Russia Has Worn Out Its Welcome in Ukraine

"Russia's combat force in the Donbas is highly likely to be operating in increasingly ad hoc and severely undermanned groupings."

"For both sides fighting in the contested towns, frontline combat is likely increasingly devolving to small groups of troops typically operating on foot."

British Ministry of Defence

"[France, Germany, Italy and Romania] are doing everything so that Ukraine alone can decide its fate."

"We are side-by-side today with Chancellor Scholz. One hundred years ago, we were at war and allies helped France win. France committed a historic mistake. It lost the peace because it wanted to humiliate Germany. The question of humiliation I always placed in a context to come, not the current context."

"Today, this war must be won. France clearly supports Ukraine so it prevails."

"Germany, like France, will never be in situations where they negotiate on Ukraine's behalf with Russia."

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"My colleagues and I have come here to Kyiv today with a clear message: Ukraine belongs to the European family."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

President Klaus Iohannis of Romania, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany holding a news conference after meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday.  Credit...Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Moscow, it seems, has rejected the opportunity opened to it with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to join the 'European family'. For a while it looked as though a succession of presidents from Yeltsin to Gorbachev with his perestroika and glasnov initiatives, were edging closer to bringing Russia into the European mainstream, willing and able to change the communist character of Russia to more closely resemble the democratic character of Europe. That changed when Yeltsin's successor was a former KGB officer.

And despite George W.Bush ruminating that he was able to see Vladimir Putin's soul through the sincerity of his eyes, what he really saw was his own naivete reflecting back at him through the mirror of Putin's inscrutable eyes. Behind those eyes was a yearning for the days of the Soviet Union and its position as a world power with its power-commandeered satellite-nations at its command.

 

Ukrainian forces firing toward Russian positions with a Caesar self-propelled howitzer in eastern Ukraine. France promised to provide more of the weapons, prized for accuracy.  Credit...Reuters

The Russian Federation has moved itself forward to a new plane resembling the old one and its president's frustration with the slow pace of advancing toward the past, committed Russia to a rash act of attempted violent destruction of a neighbour. In the process, Russia has found its own military put to the rack and its victim, while suffering great losses, has at the same time effected great gains in destroying the illusion that it would fold under Putin's demand.

It is fully understandable and certainly deserved that Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has in mind the humiliation of an invading nation that has caused countless deaths, created millions of refugees and displaced, and destroyed huge swaths of Ukrainian civic enclaves, reducing towns and villages to smoking ruins. The simple fact is that Russia deserves to be humiliated. And Zelenskyy's challenge to Europe to shun and humiliate Russia is fully justified.

France and Germany in particular see any such act of recrimination and punishment as self-defeating; burning the bridges of their future relationships with Russia, given its vast energy stores so anxiously waited on by both countries, along with the rest of the continent. It is a searing kind of justice that Zelenskyy insists upon, a penalty imposed for mass murder, looting and cultural defacement. Macon and Scholz can speak as feelingly as they wish; they are not the targets, theirs was not the sacrifice and their solution is nothing short of sanctimonious.

Mr. Scholz in the devastated city of Irpin on Thursday.  Credit...Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters

A Tempest in China's Teapot

"A father's love is like the mountains, towering and strong."
"I can't be there with you [celebrating your birthday] eating the food you make, listening to you chit-chat, touching your wrinkles or kissing your smiling face."
"And I can't be there to take your critical advice. Remember, you owe me this."
"Please make it up after I get back home."
Meng Wanzhou, CFO, Huawei 

Meng Wanzhou’s birthday wishes to her father RenZhengfei.Twitter

"The reason we [daughter Meng Wanzhou and himself] are not close is that when she was little, I joined the military. For 22 months out of a year, I couldn't be with my kids."
"She [daughter Meng Wanzhou] has always been a manager and a manager is good at managing a wide span of issues."
"But for a leader, you need to have a strong vertical ability. You need to be able to see things happening in ten or twenty years..."
"She won't be a successor [to himself at Huawei] because she doesn't have this background."
Ren Zhengfel, head, Huawei Technologies, China

Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Meng Wanzhou languishes in her Vancouver luxury mansion,  held on bail conditions requiring that she remain in Vancouver awaiting extradition to the United States on conspiracy charges to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. She wears a fairly conspicuous ankle bracelet as part of her bail conditions. Her arrest in December of 2018 honouring an extradition treaty between Canada and the U.S. on a warrant by U.S. officials has infuriated China which has issued threats and slanderous accusations against Canada. In retaliation, Beijing ordered the arrest of two Canadian doing business in China, accusing them of espionage, plotting against China. Another Canadian, facing a 15-year prison sentence for ostensibly smuggling drugs out of China, was summarily given a death sentence instead.

