Islam Means Trouble! Will what difference does it make be the verdict and I Have a Bridge For Sale.

Read the article below and you will understand.

'The Trouble with Islam'

By Paul Eidelberg

I recently came across an article that sheds light on the reluctance of President Barack Obama to condemn Islamic terrorism. The article was written by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, an ex-Muslim terrorist. The article appeared in the April 3, 2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal. There Hamid observes that not many years ago, the brilliant Orientalist, Professor Bernard Lewis, published a short history of the Islamic world's decline. The article was entitled “What Went Wrong?”

It was astonishing to Dr. Hamid that many Western “progressives” expressed disapproval of the title of Professor Lewis’ article. These progressives, says Hamid, ignored Professor Lewis's implicit statement that things had once been right, and could again become right, with Islam.

That there is indeed much wrong with the Islamic world requires no argument. As Dr. Hamid points out, women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the law code of Islam. Sunni and Shia Muslims massacre each other daily in Iraq.

Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of martyrdom. Not an encouraging picture, but not worrisome to progressives.

What disturbs Dr. Hamid is that the non-Muslim “priests of enlightenment” in the West have come, actively and passively, to the defense of the Islamists. These “progressives” address the issue by emphasizing the need to examine “root causes” of Islamic terrorism. Dr. Hamid says that in this respect the progressives are correct: Terrorism, he avers, is only the manifestation of a disease and not the disease itself. But the root-causes, he stresses, are quite different from what the progressives think.

Hamid mentions the notorious Ayman al-Zawahiri, a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda. Hamid knows firsthand that the inhumane teaching in Islamist ideology can transform a young, benevolent mind into that of a terrorist. However, he points out that without confronting the “ideological roots” of radical Islam, it will be impossible to combat this malady. Although there are many ideological “rootlets” of Islamism, the main tap root, says Hamid, has a name–Salafism, or Salafi Islam, a violent, ultra-conservative version of this creed.

Hamid goes on to say, it is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah law, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis, and justifies declaring war to do so. Islamism, in the form of Salafism, exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the “end of days.” What worries Hamid is the near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices, which is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong with Islam.

According to Hamid, the grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam, which clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah. Unlike Salafism, more liberal branches of Islam, such as Sufism, typically do not provide the essential theological base to nullify the cruel proclamations of their Salafist counterparts. And so, for more than 20 years, says Hamid,” I have been developing and working to establish a theologically-rigorous Islam that teaches peace. “

It is nonetheless ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals who unceasingly claim to support human rights, have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity. Academics find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination, or the existence of Israel.

What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western “progressives” pave the way for Islamist barbarity? Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of terror.

Politicians and scholars in the West have taken up the chant that Islamic extremism is caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. This analysis cannot convince any rational and candid person that the Islamist murder of over 150,000 innocent people in Algeria (which happened in the last few decades,) or the Islamist slaying of hundreds of Buddhists in Thailand, or the brutal violence between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, could have anything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but they seem to ignore, under a façade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please.

The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans demonstrated against the war in Iraq, yet declined to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them. Similarly, after the Madrid train bombings of 2004, millions of Spanish citizens demonstrated against the Basque separatist organization. But once the demonstrators realized that Muslims were behind the terror attacks, they suspended the demonstrations. This example sent a message to radical Islamists to continue their violent methods.

Western appeasement of their Muslim communities has exacerbated the problem. During the four-month period after the 2005 publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish magazine, there were comparatively few violent demonstrations by Muslims. Within a few days of the Danish magazine's formal apology, riots erupted throughout the world. The apology had been perceived by Islamists as weakness and concession.

Worst of all, perhaps, is the anti-Americanism among many Westerners. This resentment is so strong, so deep-seated, so rooted in personal identity, that it has led many intellectuals, consciously or unconsciously, to morally support America's enemies.

Progressives need to realize that radical Islam is based on an anti-liberal system. They need to awaken to the inhumane policies and practices of Islamists around the world. They need to realize that Islamism spells the death of liberal values. And they must not take for granted the respect for human rights and dignity that we experience today in America, and indeed, in the West as a whole.

Well-meaning interfaith dialogues with Muslims have largely been fruitless. Participants must demand (but so far haven't) that Muslim organizations and scholars specifically and unambiguously denounce violent Salafi components in their mosques and in the media. Muslims who do not vocally oppose brutal Shariah decrees should not be considered “moderates.”

