Coalition Jets Scrambled to Defend U.S. Forces From Syrian Bombing

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A U.S.-led coalition sent aircraft into northeastern Syria on Thursday in a “very unusual” move to protect American special operation ground forces from attacks by Syrian government jets, a Pentagon official said on Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters the coalition aircraft reached the area around the city of Hasaka as the two Syrian SU-24s were leaving, and the U.S. special operation forces were in the area where the strikes were taking place. He said the Syrian planes did not respond to efforts by ground forces to contact them.

Davis said he was not aware of any other instances where coalition aircraft had been scrambled to respond to Syrian government bombing.

“This is very unusual, we have not seen the regime take this kind of action against YPG before,” Davis said, using an acronym for the Syrian Kurdish fighters . . .

On Friday, two Syrian aircraft tried to pass through the airspace around Hasaka, but left without incident when they were met by coalition fighter jets. The coalition fighter jets were F-22 aircraft and came within 1 mile (1.6 km)of the Syrian planes. (Read more from “Coalition Jets Scrambled to Defend U.S. Forces From Syrian Bombing” HERE)

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The Global Poor Aren’t Dominated by Markets — They’re Excluded From Them

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Religious and political leaders often talk about how poor people are dominated by markets, and how we need to protect the poor in the developing world from the crushing effects of globalization. The reality is that the poor aren’t dominated by markets. They’re excluded from them.

When Pope Francis said we must say “no to an economy of exclusion and inequality,” he underscored the fundamental problem that the poor face today: They’re disconnected and excluded from the institutions of justice that would enable them to create prosperity in their own communities.

Our immediate reaction to statements like this can be to gather and send money or goods overseas, or to focus on taxation/redistribution policies aimed at eradicating inequality. But these reactions miss the deeper sources of injustice — things like a lack of access to justice in the courts, an absence of clear title to land, or the inability to register a business.

Where the poor have gained these things in cultures around the world, they have lifted themselves out of poverty by the hundreds of millions. Where they have been denied these things, they have remained mired in extreme poverty, generation after generation.

Reform is possible. Unleashing the creative capacity of the poor is possible. But getting there requires overcoming at least four key challenges.

1. The Current System Benefits the Wealthy and Well-Connected.

Many of the powerful and wealthy don’t have an economic incentive to build institutions of justice like clear title to land or broad access to the formal economy. They are doing well under the status quo and many of them are actually benefiting from the current situation through connections, access to special privileges, bribes and sweetheart deals on things like mineral rights.

The point here isn’t to critique everyone who is privileged and well-connected in developing countries. Rather it’s to point out that pure economic incentive is not enough to build inclusive institutions. There must be a moral and spiritual motivation and a change of heart, as well as a hunger for justice that only a spiritual conversion can bring about.

2. Many are Fixated on the Bugbear of “Unfettered Capitalism.”

A second challenge to justice and inclusion for the poor is the widespread misconception that “unfettered capitalism” is the source of our economic troubles. This is a common refrain from politicians, celebrities and religious leaders, and even, unfortunately, from business professors.

I once participated in a panel discussion about capitalism at the Academy of Management. Accompanying me on the panel was a European professor from a prestigious Ivy League business school who argued that the biggest problem we face is unfettered capitalism — not crony capitalism, but unfettered capitalism. He said this several times, so I finally pressed him to give an actual example of where such unfettered capitalism exists. Of course he could not.

In Europe, on average 40% of GDP is made up of government spending. We often hear about the brutal Anglo-American model, but the U.S. is not much different from Europe: Government spending is close to 40% of GDP, with a government debt to GDP ratio of over 100%. In the last several years, thousands of new regulations have been added. Corporate tax rates are at 39%, the highest among OECD countries, and with personal rates, five of the seven brackets are at 25% or more, with a top bracket of 39% to help pay for all this spending. Even the original Keynesian, John Maynard Keynes — a proponent of government interventions in the market — once commented in a letter (to Colin Clark, May 1, 1944) that he thought the highest tolerable limit of taxation was around 25%.

