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Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Richard Kemp : Is Britain Destroying its Military to Appease Enemies?


  • Elements of the British establishment in Whitehall think their own soldiers are "bad," and terrorists are "freedom fighters," according to General Lord Richards, former Chief of the Defence Staff and the UK's most senior military officer.
  • Over several years these ministers, permanent secretaries, generals, admirals and air marshals have been swept aside in pursuit of a corrosive drive to discredit our troops. It is the first time in history that any government has turned on its own armed forces in such a way.
  • The overwhelming majority are motivated by a combination of greed and anti-British vindictiveness by the Iraqi and Afghan accusers and by their British lawyers, using taxpayers' money.
  • This can only further undermine our national will to engage in future conflict in defence of our people or to support our allies, including the US, thus weakening the Western world. That of course is the main objective of the politically driven lawyers and others involved in hounding our troops.
  • We can be sure that their motive for favouring enemy "freedom fighters" over our own forces is a desire to appease radical Muslims both at home and abroad, which infects so much of Europe's political elite and mainstream media.
  • It is vital for our country and the world that the Prime Minister ends this cowardly and dangerous cult of appeasement, stands up for our Western Judeo-Christian values above all others, and defends our soldiers with as much courage as they show in defending us. To achieve this, it is vital that the conspirators General Richards has named are identified and purged from power and influence.

Last week General Lord Richards, former Chief of the Defence Staff and the UK's most senior military officer, made an extraordinary allegation. Speaking on the BBC, he said that elements of the British establishment in Whitehall think their own soldiers are "bad," and terrorists are "freedom fighters."

Lord Richards's assertions have far-reaching significance both within the UK and more widely, affecting the US, the prosecution by the West of the war on terror, and British relations with the State of Israel. Yet they have gone largely unnoticed.

Lord Richards was talking about the ongoing legal campaign against British troops who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the first time in history that any government has turned on its own armed forces in such a way.

1,492 cases of alleged abuse in Iraq are under investigation, and over 600 in Afghanistan. Most of these cases involve allegations against multiple servicemen, so the number of troops under scrutiny can be counted in the thousands. We are not talking here about minor misdemeanours but the most serious forms of abuse including rape, torture and, in Iraq alone, 235 accusations of unlawful killing.
Some soldiers have been under constant investigation for more than 10 years. Some have been acquitted during preliminary investigations or at court martial, only to be dragged back to face repeated legal inquiries and judicial hearings. In some cases, there have been as many as five investigations into a single incident.
Thousands of men who have volunteered to put their lives on the line for their country, and who have been involved in the most traumatic events imaginable, including seeing their close comrades torn apart beside them, have been forced to re-live their experiences over and over again under intense legal scrutiny. Families have broken up, jobs have been lost, lives have been ruined. In some cases, soldiers have attempted or contemplated suicide.

The British government does not seem to have grasped that if there were any foundation to accusations of abuse on this scale, it would amount to a wholesale breakdown of military order and control. This in an army with an unbroken record of fortitude, courage and iron discipline under even the most formidable and perilous circumstances. Of all the great armies on both sides that fought throughout the First World War, the British Army was the only one that did not suffer major mutiny on the front line. Yet we are expected to believe that, in the far less harsh circumstances of Iraq and Afghanistan, their great grandsons went to pieces.

I served for 30 years in the British Army. I know for certain that this could not have happened. There will no doubt be some truth in a few of the allegations, as is inevitable when human beings go to war. But the overwhelming majority are motivated by a combination of greed and anti-British vindictiveness by the Iraqi and Afghan accusers and by their British lawyers. At the end of one five-year public inquiry into the alleged torture and murder of detainees, the British soldiers involved were exonerated and the chairman, a former high court judge, concluded that the claims amounted to "deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility."

This sustained vendetta has only been possible because successive governments have paid Iraqis and Afghans to bring charges against our soldiers, using British taxpayers' money. Unscrupulous, politically motivated lawyers have scoured Iraq and Afghanistan to find people willing to make complaints. Or more accurately, lacking the courage themselves to set foot in such dangerous places, they have paid local agents on the ground to do it for them. Two law firms are themselves now under investigation for abusive practices, including unlawful soliciting and withholding evidence.

And now we have General Richards's allegations. He is not some embittered maverick with a grudge against the government. He is one of the most respected, thoughtful and measured chiefs of staff since the Second World War, with unrivalled high command experience in combat. He has been at the heart of the British establishment for decades. If anyone understands the behind-the-scenes realities of the Whitehall corridors of power, he does.

What he is saying is that those in the establishment with the attitudes he has expressed are so powerful that they have for years overridden the entire top-level British military hierarchy who are responsible not only for advising the government and directing the armed forces but also for looking after the interests of their men. He is saying that they have suborned successive government ministers and senior civil servants who have constitutional responsibility for preventing abuse of the armed forces.

Over several years these ministers, permanent secretaries, generals, admirals and air marshals have been swept aside in pursuit of a corrosive drive to discredit our troops. General Richards's can be the only explanation for the government continuing to inflict such needless misery on these brave men.

A Royal Marine talks with local children during a foot patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan, on June 5, 2010. British soldiers often distributed sweets to Afghan children. (Image source: UK Ministry of Defence)

The direct effect on the armed forces is obvious. Throughout history British people have been ready and willing to volunteer to fight for their country whenever the need has arisen. But how can we count on them to do so in future if, in addition to the horrors and dangers they face in battle, they can expect to be stabbed in the back when they return home?

There are other, wider effects too. These allegations have led many people in Britain and elsewhere to doubt the integrity and honour of our troops, especially those who are already sceptical.
This is a serious danger, as no nation's armed forces can operate effectively without the support of the home population. And it has added a new dimension to the prevalent distrust of those responsible for the political direction of war since the Afghan and Iraq campaigns.

This can only further undermine our national will to engage in future conflict in defence of our people or to support our allies, including the United States, thus weakening the Western world. That of course is the main objective of the politically driven lawyers and others involved in hounding our troops.

Equally serious, false allegations of this sort incite violence and act as a catalyst for terrorism. The public airing that these accusations receives has not been missed by radical preachers in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia, who will have exploited them to recruit and motivate in their violent cause. For their purposes, such allegations are enough; the substance or otherwise is irrelevant.

Where does Israel come in? If powerful members of the British government establishment can turn on their own servicemen and undermine their national defences, then it is hardly surprising that they would also be prepared to turn on a friendly country and its armed forces in furtherance of their mendacious objectives.

