Immigrants: Love your neighbor as yourself

Immigrants are people just like us

An anthropologist was winding up several months of research in a small village, the story is told.

While waiting for a ride to the airport for his return flight home, he decided to pass the time by making up a game for some children.

His idea was to create a race for a basket of fruit and candy that he placed near a tree. But when he gave the signal to run, no one made a dash for the finish line. Instead the children joined hands and ran together to the tree.

When asked why they chose to run as a group rather than each racing for the prize, a little girl spoke up and said: “How could one of us be happy when all of the others are sad?” Because these children cared about each other, they wanted all to share the basket of fruit and candy.

What happened here among these children. was very biblical and is applicable to all of us, specially now with the large influx of immigrants.

After years of studying the law of Moses, the apostle Paul found that all of God’s laws could be summed up in one: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal. 5:14; see also Rom. 13:9). In Christ, Paul saw not only the reason to encourage, comfort, and care for one another but also the spiritual enablement to do it.

Because He cares for us, we care for each other.

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NATO Relations With Turkey Following Coup: Will Turkey be expelled from NATO?

Splitting up?

Many analysts believe Turkey and NATO are on a collision course. One end of their argument hinges on the belief — apparently shared to an extent by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government — that the United States and NATO played a role in the unsuccessful coup attempt July 15.

Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag, who heads for Washington soon to try to negotiate the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric accused of masterminding the coup, has laid Turkey’s position on the line.

“The US knows Fethullah Gulen carried out this coup. Mr. Obama knows this just as he knows his own name. I am convinced that American intelligence knows it, too. I am convinced the State Department knows it. … Other countries know it, too, because every country has an intelligence agency,” Bozdag insisted during a TV interview.

Bozdag’s remarks, which imply that Washington and NATO knew what was coming and did nothing, are being echoed by the pro-Erdogan Islamist media in Turkey, which is essentially anti-Western and sees NATO as the enemy of Islam.

Remarks such as those by Bozdag are eliciting equally harsh responses from the West. Gregory Copley, a strategic analyst, appears to have no doubt that “Turkey has now formally declared the US (and therefore NATO) as its enemy” and is exhorting the alliance to act accordingly.

The other end of the argument regarding a collision in the making between Turkey and NATO hinges on the belief that Erdogan is using the failed coup attempt to initiate a massive purge against his opponents in order to further strengthen his hold on power. It is being suggested that an undemocratic Turkey has no place in an alliance based on democratic principles.

US Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged this view when he appeared to hint that Turkey could not remain in NATO if it strayed from democracy and the rule of law as it seeks those behind the failed coup attempt.

“NATO also has a requirement with respect to democracy,” Kerry told reporters in response to a question on Turkey during a press conference in Brussels with Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

He added that “the level of vigilance and scrutiny” with regard to developments in Turkey would be very significant in the days ahead.

If Kerry’s remarks are meant to sound a warning, they are falling on deaf ears in Turkey where a campaign against Turkey’s NATO membership is also gaining steam. Former senior officers from the military, like retired Rear Adm. Cem Gurdeniz, are among those questioning this membership.

In an interview with daily Hurriyet, Gurdeniz said there had always been a struggle between “Atlanticists” and the “Eurasia camp” in the military. He said if the coup was successful, Turkey would have become part of “Atlanticist” plans to its detriment.

“The losses incurred would have included the declaration of an independent Kurdistan, autonomy [for Kurds] in southeastern Anatolia and the loss of Cyprus,” he said. Gurdeniz said Turkey “should play a balancing role between the Atlantic and Eurasia,” arguing that it was patently clear NATO did not serve Turkey’s interests anymore.

He went on to question whether NATO’s advanced radar systems in Kurecik, in eastern Turkey, deployed under its Ballistic Missile Defense program, was in Turkey’s interests. He also asked why NATO was keen to conduct military exercises in the Black Sea and was pressurizing Turkey for a permanent presence there, pointing out that this was something NATO never did during the Cold War.

Gurdeniz’s remarks point to the kind of confusion reigning in Ankara with regard to NATO, because it was Erdogan, during the recent NATO summit in Warsaw, who called on the alliance to bolster its presence in the Black Sea to prevent this sea from becoming “a Russian lake.”

Turkey being a country of bitter ironies, Gurdeniz — a staunch Kemalist secularist — was among those arrested under the so-called Balyoz (Sledgehammer) case, while still serving in the military, and was convicted to 18 years in prison in 2013 for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government led by Erdogan.