All of this makes the efforts of Muslim reformers more difficult. When Westerners make politically-correct excuses for Islamism, they actually endanger the lives of reformers and in many cases has the effect of suppressing their voices.

Tolerance does not mean toleration of atrocities under the umbrella of multicultural moral relativism, which today is entrenched in the White House. It’s time for all of us in the free world to face the evil of Salafi Islam or the reality of radical Islam will continue to face and threaten us.

Dr. Tawfik Hamid is a onetime member of Jemaah Islamiya, an Islamist terrorist group. He is a medical doctor and Muslim reformer living in the West.
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This was published several years ago and I wonder whether it is still true? (See 1 below.)

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Will what difference does it make be the verdict? (See 2 below.)

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People versus the established political parties. (See 3 below.)
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Heading of an article.: "

Gates: 'Odds Are High' Russia, China, Iran Accessed Hillary's Unsecure Server

By Guy Benson ."

Obviously the only thing they captured were wedding plans, recipes, work out schedules and grandma talk and I have a bridge for sale.
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the brother of one of my dearest friends and most faithful memo readers work for Cliff May's organization.  It is one of the best in defense of Democracies. (See 5 below.)
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Tobin smokes The Iran Deal and with it Kerry and Obama. (See 4 below.)
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Dick

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PMW Official PA daily lauds Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The following is the article in the official PA daily lauding Israel's treatment of Palestinian workers:

"Whenever Palestinian workers have the opportunity to work for Israeli employers, they are quick to quit their jobs with their Palestinian employers - for reasons having to do with salaries and other rights.

An interview conducted by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida with a representative group of Palestinian workers revealed that those working for Israelis receive much higher salaries than their colleagues employed by Palestinians. In addition, those working for Israelis receive their pensions directly or through the lawyer representing the union of professional organizations in their region, while Palestinians working for Palestinian employers receive their pensions [only] after negotiating with them, and after many deductions, or through a personal appeal to court ...

Furthermore, those working for Palestinian employers stated unanimously that they work without medical insurance, as [insurance] is not required by the Palestinian Labor Law, and that they receive no compensation for their travel expenses, while the Israeli employers, in most cases, pay their workers' travel expenses in both directions.

A female worker in the agriculture sector, who asked to go by the name 'Nadia,' says: 'For over five years, I have been receiving a daily salary of 50 shekels for my work in agriculture, and the salary has stayed the same. That's how it is for those working for Palestinians in agriculture. '

By contrast, Muhammad Hassan, a resident of a village in the Jordan Valley who works in the agriculture sector in the settlements, says: 'I receive a daily salary of over 100 shekels for picking vegetables, and every day a bus takes us to work and back.' He explains: 'The only cases in which a Palestinian worker does not receive the salary his Israeli [employer] determined for him are those cases in which the middleman is Palestinian. This is because he employs the workers at his own expense, and he is the one who pays their salaries, which puts the worker at risk of being exploited or having his wages withheld.'

Fuad Qahawish, who works as a waiter in a restaurant, says: 'I work 10 hours a day and receive a monthly salary of not more than 1,900 shekels, and we have no additional rights like yearly vacations, travel expenses and so on.' He reveals that 'my colleagues who do the same work for Israelis receive 4,000 shekels a month for the same number of hours.'

Saleh Al-Haj Musa notes: 'I work eight hours in an Israeli restaurant near the Dead Sea and receive a salary of over 4,000 shekels, and my salary will increase because they are required to pay minimum wage [for Palestinian workers].' He added: 'They treat us well, and we receive our pensions easily - if not directly through an agreement with the employer, then through the lawyer of the union.' Muhammad Al-Hinnawi, a construction worker, says: 'I receive a daily salary of 70 shekels, without pension, and I have no other choice.' By contrast, Thaer Al-Louzi, who used to work for an Israeli concrete factory, notes: 'I received a salary of 140 shekels a day. Now, after I was injured, I receive a salary through the insurance.' He adds: 'The work conditions are very good, and include transportation, medical insurance and pensions. These things do not exist with Palestinian employers.'