A pro-Arab and anti-Israel lobby has dominated the British Foreign Office since even before the birth of the Jewish State. But General Richards's explanation sheds further light on the unjust attacks against Israel's defensive campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as false accusations over settlements and so-called occupation policies emanating from parts of the British government.

This is also highly dangerous. As well as directly inciting terrorists to further violence against Israel, it encourages the Palestinian leadership in its demands for statehood without negotiation, which in turn also inflames violence and helps perpetuate the conflict.

Although many of the actions of the Obama administration have had a deleterious effect on America's armed forces, we have not yet seen a legal campaign on a comparable scale in the United States. Hopefully any such attempt would be blocked in a nation that seems to support and value its armed forces far more than does any European country. But Americans must watch out for it. What occurs on one side of the Atlantic sooner or later creeps across to the other.
Neither have we seen legal action on this scale elsewhere in Europe. That is most likely because the opportunity is lacking, as no European country has been prepared to deploy its forces in combat missions to the extent that Britain and America have.

Although government leaders refuse to admit it, Britain and the West have been involved in a global war against Islamic jihad for more than 15 years. It will continue for generations to come. How can we hope to fight it effectively when we allow ourselves to be attacked from within on so many fronts?

We knew already about the animosity among radical Muslims within our own countries and their readiness to strike at home. We have been reminded of that in murderous attacks across Europe in the last year, as well as many more plots that have been foiled, including an attempt in London only a few days ago.
Now we learn from General Richards that we also have an enemy at the heart of government: nothing less than a conspiracy controlling policy and undermining our national defences.

We can be sure that their motive for favouring enemy "freedom fighters" over our own forces is a desire to appease radical Muslims both at home and abroad, which infects so much of Europe's political elite and mainstream media.

They have shown themselves only too willing to throw the men who defend our country to the wolves in a futile attempt to please those who wish to substitute their Islamic culture for our own.

The Prime Minister cannot ignore General Richards's allegations. It is vital for our country and the world that she ends this cowardly and dangerous cult of appeasement, stands up for our Western Judeo-Christian values above all others, and defends our soldiers with as much courage as they show in defending us. To achieve this, it is vital that the conspirators General Richards has named are identified and purged from power and influence.
Colonel Richard Kemp was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan. He served in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Balkans and Northern Ireland and was head of the international terrorism team for the UK Joint Intelligence Committee.
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Soeren Kern : Germany's Migrant Rape Crisis: Where is the Public Outrage?


  • Despite the mounting human toll, most of the crimes are still being downplayed by German authorities and the media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.
  • "The police are not interested in stigmatizing but rather in educating the public. The impression that we are engaging in censorship is devastating to the public's confidence in the police. Sharing information about suspects is also important for developing prevention strategies. We must be allowed to talk openly about the problems of this country." — Arnold Plickert, director of the GdP Police Union in North Rhine-Westphalia.
  • "The Press Council believes that editorial offices in Germany should ultimately treat their readers like children by depriving them of relevant information. We think this is wrong because when people realize that something is being concealed from them, they react with mistrust. And this mistrust is a hazard." — Tanit Koch, editor-in-chief of Bild, the most-read newspaper in Germany.
  • On October 24, a YouGov poll found that 68% of Germans believe that security in the country has deteriorated over the past two or three years. Also, 68% of respondents said they fear for their lives and property in German train stations and subways, while 63% feel unsafe at large public events.

A group of Serbian teenagers in the northern German city of Hamburg were handed suspended sentences for gang-raping a 14-year-old girl and leaving her for dead in sub-zero temperatures.
The judge said that although "the penalties may seem mild to the public," the teens had all made confessions, appeared remorseful and longer posed a danger to society.
The October 24 ruling, which effectively allowed the rapists to walk free, provoked a rare moment of public outrage over the problem of migrant sex crimes in Germany. An online petition calling for the teens to see time in prison has garnered more than 80,000 signatures, and prosecutors are appealing the verdict.
Thousands of women and children have been raped or sexually assaulted in Germany since Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed into the country more than one million mostly male migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Germany's migrant rape crisis — which has continued unabated day after day for more than a year — has now spread to cities and towns in all 16 of Germany's federal states. Despite the mounting human toll, most of the crimes are still being downplayed by German authorities and the media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.


The German Press Council (Presserat) enforces a politically correct "code of media ethics" that restricts the information journalists can use in their stories. Paragraph 12.1 of the code states:
"When reporting on criminal offenses, details about the religious, ethnic or other background information of the suspects or perpetrators is to be mentioned only if it is absolutely necessary (begründeter Sachbezug) to understand the reported event. Remember that such references could foment prejudices against minorities."
On October 17, the Press Council reprimanded the weekly newspaper, Junge Freiheit, for revealing the nationality of three Afghan teenagers who raped a woman at a train station in Vienna, Austria, in April 2016.
The press council said the nationality of the perpetrators is "not relevant" to the case, and by revealing this information the newspaper "deliberately and pejoratively represented the suspects as second-class persons."

In the interests of "fair reporting," the council demanded that the newspaper remove the offending item from its website. The newspaper refused to comply and said it would continue to publish the nationalities of criminal suspects.
Lutz Tillmanns, the Press Council's managing director, said that self-censorship is necessary to avoid discrimination:
"An essential human rights-related principle is not to discriminate. When we refer to an individual we do not want to harm the entire group. This is, of course, a bigger issue for minorities than for the majority."
According to Hendrik Cremer of the German Institute for Human Rights, the Press Council's code of ethics also applies to German police, who often censor the information they release to the media:
"The police are not to provide information about the skin color, religion, nationality or national or ethnic origin of a suspect to the media or to the public. They may only do this if it is absolutely necessary, which is the case, for example, when they are searching for a suspect."
Arnold Plickert, director of the GdP Police Union in North Rhine-Westphalia, said self-censorship by the police is counterproductive:
"The police are not interested in stigmatizing but rather in educating the public. The impression that we are engaging in censorship is devastating to the public's confidence in the police. Sharing information about suspects is also important for developing prevention strategies. We must be allowed to talk openly about the problems of this country. This includes talking about the clear over-representation of young migrants in our crime rosters."
An example of how the Press Council's restrictions distort reporting on migrant crime can be found in the October 2 rape of a 90-year-old woman outside a church in downtown Düsseldorf. The Hamburger Morgenpost reported that the perpetrator was a "homeless 19-year-old" (obdachlosen 19-Jährigen). Düsseldorf Police described the suspect as "a Southern European with North African roots." The newspaper Bild later revealed that he is actually a Moroccan with a Spanish passport who is well known to German police as a serial shoplifter and purse-snatcher.

