National Socialism : The Fascist Left

"I would go to conferences on Nazi medicine and find the scholars always talking about the Big Four -- sterilization, the Nuremberg laws, the euthanasia program and the Final Solution."
"But the irony is that in this murderous regime, you also find the world’s most progressive anti-cancer policy. This has been totally ignored."
Robert N. Proctor, Professor, History of Science, Stanford University

"[The violent, left-wing antiwar demonstration in the 1960s he witnessed reminded him] of the storm troopers that marched through my childhood."
"[Student protesters adopted from fascists] their anti-intellectualism, their anger, their street theatre, their glorification of  youth, or their mysticism."
"[There was as well their] mob psychology [and] the militant antireason impervious to argument."
Peter Berger, conservative sociologist, Austrian-born survivor of fascism 

"At the CPAC conference, there was a dust-up concerning certain persons claiming to be the 'alt-right'.  One of the organizers of the conference said the people claiming to be the alt-right were not conservatives, but were 'left-wing fascists'. He also said they had appropriated the term alt-right. The term 'alt-right' emerged to represent a form of journalism in some ways evocative of the late Hunter S. Thompson, with right-of-center views and relying on non-traditional platforms. But, the term has come to mean extreme right-wing. My focus is on the term 'left-wing fascism'."
"In real time, Benito Mussolini and his movement – fascism or national socialism – was of the left. Mussolini was a great admirer of Karl Marx and Marx’s principle of revolutionary socialism. By 'revolutionary socialism', I mean to distinguish Marxist socialism from the democratic socialists and labor unions that were emerging in Europe."
"Mussolini, like Marx and Lenin, saw the party as the vanguard of the working class, a force from without the system that would usher in change. Mussolini was in fact a member of the socialist party of Italy, although he broke with the party on the issue of neutrality during World War I. It was later that Mussolini thought to combine socialism with nationalism, and form a new party. He called the combination 'fascism'. A fasces is a bundle of rods, each individually weak while the bundle is strong. Mussolini’s counterpart in Germany called the combination 'national socialism'. In Germany, where they like long words, this became 'Nationalsozialistische'. In America, where we like short words, this became 'Nazi'."
Clifford F. Thies, Professor of Economics and Finance, Shenandoah University 

Neo Nazis, Alt-Right, and White Supremacists encircle counter protesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., USA on August 11, 2017. (Photo by Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

"Ideologically, the distinction between the 'Sozis' [Socialists] and Commies on the one hand and Nazis on the other, was probably only the internationalism of the Marxists and the nationalism of the Nazis."
"In every other respect they agreed on the evils of capitalism. [The connecting of Jews with capitalism fuelled the anti-Semitism of the Nazis]."
H. Pierre Secher, biographer, Bruno Kreisky Austrian socialist

Leftist 'progressives' have a good deal in common with Adolf Hitler; for he too was interested in all manner of socially progressive issues from healthful eating, to avoidance of drugs and alcohol and tobacco. He wanted the perfect society where people would be responsible for themselves and to society, where people would be law-abiding, and where science would solve all of the world's ills. That he was also a raving psychopath and felt obligated to rid the world of the presence of imperfect physical and mental human specimens, gypsies, gays, critics and Jews was a more infamous facet.

Nazis, fascists worked hard at delegitimizing those whom they considered their enemies. And their enemies were any who failed to appreciate how vital it was to the future of the world to support their fascist agenda of extreme nationalism, of conquest, of transforming the world in their image. Any who disagreed with them would be victimized by a slickly organized slander machine which derided and accused, deprived them of dignity and rights, reducing them to vulnerable elements within the larger society which became complicit in isolating them socially, then destroying them physically.

This is a tactic used almost exclusively now by the 'progressive' left whose agenda is to selectively support and defend those whom they identify as victims, while they victimize themselves any who view their programs of sanctimonious righteousness as hypocrisy. The left has made a defensive religion of climate and environment, of haven seekers, of defense of Islamists as being misunderstood and any who view them with suspicion as "Islamophobes", labelling and censoring their critics. They share, in fact, some of the rationale involved in Communism.

Universities and trade unions are now suffused with a leadership that glorifies the radical left, allowing them to fracture social cohesion and interrupt the normal flow of conversation between people with differing opinions. It is what totalitarian governments do; the only agenda feasible is their own. The anti-fascist (Antifa) movement on university campuses represents extremism in lock-step with that of white supremacists, as they adopt the same confrontational, libelous and violent mechanisms for control of public opinion.



The Antifa movement whose name is derived from 'anti-fascist' doesn't hesitate to use the very same public disruption tactics as those they say they're struggling against. They are the 'hard left' expressing an ideology that claims to support populations that are oppressed and any population where the infamous one percent representing great wealth and opportunities leaving a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor is by their definition of capitalism, oppressed; the wealth of corporations and elites impoverishing ordinary working people.

According to Antifa activists they are motivated by peace and inclusivity; government and capitalism fail both. The U.S. government's tightening of immigration is viewed as racism and rejected by Antifa. This is basically a millennial movement, a movement embraced by those who live on the fringes of society, including undocumented immigrants, transgendered, low-wage workers and individualists, a movement that has huge appeal on university campuses. Antifa leaders waste no breath in denying their willingness to use violence in response to violence or racism; their goal is to eradicate hatred while practising it themselves.





