em> to infantilize and dehumanize Muslim society, and to cocoon a population in near absolute ignorance, there was this AP filing on April 19, 2010:</p>
<blockquote><p>A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes. “Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes,” the cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Mr. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday Prayer leader. Women in <a title="More news and information about Iran." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.html?inline=nyt-geo">Iran</a>, one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, are required by law to cover from head to toe but many, especially the young, ignore some of the stricter codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair. “What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” Mr. Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon on Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”</p></blockquote>
<p>It would probably be disrespectful to suggest that Sedighi is himself getting off on those sexy Iranian <em>bints</em> in tight coats and exposed locks. Nonetheless the lip-smacking relish with which this revered Shiite cleric describes the cause and effect between male arousal and earthquakes is certainly suspicious. Surrealistic decrees from Iran’s delusional leadership have taught us not to be shocked by any communiqués originating in Teheran, but Westerners would probably be surprised to learn how many listeners in Sedighi’s audience actually agree with this childish nonsense. More to the point, the grim-mouthed cleric spouting this vile claptrap is the venerated prayer leader for a regime that is acquiring the capacity to build nuclear weapons and the rocket technology to deliver them.</p>
<p><strong>William Fankboner is the author of <em>The Triumph of Political Correctness</em> and <em>A Hypertext Field Guide to Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media</em>. He runs a web site at: http://home.roadrunner.com/~lifetime. His e-mail address is: williefank@aol.com.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Greek Crisis and the Reactionary Left</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/the-greek-crisis-and-the-reactionary-left-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-greek-crisis-and-the-reactionary-left-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 04:06:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[age]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austerity program]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The wages of socialism. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/grflames.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59807" title="grflames" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/grflames.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="281" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com">Newsreal</a></strong></p>
<p>I put this question to my investor friend, whom I’ll call Angel Ware, about the situation in Europe:</p>
<p>Any insights into the ramifications of the Greek crisis?</p>
<p>Here is his answer:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Well, it depends. The first question is whether or not the EU (i.e.   Germany) will successfully be able to bail out the Greeks. There are  some significant forces conspiring to screw this up. 1. The Greek people  and their massive sense of entitlement. Even the threat of an austerity program has caused deadly riots and crippling strikes (including the  internal revenue department going on strike). 2. The German people and their sense of fairness. The retirement age in Greece (as subsidized by  the government) is 54. The retirement age in Germany is 67. You can imagine that bailing out the Greeks, so that they can preserve their retirement plan is not something that sits well with the German people. So, the EU &amp; the IMF have temporarily stopped the bleeding, but will they be able to save Greece? Most people seem to be betting against that. Given that the Republicans have made major hay railing against the contagion stopping bailouts in the US (despite the fact that most were initiated by a Republican president), it’s hard to imagine that any politician will be able to sell contagion stopping bailouts of foreign countries.</p>
<p>The problem with Greece failing isn’t Greece (they are actually a very small economy). The problem is, as I alluded to above, contagion. It  turns out that Greece is hardly the only socialist country in Europe who has been funding massive social programs via massive debt. Specifically, if the bond market learns that the EU does not have the political will to bail out tiny Greece, then it follows that the EU will not have the political will to bail out the larger Countries (Spain being the scariest). As a result, the world may stop buying Spanish bonds. If the Spanish can’t sell massive amounts of new debt, they too will default. If Spain defaults, it’s virtually guaranteed that Portugal, Italy, and Ireland will default in short order. If that happens, all of these countries are the primary lenders to Eastern Europe, so look for a rash of defaults there too. If that happens, the UK is in deep trouble. If that happens, the US may be in serious trouble — if you thought the Lehman failure sucked, just wait for the Barclay’s and the Royal Bank of Scotland to fail as a result of the UK failing.</p>