He was released after Erdogan and his onetime Islamist ally Gulen became enemies. Gurdeniz accused Gulen supporters in the judiciary, who are now being rounded up as coup plotters, for his own incarceration as a coup plotter.

Whatever is being written or said on either side of the fence today, the truth is that Ankara’s NATO membership was never threatened following successful coups in Turkey in the past, when the Cold War was raging, and NATO could not endanger the strategic advantages Turkey provided against the Soviet Union.

Turkey’s place on the map remains equally important today for NATO, if not more so. Retired Ambassador Unal Unsal, a former Turkish permanent representative to NATO, believes it would be difficult for the alliance to turn its back on Turkey at a time when the Middle East and the Black Sea region is in turmoil, when there is the possibility of a Trump presidency and when the EU is struggling with its Brexit debacle.

“The going in Turkey may not be good, but a Turkey out of NATO would cause more complications, especially if Ankara slides toward Russia,” Unsal told Al Monitor.

Acknowledging that the NATO charter has conditions regarding democracy in member states, Unsal nevertheless pointed out that this had not prevented Portugal from becoming a founding member of the alliance in 1949, even though it was being ruled by authoritarian Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

Unsal indicated that what is being said today about NATO membership in conjunction with democracy and rule of law in Turkey has to be said for the sake of appearance. He added that expelling a country from the alliance would require consensus in the Atlantic Council, which would be difficult to secure under current circumstances.

Unsal did not discount the possibility, however, that Erdogan, in one of his many huffs, may decide to pull Turkey out of NATO, and suggested that the consequences of this might not be as dire for Turkey as it appears at first glance.

“Maintaining Turkey’s strategic ties with the US is what will ultimately remain crucial for Ankara, rather than its ties with NATO, and everyone knows that the US means NATO,” Unsal said.

Copley, who claims Ankara has declared the United States and NATO its enemy, nevertheless ended his analysis for Oilprice.com by underlining the alliances dilemma regarding Turkey.

“No one in NATO or the senior member states has actually done the calculation as to how to structure global and regional strategies without Turkey, or how to remove Turkish officers from NATO facilities — how to manage the region without Turkey,” he wrote.

The West does not appear to be well-poised currently to do this “calculation,” which makes the suggestions that Turkey be expelled from NATO ring hollow, given what is transpiring in the world.

Read bmore: Will Turkey be expelled from NATO?

Peace: Pray for Peace - August 15 - Editorial EU-Digest

OWNERSHIP OF PRAYER IS SPIRITUAL

IF YOU WONDER WHY AUGUST 15 WAS CHOSEN AS A DAY OF PRAYER, DON'T WORRY,. IT HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE AT ALL IF YOU RELATE IT TO THE  CONCEPT OF PEACE.

PRAYING FOR PEACE IS NOT ONLY ENCOURAGED, YOU CAN ALSO DO  IT ANYWHERE AND ANYTIME YOU GET M0VED TO DO SO.

THE AUGUST 15 DATE WAS CHOSEN SPIRITUALLY TO HAVE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE FOCUSING ON THE ISSUE OF PEACE, SECURITY AND PROSPERITY,, WHICH IS AFFECTING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD TODAY..

IT IS ALSO GOOD TO KEEP IN MIND THAT PEACE OFTEN MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO PEOPLE. IT CAN RELATE TO WAR, ILLNESS, DEATH, GOVERNMENT, SECURITY, CORPORATE GREED, FINANCES, JOB SECURITY, RELATIONSHIPS, MARRIAGE,  POVERTY, ILLNESS, FAMILY, PRIVACY, DISCRIMINATION, POLICE BRUTALITY, OPPRESSION, CHILD ABUSE, YOU NAME IT.

OWNERSHIP ON THE CONCEPT OF PRAYER CAN ALSO NOT BE CLAIMED BY ANY SPECIFIC "EARTH BASED RELIGIOUS GROUPING". THE ONLY REQUISITE FOR PRAYER IS THAT SPIRITUALLY YOU ARE AWARE OF THE FACT THAT  THERE IS A HIGHER BEING THAN YOURSELF WHO LISTENS TO YOU AND WILL ANSWER YOUR PRAYERS WITHOUT ANY PRECONDITIONS.