Beijing hasn't stopped there. It went on in quick-step order, to cancel imports of Canadian canola, pork and other agricultural products. China plays hardball, as its idea of diplomatically engaging with other countries when Beijing feels affronted over assaults on China's dignity in reflection of its elite status as a world power, a trading colossus, an influential investor and a world-class bully whose relations with its neighbours has gone from frosty to threatening as it sweeps up land, sea and airspace that they all have claims to, for its very own.

"The only language China understands is one of firmness."
"Now that we have seen the dark side of China and how they can punish you if you do something they don't like or if you don't obey their diktats, I think it's appropriate for us to reassess our engagement strategy."
"I know that Michael Kovrig is exasperated. Every time there is a consular visit, he says, ‘When are you going to get me out?’ It’s a boring life, being in jail, when you know you have not done anything that is reprehensible."
Guy Saint-Jacques, Canadian ambassador to Beijing, 2012 to 2016

"I really wonder whether someone who is on the record as saying he's 'bullish' about China's strongman leader [Xi Jinping] is really the right person to interpret China for the government of Canada."
"What we need is a revised China policy, one that says we are not going to relentlessly build the relationship. In fact, that's actually a little dangerous for us."
David Mulroney, Canadian ambassador to China, 2009 to 2012

"The Canadian government's policy since December of last year has not delivered the desired result."
"In fact, our lack of response I think is taken by the Chinese authorities as passive consent for their gross violations of normal diplomatic practice."
Charles Burton, professor, Brock University, former Canadian diplomat in Beijing

In this file photo taken on March 6, 2019, Louis Huang of Vancouver Freedom and Democracy for China holds photos of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who are being detained by China, in Vancouve, Canada - Canada on May 16 2019, demanded that China promptly release Spavor and Kovrig, who were formally arrested following months of detention on national security grounds, amid rising tensions between the two nations.Jason Redmond / AFP

Canada's newly appointed ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, was among Canadian consular officials permitted finally to visit Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two unfortunate Canadians whose lives were suddenly suspended when Beijing decided they would make excellent candidates to be charged with the crime of espionage against China. As a 'balance' to the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Ambassador Barton presumably was disinterested in visiting Robert Schellenberg the drug smuggler on death row. He can, it would seem, fend for himself.

There is much at stake for Canada in this new appointment. Ambassador Barton has long been familiar to China having worked with powerful Chinese business people and politicians with a consulting firm "almost sycophantic" -- according to former Ambassador Mulroney -- toward the Communist leadership. Ambassador Barton, like yet another appointed Canadian, John McCallum, fully sympathizes with China. Ambassador McCallum to the extent that he advised the government of Canada to simply relax its extradition agreement with the U.S. in Ms.Wanzhou's case.

Both have been fond of ingratiating themselves with Chinese authorities, to the extent, yes, of being sycophantic. The large economic issue of solving the impasse with the billions of dollars in trade down the drain as a particularly China-centric mode of punishment looms before Ambassador Barton as a vital goal in fulfilling his mandate. He was, after all, chosen for this diplomatic mission based on his insider status as a Canadian in China with outstanding connections.

Formerly, in attempting to deal with China's rage and its imposition of penalties by targeting vulnerable Canadian to victimize as a signal to the government of Canada that China can only be appeased if a grovelling apology and the release of Meng Wanzhou takes place, Canada has politely objected to Beijing's venomous charges and abandonment of diplomatic and civil exchanges. The World Trade Organization received a complaint about the canola issue, and Canada called on its fellow democracies to voice an opinion over Beijing's uncordial manner, all to no avail.

Without exception, former Canadian diplomats with experience in China have declared Ottawa's reaction under Justin Trudeau to Bejing's toxic behaviour to be worthless. That a more strenuous and principled reaction must be adopted, including boycotting the upcoming Olympics in China, withdraw investment from the Asian Infrastructure Bank, expelling Chinese diplomats who have exerted undue influence in Canada, including intimidation of Chinese-Canadians who manifest a stronger loyalty to Canada than to China, and who support the Hong Kong protesters.