The problem is that, while the unfettered capitalism we hear so much about does not really exist — and is a distraction from the real issue which is, more often than not, crony capitalism and oligarchy — an economy controlled from the top down benefits politicians and corporate insiders, and excludes the poor.

3. Populist Policies and Populist Rhetoric Distract.

A third and related challenge is that populist programs and populist rhetoric distract from building an economy that allows the poor to enter the formal economy and create wealth through business enterprise. A majority of countries throughout world create burdensome and exclusionary rules that harm the poor, but they enact one or two high profile populist programs that make it look like they care for the poor. Then they try to shift the blame to others to mask the obstacles and exclusionary policies they create.

India, for example, provides up to 100 days of paid labor for the poorest, which makes the state look benevolent. But if instead the government built institutions of justice, if they didn’t suffocate the poor under corruption and cronyism, then the government wouldn’t need to offer the subsidy. The poor would be able to find work that paid better, and they would have the dignity of knowing they were taking care of their families, not dependent on the benevolence of the state.

It has been a classic Latin American strategy to blame some other outside force for its own problems. Whether it is neoliberalism or hidden interests, or U.S. foreign policy, the cause of poverty is always something from outside. While the U.S. and Europe are not blameless, the main reason for poverty in Latin America is bad governmental policies of the right and the left that enrich a few at the expense of the majority. It’s important to unmask this deception so people understand the root of the problem.

4. The Idea That Charity, and Not Business, is the Solution to Poverty Misleads.

Charity and concern for the poor is essential. There will always be poverty and human need, and, as Benedict XVI wrote in Deus Caritas Est, this requires a response of love. The state cannot solve all our problems. Neither can economic development alone. There will always be the need for human love and care for the widow and the orphan. But at the same time, for the majority of the world’s poor, the long-term problem is they are excluded from the institutions of justice that would enable them to create prosperity in their own families and communities.

The challenge of global poverty is complex. Thoughtful economic and legal reforms are necessary, but so too are spiritual transformation, moral clarity and a hunger for justice rooted in prudence, charity and truth. One of the first things we need to do is identify the problems correctly. (For more from the author of “The Global Poor Aren’t Dominated by Markets — They’re Excluded From Them” please click HERE)

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‘The War Won’t Be Over Soon’: Ukraine’s Long Fight Against Russia for Freedom

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For more than two years, Ukraine’s military has been fighting a ground war against a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars in the Donbas, Ukraine’s embattled southeastern territory.

As Ukraine prepares for the 25th anniversary of its independence from the Soviet Union this Wednesday, the ongoing war in the Donbas highlights how the post-Soviet country is still fighting to establish its freedom from Russian vassalage.

“The dream of Ukrainian independence existed in the USSR, but we couldn’t talk about it,” Kovbel Vasyl Vasyliyovych, a 62-year-old Ukrainian soldier, told The Daily Signal. “The environment was one in which you only tried to survive. You didn’t express yourself. I feel like now I can finally express sentiments that I’ve had bottled up inside me my whole life.”

The war in Ukraine is a bizarre, paradoxical fusion of antiquated fighting methods with modern technology. It is a trench warfare battle, where heavy artillery is fired every day and drones orbit overhead. Small units engage each other in no man’s land, but there are no serious attempts to take new ground. The war is static, governed in its intensity by the terms of the Minsk II cease-fire. It’s like two boxers sparring at half speed, sparing themselves for the main event.

It has been nearly 100 years since the Russian Civil War began, sparking events that led to the consolidation of Ukraine into the Soviet Union—a loss of independence that lasted until Aug. 24, 1991. Today, many Ukrainian soldiers say they are still fighting for Ukraine’s independence from Moscow.

“The separatists are the weapons of the Russians,” Borys Antonovich Melnyk, a 75-year-old Ukrainian volunteer soldier and Red Army veteran, said in an interview.