SINCERE AND SPIRITUALLY FILLED PRAYERS ARE A MORE POWERFUL FORCE THAN ANY FORCE, TO OVERCOME, WHAT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER TO BE A THREAT TO YOUR SECURITY AND PEACE.

SO ON AUGUST 15,  LET US JOIN IN SPIRITUAL UNITY AND PRAYER TO DEFEAT THE THREATS TO OUR SECURITY AND PEACE AND "WATCH HOW OUR WALLS OF JERICHO WILL COME TUMBLING DOWN".

EU-Digest

USA: The Rep0ublican Convention:Geert Wilders at the first day of the Republican Convention in Cleveland, Ohio

Last week Monday, American time, over 50 thousand people gathered in Cleveland, Ohio for the start of the Republican convention. Among them is PVV leader Geert Wilders, who was pleased as punch to see Trump be officially named the Republican candidate for U.S. president, despite opposition in the Republican party trying to stop it.

“In America you see the same happening as in the Netherlands. The hard working people, what they call the blue collar workers here, no longer feel represented by the political elite. That people no longer want the policy of open borders, immigration and Islamization”, Wilders said to Dutch newspaper the Telegraaf.

Wilders was recognized by some, others had to ask who he is. “He’s a bit like that story from the Netherlands with that little boy with his finger in the dike. So he tries to stop the misery in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe”, a woman in her fifties said to the newspaper. But not all were in favor of his visit. “Was that Geert Wilders from Holland?” a passerby with a anti-Trump sign asked. “Another guy just trying to divide the world instead of uniting. Let hims stay in Holland.”

The first day of the Republican convention was relatively chaotic, with the anti-Trump camp demanding the opportunity to support other candidates. They demanded a roll call vote on the plan, so that representatives of all States can have their say, according to NU.nl. The party leaders declared that there was too little support for such a vote, leading to much shouting and the Colorado delegation, among others, walking out.

Trump was officially named the Republican presidential candidate. There’s not much chance of his opponents stopping him, as he got more than enough delegates behind him during the primaries.
RrEAD MOREl Geert Wilders at the first day of the Republican Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, 18 July 2016 (Photo: @geertwilderspvv/Twitter)

Poland: The New European Fascists - by Chris Hedges:

Is Fascism raising its head in Poland and Europe again?

Jaroslaw Kurski and Piotr Stasinski embody the hope that once was Poland. They struggled against the Communist regime for years in the underground press and as Solidarity members. They built Gazeta Wyborcza, now one of the most influential newspapers in the country, after the 1989 fall of communism.

They helped usher in a period of democracy and open debate, one that included cultural space for historians such as Jan Gross, a Polish-born American who courageously confronted the taboo topic of Polish complicity in the Nazi extermination of nearly all of Poland’s 3 million Jews.

And then neoliberalism, imposed by global capitalism and international banks, began to spread its poison. Legions of unemployed or underemployed were cast adrift. Two million Poles, many of them young people desperate for jobs, have left to work abroad. Governmental austerity programs devastated cultural institutions, including public schools, the arts and public broadcasting. And finally,

following a familiar death spiral, the October 2015 elections brought to power the nationalists and demagogues of the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS). There is no left-wing party represented in the parliament.

Not much of Poland’s promise remains. PiS is rapidly rolling back constitutional rights. It blocks state media coverage of the fading political opposition, especially the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD), which has held a series of protest demonstrations. PiS shamelessly uses the airwaves and the schools for rabid nationalist propaganda. The public broadcasting system—in which the party purged more than 100 staff members—twisted President Barack Obama’s recent criticism of the Polish government’s assault on the judiciary into praise for Polish democracy. And the ruling party has forced state institutions to cancel subscriptions to Gazeta Wyborcza and pressured distributors throughout the country not to display or sell copies of the newspaper.

“There is no longer genuine parliamentary debate,” Stasinski said when I met with him and Kurski at the Gazeta Wyborcza offices in Warsaw. “There are no longer checks and balances of power. The parliamentary system is dysfunctional. The Constitutional Court and judiciary are paralyzed. New laws passed by the parliament cannot be challenged or changed. The government is supposed to publish sentences of the Constitutional Court in The Journal of Laws [Dziennik Ustaw] for them to become legally effective. This is required by the Constitution. But the government, by not printing them, paralyzes the Constitutional Court, which has been reduced to announcing its sentences on the internet without any legal effect. It is a very dangerous time.”

