Hunting Boko Haram: Nigerian Warrior ‘Queen’ Leads Flintlock-Armed Fight Against Islamist Extremists

Aisha Bakari Gombi (center), leader of the anti-Boko Haram vigilante squad in Nigeria. 

© Screenshot / RT Documentary

They used to hunt animals with spears and sticks, but now, wielding ancient rifles and led by a fearless warrior ‘queen’, a Nigerian vigilante squad goes after Boko Haram, one of the most violent jihadist groups in Africa.

Boko Haram roughly translates to ‘Against Western Education’. Its ruthless militants have been plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa for decades.

The Islamists know no mercy, as their attacks wreak havoc on Nigerian towns and rural villages. When they aren’t setting off bombs, they raid the area for hostages. While doing so, Boko Haram often targets women and girls.

In 2014, the group kidnapped 276 female students from a school in Chibok. Most of them have still not been rescued, and similar incidents keep occurring.

Nigerian soldiers hold up a captured Boko Haram flag. March 2015. © Emmanuel Braun / Reuters

In remote regions, it is up to ordinary citizens to help the army fight the terrorists. And so, the Civilian Joint Task Force was born. These loosely affiliated vigilante squads patrol the northeastern states of Borno and Adawama, where Boko Haram is most active.

The squads are made up of experienced hunters. But instead of wielding spears and sticks, like they did in the past, they now roam the bush searching for militants.

One such squad is led by Aisha Bakari Gombi. “I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I joined. I was still very little,” she says. “The grown-ups used to carry me on their shoulders during hunts.”

Aisha at first just used a bow and arrow. Later she received an “ancient” Turkish rifle. After the previous commander was killed, the woman was named Adamawa’s ‘warrior queen’. Her team is diverse, ranging from old men to teenage boys who recently enrolled in middle school.

“We’re supporting the efforts of our government to restore peace in our country,” the ‘queen’ notes. “We’re trembling, we’re scared, but we’re hunting Boko Haram.”

The hunters are chiefly armed with homemade rifles, some with flintlocks. They wear black clothes, and rely on amulets and war paint instead of body armor. They lack medical supplies to treat the wounded, and the only transportation available is via tuk-tuks, or motor-rickshaws. The hunters’ only advantage is that they know the area well and can track down terrorists in their hideouts.

Members of the anti-Boko Haram vigilante squad travel by motor-rickshaw. © Screenshot / RT Documentary

“There’s one operation I’ll never forget,” hunter Abubakar Hamma Adama describes an expedition against the jihadists in one of Nigeria’s remote villages.

“Eventually, we found their camp and opened fire, but they just kept coming and coming and coming. That was a hell of a battle. We took heavy losses.”

video 25:39

The Media Got It All Wrong on the New US Climate Report

There is a lot of good science out there regarding global warming, but most of it is ignored by Mainstream Media in favour of dramatic, hyperbolic, and very questionable science. This report lends a little reality to climate change hysteria.

By Bjorn Lomborg 

Modal Trigger

Activists tend to exaggerate the impacts of climate change while underestimating the costs of tackling it. The reception to the new US climate assessment was instructive. The report largely attempts to remain soberly scientific, and follows the even more careful global report by the United Nations’ climate-science panel, known as the IPCC.

Sadly, accurate science doesn’t make for good television; predicting the end of times does.

Among many others, widely quoted climate scientist Michael Mann talked up the report to NPR and CNN, saying its predictions are already borne out in today’s “unprecedented weather extremes.”

Actually, the assessment, and science, tell a different story. “Drought statistics over the entire contiguous US have declined,” the report finds, reminding us that “the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s remains the benchmark drought and extreme heat event.”

On flooding, the assessment accepts the IPCC’s finding, which “did not attribute changes in flooding to anthropogenic [human] influence nor report detectable changes in flooding magnitude, duration or frequency.”

Even more dramatic was CNN’s headline, screaming that “climate change will shrink [US] economy” by 10 percent, a figure also repeated on The New York Times front page.

Actually, the UN’s climate scenarios envision US GDP per capita will more than triple by the end of this century, so this 10 percent reduction would come from an economy 300 percent larger than it is today. A slightly smaller bonanza, in other words.

But the 10 percent figure is itself dodgy. It assumes that temperatures will increase about 14 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. This is unlikely. The US climate assessment itself estimates that, with no significant climate action, American temperatures will increase by between 5 and 8.7 degrees. Using the high estimate of 8.7 degrees, the damage would be only half as big, at 5 percent.

But even the 8.7-degree warming estimate is unrealistically pessimistic. This stems from an extreme high-emission scenario that expects almost the entire world to revert to using massive amounts of coal: a five-fold increase from today.

That, in turn, assumes a much higher amount of fossil fuels than are plausibly available for use, according to one study. Another study likewise found the scenario “exceptionally unlikely.”