Turnisa Matsedik-Qira, of the Vancouver Uyghur Association, demonstrates against China’s treatment of Uyghurs while holding a photo of detained Canadians Michael Spavor (L) and Michael Kovrig outside a court appearance for Huawei Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou at the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver on May 8, 2019. Jason Redmond / AFP

The Phantom Phobia: Islamophobia

"There's No Such Thing as Islamophobia. Critique of religion is a fundamental western right, not an illness."
"Nothing is more western than hatred of the West. All of modern thought can be reduced to mechanical denunciations of the West, emphasizing the latter's hypocrisy, violence, and abomination."
Pascal Bruckner, French philosopher

Canada's Parliament passed a controversial bill condemning "Islamophobia", and requiring that an investigation take place into the incidence of Islamophobia within Canada. The majority of Canadians were not in favour of the bill introduced by a Muslim Member of Parliament, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid. Its passage was supported by the New Democratic Party, and opposed by the opposition Conservative Party of Canada which had proposed rewording the bill to remove "Islamophobia" and replace it with all manner of discrimination, omitting the focus on Islam.

If the concept and the meaning of Islamophobia is not defined and is left to anyone to interpret it to suit their impressions, it hardly represents a social ill that can be addressed if it cannot even be adequately explained. The reaction of the general public not of the Muslim faith when they recoil in horror at the many transgressions against human rights committed by the faithful in Islam? That virtually all acts of terrorism taking place in the world today have their genesis in Islam, with the perpetrators proudly proclaiming 'Allahu Akbar!' as they engage in slaughter?

If people feel wary and uncomfortable about Islam which its followers insist is a religion of peace, while the Koran and the Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Mohammad) describe the world outside Islam as being places of "conflict", whereas "peace" only resides where Islam is paramount, it is little wonder. We would be blind, deaf and spectacularly oblivious to the carnage wrought throughout the world in the name of Islam if no links were made with terrorist groups and Islam, leading to suspicion of that world religion. But that awareness is identified by Muslims lashing back, as "Islamophobia".


Khalid's motion, known as Bill-103, calls on the government to do three things:

• Condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.
• Quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear.
• Compel the Commons heritage committee to develop a government-wide approach for reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid says she's relieved motion M-103 passed in the House of Commons. The vote passed by a margin of 201-91. Still from video, Global News

The word in very fact has weaponized language, not a new thing, but an effective bludgeon with which to silence critics of Islam. The word is associated with racism, although there's nothing racist about religion; that particular religion is practised throughout the world in disparate countries from the Middle East to South-East Asia to North Africa, North America, Europe, Australia and beyond. Its faithful are in fact legion, the 'umma' represent about a billion people, a bit fewer than practise Christianity. The fervency of Christianity has been muted of late, but not that of Islam.

And Muslims have a tendency to become fanatically infuriated at any suggestion of criticism of their religion, much less their hallowed figure of the Prophet Mohammad. Perceived disrespect of the Prophet or of the Koran can result in murderous onslaughts, rampages, fury and destruction, mutilation and slaughter. This resonates in peoples' minds and memories; that of non-Muslims, while Muslims continue to insist that theirs is a religion of peace, a misunderstood religion that no one has the right to defame.

So "Islamophobia" is a silencing tool, and an effective one at that, since particularly in the West, people are sensitive to slights they are perceived to wield against others, and detest being singled out as being socially deficient, even if the claims are so obviously contrived, purposed to shame and to silence. Making the assumption that the good people living among us who are faithful to Islam feel shame at the intolerance and violence perpetrated by those practising their religion based on the scriptures held sacred to that religion, can be both right and wrong.

Right, because among all populations there are people who perceive clearly and wish nothing to do with hatred and violence. Wrong, because in those same populations reside a considerable percentage who feel that whatever is written in the Koran is right and positive because it is the word of god and anything done in god's name, not any god, but Allah, has a defined and special purpose that has been prophesied for a reason. That purpose, defining the very core of the religion, is to bring peace to the world by curing it of its warring status as a non-Muslim reality.

The faithful feel, because they have been taught since childhood, steeped in the core values and issues of Islam and the Koran, that only when the world has accepted Islam and rejected all other 'false' religions hateful to Allah, will humankind be saved. From itself, presumably. Slight Islam? Only if one is prepared to pay the consequences. Not by being named an Islamophobe, but by bringing the wrath of Allah down on oneself in the guise of an avenging jihadi.

European states whose populations have been suffused by immigration and migrants and refugees cannot afford to be too critical of the fact that those immigrants, migrants and  refugees who are Muslim are unwilling to integrate, to accept Western values, to cede to the culture and laws that preceded them. They risk much by confronting Islam, for the fury of its believers will not tolerate any suggestion that Islam and its values is any less than perfect, for it is god's will.