Another example: On September 30, a 28-year-old migrant sexually assaulted a 27-year-old woman on a Paris to Mannheim express train. Local media initially reported the nationality of the perpetrator but then deleted the information. A statement explained:
"This article initially included the nationality of the offender. The reference was subsequently removed because it did not correspond to our editorial guidelines — that is, there is no connection between nationality and action."
The German Press Council has rejected calls to rescind Paragraph 12.1. "This regulation is not a muzzle, but merely a guide for ethically appropriate behavior," said council spokesman Manfred Protze.
Tanit Koch, the editor in chief of Bild, the most-read newspaper in Germany, said:
"The Press Council believes that editorial offices in Germany should ultimately treat their readers like children by depriving them of relevant information. We think this is wrong because when people realize that something is being concealed from them, they react with mistrust. And this mistrust is a hazard."
The Press Council argues that the aim of voluntary self-regulation is to prevent the government from regulating the media. The council, which has so far limited its activities to the print media and associated websites, is now drafting an "online code" to regulate blogs, videos and podcasts.

Gatestone Institute first reported Germany's migrant rape crisis in September 2015, when Merkel opened up the German border to tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Hungary. A follow-up report was published in March 2016, in the aftermath of mass attacks against German women by mobs of migrants in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities. In August 2016, Gatestone reported that the suppression of data about migrant rapes is a Germany-wide practice.


An angry crowd of German protestors in Cologne repeatedly yell "Where were you New Year's Eve?" at police on January 9, 2016, referring to the mass sexual attacks perpetrated in the city by migrants on New Year's Eve, in which more than 450 women were sexually assaulted in one night.

The mainstream media's failure to report the true scope of Germany's migrant rape crisis may explain why — after more than a year of daily sexual assaults — there has been very little public outrage over the calamity that has befallen so many Germans. 

Censorship has effectively become a national security problem.
Public spaces in Germany have become increasingly perilous. Migrants have assaulted German women and children at beaches, bike trails, cemeteries, discotheques, grocery stores, music festivals, parking garages, playgrounds, schools, shopping malls, taxis, public transportation (buses, trams, intercity express trains and subways), public parks, public squares, public swimming pools and public restrooms. Nowhere is safe.

On October 1, two migrants raped a 23-year-old woman in Lüneburg. She was walking in a park with her young child when the two men ambushed from behind. The men, who escaped and remain at large, forced the child to watch while they took turns attacking the woman.

October 8, a 25-year-old migrant from Syria groped a 15-year-old girl in Moers. The girl responded by slapping the man in the face. The man called police and complained that the girl had mistreated him. The man was arrested for sexual assault.

On October 18, Sigrid Meierhofer, the mayor of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in an urgent letter (Brandbrief) to the Bavarian government, threatened to close a shelter that houses 250 mostly male migrants from Africa if public safety and order could not be restored. The letter, which was leaked to the Münchner Merkur, stated that local police had responded to more emergency calls during the past six weeks than in all of the previous 12 months combined.

On October 24, a YouGov poll found that 68% of Germans believe that security in the country has deteriorated over the past two or three years. Also, 68% of respondents said they fear for their lives and property in German train stations and subways, while 63% feel unsafe at large public events.

Meanwhile, the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) has offered advice to German women on how they can protect themselves from rapists: "Wear tennis shoes instead of high heels so that you can run away."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
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Douglas Murray : Europe's New Blasphemy Courts


  • Europe is currently seeing the reintroduction of blasphemy laws through both the front and back doors, initiated in a country which once prided itself on being among the first in the world to throw off clerical intrusion into politics.
  • By prosecuting Wilders, the courts in Holland are effectively ruling that there is only one correct answer to the question Wilders asked. They are saying that if someone asks you whether you would like more Moroccans or fewer, people must always answer "more," or he will be committing a crime.
  • At no point would it occur to me that anyone saying he did not want an endless flow of, say, British people coming into the Netherlands should be prosecuted. Nor would he be.
  • The long-term implications for Dutch democracy of criminalising a majority opinion are catastrophic. But the trial of Wilders is also a nakedly political move.
  • The Dutch courts are behaving like a religious court. They are trying to regulate public expression and opinion when it comes to the followers of one religion. In so doing they obviously aspire to keep the peace in the short term, but they cannot possibly realise what trouble they are storing up for our future.
Europe is currently seeing the reintroduction of blasphemy laws through both the front and back doors. In Britain, the gymnast Louis Smith has just been suspended for two months by British Gymnastics. This 27-year old sportsman's career has been put on hold, and potentially ruined, not because of anything to do with athletics but because of something to do with Islam.
Last month a video emerged online of the four-time Olympic medal-winner and a friend getting up to drunken antics after a wedding. The video -- taken on Smith's phone in the early hours of the morning -- showed a friend taking a rug off a wall and doing an imitation of Islamic prayer rituals. When the video from Smith's phone ended up in the hands of a newspaper, there was an immediate investigation, press castigation and public humiliation for the young athlete. Smith -- who is himself of mixed race -- was forced to parade on daytime television in Britain and deny that he is a racist, bigot or xenophobe. Notoriously liberal figures from the UK media queued up to berate him for getting drunk or for even thinking of taking part in any mockery of religion. This in a country in which Monty Python's Life of Brian is regularly voted the nation's favourite comic movie.
After an "investigation," the British sports authority has now deemed Smith's behaviour to warrant a removal of funding and a two-month ban from sport. This is the re-entry of blasphemy laws through the back door, where newspapers, daytime chat-shows and sports authorities decide between them that one religion is worthy of particular protection. They do so because they take the religion of Islam uniquely on its own estimation and believe, as well as fear, the warnings of the Islamic blasphemy-police worldwide.
The front-door reintroduction of blasphemy laws, meantime, is being initiated in a country which once prided itself on being among the first in the world to throw off clerical intrusion into politics. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been put on trial before. In 2010 he was tried in the courts for the contents of his film "Fitna" as well as a number of articles. The trial collapsed after one of the expert witnesses -- the late, great Dutch scholar of Islam, Hans Jansen -- revealed that a judge in the case had tried in private to influence him to change his testimony. The trial was transparently rigged and made Dutch justice look like that of a tin-pot dictatorship rather than one of the world's most developed democracies. The trial was rescheduled and, after considerable legal wrangling, Wilders was eventually found "not guilty" of a non-crime in 2011.
But it seems that the Dutch legal system, like the Mounties, is intent on always getting its man. On Monday of this week the latest trial of Geert Wilders got underway in Holland. This time Wilders is being tried because of a statement at a rally in front of his supporters in March 2014. Ahead of municipal elections, and following reports of a disproportionate amount of crimes being committed in Holland by Muslims of Moroccan origin, Wilders asked a crowd, "Do you want more or fewer Moroccans in this city and in the Netherlands?" The audience responded, "Fewer, fewer." To which Wilders responded, "Well, we'll arrange that, then."