“They were turned by Russian propaganda against Ukraine,” Melnyk said. “They are Russia’s weapons. They are the weapons, not the reasons. This is not only a war against the separatists, this is a war against Russia.”

It has also been about 100 years since combat airpower made its debut over the trenches in World War I. Today, Ukraine’s air force now sits on the ground while its soldiers dodge artillery and tank shots.

And despite the front lines ending on the Sea of Azov, there is no naval component to the war, either.

The last major offensive in the war was in February 2015. In the days after the signing of the second cease-fire, known as Minsk II, combined Russian-separatist forces sacked the strategic rail hub town of Debaltseve, seizing it from Ukrainian government control.

Since the Debaltseve battle, periodic upticks in violence predictably spur flurries of media speculation about whether a major Russian offensive is looming. Yet, the war has not changed in any meaningful way in more than a year and a half. No significant territory has changed hands, and the opposing camps have made scant progress toward achieving a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

And periodic spats between Kyiv and Moscow, such as the Aug. 10 border skirmishes in Crimea, underscore how the conflict retains the potential to quickly spiral into something much worse.

>>>After Crimea ‘Incursions,’ Russia and Ukraine Step Back From All-Out War

Today, U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence sources estimate the combined Russian-separatist army has about 45,000 troops inside Ukrainian territory, with about 45,000 more Russian soldiers staged in Russia along the western border with Ukraine. Russia also has about 45,000 military personnel stationed inside occupied Crimea. Ukraine has deployed about 100,000 soldiers to its eastern territories.

“The Russian people are not the enemy,” Vasyliyovych said. “Half of my relatives and friends live in Russia. It’s a political war. The Soviet propaganda is still there. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin still uses it the same way as they did in the USSR.”

Ad Hoc War

The Ukrainian army’s 92nd Brigade is hunkered down in trenches and in the basements of abandoned homes scattered throughout the artillery-blasted ruins of the village of Pisky, on the outskirts of the separatist-controlled Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine.

Squads of Ukrainian soldiers on patrol carry at least one radio among them. The radio, usually an off-the-shelf Motorola, is their advance warning system for incoming artillery.

Spotters posted in front-line trenches continuously peer across no man’s land through binoculars and telescopes. When they observe artillery fired in the Ukrainians’ direction, they have a few precious instants to radio a warning—the word “hole”—on a common frequency. That’s the cue for all who hear it to take cover or to lay down flat on the ground if caught in the open.

The radios the Ukrainian soldiers use are not encrypted. Therefore, they share the airwaves with their enemies. Due to the lack of encrypted radios and how frequently Ukrainians change their positions, which precludes setting up hardline communications, the Ukrainians sometimes use runners to carry handwritten messages scribbled on sheets of torn paper among various front-line posts.

In calm periods of bemusement, the Ukrainian troops listen to radio chatter transmitted from the opposite side of no man’s land; they pick out Russian accents from Moscow, or St. Petersburg. The Ukrainians often chime in on the radio, employing the full breadth of the Russian language’s copious lexicon of curse words to taunt and mock their enemies.

At night, the dark sky is cut by the streaking red lights of tracer fire. And there is the frequent whirring sound from the motors of Russian drones orbiting overhead. The Ukrainian soldiers call them “sputniks.”

During downtime, the soldiers scroll through their Facebook pages on their smartphones. They listen to music or watch movies on their laptops. They try not to cluster together when on their cellphones, however, due to reports of Russian signals technology that can pick out clusters of cell signals as a way to target artillery.

The soldiers use an app, loaded onto a tablet and developed by university students in Kyiv, for plotting enemy artillery positions on a Google Earth map of the battlespace.

Without the possibility of airborne medevac, ground evacuation is the only hope for survival if a soldier is wounded. Understanding the long odds against survival if wounded severely, many Ukrainian soldiers carry a grenade under their body armor as a means to commit suicide if they are ever mortally wounded.