Canada has rejected Islamophobia, how very fitting and uplifting.

France's Dreadful Dilemma

"This is a terrible ordeal which once again assails us We know where it comes from, who these criminals are, who these terrorists are."
French President Francois Hollande

"[The slaughters were conducted by] a group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate [choosing Paris since it is] the capital of prostitution and vice, the lead carrier of the cross in Europe."
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Tokyo Skytree, the world's tallest broadcasting tower, is illuminated in the colors of the French flag on Nov. 15. © Reuters

A very conservative estimate has it that four percent of poll respondents carried out by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies are sympathetic to ISIL, with a "positive" view of their agenda. Considering the fact that Muslims in France make up ten percent of the population, that number, taken in the context of potential recruits to Islamism's jihad against the West, and in particular France, whose military has been active in its former colonies in Africa and the Middle East, that is hugely significant.

Yet official France is urging its citizens not to close their minds and their hearts, to continue to compassionately welcome refugees who are Muslim to the French experience. The French experience thus far has not been a dreadfully positive one for those refugees, as it happens. They tend to spurn French law, French custom, French values, for Islam-centric ones that run counter to the French experience.

They tend to isolate themselves in hostile ghettos surrounding Paris, in banlieus dark, poverty-ridden and deliberately apart, where opportunities for a rounded education are absent, where employment opportunities are dismal, and where no interest whatever in the French experience is a fact of life there. And this is where festering hatreds are formalized. This is also where French police dare not enter without taking self-protective steps to adequately arm themselves against violence directed against them.

From these banlieues come occasional violent riots, and the symbolism of rejection through the massive burning of vehicles in an expression of wholesale rejection of the French experience. In these ghettoes live the disaffected from France's former colonial days, a kind of obligatory noblesse oblige that France practices in honour of Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty, all of which notions appear to be rejected by French Muslims, even while they complain of its lack on their behalf.

And while official France stands prepared to continue accepting Muslim refugees as a member in good standing of the European Union, it also lectures its traumatized population that the carnage it has experienced most latterly that left 132 Parisians dead and 350 wounded, about a hundred so grievously that the death count may yet rise, has nothing to do with Islam. That the well-armed and militarily-trained jihadists working in three organized teams for maximum success shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' is completely incidental and meaningless to their identity.

France's anguish over the dreadful misfortune of becoming a target time and again for the horrendously malignant Islamist jihadist fascists practising a severely fundamentalist Islam reflecting the original Islam, the Islam that directs its faithful in complete surrender to the larger purpose of Islam, to engage in jihad, while still attempting to preserve its humanitarian, compassionate values represents a dilemma facing the entire Western world.

After the January 2015 jihadist attacks in Paris, France's President François Hollande declared: "We must reject facile thinking and eschew exaggeration. Those who committed these terrorist acts, those terrorists, those fanatics, have nothing to do with the Muslim religion."

Don't Cry For Her, Argentina!

"The Argentine people should know that we're talking about a vulgar lie, of an enormous media operation, of a strategy of political destabilization and the biggest judicial coup d'etat in the history of Argentina to cover the real perpetrators of the crime."
Jorge Capitanich, Argentinian cabinet chief

"Moving the case forward represents a] clear manoeuvre to destabilize democracy. Regardless of which] it has no legal value. It does not matter."
Anibal Fernandez, presidential spokesman

Argentina’s president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signals to supporters during an event announcing new government projects at the government palace. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP

Ah, yes, the very picture of innocence, a victim of a conspiracy to unseat her government through claims that Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is not what she presents herself as. Listen up, critics, if she is guilty of anything it is of thinking of Argentina first and foremost; of leading her country out of its economic frailty to take its deserved place among the financial and social leaders of the free world.

So, a crime was committed. So long ago, it's history. Why not allow these things to just fade; after all, Argentina is not immune to having suffered through long periods of unfortunate government, but that too is all in the past, and the future beckons for Argentina. The extrajudicial killings and the tragedy of "disappearances" will never return to this proud democracy. With an estimated 30,000 Argentinians having mysteriously disappeared back then what's a bombing that killed a mere 85 people. And Jews mostly at that.

Not that Jews aren't patriotic Argentinians, citizens of the country proud to take their place among all others. But you know... First things first, the 1994 tragedy at the Jewish community centre happened, and it was unfortunate, but there is no real proof of who was involved, and so it should be treated like the proverbial sleeping dog. As for relations with Iran; remember that country generously offered to help Argentina in its investigation. And, as well, offered Argentina an enviable deal on oil that only an idiotic administration would pass up.