Those who balk at accepting greater numbers of immigrants overwhelming society and culture, who refuse to continue to look the other way at the presence of millions of illegal migrants present in an underground economy, who decry the anti-fossil-fuel movement, manipulate situations by demonizing the nay-sayers; in the case of the environment, all those who fail to commit to eradicating carbon emissions, the very source of life itself, become 'climate change deniers', just as those criticizing Islamist jihadis become 'Islamophobes'.

 

Ideologies of Hatred and Terrorism

"I think that Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish."
"He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do."
"This is a particularly strong 'wave', and I think it's being fueled by a lot of political developments and also by the sort of connective tissue that you get from the Internet that wasn't there before that's really making it easier for groups to be influenced and to coordinate, or not necessarily oordinate but synchronize over large geographical distances."
J.M. Berger, research fellow, VOX-Pol

"There's a common framing of far-right terrorism or domestic terrorism as being 'terrorism lite' and not as serious."
"It's an interesting question given that far-right attacks can be quite devastating."
Erin Miller, Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

"We conceive of this problem as being a domestic one. But that's not the case."
"They [ideological violent actors] don't see themselves as Americans or Canadians, very much like the Christchurch killer didn't see himself as an Australian; he saw himself as part of a white collective."
"It has never been the case that these people didn't think a global way. They may have acted in ways that looked domestic but the thinking was always about building an international white movement."
Heidi Veirich, director, Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center, United States

A woman mourns at a memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

People who subscribe to violent ideologies are readily inspired by others who share their view of supremacy and superiority linked to race or religion. When an atrocity occurs and attracts world attention because of its death toll, while most people are horrified, those sharing the same ideology as the murderer whose rampage caused the death of people, feel fascinated and enjoy the thought that they too can embark on such a slaughter to gain attention to their 'cause' and be admired by others like themselves.

White extremist terrorist attacks in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom spurred the attacker who killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. He made references to those successful assaults on humanity whom his like considered inferior and unfit to live, chosen for their unwanted presence as 'outsiders' and a purported link to religious terrorism. The New Zealand terrorist's killing spree linked him to a global network of extremists steadily gaining traction.

Thanks to the Internet and mass communication technologies there is no geographic distance now between people with like agendas of hatred, racism and terrorism. Social media readily facilitates the spread of bigotry and extremism which leads inevitably to violence. Psychopaths seek an outlet for their inner rage and misanthropy, and to feel oneself as endowed with 'white privilege' as a crowning glory with the urge to impress one's beliefs on the world at large, find the perfect solution in deadly violence.

The far-right ideologue Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77 people in Norway in 2001 may live in civilized infamy, but he is famous among those who share his distorted sense of privilege for being a heroic leader in their shared battle against those they deem of lesser privilege, enemies of their ideological stance, and whom they target for removal from the gene pool.

Breivik's manifesto raging against immigration and his deadly solution strikes a resonating bell in the minds of other psychopaths looking for an avenue to express their grievances. Breivik -- wrote an American white supremacist on a white supremacist forum -- had "inspired young Aryan men to action". That same man who posted that sentiment, Frazier Glenn Miller, killed three people a few years later when he opened fire on a Jewish retirement home and community centre in Kansas.

The Christchurch killer paid tribute not only to Breivik but to the Canadian man who had fired at worshipers inside a Quebec City mosque in2017, going so far as to write his name on the stock of his weapon. The Quebec City killer had also admired Dylann Roof, the American who attacked a black church in South Carolina in 2015, killing nine congregants at prayer.



This kind of xenophobic, supremacist ideology targets immigrants, minority groups and religious communities. The Global Terrorism Database produced data identifying close to 350 white extremist terrorism attacks that occurred in Europe, North America and Australia from the years 2011 through to 2017. The definition of terrorism is the use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a political or social goal.

White extremism is taken to embrace under its canopy, white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim ideologies, accounting for eight percent of all attacks in these areas; roughly a third of those committed in the United States. Deadly attacks are occurring more frequently, paralleling a rise in hate crimes and bias episodes in the west. Five white extremist attacks took place from 2011 to 2017 in Australia, most on mosques and Islamic centers.

According to experts, similar motives are involved, irrespective of whether the target is a mosque in Perth, an asylum seekers' shelter in Dresden, Germany, or a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Attackers feel justified in hitting back against the perceived strains from immigrants and religious and racial authorities, threatening their white privileged positions.

The Canada-China 'Misunderstanding'

"[Canada] should spend less time bowing down to Canadian journalists preoccupied with human rights and get on with negotiating an important free trade agreement with China."
"In the recent two years or so, there has not been a single violent and terrorist attack and no more innocent people have been harmed [thanks to the imprisonment and re-training in Xinjiang's 'vocational education and training centres for Chinese Uyghur Muslims]."
"I want to tell  you that the Chinese nation does not have the gene of aggression. We have never launched a war of aggression against any other country and we have never occupied one inch of overseas colony in history."
"[Westerners] always believe that they are superior to any other nations. Chinese people are in the best position to judge China's development. We are confident about our own path, theory, system and culture."
"We will never change our own development path because of the different viewpoints of Western countries and several discredited articles in the West. We will stick to the path that we choose. For Western countries, the problem is how to get along with China."
"The knots [that Canada initiated to trouble its relationship with China] shall be untied by those who got them tied. [Canada should] stop the moves that undermine the interests of China."
"The reason why some people are used to arrogantly adopting double standards is due to Western egotism and white supremacy."
"What they have been doing is not showing respect for the rule of law, but mocking and trampling the rule of law."
Chinese Ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye 