During the day, tanks on both sides periodically come out from their camouflaged hiding spots to lob a few artillery rounds across no man’s land. Snipers take frequent potshots, and other weapons like automatic grenade launchers are often used.

In 2012, Ukraine was the world’s fourth largest arms exporter, selling more than $1.344 billion worth of conventional arms, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Yet, apart from weapons and ammunition, almost all of the Ukrainian soldiers’ kits, food, and clothing are brought to the front lines by civilian volunteers. Many Ukrainian soldiers have used their own money to buy uniforms and body armor off the internet. One soldier said his wife gave him a body armor vest for his birthday.

Civilian volunteer groups raise money from internet campaigns to purchase items like individual first aid kits, sleeping bags, boots, and food for soldiers deployed to the front lines. Volunteers, usually with no military training, deliver these supplies, exposing themselves to the same risks of artillery and sniper fire as the soldiers they are supporting.

One Dimensional Fight

The southern terminus of the front lines is in the seaside town of Shyrokyne, on the Sea of Azov.

In the industrial city of Mariupol, about 20 minutes by car west of the front, the beaches are lined with troop barricades, barbed wire, and mines. It is a scene reminiscent of fortifications in Normandy during World War II.

Separatist territory comprises about 20 miles of shoreline on the Sea of Azov (running from Shyrokyne to the Russian border), but there is currently no naval dimension to the conflict.

Air power is also almost nonexistent. The Ukrainian air force was grounded as a condition of the first cease-fire signed in September 2014. The Donbas is now among the most heavily defended airspaces on Earth. The area is replete with modern Russian surface-to-air missile systems, posing a grave threat to Ukraine’s Cold War-era warplanes.

The July 17, 2014, downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over separatist-held territory by a Russian BUK surface-to-air missile, killing all 288 people aboard, highlighted the threat to aircraft in the region.

Three days prior to the downing of MH17, a Ukrainian An-26 transport plane flying at more than 21,000 feet over eastern Ukraine was brought down by a surface-to-air missile—the crew survived. A month earlier, on June 14, 2014, a Ukrainian IL-76 transport plane was shot down near the Luhansk airport in separatist-controlled territory, killing 49 soldiers and crew.

According to news reports, combined Russian-separatist forces shot down seven Ukrainian fighter and attack aircraft, three transport aircraft, and at least nine helicopters over eastern Ukraine prior to the first cease-fire.

Ukraine has not lost any aircraft to enemy fire after September 2014 due to the halt in air operations. Yet, according to the Ukrainian military, Russian air defense forces are still moving into eastern Ukraine.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported that Russia had deployed a mobile air defense division to the Donbas, comprising 12 TOR-M2U short-range air defense missile systems and 170 personnel.

Additionally, combined Russian-separatist forces in eastern Ukraine currently have more tanks than the arsenals of France and the United Kingdom put together, according to Ukrainian defense officials.

Life Goes On

In Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv one would hardly know there was a land war going on within a day’s drive from the city’s bustling cafés and restaurants. There are new art spaces popping up across town, live music in the bars, festivals in the streets. It feels like a carefree summer in any European capital.

Kyiv’s main thoroughfare, Khreshchatyk, will be closed for a military parade on Wednesday as part of Independence Day celebrations.

Many Ukrainian soldiers admit they don’t want civilian life to grind to a halt because of the war. They say it is a testament to their military service and the promise of the 2014 revolution that normal life carries on despite the war.

Kyiv’s ubiquitous hipsters, the new coffee shops, the packed arena concerts featuring bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Muse make it feel like the revolution’s promise of a more Western European way of life is inching toward reality. Ukrainian millennials wishfully describe Kyiv as the “New Berlin.”

Yet, beneath the surface, life is harder in Ukraine than it was prior to the 2014 revolution. The country’s economy is struggling. Wages have remained stagnant despite the fact that the hryvnia, Ukraine’s national currency, has plummeted to less than a third of its pre-revolution value against the dollar.