So, here we are, problems where we don't really need them, with the prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita's determination to advance with the case claiming that Ms. Fernandez and Hector Timerman, her foreign minister along with others of her administration brokered a cover-up when they knew full well who engineered and orchestrated that inconvenient bombing. Iran has denied involvement in that bombing, the Argentinian government has done nothing that any other responsible government would not also do, under the circumstances.

Prosecutor Pollicita has repeated the accusations lodged against the president by his predecessor in the investigation, the unfortunate Alberto Nisman who must have had many enemies for some arcane reason which escapes identification to cause his death only hours before he was set to present the evidence he claimed would prove his accusations. And now the very same evidence is once again to be presented to Judge Daniel Rafecas assigned to the case, who in his wisdom will determine to dismiss or to take it to trial.

It was then-President Nestor Kirchner, the current president's husband who had appointed Mr. Nisman in pursuit of justice, in 2004. It took two years to get all the pieces to fit the jigsaw puzzle, but when they did, they revealed that Iranian officials, including then-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of having been involved in planning the attack. Evidence? wiretaps of administration officials speaking of a secret arrangement relating to the 2013 memorandum of understanding that Argentina accorded with Iran.

Justice will doubtless prevail; the innocent will be absolved of all charges, and the prosecution will hang its head in shame for doubting the veracity of the redoubtable and oh-so-credible President Fernandez de Kirchner.

Internationally Sanctioned Humiliation : Look Back in Despair

"Like Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, a large area of Donetsk and Luhansk [in Ukraine] now dwells in an unrecognized post-Soviet twilight zone. But those other enclaves are marginal compared with the new black hole in Eastern Ukraine, which has a large population of about three million (although many have fled), and the backbone of the national economy."
David Blair, London Daily Telegraph

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's President François Hollande attend a meeting on resolving the Ukrainian crisis in Minsk, Feb. 11, 2015.  Reuters/Mykola Lazarenko/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service

Quite the photograph; the two facilitators, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel look none too pleased with the proceedings, but not quite as embarrassed as they should be. While Vladimir Putin who has played his game to the consternation of world powers, unsettling the order of the international community's faith in the inviolability of national borders, unleashes his satisfied smirk of accomplishments, while Petro Poroshenko appears shaken, his faith in the world community's support of Ukraine in shatters.

On occasion a picture does take the place of a thousand words.

One man whose despicable ambition to replay the past and return Russia to its former state of rigid authoritarianism, where Russian power and the threat of Russian military action has its near-abroad neighbours trembling in trepidation, fascinatingly witnessing the plight of Ukraine, an unwilling and near-helpless pawn for Putin's despicable machinations using his country as a warning to the others that they too can be eviscerated should the world's current Machiavelli unleash his powerful military completely.

This time around it was no one-on-one meeting of equals, Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko; this time there were witnesses to the confident bullying and quietly implied threats that threaded their way across the room from the antagonist to the victim. Ukraine's obligations to the demands of Moscow by way of the separatist rebels confidently spelled out in "Minsk Twice-Over". The original signed agreement was swiftly abrogated, and what confidence can there be that its successor will not also be contemptibly set aside? Even if it's more to the liking of Putin?

There are no rules to this game other than those imposed by the one man who believes he has the upper hand. And why wouldn't he subscribe to that confident belief, since clearly, he has. President Poroshenko was allotted 30 generous days to initiate legal autonomy to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and rewrite Ukraine's constitution legalizing the "special status" of the Donbass by year's end. Russia, on the other hand, is obligated to withdraw its troops and battalions with their artillery and tanks, but no time-schedule imposed by the agreement.

Why such a document is termed an "agreement" is itself a bit of a mystery, since one side, that of the aggressor, has set down all the conditions which must be met by the victim before the aggressor will deign to put a halt to the violence. The victim, to whom the aggressor assigns the role of oppressor, has little option but to grimly bear his loss for no other avenue is open to him. That part of the agreement mentioning "foreign armed formations" and "military equipment", and the withdrawal thereof, speak of no timetable other than when Moscow which denies the existence of them, decides to withdraw.

As for firming up the border once again and leaving Ukraine in control of its own geographic space, that too is most certainly contingent on how Moscow feels on any given day before laconically withdrawing. The contingency is, of course, the firm reality of Kyiv delivering full legal autonomy as per demand to Donetsk and Luhansk, no ifs, ands, or hesitation.