Lu Shaye, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Canada, addresses the media during a visit to Halifax on Nov. 7, 2017. Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS

"Urge China to desist from inaccurate portrayals of Canada's judicial process and treatment of Ms. Meng. As the international community looks on, urge China not to damage bilateral relationship, over a single consular case however high profile."
"Ms. Meng received consular access, due process, legal counsel and health care since day of arrest [and she continues  to be treated fairly by Canadian judicial system; we urge China to grant the same standards for Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor."
"It is important to understand that under the Canadian legal system and Constitution there can be no political interference in the judicial process."
Global Affairs briefing memorandum to Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland

China is balancing its desire to defend one of its biggest tech firms with the need to continue trade talks with the US. Photo: AFP

How it all began: the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on an extradition warrant issued by the U.S. State Department which plans to charge Ms. Meng with misrepresentation to U.S. financial institutions related to Iranian sanctions imposed by the U.S. Briefly held, Ms. Meng was given bail and has lived, since then, under bail conditions, at one, then the other of the two mansions she owns in Vancouver, awaiting extradition.

China's response was to arrest two Canadians who happened to be in China at the time; an entrepreneur and a Canadian diplomat on leave working for a private enterprise. Both have been held incommunicado, no access to lawyers, no contact with family, arrested for national security issues, later charged with espionage. Another two Canadians, charged with drug smuggling, have been sentenced to death. Trade embargoes have been imposed on Canadian food products normally -- over the past three decades -- exported to China on charges of 'contamination'.

Canada has been warned and threatened that should it decide not to contract with China's largest, most successful, communications giant, Huawei, for its 5G upgrades, there would be 'consequences'.
Canada's Cabinet ministers in the Trudeau Liberal government have attempted since December to communicate directly with their Chinese counterparts as part of normal diplomacy between countries, but each such attempt on the part of Canada has been rebuffed with silence, while the heat of criticism continues to boil over, mostly out of the mouth of China's ambassador to Canada.

He represents a country that has never purloined the territory of another country, unless one considers Tibet. That never threatens other countries, unless one considers its neighbours in the disputed South China Sea, where Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea may have another opinion entirely on the issue despite Ambassador Lu's history lesson to Canada, that "the South China Sea islands have all along been the inherent territory of China". 

The problem that China sees in relations that have deteriorated so badly between Canada and China is that "Western countries' psychological imbalance towards China's economic and technological development comes down to the West-egotism". The West is mad with jealousy and resentment over China's success, an obvious failing of an egocentric West that finds it hard to absorb that China is able to become a world-class power second only to the United States which it is confident it will soon overtake.

It is not the United States, after all, that has developed the "One Belt, One Road" system of inter-connectedness, but China. China which has extended vast sums of credit to African countries to build their communications infrastructure; bridges, roadways, Internet connectivity, all of which will make it much, much easier for China to move its goods and services. China plans to adhere to environmental concerns by using fewer coal-fired furnaces; using those it installs in impoverished nations instead, where it will also grow food crops to import back to China.

Indebtedness for loans burdening their economies, the countries of Africa and Southwestern Asia surely do appreciate the good-heartedness of China's involvement in their internal affairs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Papua New Guinea's Governor-General Bob Dadae, and Papua New Guinea's Chief of Defense Gilbert Toropo attend a welcome ceremony for Xi's state visit in Port Moresby on Nov. 16. (David Gray/AFP/Getty Images)

Arctic Sovereignty Rivalry

"All of the countries involved [Arctic nations] recognize that there will have to be boundary negotiations at some future point."
"Why bother spending hundreds of millions of dollars mapping the seabed in an area you know will fall to the other country at the conclusion of negotiations?"
"Our scientific claim might be valid. The North Pole is on the Danish side of an equidistance line."
Michael Byers, professor of international law, University of British Columbia

"It [Canada's scientific argument of Arctic sovereignty] totally validates it [Canada's claim to an extended Arctic area]. If you actually have a look at what has been submitted, it is a substantial chunk."
"You had to determine you had a continental shelf. That was the first and necessary step. If we'd only gone up to the North Pole, to a very large degree we would be ceding everything the Russians and Danes were putting within their claims."
"It doesn't mean you're going to get everything you want, but now it becomes much more possible."
Rob Huebert, Arctic expert, University of Calgary

"I'm pleased Canada has done this work."
"Defining and asserting Canadian sovereignty takes many forms. Inuit know this as we have been used to assert Canadian sovereignty historically."
Monica Ell-Kanayuk, Inuit Circumpolar Conference

Lake Hazen on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut.  Igor Lehnherr/The Canadian Press

The UN Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf has its work cut out in studying and verifying the science-and-geography-based claims to sovereign areas of the vast Arctic, submitted for its perusal and affirmation by Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), Sweden, Iceland, Finland and Norway. Once the Commission has completed its work, negotiation between the Arctic nations will commence, the expectation being that of years passing before firm boundaries are set.