By prosecuting Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders for making "politically incorrect" statements, Dutch courts are behaving like a religious court. They are trying to regulate public expression and opinion when it comes to the followers of one religion. (Source of Wilders photo: Flickr/Metropolico)

Opinion polls suggest that around half the Dutch public want fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands and many opinion polls going back decades suggest that the Dutch people want less immigration in general. So at the very least Wilders is being put on trial for voicing an opinion which is far from fringe. The long-term implications for Dutch democracy of criminalizing a majority opinion are catastrophic. But the trial of Wilders is also a nakedly political move.
Whether or not one feels any support for Wilders's sentiments is not in fact the point in this case. The point is that by prosecuting someone for saying what he said, the courts in Holland are effectively ruling that there is only one correct answer to the question Wilders asked. They are saying that if someone asks you whether you would like more Moroccans or fewer, people must always answer "more," or they will be committing a crime. What kind of way is that to order a public debate on immigration or anything else? People may say, "He wouldn't be allowed to say that about any other group of people." And Wilders himself may not say that about any group of people, because he has his own political views and his own interpretation of the problems facing his country.
It is worth trying a thought-experiment: If Wilders or any other politician got up and asked a crowd "Do you want more or fewer British people in Holland," I may not -- as a British person -- feel terribly pleased with him for asking the question, or terribly happy with the crowd if they chanted "Fewer." Although if British expats in Holland were responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime and disorder in the country, some mitigating sympathy for the sentiment may be forthcoming. But at no point would it occur to me that anyone saying he did not want an endless flow of British people coming into the Netherlands should be prosecuted. Nor would he be.
Like the behaviour of the British Gymnastics association, the Dutch courts are behaving like a religious court. They are trying to regulate public expression and opinion when it comes to the followers of one religion. In so doing, they obviously aspire to keep the peace in the short term, but they cannot possibly realise what trouble they are storing up for our future.
Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England.
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Barry Shaw : The Consequences of Inaction


  • The reality is that the actors who are replacing a once powerful and influential America are malevolently reshaping both the Middle East and Asia in their own image.
  • "I announce my separation from the United States... I've realigned myself in your ideological flow, and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world -- China, Philippines and Russia." — Philippines President Rodrigo Dutere, in a speech to China's leaders in Beijing, Oct. 20, 2016.
  • Statements that relations were "steady and trusted" by US Assistant Secretary of State, David Russel did nothing to hide the fact that America's self-imposed impotence is being felt in Asia.
Action, including inaction, has consequences. We have seen this in the failure of the US to respond to:
  • Syria's effective genocide of its own people;
  • Russia's unhindered aggression in the Ukraine, Crimea, Syria and in the oil-rich Arctic circle;
  • China building military islands in the South China Sea in an apparent attempt to control international maritime routes
  • ISIS's metastization into 18 countries in three years;
  • Iran, now billions of dollars richer, stepping up its aggression into Yemen, continuing work on its offensive military program, and holding new Americans hostage for ransom;
  • North Korea continuing to develop its nuclear weapons for both itself and Iran;
  • Turkey now threatening adventures in both and Syria and Iraq, where it will probably be thwarted respectively by Russia and Iran.
Most recently, on October 9th, 12th and 15th, missiles were launched against US Navy ships off the coast of Yemen. They were launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and were deliberately fired at American warships.
These attacks followed one aimed at the HSV Swift on October 1. The missiles were all identified by the US Naval Institute as being Chinese-produced C-802 anti-ship missiles, sold to Iran, and now being fired at United States vessels by proxy fighters of Tehran.
Then, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded to Iraqi demands that Turkey withdraw its troops from northern Iraq by telling Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi at the Eurasian Islamic Council meeting in Istanbul:
"It's not important at all how you shout from Iraq. You should know that we will do what we want to do. First, know your place. The army of the Republic of Turkey had not lost its standing so as to take orders from you!"
This is the direct consequence of a deal done between the US State Department and Erdogan whereby the US is allowed to use the Turkish airbase at Incirlik in return for Washington turning a blind eye to Turkish actions against the Kurds. Turkey has been allowed to trespass into Iraq and Syria by the US Administration, under the pretext of adding Istanbul to an Obama coalition of nations fighting ISIS. However, facts on the ground clearly show that Turkey has disproportionately been targeting Kurds rather than Islamic State. Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish fighters, who were fighting ISIS in northern Syria, on October 20.
Egypt and Russia held a week-long joint military exercise in Egypt at the end of October. That followed renewed Russian supplies of military equipment to Cairo after Obama's refusal to restock the government of Egypt's Abdel Fattah el-Sisi with US-made weapons and equipment. The US had apparently been upset when in 2013 el-Sisi overthrew the Morsi-led government, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom the US would apparently and incomprehensibly like to be allied.
Philippines President Rodrigo Dutere announced his country's separation from the United States on October 20, by declaring that he has realigned it with China as the two nations agreed to resolved their South China Sea dispute. Dutere made his remarks in Beijing on an official visit to which he brought two hundred business people, saying in his address to China's leadership: "I announce my separation from the United States... I've realigned myself in your ideological flow, and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world -- China, Philippines and Russia."
Statements that relations were "steady and trusted" by US Assistant Secretary of State David Russel did nothing to hide the fact that America's impotence is being felt in Asia.

Back to Iran, where a top admiral, Ali Fadavi, said that the US lacks the power to confront Iran militarily. He backed that up by having four Iranian naval speedboats harass US naval ships in the Persian Gulf.


