[News With Views] Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people. —Roy T. Bennett, author of The Light in the Heart
Goodness is about character — integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people. —Dennis Prager
Kindness and faithfulness keep a king safe; through kindness his throne is made secure. —King Solomon
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort. —Humphry Davy, British chemist
America is swimming with sharks, and the water is filled with blood. There are two deadly species, Jihadists and Marxists——aka Liberals——and they always work together.
Not one of the Muslim Reps in Congress is a Republican. All are aligned with Stalinist Democrats (i.e., Communists). All were elected from areas where thousands of Islamists were planted by Barack Hussein Obama and Joseph Biden, the goal being to embrace globalism by compromising the America they hate.
When horrors like honor killings happen in America——like this one almost did when parents in Washington state tried to kill their 17-year-old daughter for refusing an arranged marriage——the Left is always silent.
In the middle of Dearborn, Michigan, an entire crowd shouted, "Death to America." Rep. Rashida Tlaib represents these citizens but she refused to condemn the vile display.
Text taken from theTelegram channel of YourNewsTalk
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
The ice hole reference is apparently in reference to Kol'chak being dumped under the ice of the frozen Angara River after the Bolsheviks executed him.
[ColonelCassad] I personally encountered the history and statistics of Kolchak's terror through one very revealing example.
When, in 2011-12, I was working on a biography of A.A. Zhdanov, who began his political career in the Shadrinsk district of Perm province, I had to delve into the history of the civil war in that district.
As a result, the statistics for 1918-1920 are very revealing: the number of victims of the Red Terror in Shadrinsk County was approximately 220. The number of victims of Kolchak's terror in Shadrinsk County was an order of magnitude higher – approximately 2,000. This, incidentally, is the reason why not only did peasants flee Kolchak to join the Bolsheviks, but also most of Kolchak's original political allies – from the Right Socialist Revolutionaries to the Mensheviks – who had been Lenin's opponents in 1917, by 1920, seeing the practices of Kolchakism, began either fleeing to Harbin and beyond or defecting to the Bolsheviks.
The biography of the Menshevik Ivan Maisky, our ambassador to Britain during the Great Patriotic War, is illustrative here. He began as a fervent opponent of Lenin in 1917, fought in the civil war against the Bolsheviks in 1918, and by 1919 had fled from Kolchakia all the way to Mongolia, only to defect to the Bolsheviks the following year. And there were many such biographies in those years—Admiral, with his truly cocaine-like terror, indiscriminate in its scale and scale, and mass murders never before seen in Siberia and the Urals, created enemies in a matter of months and turned a host of allies into a host of enemies.
On February 7, 1920, at 4 a.m., by decree of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee, a war criminal, an English officer, the "executioner of Siberia" A. V. Kolchak was shot.
"The uniform was English, the shoulder strap was French, the tobacco was Japanese, the ruler was from Omsk. The uniform was worn out, the shoulder strap fell off, the tobacco was smoked, the ruler disappeared."
V. I. Lenin summed up Kolchak's activities well: "Everything that could paralyze the revolution came to Kolchak's aid... and it all collapsed, because the Siberian peasants, who are least susceptible to the influence of communism, because...
"He is least observed... we received such a lesson from Kolchak... that we can say: Kolchak gave us millions of supporters of Soviet power in the regions most remote from industrial centers, where it would be difficult for us to win them over..."
ABOUT THE PERSONALITY OF ADMIRAL KOL'CHAK
A selection of excerpts from the book by the American General William Graves will help shed light on the personality of this "remarkable" man:
"Admiral Kolchak surrounded himself with former tsarist officials, and since the peasants were unwilling to take up arms and sacrifice their lives to restore these men to power, they were beaten, flogged, and cold-bloodedly murdered by the thousands, after which the world called them 'Bolsheviks.' In Siberia, the word 'Bolshevik' signifies a person who, in word or deed, does not support the return of representatives of the autocracy to power in Russia."
"For every person killed by the Bolsheviks in Eastern Siberia, a hundred were killed by anti-Bolsheviks."
"I doubt that in the history of the last half-century there is a single country in the world where murders were committed with even more calm and less fear of punishment than they were in Siberia under the regime of Admiral Kolchak." One example of the cruelty and lawlessness in Siberia is a typical incident in Omsk, Kolchak's residence, which occurred on December 22, 1918, just one month and four days after Kolchak assumed the powers of "Supreme Ruler." On that day, a workers' uprising against Kolchak's government broke out in Omsk. The revolutionaries were partially successful, opening the prison and allowing 200 arrested people to escape.
Among them, 134 were political prisoners, including several members of the Constituent Assembly. On the day of this, Kolchak's commander-in-chief in Omsk issued an order requiring all those released to return to prison, declaring that those who did not return within 24 hours would be killed on the spot.
All members of the Constituent Assembly and several other prominent political prisoners were returned to prison. That same night, several Kolchak officers escorted the members of the Constituent Assembly out of prison, declaring they would be brought to trial for the crimes they were accused of, and shot them all. The officers faced no punishment for this brutal and lawless murder. Conditions in Siberia were such that such atrocities could easily be hidden from the world.
The foreign press constantly claimed that the Bolsheviks were the Russians who committed these horrific excesses, and propaganda was so active that no one could even imagine that these atrocities were committed against the Bolsheviks.
It's not surprising that many years later, in Siberia and the Urals, villagers called and continue to call the most vicious watchdogs by Kolchak's name.
(c) Vyacheslav Konovalov
It's worth noting that even after the collapse of the USSR, Kolchak was never rehabilitated and remains legally a war criminal.That's in addition to his work for British military intelligence and his service to foreign interventionists, who ultimately abandoned the hapless executioner, appropriating Kolchak's gold for themselves (incidentally, they're in no hurry to return the loot they stole in Siberia).