So, even a 5 percent reduction in the size of the American economy only follows from picking unlikely worst-case scenarios.

Moreover, two-thirds of the purported 10 percent damage to the economy comes from just one category: heat deaths.

While it is true that more people die when it is unusually hot, it is not true that lives are shorter in hotter places. That’s because people adapt. And studies of migrants show people do so very quickly, within weeks.

Conjecturing that the temperature-mortality relationship in the US would remain constant over a century is ludicrous. This assumes that even if temperatures were to increase by 14 degrees, people would die in masses, ignoring the fact that people have been shown to adjust over time to temperature changes. Then, too, over the 80 years until 2100, people can make many additional changes that reduce this risk, from getting air conditioners to changing how they build structures.

So, the well-reported idea that warming will shrink the economy by 10 percent disregards huge economic growth, assumes twice the damages of the worst-case temperatures the report itself expects and even then only finds such high costs stemming almost exclusively from easily preventable heat deaths.

While activists overstate the costs of climate change, they suggest its reversal is simply a matter of political will. In fact, there are significant costs to climate action: It often involves replacing relatively cheap, efficient fossil fuels with still-uncompetitive green-energy sources.

Climate economist William Nordhaus has shown that a globally coordinated and gradually increasing carbon tax could cut temperature rises to 6.3 degrees from 7.4 at a cost of $20 trillion in lost productivity, but more than pay for itself by lowering climate costs.

Yet this requires a very well-designed, coordinated global policy. In the real world, climate policies are typically less effective and much costlier.

Nordhaus shows that more ambitious policies like the Paris Agreement target of 3.6 degrees would cost some $134 trillion, much more than the associated climate benefits. Such prescriptions for climate change are worse than the disease.

Yes, we need to speed up the transition from fossil fuels by investing in green R&D. Even so, reporting on climate change needs to be grounded in reality. Exaggeration is understandable but dangerous, because it risks wasting resources on the wrong policy answers, and gives ammunition to those who would ignore this real challenge.

Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

Has Evidence of Sodom and Gomorrah Been Found?

The dates and locations are imprecise but very close in proximity to the Biblical legend of the spectacular destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and two other cities near the Dead Sea

And yet, science will continue to search for a 'Godless' reason for the incredible, instant destruction

‘Cosmic airburst’: Tunguska-like blast destroyed part of Middle East 3,700 years ago

© NASA / Wikimedia Commons

A Tunguska-like ‘cosmic airburst’ may have annihilated an ancient Middle Eastern civilization in a split-second in a terrifying example of the fragility of life on Earth, according to new research.

The Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Stony Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908 (NS). The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles) of forest, yet caused no known human casualties. The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst of a meteor. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than to have hit the surface of the Earth. - Wikipedia

Analysis of 3,700-year-old archaeological evidence from Jordan’s Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project indicates that a “high-heat” explosive event “devastated approximately 500km2” of land to the north of the Dead Sea, wiping out a thriving civilisation that had existed for millennia almost instantaneously.

Given the absence of an impact crater, the team believes the destruction was caused by a low-altitude airburst not more than 3,280 feet (1km) above the ground.

The explosion was so awe-inspiringly powerful that the Zircon contained within the civilization’s pottery sublimed into a gas thanks to temperatures of up to 7,230 degrees Fahrenheit (4,000 degrees Celsius). For comparison, the temperature at the surface of the Sun is about 10,000 Fahrenheit (5,600 Celsius). The pottery itself was reportedly vitrified (turned to glass).  

Radiocarbon dating at the site indicated that mud-brick walls “suddenly disappeared around 3,700 years ago, leaving only stone foundations.”

Unlike the 1908 Tunguska event, this explosion occurred in a highly populated area, for the time, and may have killed between 40,000 and 65,000 people who inhabited Middle Ghor, the 25-kilometer-wide circular plain in Jordan. The blast radius of the Tunguska event was over four times the size: almost 2,000 square kilometers of taiga forest was flattened, indicating the explosion must have occurred at a higher altitude.

The highly fertile soil of the Middle Ghor was left barren by the heat and was then salted by the briny anhydride waters of the Dead Sea that washed over the plains from the resulting tsunami after the airburst. It took almost 600 years for the area to recover.

“That the most productive agricultural land in the region, which had supported flourishing civilizations continuously for at least 3,000 years, should suddenly relinquish, then resist, human habitation for such a long period of time has begged investigation,” states the project’s website.

Some have theorized that this event may have been the biblical destruction of the ancient city of Sodom as the Tall el-Hammam site has long been a strong candidate for the ancient 'Sin City', though no definitive conclusion has been reached as of yet.

Biblical dating puts the destruction of the plains cities at about 2000-1900 AD, or 3900-4000 years ago, ie, within 200-300 years of the estimated date of the destruction revealed above. That's actually a pretty good fit since neither are precise measurements.