Khalil Qteit says: 'I work in an Israeli aluminum factory in Mishor Adumim (industrial zone in the West Bank) and receive 23 shekels an hour. We receive our salaries according to an increasing gradual payment system for additional hours. In addition, we have a savings fund, which deducts 200 shekels a month from our salaries, to which the factory adds 400 shekels. All this accumulates in the workers' fund and is added to the pension we receive when we leave.' He adds: 'We have yearly vacations and unlimited sick leave of up to 99 days a year. Furthermore, the factory and the Israeli Workers' Union strictly adhere to the safety guidelines in addition to the yearly physical checkups carried out by doctors. Our travel expenses are paid in both directions, and workers have insurance for injuries incurred during shifts.' By contrast, a worker at one of the Palestinian factories in the district of Jericho, who asked to remain anonymous, says: 'I receive a salary of 1,800 shekels, without [bonuses for] extra hours, even though I work late every week. There is no such thing as yearly vacations, but our travel expenses are paid...'

'Minimum wage is in itself unjust to the Palestinian worker in any workplace, and is only enough to pay for falafel for one family for a month. This in itself constitutes a crime against the Palestinian worker,' says Wael Nazif, CEO of the Union of Palestinian Workers' Organizations in the Jericho district. Nazif emphasizes: 'It is inconceivable that the Palestinian worker should receive his full rights from the Israeli employers, but not from the Palestinian ones.' He adds: 'When the workers' unions agreed on the issue of minimum wage, it was for a one-year trial period. Two years have passed, yet this issue has still not been reexamined.' ...

Surveys and interviews conducted by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida clarify that the salaries of workers employed by Palestinians amount to less than half the salaries of those who work for Israeli employers in the areas of the Israel-occupied  West Bank, which house factories, tourist facilities and agricultural lands.

In addition, Israel has forced its employers in the West Bank to pay [Israeli] minimum wage, which is 23 shekels an hour, to Palestinian workers. However, the PA passed a law, but does not force the employers in the PA areas to implement it, thereby exposing the worker to potential exploitation. In addition, the Palestinian worker receives nearly all of his rights from his Israeli employers - even if through the courts of law - [and he] is entitled to yearly vacations, sick leave, [bonuses for] additional work hours and is paid for his travel expenses, while the majority of Palestinian employers do not provide these benefits to their workers, except for a few institutions which have begun implementing them without pressure from official parties."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 21, 2014]

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2)

Clinton’s Emails: A Criminal Charge Is Justified

Hillary’s explanations look increasingly contrived as evidence of malfeasance mounts day by day.

Michael B. Mukasey

While the State Department and intelligence agencies finish picking through messages recovered from the private email server Hillary Clinton used to conduct public business as secretary of state, the contents of the periodic document dumps have become increasingly sensitive. State has been referring any email that appears to contain sensitive information for further consideration by the agency with jurisdiction over the relevant data. Thus the most problematic emails are dribbling out last.

As the number of disclosed classified messages from Mrs. Clinton’s server has climbed above 1,300, her explanations have come to look increasingly improvisational and contrived. Recall that last summer—even after abandoning the claim that she maintained a private email account for convenience and because she was too busy solving the world’s problems to navigate the intricacies of a government account—she insisted that, “I did not send classified information and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified, which is the way you know that something is.”

When asked whether she had her server “wiped,” she assumed an air of grandmotherly befuddlement: “What, like with a cloth or something?” she said. “I don’t know how it works digitally at all.”

The current news, reported in the Journal and elsewhere, is that her server contained information at the highest level of classification, known as SAP, or Special Access Program. This is a level so high that even the inspector general for the intelligence community who reported the discovery did not initially have clearance to examine it.

The server also contained messages showing her contempt for classification procedures. This was bred at least in part by obvious familiarity with exactly “how it works”—such as when, an email shows, she directed a staff member simply to erase the heading on a classified document, converting it into “unpaper,” and send it on a “nonsecure” device.

Information disclosed by the State Department also reflects that in August 2011, when the State Department’s executive secretary suggested that he could provide Mrs. Clinton with a BlackBerrythat would keep her identity secret but might generate communications that would be discoverable under the Freedom of Information Act, Huma Abedin, Mrs. Clinton’s closest aide, intervened and said the idea “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Further, Mrs. Clinton’s own memoir, “Hard Choices” (2014), apparently written at a time when she wished to stress how delicate were the secrets she knew, and how carefully she handled them, reports that she “often received warnings from Department security officials to leave our [BlackBerrys], laptops—anything that communicated with the outside world—on the plane with their batteries removed to prevent foreign intelligence 

services from compromising them.