<p>Now, the good news is that there is plenty of time between here and there for governments to get their acts together and keep the game alive (the game being that people buy bonds from countries with bad balance sheets due to the implication that they will be bailed out by larger governments with bad, but larger and better balance sheets). However, it could get considerably uglier. The other thing to keep in mind is that the last time that large European countries defaulted and couldn’t pay for their social programs, Hitler rose to power and we had WWII.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Well, there’s a happy thought. It may turn out that the greatest tragedy of the 21st Century is that people failed to learn the lessons of the 20th. But then what else is new?</p>
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		<title>The “Collapse” of Communism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/the-%e2%80%9ccollapse%e2%80%9d-of-communism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-%25e2%2580%259ccollapse%25e2%2580%259d-of-communism</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill Gertz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collapse of communism]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[What the media didn’t tell you about the “end” of the Cold War.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/fall1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59131" title="fall1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/fall1.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="212" /></a></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Robert Buchar, an associate professor and author of the Cinematography Program at Columbia  College in Chicago. A political refugee from former Czechoslovakia, he is the producer of the documentary, Velvet Hangover, which is about Czech New Wave filmmakers, how they survived the period of “normalization” and their reflections on the so-called Velvet Revolution of 1989. He is the author of the new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Damned-Undoing-America-communism/dp/1609111664/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1271194009&amp;sr=1-1-fkmr0" target="_blank">And Reality be Damned… Undoing America: What The Media Didn’t Tell You About the End of the Cold War and Fall of Communism in Europe</a>. The book is based on a documentary feature he is currently working on, <em>The Collapse of Communism: The Untold Story</em>.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Robert Buchar, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>You have some quite startling things to say about the fall, or lack thereof, of the Soviet Empire in the period 1989-1991. What is it that we don’t know about the “collapse of communism” as it has been described to us in the media?</p>
<p>Nina Karsov recently informed us, here at Frontpage Interview, of many troubling facts connected to <a href="../2010/03/23/the-triumph-of-soviet-deception/" target="_blank">The Triumph of Soviet Deception</a>. Please also comment on her interview and give us your own angle.</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> Thank you for the opportunity to be here.</p>
<p>The great political upheaval of the late 20th century—the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet  Union—is generally regarded as the spontaneous product of long-accumulating social and economic pressures. That is the official story, which was hammered into our heads by the western media. If you try suggesting that this is not the case, the media will not take you seriously and even refuse to discuss what you are trying to say. It is a taboo topic. But the ample of evidence suggests otherwise.</p>
<p>During the final phase of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, under its dogmatic and visibly senile party bosses, was sinking into near-bankruptcy. Yuri Andropov, Chairman of the KGB—the only organization with both a full knowledge of the state of the economy and a mastery of strategic decisions—came to the conclusion that there was no cure for the grave illness of the communist system. To preserve the wealth that threatened to slip out of the leaders’ hands, he masterminded a nearly unthinkable program—throwing into the fire Moscow’s rule over the Eastern European bloc—and, as it turned out, the ruling party of the USSR itself. Though Andropov died in 1984, the signs of his hand in the events that followed remain visible, as well as the role of his handpicked successor, Mikhail Gorbachev. Witnesses in my book testify that what appeared to be a spontaneous freedom movement in 1989 was in fact a coup d’état orchestrated from Moscow—in the offices of the Russian KGB. Americans and Europeans no longer remember the past and don’t realize that history is now repeating itself.</p>
<p>Nina Karsov, in the interview with you, rightly quoted Jozef Mackiewicz referring to Western democracies as “deaf and blind men.” Western democracies never understood the Soviet system as such. The idea of deception as the foundation of foreign policy doesn’t fit into our way of thinking. Westerners can hardly comprehend a pursuit without material benefit, with strictly ideological goals based on a policy of conspiracy against other states. And that is what this is all about. We had quite a few predecessors of  Perestoika in the past.  We had the economic deception in the 1920s, deception of peaceful coexistence, and the ‘détente’ under the Brezhnev regime.</p>