The location of the plains cities has never been pin-pointed. Many theories have been advanced from south of the Dead Sea to north of it. Some may have existed under the current location of the Dead Sea. So, to be in the vicinity of the Dead Sea is also a pretty good fit.

Genesis 18 & 19 tell the story of the destruction of the plain's cities. Genesis 13:12, 13 tell us of Abraham's nephew Lot settling in the Sodom area, and also that the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinned against the Lord.

Ezekiel 16:49 explains, "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy."

This scripture has led many to claim that God destroyed the four cities because they were inhospitable. Such fail to see the bigger picture. A lack of hospitality hardly qualifies as 'exceedingly wicked' and 'sinning against God'.

They also fail to recognize that sin is progressive. As Paul explains in the New Testament, Romans 1:26-32:

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;

and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, the sins of the men progressed to where they were clearly 'haters of God'. They knew in their hearts that the angels in Lot's house were of God, and the evil that consumed them wanted nothing more than to violate those men and thereby, violate God Himself.

This is the very nature of paedophilia today. It is less sexual in nature than acts of hatred toward God. It is the destruction of innocence and the violation of the sacred. It is spitting in the Face of God! 

There is good reason to believe that antisemitism is of the same nature - spiritual enmity toward God. In Jesus' day, demons recognized Him as the Son of God, while the religious leaders didn't. God's enemies recognize Him, see His hand on Israel, and are jealous, and, or enraged. The spectacular increase in antisemitism that is currently sweeping the world is spiritually driven and is a very good indication the we are in The Last Days before the return of Christ.

Many will reject these notions, because they reject God. But you do so at your own peril. Your primary reason for being on this planet at this time is to have the opportunity to determine whether you are suitable for Eternity with God, or without God. There is no place in God's Eternity for those who rebel against Him.

Argentina Soccer Fans Chant ‘Kill Jews to Make Soap’ at Team with Jewish Roots

Antisemitism is growing at a spectacular rate around the world. Just one generation removed from Hitler, 80 years from Kristallnacht, and hate for Israel is alarming. Whether in France, or across Europe, or even in far South America, antisemitism is exploding. 

Violent clashes reported after game where All Boys fans also wave Palestinian flags and T-shirts bearing Iranian symbols in game against Atlanta, a team from a Jewish neighborhood

By JTA

Supporters of Argentinian soccer club All Boys clash with police after losing to Atlanta

on November 23, 2018 (Screencapture)

Home team soccer fans in Argentina chanted about “killing the Jews to make soap” during a match with a team historically associated with the Jewish community and rioted when the visitors won.

Atlanta, a professional Argentine team founded more than a century ago in a Jewish neighborhood, played All Boys at their stadium in Buenos Aires on Thursday.

All Boys fans chanted the anti-Semitic slogan as they waved Palestinian flags and T-shirts bearing Iranian symbols.

Atlanta won the match, 3-2, triggering violence by the All Boys fans. Some spectators entered the locker area for cover until police arranged for them to exit the stadium safely.

All Boys fans also assaulted police, destroying property at the stadium and attacked police cars outside.

“The Argentine Football Association must sanction the club for this anti-Semitic offense,” Shimon Samuels, Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for International Relations, wrote in a statement Friday.

Atlanta has several Jewish players, as well as members of its administrative staff. Police are investigating the incident.

All Boys and their fans not only displayed their virulent antisemitism, but also the fact that they are sore losers. Time for those Boys to grow up! They need a good spanking from the FA. It will be interesting to see if they get it.

Corruption is Everywhere - S. Korean Politics; Italian and Mexican Mafias

South Korean prosecutors raid governor's home, office in defamation case

By Wooyoung Lee

Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung speaks to reporters after arriving at a regional bureau of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on Nov. 24, 2018. Photo by Yonhap

SEOUL, UPI -- South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday raided the home and office of Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung in an investigation involving his wife.

Prosecutors searched for cellphones used by Lee's wife Kim Hye-kyung since 2013 that would serve as key evidence to the probe, Yonhap News reported.

Kim has been accused of spreading false information, and defamation and slander against political rivals of her husband on Twitter and other social media. Lee, the former mayor of Seongnam City, is a key political figure in liberal political circles in South Korea.

South Korean police found Kim to be the owner of the Twitter account "For the Justice" that has been active since 2013. The police handed over the case to the prosecution last week with a recommendation to indict her for slander and libel.

Some defamatory comments have been made against former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and victims of the Sewol ferry sinking incident in Tweets.

The Twitter account became known when Lee's fellow lawmaker Jeon Hae-cheol of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, who also announced a run for a Gyeonggi governor race, reported them to the national election committee for libel and slander, including some against him.

Jeon withdrew his complaint last month, but some 3,000 citizens and a lawyer made another official complaint to the police for an investigation.

Lee said he will cooperate with prosecutors' investigation.

"This is part of routine investigation activities by prosecutors," he said to reporter Tuesday. "I hope this reveals the truth behind this case so that my wife can be free from the allegations."