Corruption is still rampant, from government halls to the minutia of daily life, like getting in to see a doctor. And the war is no closer to a long-term solution today than when the second cease-fire was signed on Feb. 12, 2015, more than a year and a half ago.

The conflict is quarantined to the Donbas region, which comprises less than 15 percent of Ukraine’s total landmass. And for many Ukrainians, the day-to-day hardships of the economic downturn trump concerns about the conflict, which has little tangible impact on daily life outside of the war zone. News reports from the front lines have consequently faded from Ukraine’s domestic headlines.

Waning public attention to the war has left many returning veterans feeling isolated and frustrated when they return home. There is a feeling among many veterans and active-duty soldiers that they are fighting in a forgotten war. Not only forgotten by the world’s media, but by Ukrainians themselves.

“The war won’t be over soon,” Melnyk, the 75-year-old Ukrainian soldier, said. “I don’t know when. Maybe Putin knows. Maybe [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko knows. But I don’t think it will be over soon.” (For more from the author of “‘The War Won’t Be Over Soon’: Ukraine’s Long Fight Against Russia for Freedom” please click HERE)

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We Dodged One ISIS Bullet. But Will America Be as Lucky Next Time?

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How many more terrorist bullets must we dodge before we finally come to our senses and deploy every possible legal tool against our jihadist enemies? Two news stories from earlier this month got somewhat lost in the turmoil surrounding the presidential election and the excitement of the Olympics, but together they tell us both about the bullet we just dodged and about the ones we can expect to face if Congress doesn’t act more aggressively in defense of the American people. In one story, the FBI announced the arrest of Nicholas Young of Virginia for trying to provide material aid to ISIS. In the other, the New York Times laid out the activities of the so-called “Emni,” a branch of ISIS that oversees its program to plant jihadists in western Europe and the United States.

Young’s history is sobering. A Metro cop since 2003, he was a convert to Islam who ventured twice to Libya to fight with the so-called rebels against Muammar Qaddafi — the same rebels who were later revealed as radical Islamic terrorists affiliated with ISIS. He stockpiled weapons and traveled with military equipment (which we apparently know because his baggage was searched) and had subsequent contact with terrorist sympathizers in the United States, as well as FBI agents posing as terrorist sympathizers. In addition, our allies clearly saw him as a threat — the Egyptian authorities actually prevented him from entering Libya on one trip, although he subsequently gained access through Tunisia. Still, for the six years the FBI had him under surveillance, there does not seem to have been an effort to restrict his movements or raise concerns about his work as a Metro cop, despite the havoc he could have wrecked given his position and jihadist training. The consensus seems to have been that he was kooky but not really serious about committing a terrorist act. Only when he was caught red-handed trying to provide untraceable communications cards to ISIS was he finally arrested for providing material support to a known terrorist group.

While we can all breathe a sigh of relief that this human time bomb is no longer a threat to the innocent commuters of our nation’s capital, the New York Times article should eliminate any sense of false security. Nicholas Young was not just crazy and he was not a lone wolf — he was the forerunner of a gathering pack, a “global network of killers,” that ISIS is mobilizing to attack America and our allies abroad. He is also flesh-and-blood evidence that United States citizens are traveling overseas, contacting terrorist groups, and returning here to plot against us.

For the past three years, our attention has been riveted by the horrific acts of violence carried out by ISIS in its claimed caliphate. Critics of the Obama administration’s ISIS policy have frequently pointed out the anemic pace and intensity of the air strikes against ISIS, and have urged a more rigorous, concerted campaign to actually destroy them. While there have been some recent advances, reports about the activities of a secretive branch of ISIS called “Emni” suggest that even the dissolution of the caliphate will not end the ISIS threat. Indeed, ISIS is already planning for the next phase of this long war, which will shift to their agents in the West — some infiltrating the waves of refugees pouring out of the Middle East, some radicalized online, and some our own citizens who have gone abroad to train with terrorist groups.