Four armed speedboats of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps harass the US Navy destroyer USS Nitze, on August 24, 2016. (Image source: Fox News video screenshot)

Alon Ben David, chief military correspondent for Israeli TV Channel 10 News, wrote that American foreign policy is turning Iran into a world power by allowing it free range to act in Syria and Yemen, and even having the Obama Administration allow Iran to supply and support a Shi'ite militia taking part in the battle for Mosul.
The acts of global aggression are all the result of an American policy to do little or nothing to stop other actors from strutting the global stage in a dangerous and shifting world.
Many countries evidently believe that America's role in recent years has been one of damaging everything it touches -- or does not touch -- leaving them nervously sitting on the sidelines, criticizing what they perceive as the mistakes of others. The reality is that the actors who are replacing a once powerful and influential America are malevolently reshaping both the Middle East and Asia in their own image.
The result has not been a more peaceful world but one in which the vacuum left by America vacating strategically important areas is rapidly being filled by troublesome power-players that leave countries once dependent on US protection feeling increasingly vulnerable.
The consequences of inaction can only soon be damaging to US interests at home as well as abroad.
Barry Shaw is a Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
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Maria Polizoidou : UN Plan to Turn the World into an Islamic Colony?


  • The UN is the mothership of injustice and radical global Islamization.
  • As the UN does not recognize the historical presence and continuity of the Jewish people in their land, the next people on the menu in UNESCO's food chain are most likely the Greeks and then the Italians. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan already said as much last week.
  • No one would be surprised if UNESCO, to institutionalize the Islamic presence in the international community, claims that Greeks have nothing to do with the Acropolis and the Parthenon, and that Italy has no historical ties to the Colosseum in Rome.
  • With the rate of admission of Muslims into Greece, by 2050 the Greeks will be a minority in their own country.
  • The Greek media chose not to inform the Greek people on the attitude of their politicians towards the Jewish nation because it would expose their preference for Islam over Israel, and the Greek people might not see this choice in a positive light.
  • How can Greece credibly ask for help from the global community on the issue of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, when the politicians themselves maintain a neutral attitude on the virtually identical issue of the Jerusalem's Temple Mount?
When the news arrived that UNESCO does not recognize the connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem's Temple Mount, it brought to mind that the UN is the mothership of injustice and radical global Islamization. Its members, which include the large bloc of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) -- 56 Islamic nations plus "Palestine" -- evidently believe that if they want to transform the Western world into an Islamic colony, first they must bring down the State of Israel.

This resembles the suggestion in ancient Greece of the exiled Greek general, Demaratos, to the king of Persia, Xerxes: If you want Greece to fall, first you have to destroy the Spartans.

If Jerusalem falls into the hands of Islam, the rest of the world will presumably fall. UNESCO's decision is not only nonsensical from a historical perspective (Islam did not even exist at the time of ancient Jerusalem), basically it is also a strategic move against the cultural foundations of the West.

As the UN does not recognize the historical presence and continuity of the Jewish people in their land, the next people on the menu in UNESCO's food chain are most likely the Greeks and then the Italians. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan already said as much last week.

Greece hosts two million illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Research in Greece shows that with the aging of the native population and emigration of young people, due of Greece's economic crisis, by 2050 native Greeks will number only 8.3 million, which is 2.5 million fewer than today. With the rate of admission of Muslims into Greece, by 2050 the Greeks will be a minority in their own country.

No one would be surprised if, a few years from now, UNESCO, to institutionalize the Islamic presence in the international community, claims that Greeks have nothing to do with the Acropolis and the Parthenon, and that Italy has no historical ties to the Colosseum in Rome.

The recent UNESCO resolution on Jerusalem should particularly worry the political establishment not only in Greece but throughout Europe: such flamboyant injustice from the UN against the history of an ancient nation, such as the Jews', shows a blind partiality toward Islam, and could be committed against any of us.

Turkey's President already wants to turn the iconic Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul into a mosque, and has appointed a full-time imam who says daily Islamic prayers in this most sacred space of the Greek Orthodox. Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul is for Orthodox Christians what Mecca is for Muslims and the Western Wall is for Jews. It has been declared as a UNESCO world heritage monument, but the Turkish President nevertheless wants to turn it into a mosque.

Despite these threats to the entire Greek heritage, however, virtually all members of the Greek establishment submissively closed their eyes to the UN's rapacious injustice against the Jewish people, because this time it was not against them: they chose to abstain during the UNESCO vote. 

 The Greek government, Alexis Tsipras and Panos Kammenos with the cooperation of the opposition of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, chose not to honor the strategic relationship that they otherwise claim our country has developed with the State of Israel. They insulted not only the Jewish people and the friendly feelings Greeks have for our neighbors in the Mediterranean, but the entire heritage of the West, which is seriously threatened.

The Greek media and 99% of news websites chose not to inform the Greek people about the attitude of their politicians towards the Jewish nation because it would expose their preference for Islam over Israel, and the Greek people might not see this choice in a positive light.

This dishonest attitude from the Greek political system against a friend and ally undermines Greece on the international stage, as it reveals Greece as an unreliable interlocutor. The Greek government jeopardizes Greece's security: no country will trust Greek politicians again. Our politicians are apparently preparing our country to be the next "snack" at the UN's and Turkey's breakfast, and they know it.
How can Greece credibly ask for help from the global community on the issue of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, when the politicians themselves maintain a neutral attitude on the virtually identical issue of the Jerusalem's Temple Mount?


How can Greece credibly ask for help from the global community on the issue of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (right), when its politicians maintain a neutral attitude on the virtually identical issue of the Jerusalem's Temple Mount (left)?

The Greek political system in its entirety does not honor the Greek nation's history, its values and its constancy toward its friends and allies. It is a system which has no political mandate from the Greek people. The political system's domestic and foreign actions do not have the approval of the Greeks.

In the polls that are not rigged, the entire establishment enjoys the approval of less than 50% of the electorate. Greeks have to choose between a government coalition that refers ideologically and politically the repressive wing of the U.S. Democratic Party, and the opposition, which refers ideologically and politically to German Chancellor Merkel and her party, the Christian Democrats Union (CDU).

Sadly, there are no alternative choices for the Greek electorate. It is a rigged system with corrupt politicians, a dishonest media and a manipulated judiciary.
The Greek political system is killing its own citizens. Greek politicians, by submitting to EU's economic "rescue" programs, have brought incredible poverty to the people; meanwhile, the country is being colonized and Islamized by illegal Muslim immigrants.

The "Persians" are here in the form of the OIC, the UN and a political system that seems weighted toward the politicians keeping their jobs instead of to the needs of their citizens. The Greek people and other Europeans people are looking for the political means to fight them back at the Thermopylae of the 21st century.
Maria Polizoidou, a reporter, broadcast journalist, and consultant on international and foreign affairs, is based in Greece.