Camorra boss, a top Italian fugitive, arrested in Naples

By Renzo Pipoli

Italian police captured on Tuesday Antonio Orlando, wanted for 15 years over alleged organized crime associations and believed by police to be the leader of a clan of the Camorra organized crime group. The image from March 2011 shows policemen as they stand guard outside the home of another alleged Camorra boss. File Photo by EPA/Ciro Fusco

UPI -- Italian police on Tuesday captured Antonio Orlando, described as one of the most dangerous fugitives in Italy as he evaded arrest since 2003 for association with organized crime.

Police arrested Orlando, also known as Mazzolino, in an apartment in Naples, about 140 miles southeast of Rome. He was on a list of the 100 most dangerous criminals in Italy, Naples newspaper Il Mattino reported Tuesday.

He is known as the "undisputed boss" of organized crime group Marano, a clan of the larger Camorra organization that is named after the part of the city where it originated, and lived in an apartment "filled with every comfort" including a sauna and solar-powered shower, according to the report. He did not resist arrest.

Just before his capture, Orlando managed to partially burn some pieces of paper, the newspaper added. He had the equivalent of about $6,700 in euros, it reported.

Corriere della Sera TV reported that among the papers he burned were identification documents such as an identity card, a health card and a tax document, under a different name. Orlando was in his 60s, it added.

Gaspare Giardelli, who led the police unit that captured Orlando, said "he had very much power. The very fact that he tried to burn papers proves he was still operative and dominated in the Marano area."

Other reports indicated at least 80 policemen and one helicopter were used in the operation.

Police official Ubaldo del Monaco told Corriere della Sera TV he was captured after a long and complex investigation by police and the city top prosecutor.

The Camorra is a loosely organized crime group that is based in Naples and the region of Campania in southern Italy. Police have said in the past that different clans have controls over different areas as the group lacks a single vertical structure.

Mexican criminals leave human remains, messages near jails

By Renzo Pipoli

Mexican police said coolers with human remains were left near three jails, as grisly messages from organized crime groups. File Photo by EPA-EFE/Francisca Meza

UPI -- In what are believed to be grisly messages from Mexican organized crime groups, coolers containing human remains have turned up near three jails in the state of Nuevo Leon.

The findings include two coolers within 330 feet of the Cadereyta prison, and another near the Cereso de Apodaca correctional facility. A similar finding was made near the Topo Chico jail, Excelsior reported.

Mexican officials haven't divulged details of the contents, other than to say they were human remains. Accompanying messages were written on white cardboard attached to the coolers.

The finds caused "intense" mobilization by army, police and government officials near the jails, the newspaper reported. It's not known whether the remains belong to one or several people.

Earlier this month, Nuevo Leon public safety chief Aldo Fasci warned of attacks from organized crime targeting police, and authorized the use of deadly force if their lives or citizens' lives are at risk, El Universal reported.

Fasci's warning came after criminals kidnapped two police officers, a man and a woman, from their home. The kidnappers tied them up and asked about police activities. Officials said they also stole equipment and other belongings.

Excelsior reported police in Guerrero state on Wednesday found the dismembered remains of a former state police official, identified as Domingo Tlatempa, in black bags on a street in Chilpacingo. He was identified by relatives, the report said. Tlatempa had been Guerrero's police coordinator but was recently removed from the post after an attack killed three police officers and a Red Cross worker.

More than 25,000 people were killed in Mexico over the first nine months of this year, Animal Politico reported last month -- an 18 percent rise from 2017, which is on record as Mexico's most violent year of the last two decades.

Guns, Explosives, Submarines & Cocaine: US Charges Honduran President’s Brother

Corruption is Everywhere - Certainly in Honduras 

© Reuters / Jorge Cabrera

Tony Hernandez, a former Honduran congressman and brother of the country’s sitting president, has been convicted of drug smuggling, possession of firearms and connections to “deadly and dangerous” gangs from Mexico and Colombia.

The US attorney general and DEA announced Monday that Tony Hernandez has been charged with “conspiring to import cocaine”, possession of “machineguns and explosive devices” as well as lying to federal agents. He appeared in a Miami court after being arrested on November 23rd, and if found guilty is potentially facing life in prison.

Hernandez has a rap sheet that would make Tony Montana proud, using “machinegun toting security” to protect “multi-ton” cocaine shipments, bribing law enforcement in order to secure crucial information for facilitating narcotics shipments and soliciting bribes from large-scale drug dealers, according to the DoJ. Investigators even found packages of cocaine in drug laboratories in Mexico and Colombia that were hubristically stamped with the former lawmaker’s initials “TH”.