There are many red flags around the Young case that need to be addressed. If the Obama Administration continues to refuse to recognize the threat that he represents, hopefully Congress will start to take action on legislation to address the influx of refugees from the Middle East and the ability of the State Department to make joining with a terrorist group overseas grounds for denying re-entry into the United States. In light of the terrorist threat we face, these steps are only the most basic common sense and should enjoy bi-partisan support.

In the case of Nicholas Young, our law enforcement officers were able to keep track of him until he tipped his hand about his intentions. We got lucky in this case, but ISIS has taken note of our vulnerability. The threat is growing, not receding and we might not be so lucky the next time. (For more from the author of “We Dodged One ISIS Bullet. But Will America Be as Lucky Next Time?” please click HERE)

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‘ISIS Child Suicide Bomber’ Kills 50 at Turkey Wedding

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A suspected Islamic State child suicide bomber massacred at least 50 wedding guests dancing in a Turkey street.

President Tayyip Erdogan blamed the murders on Islamic State and said the killer, who wore an explosive belt, was between the ages of 12 and 14.

The sickening attack is the deadliest bombing this year in Turkey, which faces threats from militants at home and across the border with neighbouring Syria.

The country’s President Tayyip Erdogan said militants had carried out the late-night attack Gaziantep on Saturday.

The local governor’s office said in a statement 50 people were killed in the bombing, and more wounded were still being treated in hospitals around the province. (Read more from “‘ISIS Child Suicide Bomber’ Kills 50 at Turkey Wedding” HERE)

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Lawsuit Filed Over Feds, Refugee Groups Losing 10,000+ Refugee Children, Possibly to Sex Trade or Worse

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A 12-year-old Honduran boy seeking asylum in the United States has been “lost” in the system, illustrating what immigration experts say is a widespread problem of the government failing to keep track of the large number of vulnerable children flooding across the border.

The case of missing child [Walter] has been brought to light in a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Columbia, South Carolina, that names Gov. Nikki Haley, the S.C. Department of Social Services, Lutheran Services and World Relief among the defendants. World Relief is a division of the National Association of Evangelicals and, like the Lutherans and Catholics, is heavily involved in the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers, getting paid handsomely to perform one of the government’s most secretive and cash-rich operations under the guise of humanitarianism, the suit claims. . .

The federal government has been “rubber stamping” the asylum applications of tens of thousands of child migrants like Walter since 2014, says Lauren Martel, the attorney representing [the plaintiff taxpayer] in the case. Their asylum applications are rushed through the system without taking time to ensure the children’s safety. . .

“There’s a 12-year-old boy out there somewhere who is unaccounted for and we only know about him because a lawyer in the Family Court of Beaufort County didn’t redact his name [on court documents],” Martel told WND. “So now he could be part of the sex trade industry for all we know. Nobody can tell us anything” . . .

“They do not routinely do background checks or determine that the person claiming them is capable, responsible, law-abiding or even financially able,” Vaughan said. “There are more than 10,000 kids who are here now without family members, and most of them are unaccounted for.” (Read more from “Lawsuit Filed Over Feds, Refugee Groups Losing 10,000+ Refugee Children, Possibly to Sex Trade or Worse” HERE)

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Another ‘Mentally Ill’ Muslim Excused for Stabbing Spree

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…The rising number of attacks on Jews and synagogues in recent years has been well documented, but it has nothing to do with terrorism and certainly not Islamic terrorism, French authorities say.

The latest attack came in Strasbourg, France, where an Orthodox Jewish rabbi was attacked in broad daylight Friday and left hospitalized by a knife-wielding Muslim yelling “Allahu Akbar!”

The incident was immediately scrubbed by French police as “not terrorism related” in what has become a pattern across Europe, Canada and the United States.

Instead of calling it terrorism, the authorities initially refer to the assailant as mentally ill or “suffering from psychiatric issues,” as the Daily Mirror reported on the latest incident, which took place just outside the rabbi’s home about 500 yards from the main synagogue in the city’s Jewish quarter.