Janet Tavakoli : Islam's "Human Rights"


  • No intelligent government should impair the right of free speech to placate people who falsely claim they are victims when often they are, in fact, aggressors.
  • To the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, however, all human rights must first be based on Islamic religious law, Sharia: whatever is inside Sharia is a human right, whatever is outside Sharia is not a human right.
  • Therefore, slavery or having sex with children or beating one's wife, or calling rapes that do not have four witnesses adultery the punishment for which is death, or a woman officially having half the worth of a man, are all "human rights."
  • Soft jihad includes rewriting history as with the UNESCO vote claiming that ancient Biblical monuments such as Rachel's Tomb or the Cave of the Patriarchs are Islamic, when historically Islam did not even exist until the seventh century; migration to widen Islam (hijrah), as we are seeing now in Europe and Turkish threats to flood Germany with migrants; cultural penetration such as promoting Islam in school textbooks or tailoring curricula for "political correctness"; political and educational infiltration, as well as intimidation (soft jihad with the threat of hard jihad just underneath it).
  • More regrettable is that these are so often done, as at UNESCO, with the help and complicity of the West.
  • Both hard and soft jihad are how Islam historically has been able to overrun Persia, Turkey, Greece, Southern Spain, Portugal, all of North Africa, and all of Eastern Europe. It is up to us not to let this be done to us again.

After witnessing the Islamic Republic of Iran violate human rights, adopt sharia law, persecute other religions, murder dissenters, and compel the judiciary to serve the Ministry of Intelligence, it seems clear that the worst thing that can happen to a free Western country is to allow Islamic fundamentalists to take over a government.
 
Most of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims pray in Arabic, even if it is not their mother tongue. The problem, however, is not in the translation; it is in the ideology.

Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian; two more were from the United Arab Emirates; one was from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. All were from Arabic-speaking countries.

Muslim scholars did not unite to protest the act of terrorism on 9/11. Instead, many celebrated a victory; the Quran includes passages that permit violence to expand Islam.

Most so-called Muslims are peace-loving, but if there are 164 verses of the Koran prescribing jihad, and many Muslims might feel it would be heretical or disloyal to condemn it.

Arabic-speaking Muslim countries are not alone in supporting terrorism. According to the U.S. Department of State, the Islamic Republic of Iran is still the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran also recently announced that it will continue to support terrorism, including the terrorist groups Hizballah ["The Party of Allah"] and Hamas.
Iran still supports the death fatwa issued against a European, the British novelist Salman Rushdie, for The Satanic Verses -- a novel -- issued by the long-dead Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Last year the bounty on his head was raised another $600,000 to almost $4 million.
Until his death earlier this year, Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi, a leading Shia cleric in Iran, who presided over the Imam Reza shrine that draws as many annual visitors as Mecca, called for "perpetual holy war."

Muhammad's Practices Clash with the Humanistic Values of Western Civilization

Fundamentalists view Muhammad as the perfect man. Yet Muhammad led violent followers who raped, enslaved war captives, and murdered unbelievers as part of Islam's program to expand. Today that behavior is emulated by Islamic terrorists in Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mauritania, Nigeria, to name just a few.

Muhammad had several wives, including a slave given to him as a gift. When he was in his fifties, he asked for a friend's six-year-old daughter and consummated the so-called marriage when the child was nine. Although Muhammad criticized corrupt customs of his Arab contemporaries, he had sex with a girl who was too young to be capable of consent; in the West we call this statutory rape. (Sahih Bukhari volume 5, book 58, number 234)

Referring to Muhammad's life, fundamentalists allow forced marriages of female children in countries including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, some Gulf States, and Iran.

If fundamentalist Muslim leaders do not understand how flawed this ideology appears to the West, their incomprehension may spring from a fundamentally different view of human rights: To the West, these values are embodied in the Enlightenment -- such as individual freedoms, freedom of thought, disinterested enquiry -- and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – that all people, regardless of race religion or gender, have the right to life, liberty personal security, and freedom from slavery torture, and degrading treatment.
To the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), however, all human rights must first be based on Islamic religious law, Sharia: whatever is inside Sharia is a human right, whatever is outside Sharia is not a human right.


To the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, all human rights must first be based on Islamic religious law, Sharia: whatever is inside Sharia is a human right, whatever is outside Sharia is not a human right. Pictured above: The 2016 OIC Summit in Istanbul, Turkey. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot)

Therefore, slavery or having sex with children or beating one's wife, or calling rapes that do not have four witnesses adultery the punishment for which is death, or a woman officially having half the worth of a man, are all "human rights."


In 2005, after the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard drew a cartoon mildly satirizing Muhammad as an assignment for a newspaper, many Muslim clerics cried blasphemy and called for his death.
These included a Pakistani cleric who offered a one million dollar reward to anyone who would murder the Dane.
 Thousands of Muslims protested. In 2010, an axe-wielding Muslim assailant attacked Westergaard in his home; fortunately, Westergaard was able to escape to a secure room.

Western governments should stand resolute against those who would blackmail us into giving up our freedoms. No intelligent government should impair the right of free speech to placate people who falsely claim they are victims when often they are, in fact, aggressors.

Reformist Muslims and the Credibility Crisis

Most of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims may not countenance violence and human rights violations, but the fact remains that fundamentalists are not a fringe group; they occupy senior positions in the Muslim clerical hierarchy. There are tens of millions (or more) of them, and each seems to believe that his interpretation of Islam is the only correct one. Of this group, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands are jihadis willing to engage in active violence.

Many Reformist Muslims claim they are being unfairly lumped into this extremist crew, but if they are claiming a schism, many they often have not been clear about it.

When Martin Luther, a Catholic priest and a theology professor, repudiated two core teachings of the Catholic Church, he acknowledged that, by definition, he was no longer Catholic. He was part of the Protestant Reformation, and his followers are called Lutherans.

Reformist Muslims still call themselves Muslims, but there can never be a Quran 2.0. Every word in the Quran is believed to be the word of Allah, similar to the Ten Commandments as the direct word of God; no one is able to say that Allah did not mean what Allah reportedly said. Interpretations, however do differ and since 1948 have apparently caused the deaths of 11,000,000 Muslims at the hands of other Muslims.
So one can imagine what might be in store for non-Muslims.