Canada has just now completed a $100-million scientific survey, its submission to the Commission years later than anticipated because then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered a re-write under the condition that Canada's submission merited a much larger area to be claimed. The submission just handed to the Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf represented 1,200 pages of evidence proving the continental shelf from the High Arctic islands extends past 200 nautical miles from shore.



A contested section of sea floor stretching from the top of Ellesmere Island to the Pole along an undersea ridge, passing it by over 200 kilometers is contested by Russia, which claims the very same undersea ridge actually originates in Russia. The Lomonosov Ridge has long been claimed by Russia to begin in Siberia and stretch to the North Pole, hence marking it as Russian territory, part of its continental shelf. All the sea floor alongside the ridge from the coast of Russia to past the Pole.

Denmark, on the other hand, contests that claim, both by Russia and by Canada, claiming the ridge is linked with Greenland, making it Denmark's territory, right up to Russian territorial waters. Professors Byers and Huebert speak of negotiations to come that will be based on the principle of equidistance more than undersea geography. The principle whereby a maritime boundary is drawn along a line equidistant from the shores of neighbouring nations.

Professor Huebert cites the research as proof of a need for the Arctic nations to indulge in critical negotiations to reach reasonable concessions, while Dr. Byers points out the equidistance principle is more likely to give the Pole to the Danes which Canada's submission acknowledges tacitly, since Canada's claim stops partway along the ridge.

Canada consulted widely with its Inuit population, as the people who actually live in the Arctic. And the submission handed to the Commission had the full approval of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

© RIA Novosti. G. Nadezhdin

UNHCR: Pick Up The Pace: Respond to Anecdotal, Evidence-Lacking Emergency

"[The UNHCR wants to] take the pressure off Mexican authorities to take care of this kind of profile [women, girls, LGBTQ2 fleeing violence] and resettle them to Canada."
"Anyone who gets in the way [of rampaging gangs] is at severe risk, so entire families leave. That explains the demographic change."
"[Canada is already] doing a few things in terms of technical support for the Mexican asylum system, resettlement of people who face extreme protection risks in the region.Our pitch to Canada is to do more."
"These are countries that are close by; they are countries with which Canada has close ties, Mexico being the most important of them."
Mark Manly, Mexico representative, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

"It is estimated that six out of ten migrant women and girls are victims of sexual violence carried out by illicit actors, government authorities and intimate partners."
"However, most of what is known is anecdotal and there is an urgent need for a stronger evidence base in order to inform policy."
World Refugee Council, Ontario

"What it demonstrates is that as long as the conflicts take place and the violence going on, you're going to have people trying to escape [their situations]."
"And it's going to be in our region."
"We've been focusing ont he NAFTA issue; well maybe there's got to be some parallel discussion [on migration]."
Lloyd Axworthy, chair, World Refugee Council

Still from video: Asylum seekers reaching Mexico from Honduras, El Salvador and Venezuela caused a 103-per-cent spike in claims in 2018 over the previous year, from almost 15,000 to about 30,000, says the UNHCR.

It's really hard to see where free trade negotiations fit in to the social dysfunction of states incapable of maintaining security for their citizens. And where gender parity and workers' rights become part of such free trade agreements when one country respects and legalizes such rights and its trade partners may not, and actually resent another country interfering in internal systems of social integration and legal assurances for unions acting on behalf of workers.

If a country's human rights record is so abysmal that the most vulnerable of its citizens live degraded lives of poverty, persecution and subjugation why would a country like Canada want to sign a free trade agreement with such a country to begin with? Our former Conservative-led government with Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressing such doubts, specifically with respect to China sat very poorly with the Liberal opposition. Once in power, the current Liberal government under Justin Trudeau hastened to effect a free trade agreement with China.

Window dressing by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, burnishing his bona fides as a 'progressive' champion of women's and workers' rights imposed a chapter on labour rights calling on Mexico and the United States along with Canada to protect workers against discrimination in employment reflecting sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity. A chapter certain to annoy the United States with the unspoken but obvious message that Canada prides itself on the fiction it is more protective of human rights than they are.

American women might have something to say about that. Mexico, on the other hand, is plagued with the same kind of dysfunctional narco gangs disrupting civil life and persecuting ordinary people, as is Colombia and other countries in Central America. Women, youth and other haven seekers, some propelled in the case of young men to find economic opportunities elsewhere, flee threats, fear and misery. The U.S. has taken in its share and more of the world's unfortunates and lives with millions of undocumented, underground migrants.

Colombian President Iván Duque and U.S. President Donald Trump talked about the Venezuelan migration crisis and anti-drug strategies during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 2018 United Nations General Assembly in New York. Cesar Carrion Colombian Presidency

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article228591129.html#storylink=cpy

Canada has never been averse to absorbing its 'share' of the world's refugees as a wealthy nation which also takes in over a quarter million immigrants annually. But a clapped-out former Liberal politician-turned-human-rights advocate like Lloyd Axworth pursues his righteous advocacy. Mexico has expressed its willingness to absorb large numbers of the economic migrants that have flooded its border cities. Most of these migrants have no wish to remain in Mexico, despite the government's overtures and generosity of spirit; they plan to forge on to advantage themselves by entering the United States; legally or illegally.