And one can certainly agree with Lenin that Kolchak's executioner policies drove huge masses of people to the Bolsheviks and contributed to the Reds' victory in Siberia. The Russian people looked to the Bolsheviks, looked to Kolchak and his Western masters, and ultimately chose the Bolsheviks. And it was the Russian partisan movement that devoured Kolchak's rearguard. Among them were many peasants, who had once been sent to Siberia in Stolypin's notorious train cars. Incidentally, this was also part of Stolypin's contribution to the future revolution.
Kolchak's letters to Temireva, as well as the Kolchak case file, are now largely available online, where one can learn about his real, rather than mythologized, activities.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Gregor Spitzen
[REGNUM] The German Chancellor's trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates acquired scandalous overtones even at the planning stage. Friedrich Merz traveled to the Persian Gulf countries primarily to improve economic relations. Meanwhile, his coalition partners from the SPD, the Greens, and non-governmental organizations insisted that the primary goal was to address the limitations of human rights in the region.
It must be said that German politicians are doing a disastrous job of both. Germany has not yet forgotten the "triumphant" visit to Qatar by Green Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Economics Robert Habeck in November 2022, when, upon his return to Berlin, he announced that he had resolved all national gas supply issues and ensured Germany's energy security for years to come. Liquefied natural gas from Qatar has never arrived in Germany.
As for Annalena Baerbock -style foreign policy, which delighted in visiting countries with completely different cultural codes and delivering pompous lectures on the nature of democracy and human rights, demonstrating textbook examples of narrative thinking, even the German government seems to have finally realized that this is a dead end. It's very easy to lose friends and make enemies, something Germany simply cannot afford today.
Given the precarious situation in the national energy sector, Merz wisely decided to risk the coalition consensus and focus on the economic aspect of his visit. The chancellor has cause for concern: over the past week, gas reserves in German storage facilities have fallen by 32%.
Nord Stream has long since been blown up. The reliability of the United States as a primary source of LNG has been called into question following Donald Trump's Greenland antics. Therefore, the importance of the Gulf countries as alternative suppliers of natural gas for Germany today is difficult to overestimate.
And when the Chancellor was asked during a visit to a floating library in Doha whether he had addressed the murder of CNN journalist beloved martyr of journalism Jamal Khashoggi
...who was simultaneously a very well paid Washington Post columnist and a long time propagandist for the Moslem Brotherhood and Al Qaeda — he died while on the Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... i payroll, but previously wrote at the behest of then-Saudi intel chief Prince Turki al-Faisal... , which took place eight years ago in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey, he avoided a direct answer.
"We don't talk about this in public; such matters are decided behind closed doors," the chancellor replied. An understandable move in the realm of realpolitik, but one that will certainly anger the moralistic Greens and their ideological allies in the SPD back home.
However, it was precisely thanks to the chancellor's restraint that the dinner with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was "cordial and open." It was hard to imagine that Merz would use the first intimate moments of such a warm atmosphere with bin Salman to discuss human rights violations in general and the murder of the unpopular journalist in particular.
It is unlikely that the Chancellor recalled the conflict in Yemen, in which Saudi Arabia acted as an intervener and which led to the deaths of many civilians.
Setting aside ideology and focusing on national interests, the chancellor wants to simplify arms exports to the Persian Gulf countries, conclude energy partnerships and investment agreements, and plan infrastructure projects. Merz was accompanied by a large business delegation, including heads of energy, construction, and defense companies.
"Our partners may not share the same values and interests, but they understand that we need an order in which we trust agreements and treat each other with respect," the chancellor said.
Before his election, the CDU leader promised to boost the German economy. However, the government has so far failed to achieve this. The "autumn of reforms" promised by Merz has remained a collection of pathetic slogans.
New incentives to develop manufacturing in Germany, rather than relocating it to countries with more favorable tax policies, predictable electricity prices, and reasonable environmental standards for Germany's industrial giants, have yet to materialize. The German economy has continued to stagnate for the third year in a row, and even the €800 billion in investments in the military-industrial complex and infrastructure, borrowed by the "black-red" government from future generations of Germans, have yet to yield any visible returns.
In such a dire situation, the chancellor, whose support in German society has fallen to 23%, could clearly use some outside help.
For example, from solvent "partners" from the Persian Gulf. Especially since the Arab side has shown great interest in German investments in the development of Saudi cities, as became known after Merz's meeting with bin Salman.
The German company Siemens, for example, is currently building a metro in the Saudi Arabian capital. The Chancellor promised that Riyadh can rely on Germany's commitments and that he wants to take relations "to a new level."
It seems the Persian Gulf sheikhs needn't worry about German arms manufacturers refusing to sell anything to them, citing human rights concerns in the region as the reason for the ban. It's worth noting that under the previous "traffic light coalition" government, an embargo was imposed on the sale of Eurofighter fighter jets to Saudi Arabia for political reasons.
Although, after heated intra-coalition discussions, an agreement in principle to sell combat aircraft to Riyadh was reached, some believe it came too late. The Saudis have since taken a good look at American models. And their sale is being actively lobbied by Trump himself, with whom even Middle Eastern monarchs should avoid unnecessary antagonism. However, the Germans are hoping for at least a successful deal with the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft.
From a common-sense perspective, the German government's shift from ideologically charged policies to real-world ones can only be welcomed. However, the realization that the real world is nothing like Disneyland has come to Berlin significantly late.
While Germany was pontificating about the rights of women, sexual minorities*, and Pakistani workers on Arab construction sites, its competitors were busy developing promising markets, courting solvent buyers. So, Germany's timing for carving up the "Middle Eastern pie" was ill-timed.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