The indictment represents official US recognition that massive drug trafficking rings were presumably sanctioned at the highest levels of the Honduran government, including bribes paid to members of the National Congress of Honduras for protection and safe passage. The drugs were smuggled for over a decade, from 2004-2016, by air and by sea, allegedly pushed up through Guatemala and eventually into the United States. In a move the writers of Breaking Bad would probably call far-fetched, the DoJ’s public statement even says that “on at least one occasion” Hernandez used a submarine to transport the goods.

The statement also says that a recording exists of Hernandez giving a $50,000 kickback to a former member of the Honduran National Police to help force “Honduran government entities” to make payments to companies that launder money for a violent drug-trafficking gangs, which essentially amounts to Honduras having state subsidized drug-money laundering services.

Tony’s brother, the president of Honduras, who has ironically been trying to crack down on drug cartels, said that while being entitled to the presumption of innocence “no one is above the law.” So despite being the brother of the head of state, he will be given no advantages that an ordinary citizen would not have during a trial, Juan Orlando Hernandez stated.

Good luck with that, Juan. Any meaningful move to upset the drug cartels will get you killed. Maybe on order of your own brother.

The ‘Islamophobia’ Problem - A Rather Clever Opinion Piece

Douglas Murray
The Spectator

British MP Sayeeda Warsi

This is a good time to bury bad news. And sure enough it turns out that a cross-party group of MPs and peers that includes the failed MP Baroness Warsi has chosen this moment to try to persuade the government to adopt their own definition of ‘Islamophobia’.

Long-time readers will know that I have no sympathy for this term. The most succinct summary of the problem is often erroneously attributed to the late Christopher Hitchens. It is that, Islamophobia is ‘a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.’

That ‘Islamophobia’ was created by fascists is provable: the term was conjured up and pumped into the international debate around politics and religion decades ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. The claim that it is used by cowards slightly lets others of its users off the hook. For it is not only used by cowards. It is also used by sinister and sectarian figures who wish to protect their own religious patch from any and all discussion or scrutiny. That it intimidates cowards is evident from every day’s news.

But now, at a crucial juncture in this nation’s history, this group of MPs and Peers are attempting to push through an agenda of their own. As Tim Shipman described it in the Sunday Times the group is proposing a set of ‘tests’ of what is ‘Islamophobic’. Let us take them in turn:

– ‘Does it stereotype Muslims by assuming that they all think the same?

Well let us see. Would it be Islamophobic to say ‘All Muslims believe that the Quran is the revealed word of God, that Mohammed was the messenger of Allah and that this revelation has been revealed for all time as the unalterable, final revelation from God?’ It would appear so. And yet it would also be true. There are certain things which all Muslims do agree on. There are many other generalisations that one could make that are more critical. Yet to say so would be ‘Islamophobic’.

– ‘Does the criticism consist of generalising about Muslims in a way that excludes them?’

An interesting one. Let’s try a couple out. How about ‘All Muslim majority countries are either dictatorships, despotisms or countries where the army remains on standby at any moment to wrestle back control from religious zealots’? Or how about ‘Muslims tend to be bad at understanding and advocating minority rights unless they happen to be in a minority themselves’? Both of these statements are at least highly defensible. I would suggest they are also true. Yet they undoubtedly ‘generalise’ in certain ways, and if just one Muslim said that they felt ‘excluded’ by people failing to talk up the pluralism and freedom in the Islamic world we would have to agree that both statements are indeed ‘Islamophobic’.

– ‘Is the behaviour or practice being criticised in an offensive way so it makes Muslims rather than the issue the target?’

Well it rather hinges on two things, doesn’t it? One is the question of ‘what is offensive’. Who is to judge? Who is to say? Is a cross-party coalition of low-grade MPs and Peers to make this judgement? Who would like Sayeeda Warsi to make this call? Or Labour’s Wes Streeting, who is also supporting this sinister move? Does anyone feel that either individual’s intellect, knowledge and skill at impartially weighing up matters makes them fit for the task of deciding what the rest of us can think, write or say? Then there is the question of determining whether ‘Muslims rather than the issue are the target?’ Again, are the brains behind all this sufficiently huge to make this judgement call? If one draws attention to certain aspects of the private life of the man who invented Islam is one aiming the point at Muslims or the issue of, say, historical attitudes towards child abuse? Who is to say? I can guess at least some of the applicants for the role.

– ‘Does the person criticising really care about the issue or is he or she using it to attack Muslims?’

There is nothing sweeter than the sound of totalitarian ideology presented in the lingua franca of social justice. Do you ‘really care about the issue’? Who the hell is to say? And why should it matter? Let us say that I object to Islamic anti-Semitism. Let us say that I cite the considerable stream of examples (both current and historical) which I could bring to my aid to explain there is a problem here.  Do I care? Or do I not? And who should decide?

Sayeeda Warsi says that some people use criticism of Islam’s approach to gays and women as a clever cover – a sort of ploy – for attacking Islam. ‘I’ve never known homophobes care so much about gay people and misogynists express such support for women as when they are criticising Muslims’ she is quoted as saying.