“Even in friendly settings we conducted business under strict security precautions, taking care where and how we read secret material and used our technology,” Mrs. Clinton tells readers. She even read classified material “inside an opaque tent in a hotel room. In less well-equipped settings, we were told to improvise by reading sensitive material with a blanket over our head.”

The FBI’s criminal investigation of messages on the server initially related solely to Mrs. Clinton’s possibly unlawful mishandling of classified information. The investigation has now metastasized to include “the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed” as Fox News’s Catherine Herridge reported Jan. 19, quoting an intelligence source.

Which is to say, the FBI wants to know whether those messages, combined with other evidence, show that donors to the Clinton Foundation received special consideration in their dealings with the agency Mrs. Clinton headed.

Whatever the findings from that part of the probe, intelligence-community investigators believe it is nearly certain that Mrs. Clinton’s server was hacked, possibly by the Chinese or the Russians. This raises the distinct possibility that she would be subject to blackmail in connection with those transactions and whatever else was on that server by people with hostile intent against this country.

No criminality can be charged against Mrs. Clinton in connection with any of this absent proof that she had what the law regards as a guilty state of mind—a standard that may differ from one statute to another, depending on what criminal act is charged.

Yet—from her direction that classification rules be disregarded, to the presence on her personal email server of information at the highest level of classification, to her repeated falsehoods of a sort that juries are told every day may be treated as evidence of guilty knowledge—it is nearly impossible to draw any conclusion other than that she knew enough to support a conviction at the least for mishandling classified information.

This is the same charge brought against Gen. David Petraeus for disclosing classified information in his personal notebooks to his biographer and mistress, who was herself an Army Reserve military intelligence officer cleared to see top secret information.

The simple proposition that everyone is equal before the law suggests that Mrs. Clinton’s state of mind—whether mere knowledge of what she was doing as to mishandling classified information; or gross negligence in the case of the mishandling of information relating to national defense; or bad intent as to actual or attempted destruction of email messages; or corrupt intent as to State Department business—justifies a criminal charge of one sort or another.

But will it be brought? That depends in part on the recommendation of FBI Director James Comey, a man described by President Obama, at the time the president appointed him, as “fiercely independent.” If no recommendation to charge is forthcoming, or if such a recommendation is made but not followed by the attorney general, what happens then?

Would the public stand for it? My guess is not. However, my guess is also that we won’t be put to that test because our public officials will do their duty.

Mr. Mukasey served as a U.S. district judge (1988-2006) and as U.S. attorney general (2007-09). He is an adviser to Jeb Bush on matters of national security.

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3) The American People vs. the Political Establishment

By Steve McCann

Over the course of 228 years since the ratification of the United States Constitution every presidential election cycle has been identified in history by an overriding issue or movement.  In 2016 the underlying theme is the anger and disgust directed toward the political establishment.  Per the polls, an overwhelming majority of the American people see their family’s’ and the nation’s future as extremely bleak, and the current political leaders in Washington as being megalomaniacal, avaricious, narcissistic or feckless.  Not since the early days of the Great Depression has the citizenry, regardless of political affiliation, been so fearful of the future and so infuriated with the nation’s governing class.

There are, at present, 14 declared candidates running for their party’s presidential nomination -- 3 in the Democratic Party and 11 in the Republican Party.  Considering the general mood of the country where do these hopefuls fit into the overall framework of the political establishment?

On these pages in January of 2012 I defined the political establishment as being made up of the following: 

1. A preponderance of current and retired national office holders whose livelihoods (re-election for current office holders and lobbying or consulting for retired politicians) requires fealty to the Party in order to maintain financial backing as well as access to government largess;
2. The majority of the media elite, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York, whose proximity to power and access is vital in order to gratify their self-esteem and to sustain their standard of living;
3. Academia, numerous think-tanks, so called non-government organizations, and lobbyists who fasten onto those in any administration and Congress for employment, grants, favorable legislation and ego-gratification;
4. The reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party; and
5. The crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions, whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence and whose political contributions assure political cooperation.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, there is no one currently in the race for president that exemplifies the current governing class more than Hillary Clinton.  Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist and the antithesis of the establishment as defined above, is doing extraordinarily well against Hillary notwithstanding her overwhelming starting advantage in fundraising and having the weight of the Democratic Party behind her.  Among the factors contributing to Sanders’s showing is that Hillary is unlikeable and untrustworthy, but more importantly a large percentage of the base in the Democratic Party is also fed up with the political establishment, as well as the paucity of choices foisted on them by the Democratic Party hierarchy, and is venting that frustration in their backing of Bernie Sanders.  Nonetheless, the Democrat wing of the establishment will make certain he will not win the nomination regardless of what may happen to Hillary Clinton.