Islam, moreover, seems to have been has been set up to spread it both by violence, "hard jihad," and "soft jihad. " Hard jihad includes terrorism, murder and attempted murder. Soft jihad includes rewriting history as with the UNESCO vote claiming that ancient Biblical monuments such as Rachel's Tomb or the Cave of the Patriarchs are Islamic, when historically Islam did not even exist until the seventh century; migration to widen Islam (hijrah), as we are seeing now in Europe and Turkish threats to flood Germany with migrants; cultural penetration such as promoting Islam in school textbooks or tailoring curricula for "political correctness"; political and educational infiltration, as well as intimidation (soft jihad with the threat of hard jihad just underneath it).

More regrettable is that these are so often done, as at UNESCO, with the help and complicity of the West.
Both hard and soft jihad are how Islam historically has been able to overrun Persia, Turkey, Greece, Southern Spain, Portugal, all of North Africa, and all of Eastern Europe. It is up to us not to let this be done to us again.
Janet Tavakoli is the author of Unveiled Threat: A Personal Experience of Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism, a newly-released non-fiction book about the current negative implications of Islamic fundamentalism for the United States.
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Soeren Kern : Inside Germany's No-Go Zones: Part I - North Rhine-Westphalia


  • "In Berlin or in the north of Duisburg there are neighborhoods where colleagues hardly dare to stop a car -- because they know that they'll be surrounded by 40 or 50 men." These attacks amount to a "deliberate challenge to the authority of the state -- attacks in which the perpetrators are expressing their contempt for our society." — Rainer Wendt, President of the German Police Union.
  • "Once Duisburg-Marxloh was a popular shopping and residential area. Now clans claim the streets for themselves. The police are powerless. The descent of the district is nightmarish." — N24 Television.
  • Police say they are alarmed by the brutality and aggression of the clans, who are said to view crime as leisure activity. If police dare to intervene, hundreds of clan members are mobilized to confront the police.
  • A 17-page report prepared for the NRW State Parliament revealed how Lebanese clans in Duisburg divide up certain neighborhoods in order to pursue their criminal activities, such as robbery, drug dealing and extortion.
  • "Further data collection is not legally permissible. Both internally and externally, any classification that could be used to depreciate human beings must be avoided. In this respect, the use of the term 'family clan' is forbidden from the police point of view." — Ralf Jäger, Interior Minister, North Rhine-Westphalia.
  • Two police officers stopped a driver who ran a red light. The driver got out of the car and ran away. When police caught up with him, they were confronted by more than 50 migrants. A 15-year-old attacked a policeman from behind and began strangling him, rendering him unconscious.

Mass, unvetted immigration from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is turning parts of Germany into no-go zones — lawless areas where the state has effectively lost control and where native Germans, including the police, increasingly fear to come.

German authorities steadfastly deny the existence of such areas, but confidential police reports, testimonies from police on the ground and anecdotal evidence from local citizens all confirm that parts of major German cities have descended into pockets of lawlessness where criminal migrants have usurped control of the streets from German police.

Observers say the problems are being exacerbated by the German government, which has relocated hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees into these areas.

The newspaper, Bild, and the newsmagazine, Focus, among others, have identified (here, here and here) more than 40 "problem areas" (Problemviertel) across Germany. These are areas where large concentrations of migrants, high levels of unemployment and chronic welfare dependency, combined with urban decay, have become incubators for anarchy.

In an article entitled "Ghetto Report Germany," Bild describes these areas as "burgeoning ghettos, parallel societies and no-go areas." They include: Berlin-Neukölln, Bremerhaven-Lehe/Bremen-Huchting, Cologne-Chorweiler, Dortmund-Nordstadt, Duisburg-Marxloh, Essen-Altenessen, Hamburg-Eidelstedt, Kaiserslautern-Asternweg, Mannheim-Neckarstadt West and Pforzheim-Oststadt.

The problem of no-go zones is especially acute in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany's most populous state. According to the Rheinische Post, NRW problem areas include:
Aachen, Bielefeld, Bochum, Bonn, Bottrop, Dorsten, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Euskirchen, Gelsenkirchen-Süd, Gladbeck, Hagen, Hamm, Heinsberg, Herne, Iserlohn, Kleve, Cologne, Lippe, Lüdenscheid, Marl, Mettmann, Minden, Mönchengladbach, Münster, Neuss, Oberhausen, Recklinghausen, Remscheid, Rhein-Erft-Kreis, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, Solingen, Unna, Witten and Wuppertal.
In Duisburg, spiraling levels of violent crime perpetrated by migrants from the Middle East and the Balkans have turned parts of the city into de facto "no-go zones" for police, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to Der Spiegel.

The report, produced by NRW police headquarters, warns that the government is losing control over problem neighborhoods and that the ability of police to maintain public order "cannot be guaranteed over the long term."

Duisburg


Duisburg, which has a total population of around 500,000, is home to an estimated 60,000 mostly Turkish Muslims, making it one of the most Islamized cities in Germany. In recent years, however, thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians (including Sinti and Roma "gypsies") have flocked to Duisburg, creating a volatile ethno-religious cauldron.