“We operate under two systems of law,” said Kurski. “One is constitutional and legal. The other is unconstitutional and illegal. The problem is that the illegal and unconstitutional system runs the country.”

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the founder and head of the ruling party, governs Poland like a private fiefdom. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and President Andrzej Duda are political puppets. Kaczynski, reclusive and morbid, is referred to with fear or reverence as “the Chairman.” His words, and his obsessions, are law.

And it is not only Poland that is in trouble. Europe, especially EU countries on the fringes of the union, is devolving into proto-fascism. The Hungarian strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban has destroyed his country’s democracy. Neofascist groups are gaining strength in France, the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Greece.

These movements are rabidly xenophobic, racist, Islamophobic and homophobic, and they demonize immigrants and brand internal dissent as treason. When they take control they rely on ruthless internal security and surveillance systems—Poland has established 11 intelligence agencies—to crush dissent. They seek their identity in a terrifying new nationalism, often, as in Poland, coupled with a right-wing Catholicism. They preach hatred of the outsider and glorification of obedient and “true” patriots. This lurch to the right will be augmented in Poland later this year with the establishment of an armed militia of more than 30,000 whose loyalty, it seems certain, will be to the ruling party.

“If you are a Pole, you should be Catholic,” said Stasinski. “I’m not. So for some, I’m not a Pole.”

Poland, like Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, has rejected the European Union’s call for its nations to accept refugees fleeing the chaos in the Middle East. The ruling party in Poland employs rhetoric to describe Muslim immigrants that echoes prewar Polish anti-Semitism. Immigrants are condemned as diseased, painted as rapists and excoriated for supposedly having barbaric religious practices. When Gross, who teaches at Princeton University, decried the hate campaign against immigrants and made the links with anti-Semitism, reminding Poles that they killed more Jews than they killed Germans during the war, PiS began legal proceedings to challenge Gross’ assertions and called for his Polish Order of Merit to be revoked.

“It’s the same right-wing populist melody as in the United States,” said Stasinski. “Isolationism becomes appealing. Maybe there is something rotten in human nature. Maybe we are selfish people who don’t care about the other. Maybe this story about how we are Christian and altruistic is rubbish.

“There is a fear that grows from ignorance,” he said. “These parties manufacture and strengthen this resentment against those they allege are privileged and the powerful, as well as the European Union.

They say these forces can’t tell us what to do. They say the nation-state should organize societal living, not global institutions. They say things are out of control. They say there is no real democracy. This leads to the mental and physical militarization of the society. The demagogues promise security. You are safe with us. We care about you.

We care about your family. Chauvinism defines public discourse. We are a proud people. We are a proud nation. We don’t accept that other nations can humiliate us. The government devoted a hundred million zlotys to create a special foundation to defend Poland’s good name.” 

To read the complete report click here: : Chris Hedges: The New European Fascists - Truthdig

Health Care - A Look Into The Crystal Ball - 2017 Edition - by William Pierce

Regardless of the outcome of the November election, and by that I mean both the presidential and congressional elections, health care will once again be on the agenda.

At this point, the most likely scenario is a Clinton victory, a change in the Senate majority from GOP to Dem (though it could be very close) and a diminished, but still majority, GOP in the House. This scenario would set up an opportunity for some real progress on several nagging health care issues. To add to the analysis, there is an outside chance that the GOP could lose majority control of the House, but for this to happen, it would require an electoral landslide by Clinton preceded by a Trump implosion. No one is holding their breath on this but it is notable in that it is being discussed.

A Trump victory would obviously change the dynamic and the results of the Senate and House elections would be critical to what might happen. If Trump wins, it is probable that the GOP’s House majority would hold close to its current level with just a few losses, and the outcome of Senate control would be extraordinarily close. Some have even predicted a Trump win could result in a 50/50 split, resulting in the Vice President acting as the tiebreaker. Under this scenario, continued gridlock would be the result.

But under any scenario, neither party is likely to control all branches and chambers, and importantly, no one party will have the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to move any truly controversial legislation.

However, if an opportunity for progress emerges, it would be based less on the raw numbers and more on the message that voters send. The big unknown is will the newly elected and reelected actually hear the message or will they filter it through their own political lens and go forward with business as usual? Arguably, this is what they have done over the last several elections, going forward with their own personal agenda and ignoring what the voters want, which seems to be governance and compromise.