While there are numerous choices on the Republican side of the spectrum, in reality there are relatively few that are not now or have never been a major part of the Republican wing of the current political class. 

Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie have been a part of the establishment for their entire political careers as they have been in the political arena for nearly their entire adult life and dependent on Party support for their electoral success.  They cannot escape nor plausibly deny their membership in the establishment.

Marco Rubio, a relative newcomer and a very attractive candidate on the surface, sold his soul to the Washington political class when he agreed to co-sponsor and promote a so called comprehensive immigration bill (i.e. amnesty).  Further he has chosen to be in lockstep with the Republican Senate leadership on numerous other issues.  His willingness to compromise and do the bidding of Party leadership casts a long shadow of suspicion on how malleable he would be with the insiders if elected President.

Rand Paul claims the mantle of political independence as a Libertarian/Republican and has shown some degree of willingness to stand up for certain principles.   Nonetheless, in repayment for Senator Mitch McConnell’s backing, Paul endorsed and was a major supporter of McConnell in his re-election bid and he has rarely deviated from McConnell’s agenda during his tenure in the Senate.  Thus any claim he might proffer while on the campaign trail that he has consistently fought the establishment would be highly suspect.

At the risk of offending the diehard supporters of Donald Trump, who may view him as the nation’s savior, Donald Trump has been a part of the political establishment or “Ruling Class” for his entire adult life, whether as a registered Republican or Democrat or Independent.  Per the above list of what groups constitute the establishment:

The crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions, whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence and whose political contributions assure political cooperation.

By his own admission Trump has contributed, over the past 40 years, millions of dollars to both parties (considerably more to Democrats than Republicans) in order to buy influence and thus help underwrite their political agendas -- the definition of crony capitalism.  He has vacillated from one extreme to the other in his various stances on the issues during the past forty years but his one consistent has been to unabashedly support the political establishment and thus he has played a significant financial role in fostering the nation’s current 

dilemmas.  He is now claiming to be anti-establishment.

Donald Trump has unnerved the Republican wing of the political establishment not because of who he is (they are aware of his establishment bona fides) or even his ever changing positions on various issues.  Rather the Republican hierarchy fears Trump is so personally polarizing in a nation whose demographics are rapidly changing that he would lose the general election to Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat if she, due to legal complications, is not nominated

If the foundational basis of the angst of the American people is infuriation with the current governing class, then there are only three candidates that have either never been a part of the establishment or have without reservation confronted the current governing class.  They are Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson.  These same people have, not coincidentally, been declared as persona non grata by the overall political establishment.   

As the primary season is about to commence and actual votes cast will the voting populace acquiesce once again to the political establishment in both parties and place their fellow travelers on the presidential ballot or are the American people truly angry enough to finally drive a stake through the heart of the current political establishment or is that merely something they tell the pollsters?

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4)

The threat to America's national existence

By Cliff May

President Obama judged the Islamic State the “JV team,” boasted that he’d set al Qaeda “on its heels” and implemented successful counterterrorism policies in Yemen. He insists that both the nuclear deal and the hostages-for-felons swap he concluded with Iran’s rulers are triumphs of diplomacy. In his State of the Union address last week, he reassured us that our enemies do not “threaten our national existence.” Why am I not filled with optimism?

“Existential threat” is a term that has been most commonly used in recent years about Israel, a nation-state that Islamists aim to exterminate. As Iran’s rulers have noted, the detonation of just one nuclear weapon on Israeli soil could be the quickest means to achieve that goal.

The United States, being bigger and stronger, is obviously more resilient. But a nuclear attack, an electromagnetic pulse attack, a biological attack or even a series of attacks of the sort that took place in San Bernardino would profoundly transform America — even if “our national existence” did not come to an end. My grandchildren would inherit a country very different from the one my parents’ generation — the “Greatest Generation,” whose members fought and defeated the tyrants of the 20th century — bequeathed to us.