According to Der Spiegel:
"There are districts where immigrant gangs are taking over entire streets for themselves. Native residents and business people are being intimidated and silenced. People taking trams during the evening and nighttime describe their experiences as 'living nightmares.' Policemen, and especially policewomen, are subject to 'high levels of aggression and disrespect.'
"In the medium term, nothing will change. The reasons for this: the high rate of unemployment, the lack of job prospects for immigrants without qualifications for the German labor market and ethnic tensions among migrants....
"Experts have warned for some time that problem neighborhoods could become no-go areas. The president of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, told Spiegel Online years ago: 'In Berlin or in the north of Duisburg there are neighborhoods where colleagues hardly dare to stop a car — because they know that they'll be surrounded by 40 or 50 men.' These attacks amount to a 'deliberate challenge to the authority of the state — attacks in which the perpetrators are expressing their contempt for our society.'"
Duisburg's Marxloh district, one of the most problematic in Germany, has been described as "a memorial to Germany's failed integration policy."
More than half of the district's 20,000 inhabitants are migrants. They come from than 90 different countries. More than half the residents in Marxloh live on welfare.
In a story entitled, "Duisburg-Marxloh: How a German Neighborhood Became a No-Go Zone," N24 Television described the decline of the area:
"Once Duisburg-Marxloh was a popular shopping and residential area. Now clans claim the streets for themselves. The police are powerless. The descent of the district is nightmarish.
"Police will enter some parts of Marxloh only with reinforcements. Several patrol cars are needed to respond even to commonplace rear-end collisions. Too often, they are surrounded by an aggressive mob, spat upon and threatened. Last year, police were deployed to Marxloh more than 600 times with four or more patrol cars. This summer, the neighborhood descended even deeper into a spiral of violence. Family clans claim streets for themselves. Citizens hardly dare to go outside at night. In the smallest matter, violence is kindled."
A leaked police report revealed that Marxloh's streets are effectively controlled by Lebanese clans which do not recognize the authority of German police.
 They have taken over entire streets to carry out illegal business activity. New migrants from Bulgaria and Romania are adding to the problems. According to Die Welt, Marxloh's streets serve as invisible boundaries between ethnic groups. Residents speak of "the Kurdish road" or "the Romanian road."
Police say they are alarmed by the brutality and aggression of the clans, who are said to view crime as leisure activity. If police dare to intervene, hundreds of clan members are mobilized to confront the police. A local woman interviewed by Deutschlandfunk radio said she was afraid for her safety: "After dark I would not stand here because there are a lot of conflicts between foreigners, especially between Lebanese and Turks."
The Rheinische Post recently published a photo series entitled, "On the streets of Marxloh by night." A photo caption reads: "Normal citizens cannot be seen on the streets at night. Marxloh seems to have died out." Another caption: "At night, Romanian residents dance on the streets, the sound system in the car supplies loud music."
A 17-page report prepared for the NRW State Parliament revealed how Lebanese clans in Duisburg divide up certain neighborhoods in order to pursue their criminal activities, such as robbery, drug dealing and extortion. These groups do not recognize the authority of the police. Their members are males between the ages of 15 and 25 and "nearly 100%" of them are known to police. The prevailing offenses are physical assault, theft and robbery.
The report described the situation in Duisburg's Laar district, where two large Lebanese families call the shots. "The streets are actually regarded as a separate territory. Outsiders are physically assaulted, robbed and harassed. Experience shows that the Lebanese clans "can mobilize several hundred people in a very short period of time by means of a telephone call."
Peter Biesenbach of the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) said: "If this is not a no-go area, then I do not know what is." He has called for an official study to determine the true scope of the criminal clans in NRW.
NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jäger of the Social Democrats (SPD) rejected that request because such a study would be politically incorrect:
"Further data collection is not legally permissible. Both internally and externally, any classification that could be used to depreciate human beings must be avoided. In this respect, the use of the term 'family clan' is forbidden from the police point of view."

Gelsenkirchen


In nearby Gelsenkirchen, Kurdish and Lebanese clans are vying for control of city streets, some of which have become lawless zones that are increasingly off limits to German authorities. In one incident, police were patrolling an area in the southern part of the city when they were suddenly surrounded and physically assaulted by more than 60 clan members.
In another incident, two police officers stopped a driver who ran a red light. The driver got out of the car and ran away. When police caught up with him, they were confronted by more than 50 migrants. A 15-year-old attacked a policeman from behind and began strangling him, rendering him unconscious. Massive amounts of police reinforcements and pepper spray were needed to restore order.
In a statement, Gelsenkirchen police warned: "Unfortunately, police officers and other emergency responders have increasingly been subject to hostility, insults and even violent attacks in Gelsenkirchen."
Senior members of the Gelsenkirchen police recently held a secret meeting with representatives of three Arab clans in an effort to "cultivate social peace between Germans and Lebanese." According to a police report about the meeting that was leaked to the local media, the clans informed Police Chief Ralf Feldmann that "the police cannot win a war with the Lebanese because we outnumber them." The clan members added: "This applies to all of Gelsenkirchen, if we so choose."
When Feldman countered that he would dispatch police reinforcements to disrupt their illegal activities, the clan members laughed in his face and said that "the government does not have enough money to deploy the numbers of police necessary to confront the Lebanese." According to the police report, German authorities should not harbor any illusions about the actual balance of power: "The police would be defeated."
Local politician Gregor Golland has called for the police to be better equipped to contend with this development: "As criminal parallel societies gain the upper hand, our police need to be better equipped — on a permanent basis."
Another leaked police report revealed that the clans are the "executive body of an existing parallel legal system to self-adjudicate matters between large Kurdish and Lebanese families in the western Ruhr area." These clans "despise the police and German courts" and "settle their matters on their own terms."

The Frankfurter Neue Presse, in an article entitled, "Neighborhoods in NRW: No-Go Areas and Parallel Societies," reports that Kurdish, Lebanese and Romanian clans have divided up the Gelsenkirchen districts of Bismarck, Rotthausen and Ückendorf, and around the central station. In these areas, the clans "claim individual streets for themselves." These are municipalities with a very high proportion of foreigners and migrants. Because of the exorbitant youth unemployment, these areas are pits of hopelessness and dread which the native German population has long since abandoned.
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In an interview with Focus, Arnold Plickert, the head of the police union in North Rhine-Westphalia, warned of the emergence of no-go zones in Cologne, Dortmund, Duisburg and Essen.
"Several rival rocker groups as well as Lebanese, Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian clans are fighting for supremacy of the streets," he said. "They make their own rules; here the police have nothing more to say."
Speaking to Deutschlandradio Kultur, Plickert added: "Even with the smallest traffic accidents or ID checks, police are quickly surrounded by large groups of young men with a migration background. Bodily contact, insults and physical assaults are commonplace."

On October 6, more than 400 residents of the Altenessen district in Essen met local politicians in a televised "town hall meeting" to discuss spiraling violence and crime in the area. Residents complained that police often refuse to respond to calls for help and begged city officials to restore order. One resident said: "I was born here and I do not feel safe anymore."

City officials flatly rejected the complaints. Mayor Thomas Kufen said: "Altenessen is not a no-go area, the people here are just angry." Police Chief Frank Richter added: "I am sick and tired of hearing about no-go zones in Essen." He insisted that Essen und Altenessen are perfectly safe.


Police guard the scene of a shooting murder in Essen, Germany, on April 9, 2016. The murder was part of a bloody feud within a Lebanese clan. (Image source: WDR video screenshot)

In an interview with Der Westen, Osnabrück Police Commissioner Bernhard Witthaut was asked: "Are there urban areas — for example in the Ruhr — districts and housing blocks that are 'no-go areas,' meaning that they can no longer be secured by the police?" He replied:
"Every police commissioner and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with the police car and where, even initially, only with the personnel carrier. The reason is that our colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Even worse: in these areas, crimes no longer result in charges. They are left to themselves. Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
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