<p>Deception is an essential part of communist ideology. It is a central part of communism and it will continue to be like this. As Nina rightly pointed out, “it would be hard to believe that the wolf has become a vegetarian.” Communism is indeed totalitarian and was never interested in any compromise. So, the “end of communism” proclaimed by the West is a myth. And now we can see the resurgence of communism with the help of the Western right. Instead of punishing the communists for their crimes, the Western right has extended them a hand, like a sign of apology for defeating them. As Olavo de Carvalho nicely pointed out in the interview with Alex Newman for The New American magazine, “This absurd surrender of the winners was also stimulated by powerful globalist circles, whose interest in establishing worldwide bureaucratic controls converges with the objectives of communism.”</p>
<p>Nina Karsov made a very important point at the end of your interview, pointing out the incremental, but rapid erosion of our own liberties here in the West, the increase of state powers over the individual, and she raised the question of whether we are approaching the victory of authoritarian and totalitarian power, under which collective thinking, uniformity and conformity will dominate. I lived in that system for thirty years before defecting to the United   States. It never crossed my mind that it will catch up with me eventually. So I may say, no thank you, I have been there. I am not interested. Nina is absolutely right, people don’t see the essence of communism as a world mission. The majority of people in the West can’t even define communism. Unfortunately, they just have no idea.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Tell us about the documents that Vladimir Bukovsky acquired from the KGB archives and from the confidential files of Gorbachev’s library. How come we don’t hear anything about this in the media?</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> Vladimir Bukovsky got access to some KGB files in 1992 when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, being banned by Yeltsin the previous year after the coup, actually protested and disputed that ban in the Constitutional Court of Russia, frightening Yeltsin&#8217;s entourage. Yeltsin’s adviser called Bukovsky, asking him to come and help them with the court case. He agreed under the condition that they open the archives. So he had open access to secret archives during that time. He managed to scan thousands of pages into his laptop computer for half a year. That was the initial bunch of documents that he got out. Based on these documents, he published the book &#8220;Judgment in Moscow.&#8221;</p>
<p>Then, years later, a son of his friend in Moscow, Pavel Stroilov, became a student and without really realizing that there are copies of lots of documents, secret documents of the Politburo in the possession of the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow, he found them through the Internet by chance. What apparently happened in the turmoil of 1991 when the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Gorbachev was ousted from power, was that he actually took the trouble of making copies of almost all the files and secret documents concerning his period of power, from 1985 to 1991.</p>
<p>Bukovsky instructed Pavel to go to the Gorbachev Foundation, pretending that he was writing a paper for his University course and asking permission to work in the archive. Permission was granted and he was allowed to look at some parts of the archives. Being a bright young man with a good knowledge of computers, he actually broke the administration’s password and copied the entire computer. He was sending this stuff for almost a year in small portions to Vladimir in England every day. Finally, when he copied everything, he came to England. The most remarkable thing is that, two weeks after he finished copying the presidential administration files, the Putin administration learned that Gorbachev had made these documents accessible and explicitly ordered him to block all public access to these documents because they were originals and were still secret in the archives of the Politburo. So suddenly, right after Stroilov finished copying all these documents, access was closed completely. He was very lucky. Anyway, Bukovsky suddenly had 700,000 pages. He acquired transcripts of all the talks Gorbachev had with local leaders, foreign leaders, and public figures. He had all the reports by his aids, memos, the ministry of Politburo meetings, and so on and so forth. This was a huge amount of material. He admitted that digging into these files is an endless process.</p>
<p>Why don’t we hear anything about it? Well, we would have to ask Bukovsky and Stroilov first. I can see two major reasons. First of all, the files are in Russian and not too many people in the West can read them. All that stuff has to be translated first. Secondly, who cares? The media are not interested in bringing up the true picture of what happened and how it happened, politicians don’t want to hear it because it is an inconvenient true, and there are powerful forces who will probably try to stop any attempt to do so.</p>
<p>Not too many people in America realized that <em>Judgment in Moscow</em> was never published in English. The publisher caved in under the KGB pressure. When I met Vladimir last May in Prague, he told me he has a new book about the re-unification of Germany, what and how it really happened, but he can’t find a publisher. And from my personal experience, during the last seven years, I wasn’t able to raise a dime for my documentary and from the media I received a surprisingly uniform reply: the topic doesn’t fit our programming profile. Since my book was published last November in the Czech Republic under the title <em>REVOLUCE 1989,</em> no media there dared to mention it, nobody wrote a review. You figure out.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Give us some information about the Soviets’ involvement in international terrorism. And I also obviously include the current Putin regime. As Pavel Stroilov explained in <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29472" target="_blank">an interview</a> with me awhile back, the FSB is still up to no good in that department, right?</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> Pavel Stroilov is absolutely right. But I am afraid that there are not too many people in the West willing to listen, accept, or publish what he is saying. What he is saying is so politically incorrect. There has been that interesting phenomenon for a long time of the CIA systematically fogging the issue of the Soviets’ and subsequently Russians’ involvement in the international terrorism. Bill Gertz calls it the anti-anti-communist mindset.</p>