In Europe a profound transformation may already be underway. Most recently, on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and several other German cities, there were hundreds of acts of violence and sexual assault against non-Muslim women by men of Middle Eastern and North African origin. Local politicians at first tried to cover up what happened. Most media adopted a don’t-ask-don’t-tell attitude. Little by little, however, details have been emerging.

According to an internal police report obtained by The Wall Street Journal, there were scenes of “crying women fleeing sexual molestation from crowds of men, passers-by trying to rescue young girls from being raped, and groups of intoxicated men throwing bottles and fireworks at a police force no longer in control of the situation.”

What lessons should be learned? According to The New York Times, the police are largely to blame because “officers failed to anticipate the new realities of a Germany that is now host to up to a million asylum seekers, most from war-torn Muslim countries unfamiliar with its culture.”

Let’s unpack that: There are “new realities.” Maybe German authorities can work harder to “familiarize” new arrivals with local culture — a culture that traditionally frowns on robbing, groping and raping women. If not, German culture must adjust. Cologne Mayor Henriette Reke has suggested that women should perhaps begin to dress more modestly in public spaces.

In an opinion piece in the United Kingdom’s Independent newspaper, commentator Edward Siddons noted that the crimes under discussion were all committed by men. (How perceptive of him.) He then instructs: “We should look to the gender of the Cologne attackers — not their race.”

First: I’m not aware that anyone has been looking toward race — a concept based on physical and genetic traits. What the sexual predators have in common is religion. They also all come from parts of the world where beliefs, values and attitudes — not least regarding the rights of women — are unlike those that have evolved in Europe. Second: Mr. Siddons’ emphasis on gender is curious. Does he really mean to suggest that Buddhist, Catholic, Baptist and Jewish men are just as likely to participate in orgies of sexual molestation?

Inadvertently, however, he raises this interesting question: If Europe is going to take in millions of new immigrants, shouldn’t at least 50 percent of them be women?

Up until now, those streaming into Europe from the south have been disproportionately male. Is anyone asking why these mainly military-age men are abandoning their most vulnerable kith and kin? If they could defend the women and children of their homelands, would they? Might it be better for European leaders to assist them — rather than teach them to conjugate German verbs, and apply for jobs in Volkswagen factories?

Writing in the European edition of Politico, Valerie Hudson, professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, noted that the large disparity between male and female immigrants means there are likely to be unbalanced sex ratios within immigrant communities and within European societies as a whole for decades to come. “Numerous empirical studies” she writes, correlate such imbalances “with violence and property crime — the higher the sex ratio, the worse the crime rate.”

She adds that “societies with extremely skewed sex ratios are more unstable even without jihadi ideologues in their midst.”

And, of course, such ideologues are already entrenched throughout Europe. They will be adept at identifying young men who are not succeeding. They will do their best to radicalize and recruit them. Even among those who are adjusting, some may be persuaded that working for a salary, raising a family and paying a mortgage hold less appeal than fighting for a caliphate with all the rewards that can bring in this life and the next.

Such changes may not threaten Europe’s existence. But European civilization will never be the same. Should Americans also prepare to accommodate “new realities”? Or is it possible for us to adopt different policies, to choose not to follow Europe’s example? This is a discussion Americans need to have. President Obama will not be the one to lead it.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a columnist for The Washington Times.

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4)-

Why Iran Funds Terror, Not Bridges

BY JONATHAN S. TOBIN 

Last summer, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz earned a few scowls from Secretary of State John Kerry when he predicted that the nuclear deal would result in an increase in funding for terror by Iran. Kerry and the rest of the administration dismissed the notion that this would happen even though they failed to say how they would prevent Iran from using the vast windfall in unfrozen funds and the end of sanctions to funnel money to terrorists. But less than six months later, with the end of international restrictions on doing business with Iran having already occurred this past week and now that it’s too late for administration critics to do anything about it, Kerry finally admitted that Moniz was right.
As the Associated Press reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday it is likely that some of the billions of dollars in sanctions relief granted to Iran under a landmark nuclear deal will go to groups deemed terrorists. Kerry said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum that there is little the United States or others could do to prevent the now-unfrozen assets from getting into the hands of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps or “other entities” that Iran has supported in the past.