And that is interesting isn’t it? Firstly because there is again the question of ‘who is to judge’. If these criticisms are indeed legitimate – and even Baroness Warsi in her more liberal moments might agree that they’re not conjured up wholly out of air – who decides which person is allowed to say a truth and which person is not?  Are gays allowed to criticise Islamic homophobia? If so am I – as a fully signed up, equity card-carrying gay – allowed to go to town on Islam whenever I like? My own experience and observation has often suggested not. So who can? Is a gay who raises a really very mild objection, filled with caveats and ‘in a very real sense-isms’ allowed to dip their gay toe in this Muslim water? I suppose we shall see.

But really it is – as so often – not a matter of absolutes. After all, one reason why people who might not be big on gay marriage, or don’t swallow every claim made about the ‘gender pay-gap’ might be voluble about Islamic homophobia and Islam’s attitudes towards women is that there is a question of degree. It includes the difference between whether you’re allowed to marry somebody of the same gender or whether you should have a wall pushed on you. And it is a matter not of whether, if you add up pay differentials taking pregnancy and other life-factors into account, women are still under-renumerated (remunerated?) in certain sectors or whether all women are now and for all time (and should be) second class citizens. There is a difference is there not? A difference about the size of an ocean where plenty of people might peaceably swim.

Apparently the Home Secretary is being pressured – for reasons of optics – into signing up to this sinister and sectarian agenda. The rest of the government could be forgiven for having much else on its mind. I hope all relevant members of the government realise in their spare moments that this matters very much indeed. Future freedoms – including freedom of religion and freedom of speech in this country – will depend very much on this ugly agenda not being deployed.

Berlin Police Cadets Have Trouble with German Language, Says Academy Head

The New Normal - Illiterate, Muslim Police in Germany

© Global Look Press / Paul Zinken

Germany’s cops were bombarded with countless criticisms today, but this one definitely stands out – it emerged that police cadets in Berlin, many of whom have immigrant backgrounds, have difficulty using… the German language.

Many cadets attending Berlin’s police academy have “fundamental difficulties” writing in German without spelling or punctuation errors, revealed Tanja Knapp, the newly appointed head of the institution. She said it was really disappointing to learn that these cadets are unable to produce written texts. And since after every stakeout or chase you have to write a report, that’s discouraging news.

Part of the problem is that too much emphasis is placed on learning English, Knapp said. Over the years, Berlin has evolved into a truly international city where English is sometimes spoken more frequently than German.

“Of course, it makes sense to be able to speak English to the capital’s many tourists,” Knapp said. “But if the basic required level of German is too low, then the focus should be on German.”

Some politicians, including Jens Spahn, a potential successor to Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democrats, have previously spewed vitriol about English being spoken on Berlin streets. Spahn, the current health minister, once labeled Berliners who communicate in English “provincial dwarfs.” He claimed there is another parallel society in the German capital, namely “young people from around the world who keep to themselves.”

Around 2,500 future cops receive training at the academy, and roughly 40 percent of them come from immigrant families, according to Die Welt. Literacy levels vary greatly among the cadets, and it “is not so easy to compensate for this during their study time,” the academy head admitted.

Knapp took over as the academy head in July this year. Notably, falling German skills and poor discipline among recruits led to the previous officer-in-command being removed from the position.

George Soros' Open Society Foundation Set to End Operations in Turkey

Kicked out of Hungary, and now Turkey

- is sanity returning to parts of the world?

Liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations NGO will close up shop in Turkey, saying “groundless claims and speculation” have hindered its work.

The organization announced the news on Monday, days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Soros of stoking protests to divide the country, referring to the elderly liberal financier as that “famous Hungarian Jew Soros.”

Erdogan accused Soros of controlling Turkish opposition figure Osman Kavala, himself accused of financing and organizing anti-government demonstrations in 2013, and being linked to a failed coup attempt in 2016. Kavala is an advisory board member of OSF.

Over a dozen people linked to Kavala were arrested last week, as Erdogan’s crackdown on anyone suspected of involvement with the coup continues.

In a statement released Monday, an Open Society Foundations spokesman refuted Erdogan’s claims. The organization described Erdogan’s apparent attempts to link Soros with protests in 2013 as “not new and untrue,” and said that Erdogan’s “groundless claims and speculation” have “made it impossible” to continue its activities.

A prominent backer of liberal causes worldwide, Soros’ activities have seen him repeatedly draw the ire of nationalists and the right wing. OSF ended its operations in Soros’ native Hungary earlier this year, after Prime Minister Viktor Orban slammed the tycoon for meddling in the nation’s affairs.

After OSF closed its doors in Hungary, the country’s parliament approved the ‘Stop Soros’ law, a piece of legislation introduced by Orban’s Fidesz party that criminalized aid workers and organizations suspected of “enabling illegal immigration.” Liberalizing immigration and border controls has long been one of Soros’ goals, hence the law’s name.