Domestic and social violence suffered by women is not a monopoly held by Central American countries; that kind of violence occurs everywhere, including in Canada. Canada has problems with women brought in to the country under false pretenses who are then marketed as sex workers against their will. By accepting people from other countries and other cultures where women hold degraded positions in society and where the traditions and practices of victimizing women and girls continues while in Canada, it transforms society even further for ill.

Urging Canada to accept LGBTQ2 communities and women and children fleeing the threats that consume their lives in Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia and Venezuela will aid a limited number of members of those targeted communities but having done so, will not stem the flow of others like them desperate to escape the grinding poverty, violence and fear they live with within states whose failures present the world with these conundrums of rescue, choice and forging of economic ties.

The flow is endless.

Central American migrants, mostly from Honduras, wait on the sidewalk for their turn to eat breakfast in a shelter in Tijuana, Mexico. (©2019 World Vision/photo by Israel Carcamo)

Two-Pronged Battle: Fight Against Ebola and Attacks Against Medical Personnel

"Our staff has to lie about being doctors in order to treat people."
"When our doctors try to find housing, some say they are lawyers [to avoid suspicion that usually falls on health workers]."
Tariq Riebel, emergency response director, Congo, International Rescue Committee

"The tragedy is that we have the technical means to stop Ebola, but until all parties halt attacks on the response, it will be very difficult to end this outbreak."
Tedros Adhanom, WHO director general

"According to witnesses at the scene, these militiamen wanted all the expatriates to go  home because according to them, Ebola does not exist in Butembo."
"They said they will continue [their attacks] if these expatriates do not return as soon as possible."
Patrick Kambale Tsiko, deputy mayor, Butembo, Democratic Republic of Congo

"We need to call the situation what it is."
"Countries will be forced to act if the outbreak spills across [Congo's] borders, but by then, the cost of response will be much greater and the prospects for containment will be much more difficult."
Jennifer Nuzzo, senior scholar, John Hopkins Center for Health Security

Health workers have been attacked as they tackle ther DR Congo Ebola outbreak AFP

Doctors engaged in a professional, humanitarian task fighting yet another deadly Ebola outbreak fear to appear in the uniforms that reflect their profession, so they conceal their identities in Congo, hoping to avoid the harassment and violence that erupts when health professionals enter a village wearing white clothing distinguishing them for what they practise. In Congo, where another Ebola epidemic is spreading, rampant misinformation spreads right alongside the disease.

Outsiders appearing in the country creates an atmosphere of stark xenophobia, with people convinced that health workers spread the disease, having brought it into the country with them, despite the pretense of battling it. There were 119 attacks in 2019 against health workers, logged by the World Health Organization. What's more, eighty-five health workers have in that period, been wounded or killed in attacks designed to drive them from the country.

Experts point out that after attacks take place, Ebola infections have a tendency to spike since emergency responders are forced by deadly violence to protect themselves, taking cover and halting the distribution of vaccines to boost immunity against Ebola. The infection count is rising alongside the death count. Concerns are growing at Congo's Ministry of Health that North Kivu province in Congo will soon mirror the battle against hemorrhagic fever that killed close to twelve thousand people across three African countries.

A Cameroonian epidemiologist killed in an attack while working in the city of Butembo resulted in hundreds of Congolese doctors and nurses massing in a street protest, threatening to strike unless the city's mayor took steps to protect them, with stronger security. A WHO team was attacked in early May after burying an Ebola victim, when dozens of gunmen stormed the health team's complex, exchanging bullets with security forces.

Health workers marched in Butembo on Wednesday to protest the violence they're facing. The demonstration comes in the wake of an attack last Friday in which an epidemiologist from Cameroon was shot and killed.

Al-hadji Kudra Maliro/AP

Armed fighters are convinced that foreign health workers are responsible for the epidemic in Congo. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withdrew its Ebola experts from North Kivu last year when an armed group attacked a Congolese military site close to where the CDC team was travelling. Its 17 people in the cities of Kinshasa and Goma are set to be increased to 40, according to CDC director Robert Redfield. "The outbreak response is not succeeding despite all the efforts", he remarked.

Goma has a population of a million, and it has direct flights to transit hubs including Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Entebbe, Uganda. "We make a mistake underestimating the complexity of this outbreak", explained Mr. Redfield in view of experts urging the global community for increased resources to Congo. The outbreak wracking Congo will not remain in Congo, and this concern for neighbouring countries, along with an extended reach -- through international travel -- of the communicable disease, speaks to the seriousness of the situation.

"We're at a breaking point", Stephen Morrison, senior vice-president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, tracking the outbreak, warned. "Violent attacks are winning, and infections are unchecked." According to a 2019 Human Rights Watch report, over 140 armed groups operated in North and South Kivu provinces last year. Leading medical workers to abandon the SUVs they drive that reveal their identities, in favour of motorcycles, and civilian clothing.

A UN armored vehicle and guards outside the Ebola response headquarters in Beni, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on December 27, 2018.

Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images

The Scourge of Its Evil Resurgence

"There's an ideological pattern that is common."
The world is seen as in a bad shape, and what hinders it becoming a better place are the Jews."
Gunther Jikelo, expert on European anti-Semitism, Indiana University

"Today, mainstream European and North American politicians, even presidents, premiers and prime ministers, don't hesitate to flirt with or embrace overtly anti-Semitic messages and memes."
David Nirenberg, dean, Divinity School, University of Chicago

"Globalization and especially the crisis of 2008 have strenghtened a feeling of being at the mercy of mechanisms that we do not understand, let alone control."
"From there it is only a small step to classical conspiracy theories, which have always formed the core of anti-Semitism."
Stefanie Schuler-Springorum, head, Center for anti-Semitism Research, Berlin

"The crisis surrounds Hussein Al-Taee, a new member of parliament from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which won a narrow victory in the April 14 elections."
"A few days after the Finnish elections, Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook. For four of these years, Al-Taee served as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), a state-run conflict-resolution firm founded by the former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, and currently headed by former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb."
"Al-Taee's campaign had centered on his CMI credentials as someone who worked at 'bridging peace'."
"Although Stubb publicly condemned Al-Taee's hate-filled social media comments -- which included comparing Israel to ISIS and referring to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a 'Jew doing what a Jew does best: F***s up everybody to gain everything' -- he has not been asked why a pro-Iranian regime advocate was working for CMI in the first place."
Kenneth Sikorski, author of the political website TundraTabloids.com, Finland

"Omar, a Somali-American and one of two Muslim women in Congress, posted on Twitter in 2012 that 'Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.' She drew condemnation in February even from fellow Democrats after she implied that Jewish politicians in the U.S. were bought."
Gregg Re, Fox News

U.S. Democratic Representative, Ilhan Omar's infamous anti-Semitism

"Jewish groups gathered outside the UK Parliament to demonstrate against anti-Semitism. The Jewish Leadership Council, an umbrella organization for several Jewish groups and institutions in the UK, said that there was 'no safe space' in the Labour Party for Jewish people. 'Rightly or wrong, Jeremy Corbyn is now the figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture, based upon an obsessive hatred of Israel, conspiracy theories and fake news', the chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, Jonathan Goldstein, said."
Vox

Vox

"My opinion on the matter has changed following the ongoing brutalization in German society. I can no longer recommend Jews wear a kippa at every time and place in Germany."
"[About 90 percent of the anti-Semitic crimes in Germany are committed by far-right activists], although there are Muslims who have been living here for a while and watch Arab channels in which a murderous image of Israel and of Jews is shown." 
"Many of them [Germany's police forces] don’t know what's allowed and what's not. There is a clear definition of anti-Semitism and cops should be taught it during their training,"
Felix Klein, Germany's anti-Semitism commissioner 

"France has the largest Jewish population in Europe and the third largest in the world. Anti-Semitism in the country springs not only from fringe online groups but also from a long history of Jewish persecution and a contemporary anti-establishment surge. Today, Jewish historians and advocacy groups say, the far-left, the far-right, and radical Muslims—groups with few shared interests, historically—are finding common ground in anti-Semitism and the gilets jaunes. And as they do so, the language of anti-Semitism is shifting, making it particularly hard to track and filter as new laws would demand."
Jess McHugh, The New Republic

Graves vandalised with swastikas at a Jewish cemetery (Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images)

Signs, signals, symbols, symptoms of anti-Semitism are rising steadily in all countries of the world. Coincidentally the world is absorbing ever greater numbers of Muslim immigrants, haven seekers, refugees from their native Muslim-majority countries bringing with them their visceral hatred of Jews and of Israel. Their presence in the millions dwarfs the Jewish historical presence throughout Europe. Muslims in the Middle East fight against the very thought of 'normalization' with a Jewish state in 'their' Islamic geography, claiming the land never was part of Jewish heritage.

And now that Germany has six million Muslims, a burgeoning population displacing indigenous Germans in many towns and cities of Germany, the 200,000 Jews living there find themselves living an uneasy existence. France, as Europe's nation with the largest Muslim demographic has become a dangerous place for Jews to remain. Threats are viral and attacks are deadly. French Muslims teeming in the banlieues where French law and order dare not venture, represent a threat to all that is European, both socially and legally.

Jewish Labour lawmakers in the United Kingdom have left their party as it becomes ever more heavily ingrained with anti-Semitism, led by Labour's Jeremy Corbin whose idea of partners for peace is Hamas and Hezbollah. Jewish cemeteries across Europe have become favourite hunting grounds for Jew-haters whose notorious actions topple gravestones or daub them with Swastikas and messages for Jews to depart countries not their own, but then Israel is not their own, either.

Anti-Semitism post-Second World War was kept under wraps. In this current age of geographic destabilization and political barking, it has lost some of its stench for those who feel entitled to hound, harass, threaten and violate the human rights of Jewish populations wherever they are. Jews are looked upon increasingly as a threat to national identity; is their loyalty to the state where they live, or is it unreservedly to Israel? A pretext for singling Jews out as unique in this respect.

At a time when Arab Sunni-majority countries in the Middle East have decided that the strongest, most militarily capable in their midst might balance the scales against the aspirations of Persian Shi'ite ambitions is worthwhile being finally accepted as a legitimate presence in the Middle East reflecting their historically ancient Judean presence, Europe and North America, long the recipient and beneficiary of diaspora Jewish professionals in every aspect of civilized and social advances have turned against their Jews.