Kerry went on to say that he was reassured because he had seen no evidence of increased funding for terror in the few days since the sanctions were lifted. What’s more, he said that Iran had more than $500 Billion in outstanding infrastructure needs to pay for, as well as requiring more than $100 billion to modernize its energy sector. In other words, so long as Kerry is not presented with new and obvious proof of Iran funding terror, he won’t worry about it. More than that, he actually thinks the ayatollahs are so concerned about repairing roads and bridges for the good of their people that they’ll resist the temptation to hand over money to the IRGC or their Hezbollah auxiliaries and Hamas allies.

It is debatable whether Kerry and Obama believe what he says about the nature of the Iranian government and its priorities. One doesn’t need to be privy to the intelligence that is available to the secretary of state or the president to understand that Iran has treated the funding of terror groups to be a national priority. But it’s worth exploring this question for a moment if only to plumb the depths of cynicism and dishonesty that has accompanied the administration’s efforts to sell the country on the virtues of the Iran deal.

Kerry is right that Iran has serious economic problems, a crumbling infrastructure and an urgent need to upgrade an antiquated system for the conversion of its vast oil wealth into usable energy. But if solving those issues were Iran’s priority, it wouldn’t have wasted a significant percentage of its annual budget on a nuclear program whose purpose was to build a bomb not clean and efficient nuclear power aimed at eventually replacing power plants run by a commodity that Iran will probably never run out of.

Nor, if good government and the welfare of ordinary Iranians were its top worry, would Tehran have invested vast sums funding Hezbollah and that terror group’s expeditionary force on the ground in Syria where it has successfully aided in the survival of another ally — the Bashar Assad regime. The same reasoning applies to its financial help and arms supplies to Hamas as it presents a southern terror front confronting Israel to match Hezbollah’s threat on the Jewish state’s northern border. A responsible state concerned about the use of scarce funds also wouldn’t have invested money backing the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Moreover, Kerry’s offhand remark about some money finding its way into the coffers of the IRGC is the height of disingenuousness.

Far from a marginal rogue operation that gets some funding from the Iranian government, the Guard Corps is almost a government unto itself inside the country. It also owns — either directly or indirectly — much of the country’s big businesses and industries. So if there is any entity that will benefit from the lifting of restrictions on doing business with Iran it will be the IRGC. Any distinction between those industries and the terror operations that the group runs and/or funds is entirely meaningless since the money it receives is fungible.

One needn’t reduce the image of the Iranian regime to a caricature or deny the sophisticated nature of its political culture to understand that the funding of terror is not a sideline from which it can be weaned by inclusion in the world economy. To the contrary, the Islamist regime has always viewed itself as an expansionist revolutionary power that prioritized the funding of terror abroad. That is why Iran has earned the designation from the United States as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

The Iranian government hopes the expected expansion of its economy will improve its image at home and quiet any rumblings from a population that knows it is being abused but sees no option for change. But while not all of the nuclear deal windfall will be given to the IRGC, Hezbollah or Hamas, it is absurd to expect that the terrorists and their sponsors won’t be the primary beneficiaries. The recent effort of Hezbollah to organize a large scale terror attack in the West Bankalso illustrates just how extra Iranian funding could facilitate mass murder.

The Obama administration has made no secret of its high hopes for a new era of détente with Iran. Indeed, the release of the four American hostages being held by Iran (though without getting any news, let alone the freedom of the still missing Robert Levinson) and the quick, albeit humiliating retrieval of the U.S. sailors seized by Iran last week, has been treated as proof that a policy of appeasement and concessions is already paying dividends.

The debunking of these expectations won’t take the full ten years that the nuclear deal will remain in effect. Like its nuclear program that remains in operation, the infrastructure of terror is among the Iranian regime’s proudest achievements, and they will continue to ensure that its push for regional hegemony does not lag. That’s why America’s allies in the region, both Israel and the Arab states, are preparing for the worst. They know that what President Obama and Secretary Kerry have done is to empower a terror state as well as one that is now a recognized threshold nuclear power. Kerry may dismiss the impact of the deal on funding for terror, but even he knows that money for bridges and tunnels will never be a higher priority to the Islamist government than terror. Those who blithely charted this course will have to bear the responsibility for the blood that the nuclear deal will help to shed in the coming years.

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