As recently as Aug. 11, a woman ran over two police officers in Montreal with her car while yelling “Allah!” and she was also deemed mentally ill by Canadian authorities, CIJ News reported. (Read more from “Another ‘Mentally Ill’ Muslim Excused for Stabbing Spree” HERE)

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Jesus in Rio: Christian Olympians Share Their Faith During Games

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Jesus has been looming over the Rio games. And we don’t just mean the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue towering over the city. His presence has been felt in expressions of Christian faith by many of the athletes competing in the Olympics, though you’d be hard-pressed to find it breaking through the mainstream media coverage of the games.

In most instances, reporters would rather try catching a javelin with their bare hands then catch themselves quoting athletes expressing their joy in the Lord. Video highlights seem to cut away from the medal-winner just as they get to praising Jesus. Even Simone Biles saying Tuesday night she wanted to see Christ the Redeemer seemed to throw NBC’s Bob Costas for a loop. He offered a startled and odd “oh,” and an awkward, rapid change of subject.

By contrast, it’s amusing to watch the mainstream media fawn over Muslim fencer Ibtijah Muhammad, who was wildly heralded for being the first American Olympian to wear a hijab while competing. On Saturday, when America medaled in the women’s team sabre event, the AP story opened, “Ibtihaj Muhammad came to the Olympics determined to show the world that Muslim-American women can excel in sports. Muhammed will return home to New Jersey with proof she was right.”

Did anyone really need proof? Do her teammates — who remain unnamed in the article — have the right to feel like chopped liver?

Muslim Fencer Scores Media Victory Over Christian and Jewish Gymnasts

The media fixated on Muhammad’s Muslim faith the second she stepped onto the fencing strip for the individual sabre competition. Newsbusters’ Katie Yoder did some calculating. As of last Friday, American television networks dedicated 13 minutes, 25 seconds to Muhammad simply because she was the first American Olympian to wear a hijab.

By contrast, says Yoder, “When the U.S. women’s gymnastics landed a gold medal Tuesday evening, the broadcast networks spent 22 minutes, 35 seconds celebrating the win and interviewing the girls. Only 0.6 percent of the coverage mentioned the girls’ faith, even though several of them clearly expressed that God was their inspiration for competing.”

Now, as a former fencer, watching any fencer get national attention is worth a crisp salute. But Muhammad getting 100 times more attention for being a Muslim than the “Final Five” got for their faith should earn the media a major point deduction.

Still, the Light has found a way to shine. Here are just a few examples:

Faith of “The Final Five” on Display

Monday morning, as she prepared to compete on the balance beam, 16-year-old Laurie Hernandez tweeted out Isaiah 40:31:

I don’t know how anybody could walk — let alone flip, flop and fly — on a 4″-wide elevated piece of wood without feeling at least a little faint. But Hernandez did “soar on wings like eagles,” and earned a silver medal. In the ensuing hoopla, she found time to praise Hillsong United’s “Touch the Sky.”

Hillsong Young & Free is just one of the Christian artists on the Olympic training playlist teammate Gabby Douglas shared with Billboard magazine right before the Games. Unfortunately, Gabby Douglas has had an Olympic experience filled with more lament than celebration. Cruel attacks on her looks, her demeanor, even her patriotism devastated the regal 2012 Olympic darling. She told the media Tuesday the comments were “really hurtful,” and as ESPN reported, she then walked down a hallway, “stood in a corner, facing a wall, and had a good, long cry.” Very few people approached her. Hopefully, one of the songs on her Billboard list came to her heart: “You’ll Never Be Alone.”

By Wednesday, it appears Gabby was itching to soar again.

“God Prepared My Heart to Respond That Way”

American runner Abbey D’Agostino knows the presence of God in the midst of pain. Her inspirational example of the Olympic spirit has made headlines across the globe. Abbey was competing in a 5,000-meter qualifier Tuesday when she got tangled with New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin. Both women crashed to the ground. Abbey scrambled to her feet to continue racing, but stopped cold when she saw Nikki was still crumpled on the track. Abbey reached for her competitor, helped her up and urged the New Zealander to keep running.