"Sweden will host a conference of international leaders to combat antisemitism in October 2020, the country’s prime minister announced on Friday."
"While the conference will likely highlight that Malmo’s status as a refuge for Danish Jews fleeing Nazi occupation, as well as a home for thousands of concentration camp survivors after the war, the city has in recent years become a symbol of the antisemitism that has plagued the 20,000-strong Jewish community in Sweden. Emanating mainly from elements of the city’s large Muslim population, the climate of fear in Malmo has resulted in the shrinking of its Jewish community by 50 percent."
"Lofven’s presence in Malmo on Friday was the result of a controversy over antisemitism in the ranks of the ruling Social Democratic Party’s youth movement."
"Members of the SSU youth league in Malmo were recorded chanting the slogan, 'Long live Palestine, crush Zionism!' at an international workers day rally on May 1."
the algemeiner

A ‘Bagelstein’ cafe in Paris targeted with antisemitic graffiti. Photo: Twitter.

"The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has voted to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism."
"The move was initiated by Reverend Dr. Richard Frazer — the convener of the Church and Socity Council — who pointed out that antisemitic incidents in the UK were 'at a record high for the third year in a row'."
"The adoption of the IHRA definition, he added, would 'aid the Church in challenging antisemitism'."
the algemeiner

The Church of Scotland Offices in Edinburgh. Photo: Kim Traynor via Wikimedia Commons.

Releasing Unrepentant Committed Jihadis

"Had I realized then what I know now about the Taliban, I would never have joined them. I never understood jihad to mean anti-Americanism or terrorism."
"Free time is a great gift from Allah and few people enjoy more of it than prisoners. The best way we can express our gratitude to Allah for this gift is through the study, recitation, memorization, contemplation, and implementation of His Noble Book."
"The Islamic State is clearly very sincere and serious about fulfilling the long-neglected religious obligation of establishing a caliphate through armed struggle, which is the only correct method."
John Walker Lindh, American jihadi

John Walker Lindh traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 and attended a terror training camp where he was introduced to Osama bin Laden.

"[The BOP encourages all inmates, including those linked to terrorism, to participate in programs] that assist offenders in developing the skills necessary for a successful reintegration into society."

"Based on a series of focused interviews conducted by BOP staff, the BOP has found that many inmates have turned away from radicalized ideology in prison based on self-study, or due to participation in programming or sentence length."
U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons

"[Lindh] continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts." 
"[In March 2016 he] told a television news producer that he would continue to spread violent extremist Islam upon his release."
"[Lindh had made] pro ISIS statements to various reporters." 
National Counterterrorism Center and the federal Bureau of Prisons report

In Western countries the return of 'radicalized' citizens from participation in Islamist jihad bringing with them their experiences of jihadi warfare poses a dilemma. Any country in the Middle East faced with a similar situation recognizes no dilemma whatever. The solution is swift and direct; a nominal trial and an execution. The method of capital punishment reflecting in fact, the kind of execution which when carried out triumphantly by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant never failed to horrify the West as medieval-era atrocities.

On the other hand, countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia deal with the situation in a time-honoured Sharia-led measure that leaves no room for worrisome speculation over what will result when the Islamist jihadis are released from prison into the general population. Israel knows full well what the risks and probabilities are. Release of terrorists from Israeli jails, often in 'exchange' for the bodies of Israeli citizens or soldiers, generally results in the terrorists taking up where they left off after apprehension.

This image from television footage shows John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan on Dec. 1, 2001. Lindh was a Taliban soldier who was captured at that time.
APTN/AP

In addition to which it has long been recognized that North American prison systems become the perfect breeding grounds for introduction to Islam among the non-Islamic inmates, and to Islamist terrorism through jihad for all inmates vulnerable to the attraction of committing brutal violence in the name of a religion of peace. "There is very close to nothing in terms of de-radicalizing programs at the federal level", observed a research fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism.

"The current model is hoping long prison sentences for material support of terrorism will be a deterrent." And in the case of converts to Islam like John Walker Lindh, just released from a U.S. federal penitentiary after having served 17 years of a 20-year sentence for travelling abroad to join ranks with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, making the acquaintance of Osama bin Laden, and proudly adding his fervent recruitment to jihad to their strength, it appears hugely unlikely that this man who approved of the work of the Islamic State is prepared to turn his sword into a plowshare.

And after him there is another group of about 500 prisoners in U.S. jails sentenced for terrorism-related crimes, a fifth of whom will within five years, be released; 62 of whom are U.S. citizens. Lindh was adjudged to have done the right thing by pleading guilty of providing support to the Taliban, and for his recognized 'good behaviour', rated three years chopped off his original sentence. An Alexandria Virginia federal judge set out conditions for his release; he cannot hold a passport or leave the U.S.

But Lindh has plans to go to Ireland, where he had secured citizenship, claiming that the notoriety that has accompanied his return to his native country of first citizenship denies him a normal lifestyle. As though his choices in life; his surrender to Islam,  his adoption of fundamentalism, his eagerness to become a jihadi, and his usefulness to al-Qaeda, and while in prison his dedication to portraying himself to other Islamists as a pure soul beloved of Allah, are not all of his own making, a deliberate abandonment of the American values he was raised within.