Angela Merkel walks with Petro Poroshenko as he looks back, followed by Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin after a meeting in Minsk, Feb. 11, 2015.  Reuters/Grigory Dukor

Dutch Military Retreats Before... Tweets!

by Timon Dias
October 5, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4760/dutch-military-uniform

By ordering Dutch soldiers to be "invisible" in The Netherlands, what message is the government sending to it enemies, let alone its own citizens?
Jihadists now know that a few tweets from a single Dutch jihadist can fundamentally alter Dutch defense policy. It will order the personnel tasked with keeping The Netherlands safe to hide.
A country that has to hide its soldiers on its own soil and protect its Jewish schools with Military Police cannot possibly maintain that it has no real problems with elements of its Muslim minority.

The Dutch Ministry of Defense has advised its soldiers not wear their uniforms in public. Dutch vice Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher of the Labour Party emphasized that the proposal was merely advice.

The Dutch military, however, clearly ordered -- instead of advised -- its personnel to hide their military professions in public.

Dutch customs officials, whose uniforms could be mistaken as military, received the same advice.
The reason for this display of woefully misplaced 'conscientiousness' was a series of threats by the Dutch jihadist known as Muhajiri Shaam, a member of the al-Qaeda-affiliated group Jahbat-al Nusra.
Shaam tweeted: "So, now Dutch F-16's. Dutch people: your government just made you a target".

In a more elaborate threat, Shaam stated: "The West offered more than 90 million lives during the first and second World War for their self-glorified democracy. So the Ummah must be prepared to sacrifice even more lives for a righteous State which rules under the laws of Allah. The world has suffered the oppressive darkness of Western capitalism for long enough. It's time they get a taste of divine justice."

Threats tweeted by the jihadist known as Muhajiri Shaam, pictured above, have caused the Dutch military to order its soldiers not to wear uniforms in public.

Shaam's warnings followed in the wake of Dutch support for the military campaign against the new so-called "Islamic State" [IS].

The Dutch government last week pledged six F-16 fighter jets, two spare F-16's, and a maximum of 130 military advisors to train forces opposing IS.

These threats are being taken very seriously. The Dutch government fears attacks on its military personnel; more specific threats against Dutch soldiers have now been voiced by Dutch jihadists. This is not the first time Dutch soldiers have been ordered to become unrecognizable as members of the military. The same order was issued during the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003 and during the release of Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders' movie Fitna.

By ordering Dutch soldiers to become "invisible" in The Netherlands, what message is the government sending to its enemies, let alone its own citizens? Dutch-Iranian law professor Afshin Ellian rightfully asks: if Dutch soldiers aren't safe anymore, than who is? Jihadists now know that a few tweets from a single Dutch jihadist can fundamentally alter Dutch defense policy. Dutch citizens now know that a few tweets from a single Dutch jihadist will send shivers down their government's spine and that -- instead of making sure all threats are neutralized -- it will order the personnel tasked with keeping them safe, to hide.

The Dutch-Israeli psychotherapist and author Martin van Vliet voices his concern: "Are we supposed to be protected by a military that orders its soldiers to start wearing the invisibility cloak as soon as they find out combating Jihad is not a video game without risks? The Dutch would be right not to place their trust in their military."

Such an operational transformation -- due to a tweet -- can only embolden Islamists to become more audacious and violent. At the same time, it can also prompt Dutch citizens to take more drastic measures to secure their own safety. Although the government was likely trying to deescalate the situation and safeguard its military personnel, its action can only work as a catalyst for further social unrest, inter-cultural tensions and overall escalation.

Fortunately, some soldiers are refusing the order. Lieutenant Colonel Willem Schoonebeek, for instance, stated: "I will not be led by the dictatorship of a loud minority. This uniform represents the organization that our Defense Department is. We provide safety in The Netherlands and beyond. It would be strange to participate in a mission in Iraq, while being too scared to advertise your profession in The Netherlands."

In parallel to Dutch soldiers "disappearing" from the street scene, Amsterdam's Jewish schools now have to be protected by the Royal Military Police [RMP] at the request of the City Council, the Justice Department and the police. As the RMP is a police unit, it is still allowed to be recognizable as such.

A country that has to hide its soldiers on its own soil and protect its Jewish schools with Military Police cannot possibly maintain that its social cohesion is intact and that it has no real problems with elements of its Muslim minority. Sadly, just like the punch-line that "IS has nothing to do with Islam," most top government officials and politicians are still in full blown denial about the scale and deep seriousness of this social and cultural problem.

Related Topics:  Timon Dias