The most important person in a scenario of progress is Speaker Paul Ryan. While a strong conservative, it seems clear that Ryan wants to govern and legislate. He wants to address some of the big challenges facing the U.S. To do this under any scenario requires compromise. In our current political climate, compromise will require will and courage. So the question is does he have both and will he be willing to exercise them if he does?



Read complte report: Health Care - A Look Into The Crystal Ball - 2017 Edition

US Foreign Policy: ISIS and European Refugees Crises A Direct Result of Iraqi War

Blair and Bush launch Iraq war based on false information

Why are Governments keeping silent about the undeniable fact that the terrorism and security crises Europe is facing comes as a direct result of the Iraqi war.

Also,  as more and more innocent victims die as a result of terrorism in Europe and around the world, Governments need to recognize the facts and identify the culprits who provided false information to the so-called "coalition of the willing" which resulted in  more than a million civilian and military deaths.

During the years following the aftermath of the Iraqi war it should be crystal clear to our political leaders that military actions are not the answer to solving any political crises  So far this strategy has only increased the security problems around the worls and resulted in a very unstable political and social environment..

Across Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey people have crossed borders and traveled many kilometres within their own country to find respite from war.

Millions have crossed continents and have ended up in Europe seeking that same respite. By and large it's taken Europe by surprise. Opinions vary on how to deal with the crisis. Some say Europe and the US should step up. Others say the rich Gulf states should use their enormous wealth to help.

The fact remains: why is no Government leader in the US or Europe backing the obvious that a strategic mistake was made by the invasion and occupation of Iraq?  Can our Governments still be trusted ?

March 2003 was the pivotal point. Based on controversial evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the war drums beat loudly.

The WMD claim was eventually publicly discredited by the CIA's own Iraq survey group report . That report proved whispers and intelligence community doubts from the time that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But it wasn't just those who questioned the evidence. Mass opposition from the British and American public concluded in marches in various Western capitals opposing the war.

Those voices went ignored and in March 2003, the then US president George Bush Bush  and the British prime minister Tony Blait  met in the Azores, Portugal, with the Spanish prime minister, and set into motion events that now include the dead body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi that washed up on a Turkish beach.

The Arab Spring was officially launched when Mohamed Morsi, who became Egypt's first democratically elected president, was toppled by the military in 2013. Initially it was not religious or even violent in nature.

It was popular anger at dictators propped up by the West coupled with frustration at the lack of economic development.

Down the dictators fell, and with them, decades of religious suppression. That religious fervour found expression in anger at the US' role in Iraq.

Suddenly religious groups were able to speak freely, and freely they did, mainly about the US and its role in the region.

Then when the protests reached Syria, President Bashar al-Assad knew he didn't want to suffer the same fate as his Arab counterparts.

The West quickly abandoned him and said no negotiations while he was in power. Left with little choice he moved on those that opposed him in a violent and bloody manner.

The Iraq war was the war too far - the one that has changed the Middle East.

It was the war that solidified and unified disparate young men from different countries into following the path of violent jihad.

Had the Iraq war not happened, then Saddam Hussein would have been contained as he was.
This dictator was a threat to freedom and to his own people, but was no longer a threat to his neighbours.

The leaders of ISIL and other radical groups would have found death in Afghanistan or prison elsewhere. However, hindsight and "what if" are the words of those that have the luxury of not living in a tent.

The Iraq war did happen.

The refugee crisis is happening.

Now the only questions the world perhaps should be asking is how we can bring about a political solution to the war in Syria and how we bring all sides to the table.

What the refugee crisis has done is force the Western European public to think. Whether they can force their governments to act and bring about a solution is another question.

The architects of the Iraq war still say their actions had nothing to do with the current crisis.

It is high time that the US, EU members states and other Nations, including China and Russia step up to the plate and let international justice take its course by prosecuting those who lied about the weapons of mass destruction, for war crimes. 

In the same breath, these nations under auspices of the United Nations should also declare the Middle East a nuclear and military free zone and weapon sales to this area should be prohibited.

The NATO, which has outlived its cold war purpose should be disbanded,  and replaced by a Multi-National Development Network to initially benefit the populations of Middle Eastern and North African Nations, and eventually also other nations ravaged by famine, war or tribal conflicts.

All this might sound like a utopian fantasy or unattainable dream, but it is certainly worth the effort and a far more productive proposition than enriching the weapons industry which is killing millions of innocent civilians around the world today.

EU-Digest