In 2017, Foreign Policy magazine revealed that a National Counterterrorism Center report stated that Lindh "continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts". Clearly, someone in the prison system prefers to remain oblivious to all these clear and present danger signs. According to his statement sent in 2015 to a news source, the Islamic State group was "doing a spectacular job".

John Walker Lindh being treated at a US Army hospital on December 2, 2001, in Sheberghan, Afghanistan, following his capture.

CNN via Getty Images

Never Fear, Trudeau's Here!

"China is playing stronger, making stronger moves than it has before to try and get its own way on the world stage and western countries and democracies around the world are pulling together to point out that this not something that we need to continue to allow..."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau May 2019

Chinese and Canadian flags on show in front of the Forbidden City on December 4, 2017 in Beijing, China.

"Nobody in the Chinese government wants to meet with a Canadian minister or special envoy -- even if the prime minister were to phone [Chinese] President Xi Jinping, he would not take the call."
"But so far, the Chinese have been adamant that unless we promise to release [Meng], they don’t want to meet with anyone."
"We need to work with our partners to reinforce the multilateral system -- an environment where we have predictable rules that apply to everyone. Otherwise, we could end up in a situation where countries like China or the United States would dictate the rules to everyone else."
Former Canadian Ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques

Chinese fury at Canada's perfidy in arresting the chief financial officer of Huawei on an extradition warrant from the U.S. in view of her role in defrauding U.S. financial institutions in defiance of the U.S. sanctions against Iran, has no bounds. Two Canadians, an ex-diplomat and an entrepreneur have been arrested, denied legal representation, kept incommunicado, questioned relentlessly, undergone subtle torture techniques, and finally charged with espionage in a vituperative quid-pro-quo. Two other Canadians have been sentenced to death for purported drug smuggling.

A series of economic trade blows encompassing everything from Canadian soy products to pork exports from Canada under various pretexts have hobbled trade in Canadian goods. Canada, on the other hand, cautions that it must respond calmly, not to further disturb the threatening monster that is China. Before he assumed the prime ministership, Justin Trudeau mused about China's "basic dictatorship", enabling it, he said admiringly, to 'swivel on a dime'. Now he knows how that dynamic swivel is capable of disabling relations with a powerful trade giant.

It was his father Pierre as prime minister before him, who opened Canada up to China, in his fabled trip to the Asian colossus. And it was Jean Chretien, another former Liberal prime minister, who while in office, carefully groomed personal contacts with the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy and business community, leading a number of trade missions, to arrange a trade and business nest for himself with China, once he stepped away from office in electoral defeat.

When the Conservatives came to power and then-prime minister Stephen Harper expressed discomfort with China's human rights record, hesitating to pursue increased trade opportunities in China, Jean Chretien scorned his tentativeness as he continued to lead trade delegations, this time working for a prestigious Quebec-based law firm. Justin Trudeau's own aborted effort to sign a free trade deal with China collapsed under the weight of his tedious feminist and workers' rights agenda.

Now, the same China that supplies the world with illegal and deadly laboratory-manufactured opioid-alikes such as fentanyl and carfentanil, powerful drugs leading to the deaths of countless drug users in Europe and North America, suddenly finds it just to condemn two Canadians to death for drug smuggling. No one is permitted to shove back against China's push-and-shove marketing of its products, and Huawai represents one of China's starring technological giants.

Canada, in honouring its extradition agreement with the U.S., which is in a trade war with its global rival China, has brought the wrath of the Communist Party down on Canada. And Justin Trudeau quakes in dismay, calling on other democracies to come to Canada's defence. Trudeau's milquetoast reaction to Beijing's relentless harassment and assaults on Canadians reveals a government and a leader out of its depths.

Anguished telephone messages are left by Trudeau's Cabinet ministers for their Chinese counterparts to respond, and just as Xi has failed to acknowledge Trudeau's messages, leaving them unanswered, it speaks volumes about the limpid efforts made by Canada and the arrogant presumption of Chinese leadership that it can quash any leader of any country that has the presumptive stupidity to challenge China's primacy on the world stage.

Canada fears doing anything to further stir China's rage. Trudeau could and should but cowers over additional consequences. Refusing Chinese goods' shipments, taxing others, halting coal shipments to China, withdrawing Canadian financial investment in the China-centred Asia Bank, outright freezing Huawei out of Canada's 5G telecommunications might be a good start.

Paralysis, it appears, becomes Justin Trudeau, the consummate thespian whose talents on the stage have failed their occupation of the world stage.

"I think there are ways in which a stronger relationship makes it easier for our two countries to have regular, frank discussions on issues like good governance, human rights, and the rule of law. Freedom of expression is a true Canadian value, one protected by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You see, Canada has succeeded, culturally, politically, economically because of our diversity, not in spite of it."
"I shared with them my strong conviction that acceptance of diverse perspectives will strengthen China, just as it has Canada. In a world of rapid change, it is a diversity of ideas, and the free ability to express them, that drives positive change."
"When Canadian companies partner with Chinese companies, it means more and better-paying jobs here in China as well."
"Canada encourages China to do more to promote and protect human rights."
Justin Trudeau, September 2016

Vapidly virtuous signalling; we hear you, Justin Trudeau!

Photo: Canadian Press