<p>The objective of the Soviet regime was always to overthrow the United   States as the world’s leading power. The KGB fathered state sponsored terrorism and invented international terrorism in the 1960’s. Even the PLO was dreamt up by the KGB. Global terrorism as we know it was conceived at the Lubyanka. As Yuri Andropov once explained to Ion Pacepa, the Muslim world was a Petri dish in which the Russians might “nurture a virulent strain of American hatred grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought.”</p>
<p>There are plenty of documents proving the Russians’ involvement in international terrorism.  They show how they supplied, trained, created, and governed almost every terrorist organization on earth. Vladimir Bukovsky has these documents. Starting with the Palestinians, the Red Brigades in Italy, Baider-Meinhof in Germany, Action Direct in France, ETA in Spain, IRA in Ireland and so on. They were all clients of the Soviet Union, not to mention states like Iraq, Libya, and Syria, which were terrorist states by definition who were under Soviet influence and were supplied by the Soviets. Many of these documents are available on line. People are not aware that the KGB after the end of the WW2 focused heavily on taking over the Abwehr intelligence network in Arabic countries.</p>
<p>It is interesting that the CIA in the 1970’s was still denying the Soviets’ involvement in international terrorism. It wasn’t till a small group of DIA people started debriefing Czech defector Gen.Jan Sejna around 1976 that the denial had no ground to stand on. By the way, Jan Sejna was never debriefed by the CIA. This is when the Soviet sponsorship of international terrorism was first laid out in detail. These analysts recognized that they couldn’t come out with this information as it was, because it would be immediately attacked by the CIA.</p>
<p>As Joseph Douglass explains in my book: “What they did was give the CIA the list of documents.” In the next meeting, the head of this group proceeded to discredit every single CIA source and document in an effort to kill the Defense Intelligence study. Finally, one of the analysts stood up and looked at the representative from the National Security Agency and said, “Are you going to discredit your sources too?” And the NSA guy looked back and he said, “Absolutely not. We stand by every one of those sources.” As a result of that, the idea of Soviet involvement in international terrorism finally started to surface. However, there was still a large effort to discredit it by the CIA people who controlled the NIE process and also through the various leakages to the media, which were intended to discount stories saying that the Soviet  Union was a focus of international terrorism.</p>
<p>Today when the CIA talks about terrorism, they simply mean violence by someone we don’t like. In other words, they cannot distinguish between innocent and guilty. We cannot distinguish between good and evil.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Why has the CIA and the American government for so long resisted acknowledging this reality? Indeed, while all western intelligence agencies agree that KGB/FSB/SVR activities are at the highest level ever, the CIA and the U.S. government don’t do anything about it and play down the danger and consequences of Russian support of terror.</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> As Oleg Gordievsky told me, there are over 400 Russian spies operating in the US and our government does nothing about it. The CIA itself has always had a very strong, let’s say pro-socialist, pro-communist component. The actual extent of this has never been revealed till a number of intercepts known as the Venona intercepts started to be released as early as the 1990s. Among other things, they show that within U.S. intelligence, going back to the beginning of WORLD WAR II, there were at least 100 communist that they were aware of, of which some 40 percent were known Soviet agents that were not tracked down and exposed. This provides a very questionable background on certain components of our intelligence services and may help to explain a number of things. It also might explain why, and in an outlandish matter, they almost went out of their way to treat defectors as undesirable people and do everything they could in their power to stop them from talking rather than gaining information from them.</p>
<p>This was such a serious problem that it actually led to Congressional hearings in the mid-1970s. It got no publicity to speak of. It also perhaps helps to explain why it is that the CIA did their best to kill the idea that there was Soviet sponsorship of international terrorism back in the 1970s which continued until the ridiculous nature of their efforts was exposed in 1981 by a number of books and documents that came out and showed how the Soviet Union was indeed the primary sponsor of international terrorism. They were the only sponsor, really.</p>