The Open Society Foundations project was started in 1979, with the first non-US foundation opening in Hungary in 1984. The group currently has annual expenditures of over $940 million, operates in over 100 countries across the globe, with 26 national and regional foundations and offices.

Taiwan Voters Reject Same-Sex Marriage Referendum

Pushing back against political correctness

But in the end, the courts will overrule the will of the people

By Daniel Uria

A crowd of Taiwanese voters react during the initial results of the mid-term election in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Voters rejected a referendum supporting same-sex marriage after the country's highest court ruled a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Photo by Peter Lin/EPA

UPI -- Voters in Taiwan rejected a referendum on LGBT rights, pushing back efforts for same-sex marriage in the country.

The majority of voters approved a measure Saturday stating "Civil Code regulations should restrict marriage to being between a man and a woman" and two other measures opposing same-sex marriage while rejecting measures to legalize same sex marriage and asking if civil code marriage regulations "should be used to guarantee the rights of same-sex couples to get married."

"This result is a bitter blow and a step backwards for human rights in Taiwan. However, despite this setback, we remain confident that love and equality will ultimately prevail," Amnesty International Taiwan's Acting Director Annie Huang said in a statement. "The result must not be used as an excuse to further undermine the rights of LGBTI people. The Taiwanese government needs to step up and take all necessary measures to deliver equality and dignity for all, regardless of who people love."

Tseng Hsien-yin, leader of the Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation, a group that opposes gay marriage, said the decision reflected the will of the voters.

"The public have used their ballots to tell the governing authorities what is the mainstream opinion and the result represents a victory for all people who cherish family values and how such values should be taught in schools to the young generation," he said.

The referendum comes after Taiwan's highest court ruled Article 972 of the country's civil code prohibiting same-sex marriage was unconstitutional in May of last year and gave Taiwanese parliament two years to amend it.

Legislators in Taiwan offered differing opinions on whether President Tsai Ing-wen's administration would be required to pass laws reflecting the results of Saturday's referendum or would still be compelled to change the civil code to allow for same-sex marriage.

A lawmaker from the president's Democratic Progressive Party told CNN any positive referendum result "must pass" in the next legislative session, but a legal expert said lawmakers would be left to decide how to respond to the results of the referendum.

Tseng said the Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation would "see that the government revise or institute relevant laws and implement the relevant education guidelines for the school curriculums in line with the results."

"We will ... send our drafted bill to the parliament as soon as possible for review and passage because we respect same-sex partnerships and believe there should be a special law for them," he said.

Amnesty International's regional campaign manager for Taiwan, Suki Chung, tweeted that the result "shouldn't be used as an excuse to further undermine the rights of LGBTI people"

"The government must legislate for equality of marriage by 2019 to comply with the Constitutional Court's decision," she wrote.

MOON of ALABAMA Discloses How Brits Run Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

While Moon of Alabama has a tendency to be a little progressive, it has come to the conclusion that Deep State is really running the world, running it into the ground as it were. Their reporting is considered to be largely factual, which is more than can be said for some mainstream media.

There is an excellent summary at the bottom of this article for those of you in a hurry.

Patrice de Bergeracpas

DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY “B”

The always reliable Mark F. McCarty, publishing on Medium (see Appendix), introduces this important article thusly (and we agree, of course): Moon of Alabama (the great German journalist Bernhard Horstmann, who does more real journalism every day than the entire US mainstream media combined) has now blown the cover of the “Integrity Initiative” — a project run by The Institute for Statecraft, an NGO funded primarily by the British government, U.S. State Department, and NATO — whose stated purpose is to smear the Russian government at every possible opportunity… We suspected it all along, so this is the just the confirmation. The leopard can never change its spots.

British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.

We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The ‘Russian collusion’ smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.

The ‘Integrity Initiative‘ builds ‘cluster’ or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.

On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media smear campaign (pdf) against him.

The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and posted them under the ‘Anonymous’ label at cyberguerrilla.org.

The Initiative is nominally run under the (government financed) non-government-organisation The Institute For Statecraft. Its internal handbook (pdf) describes its purpose:

The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.

It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as “partner organisations” and promises that:

Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster community. […] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed, Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster participants as you desire).

The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is ‘Defending Democracy Against Disinformation’. It covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the Middle East.

On its About page it claims: “We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and agencies who share our aims.” The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the Initiative’s funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State Department. All the ‘contact persons’ for creating ‘clusters’ in foreign countries are British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British government that hides behind a ‘civil society’ NGO.

The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.

Chris Donnelly – Pic via Euromaidanpress.

Having a load of fun promoting war. 

From its 2017/18 budget application (pdf) we learn how the Initiative works:

To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by expanding the knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it.

The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a “we are the good ones” illusion. When “we” ‘educate the public’ it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it is disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative’s  existence itself, created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.

If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It’s applications seek funding from a larger “Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme” run by the Foreign Office.

The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received £102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19 budget application shows a planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO and the Lithuanian MoD, but also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with £100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.

One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):

Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a range of countries with different circumstances

Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack by Russia

Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of the “golden minute”

Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:

– Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact on policy and society: (Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV)

Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a self-contradicting concept.

Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:

We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;

– Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor’s Office and MOD

– Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD

– Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps

– Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM’s office (NB this may change very soon with the new Government)

– Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD

– HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen’s office.

We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the clusters develop.

A look at the ‘clusters’ set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.

Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts, appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder, the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of  interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele ‘dirty dossier’ to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.

A ‘Cluster Roundup‘ (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another file reveals (pdf) the local partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.

The Initiatives Guide to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the Skripal Affair as examples for “Russian disinformation”. But at least two of these events, Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of British intelligence disinformation operations.

The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the ‘Project Plan’ laid out at pages 7-40 of the 2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under ‘Sustainability’ it notes:

The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow.The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society (think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is proving to be mutually reinforcing. Creating the network of networks has given each national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and in various forms.

The third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes ‘Risks’ to the initiative. These include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:

Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.

We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.

Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM | Permalink

About the Author

“b” is the nom de guerre of Moon of Alabama’s founding editor and chief researcher.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Appendix: Mark F. McCarty’s excellent summary and comment on this important news.

Moon of Alabama Unveils Western Government-Funded Smear Campaign Against Russia

Moon of Alabama (the great German journalist Bernhard Horstmann, who does more real journalism every day than the entire US mainstream media combined) has now blown the cover of the “Integrity Initiative” — a project run by The Institute for Statecraft, an NGO funded primarily by the British government, U.S. State Department, and NATO — whose stated purpose is to smear the Russian government at every possible opportunity:

British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/11/british-government-behind-secret-anti-russian-disinformation-campaign.html

Here are some excerpts:

In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.

We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The ‘Russian collusion’ smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.

The ‘Integrity Initiative’ builds ‘cluster’ or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.

The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and posted them under the ‘Anonymous’ label at cyberguerrilla.org.

The Initiative is nominally run under the (government financed) non-government-organisation The Institute For Statecraft. Its internal handbook (pdf) describes its purpose:

The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.

It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as “partner organisations”….

On its About page it claims: “We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and agencies who share our aims.” The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the Initiative’s funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State Department. All the ‘contact persons’ for creating ‘clusters’ in foreign countries are British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British government that hides behind a ‘civil society’ NGO.

“Integrity Initiative” — How could that name be more Orwellian?

But none of this should come as any surprise.

The anti-Russian lies that are being shoved down our throats by the Deep State and its compliant MSM include:

The entire “Russia interfered in the 2016 election” BS — and the pendant “Trump colluded” claims;

The associated claim that Julian Assange is a stooge of the Kremlin;

The idiotic characterization of the profit-seeking activities of the Internet Research Agency as a Russian-government-sponsored effort to either elect Trump or “sow confusion and destroy faith in our democracy”;

The claim that the Russian state was responsible for the Skripals’ poisoning;

The claim that Russia or the Ukrainian Russophile rebels shot down MH-17;

The mis-characterization of the brutal coup in Ukraine in 2014 — in which Ukrainian neo-Nazis shot both protesters and police as a false flag which our MSM blamed on Yanukovich — as a democratic liberation from tyranny and corruption;

The mis-characterization of Crimea’s annexation by Russia as resulting from a Russian invasion — when in fact the Russian troops were already there legally under agreement with Ukraine, and the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking Crimeans demanded to be re-united with Russia in a plebiscite organized by their own elected congress;

The claims that Russia’s ally Assad has repeatedly used poison gas on his own people;

Bill Browder’s outright lies which fomented sanctions against Russia via the Magnitsky Act.

If I were better informed, I’m sure I could list additional calumnies.

Note the prominence given to the Atlantic Council and Bellingcat in the master plan to continuously smear Russia. Bellingcat has played a key role in formulating Rube-Goldberg-style “evidence” that Russia shot down MH-17 and attacked the Skripals, and that Assad’s troops were responsible for multiple gassings in Syria. And note that Crowdstrike, the creator of the lie that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC to provide Wikileaks with its DNC releases, is a close affiliate of the Atlantic Council.

Sadly, even Bernie Sanders buys into many of these blatant smears, because he takes the MSM seriously.

I have no inherent need to exalt Russia. In fact, I have never known a Russian. But what I do know is that this vendetta against Russia is all intended to insure that, to the Western public, Russia remains a boogeyman necessitating limitless expenditures on arms and armies, so that NATO and the MIC can continue to bleed us dry while our own needs at home go unmet. And all the while putting the planet under threat of nuclear annihilation in the event of an accident or a military confrontation that gets out of hand.

In a just world, everyone involved in this would be convicted of Incitement to War, and put away for life.