<p>When Yuri Andropov, the KGB Chairman, ordered the assasination of the Pope, it triggered a debate within the CIA between the political appointees and the career intelligence analysts who argued over a benign, leftist view of the world and especially of the Soviet Union. They argued bitterly within the secret councils of the CIA over whether or not the Soviet Union was really behind terrorism. Again, to say the Soviets weren’t behind terrorism was kind of a naïve mindset. It was totally incorrect. They didn’t really understand that the Soviet Union was sponsoring international terrorism and that it was doing so as part of a strategy to undermine the United States and other Western governments. This was a kind of classic example of how liberal and leftist bureaucrats within the CIA and the intelligence community caused serious damage to the United States.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Remind us a bit about what we learned from defectors like Anatoliy Golitsyn, Jan Sejna, Ion Pacepa, Vasili Mitrokhin, and most recently Sergei Tretyakov.</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> When Anatoliy Golitsyn defected in 1961he brought a lot of valuable information about KGB penetrations that made many Western governments embarrassed. However, the most important information he brought, in his mind, was the revelation that the Soviet Union was involved in a massive deception and they had the means of succeeding in this deception, that they had established feedback within the American intelligence community and that they could monitor what was happening, and that they had put agents in place and were spreading disinformation.</p>
<p>That was something nobody was able or wiling to comprehend and he was quickly labelled as an unreliable conspiracy theorist. In addition to that he insisted that the CIA was penetrated by the KGB and that this created conflict within the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy. We should add that the Soviets spent a lot of energy on discrediting Golitsyn in the media and in 1962 approved a plan for his assasination. To make a long story short, in his book titled <em>New Lies for Old</em> in 1984, Golitsyn included 148 predictions about the “collapse of communism in Europe.“ According to researcher Mark Riebling “139 out of 148” of Golitsyn’s predictions “were fulfilled by the end of 1993. When Golitsyn slowly faded out of the spotlight in 1968, a new defector, Gen.Jan Sejna, emerged, repeating pretty much the same thing. The CIA didn’t bother to debrief him. In his 1982 book <em>We Will Burry You,</em> he wrote “One of the basic problems of the West is its frequent failure to recognize the existence of any Soviet ‘grand design’ at all.” And no surprise, the Czech BIS till today is still obsessed with Sejna, devoting an enormous space on its website to discredit him as a liar and crook.</p>
<p>Vasili Mitrokhin defected to Great Britain in 1992. Documents he brought with him helped complete the picture of the Soviets’ deception and KGB operations all around the world. It clearly revealed that the KGB saw the third world countries as the key to winning the Cold War. It should be pointed out that Mitrokhin offered his files to Americans first and they turned him down. Then he went to the British, who arranged his defection and transportation of documents from Russia. One former high-ranking CIA official told me how embarrassing it was to beg British later to see the documents. The so called “Mitrokhin’s files” also shows that KGB influence on Soviet foreign policy has been greatly underrated in the West and most of the advances in the Soviet military was achieved by covert acquisition of Western technology.</p>
<p>The most recent defector, Sergei Tretyakov, who defected in 2000, in the book <em>Comrade J,</em> is warning us: “I want to warn Americans. As people, you are very naïve about Russia and its intentions. You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia now is your friend. It isn’t, and I can show you how the SVR is trying to destroy the US even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War.”</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How come our government still doesn’t get it? Is it sort of a strategy of intentional blindness or just plain blindness? Or is there something else in play we don’t know?</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> Obviously there is a lot of we don’t know and probably we will never know. We can only look at facts available and come up with our own conclusions. It is obvious that international finance is pushing hard for the New World Order, a sort of global management, perhaps as Zbigniew Brzezinski talks about. In his book <em>The Grand Chessboard </em>he suggests that the United States, in the near future, must cease to be the superpower and that this will lead to the creation of a new global system of government where politics will be replaced by new global management. Let me quote, for lack of better words, Olavo de Carvalho here again: “What we have is a gigantic symbiosis of all globalist and statist forces around the world. Meta-capitalists are natural allies of the communists.” The communist movement evolved, perfected to deal with dissidences, using them as instruments to adapt to local situations. It can’t get any more scary, I guess. As far as our politicians go, yes, I think we can call it the political blindness from which no meaningful strategy can arise. Unless, of course, their strategy really is global management. I am glad I am so old.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What would be the consequences of admitting that the “collapse of communism” in Europe was part of a KGB plan to expand its global influence? Or is the public by now &#8220;massaged&#8221; enough not to care after all?</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> The Western public is well massaged by media and “proper” education to the point they can’t comprehend what is going on and in a large part they don’t care anyway. The young generation of Americans today has no knowledge of history and can’t put in the perspective what is going on today because they have no idea what happened in the past. The people living in the former Soviet Block countries have a different experience, but experiencing the situation from “inside” makes them unable to see the big picture. A few individuals who are aware of what is going on and are concerned about it can’t avert the trend. And after all, their governments don’t even care what they think and say anymore. The new system was set up the way that nobody can change anything. Elections can be easily manipulated and the outcomes will be always the same no matter what party wins. It’s hard to imagine what will be the consequences of revealing what really happen back in 1980’s. I believe it can never be officially accepted. Not in my lifetime.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> With Obama in power, do you think we are inevitably heading toward socialism in the USA? What are the chances, in your view, in terms of how things are going, that socialism may finally rule the world? If yes, who can legitimately claim credit for it?</p>
<p><strong>Buchar:</strong> You know, as serious as it is, from my perspective, it’s almost funny. I feel like experiencing an amazing déjàvu. It started with the Clinton administration and now it’s picking up the speed. Many things I see happening I remember from my previous life in communist Czechoslovakia. In politics, academia, media… it looks to me like the current government is following the old textbook written in Moscow in the last century when the Soviets were taking over the Eastern  Europe. But, of course, people here don’t know anything about it. Politicians and the media perfected the process of indoctrination. Deception got very sophisticated. Masses without any knowledge of history in today “now-culture” can be manipulated on a daily basis. A recent Rasmussen poll asked a simple question, &#8220;Which is a better system—capitalism or socialism?&#8221; Only 53% of American adults said capitalism. Even the same question was asked young adults under 30, 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided.</p>
<p>Obviously, the scale is tipping off. Decades of intensive Soviet deception are finally paying off. We have a young generation now without any idealism and values. In this conformist society, people just follow the orders. It’s all about manipulation. The direct control is not efficient anymore; influence instead is a much better tool.</p>
<p>On March 2, 2010, The Moscow Times published the article <em>Russian Mafia Abroad Now 300,000 Strong.</em> It is now estimated that so-called Russian Mafia controls 95% of organized crime globally. That includes drug trafficking, money laundering, black market, and so on. At the end, the article points out that Moscow has nothing to do with it, because most of these people have no Russian passports anymore, being citizens of other countries. What a convenient conclusion. Oleg Gordievsky means otherwise:</p>
<p>&#8220;The KGB started to control different business organizations where the Mafia was strong. Gradually they began replacing the Mafia. So, in a way, today it&#8217;s less organized crime and more KGB, which is now called the FSB. Around the whole world, especially in countries like Austria, Spain, and Hungary, there are a lot of organizations and activities that look like the Mafia. But practically all of it is run by the KGB/FSB.”</p>
<p>And Joe Douglass adds:</p>
<p>“There is a massive amount of money out there. It’s perfectly adequate to achieve all the corruption at high political levels, the highest, and to influence all the elections you want around the world with absolutely no trouble at all. And not only this, but the amount of money is so large that you really don’t care what the precise figures are because it doesn’t really matter.”</p>
<p>People in America believe that the idea of global socialism is dead. But it is not. If you look at its development in Europe and Latin  America, you see that there is now more socialism than ever before. Because of public opinion, or rather, the media, political parties, political movements, parliaments, and institutions are all becoming more and more socialist. And now in the United States we are really picking up speed in that direction. Back in communist Czechoslovakia we used to have a saying “Socialism is a long and rocky road to capitalism.” I think soon we may reverse this saying “Capitalism is a long and rocky road to socialism.”</p>
<p>As a sceptic, I would say, yes we are heading toward socialism in America and there is no power to turn the ship around. But at the bottom of my heart I believe there is something special about the American people that common sense will prevail at the end and America will survive. But who knows. A regime predicated on economic optimism cannot accept the negative implications of ongoing Russian enmity. No effective counter-strategy is likely to emerge from Washington.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Robert Buchar, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.</p>
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