Both completed the race. However, Abbey was carted off the track in a wheelchair. Somehow, maybe you can say miraculously, she had finished the final 2,000 meters despite suffering a torn ACL and strained MCL in her right knee. (For you metric-phobes, that’s 1.25 miles.)

Despite the stop, despite the injury, Abbey has no regrets. And you have to hear why. “Although my actions were instinctual at that moment, the only way I can and have rationalized it is that God prepared my heart to respond that way,” said the 24-year-old Christian. “This whole time here, he’s made clear to me that my experience in Rio was going to be about more than my race performance — and as soon as Nikki got up I knew that was it.”

According to the race results, Abbey D’Agostino finished in 29th place. Yet even Michael Phelps is no greater a champion.

“We Just Let His Presence Come Upon Us”

American women’s hurdlers are leaving Rio with the bling. Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin earned gold, silver and bronze in the 100-meter hurdles; the first time a single nation has swept the medals since 1972. And to Him they gave the glory.

“I just kept God first and just continued to let Him guide me through the rounds,” Rollins said, “We formed a prayer circle this morning and we just let His presence come out here and continue to glorify him and do the best that we can and that’s what we did.”

“We Are Winners Because of This World”

Finally, we started out by saying the mainstream media appears to be downplaying the importance of Christian faith to many of the athletes. So we do have to credit NBC where credit’s due, as in their story “Divers Johnson and Boudia rely on faith to put minds at ease,” about Olympic silver medalists Steele Johnson and David Boudia.

But we close with an inspirational moment that NBC didn’t quite get. Go to NBCOlympics.com and you’ll find a video titled “Fiji rugby players sing after winning gold.” The full caption accompanying the video reads, “The Figi men’s rugby team sang in celebration after winning the gold medal.” Oh, NBC, it was much more. They sang alright. They sang like David sang.

This was the first Olympic gold medal Fiji has won in that nation’s entire history, and the Fiji rugby 7 were singing about the King. It’s a gospel hymn called “E Da SA Qaqa.” Translation: “We Are Winners Because Of This World.”

The lyrics:

“We have overcome,
We have overcome.
By the blood of the lamb in the Word of the Lord
We have overcome.”

(For more from the author of “Jesus in Rio: Christian Olympians Share Their Faith During Games” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Cash Deal Encourages Iran to Take More Hostages

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The trickle of disturbing leaks about the Obama administration’s flawed and risky Iran policy continues to grow. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that “New details of the $400 million U.S. payment to Iran earlier this year depict a tightly scripted exchange specifically timed to the release of several American prisoners held in Iran.”

Although President Barack Obama’s White House persistently has denied that the cash transfer amounted to a ransom payment, a State Department spokesman admitted Thursday that the U.S. government delayed making the payment “to retain maximum leverage” over Iran.

This concession confirms widespread suspicions that the negotiations over the release of four Americans were at least tacitly, if not directly, linked to negotiations over the return of frozen Iranian money that had been paid to the United States before Iran’s 1979 revolution for military weapons.

When the administration announced in January that the hostages had been released, it also announced that it had agreed to pay Tehran $1.7 billion to settle a longstanding claim at the U.S.-Iran claims tribunal, which was set up under the 1981 Algiers Accords that resolved the first Iran hostage crisis. But the White House insisted that the payment was made as part of the agreement that resolved the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, not the latest hostage deal.

The January hostage deal involved the release of four innocent Americans held on trumped-up charges in exchange for seven Iranians justifiably imprisoned or charged with sanctions violations and the dropping of criminal charges against another 14 Iranians arrested outside the United States for various offenses.

Such criminals-for-hostages swaps reward hostage taking and the deal was criticized for that reason when the hostages were released on Jan. 17, the day after the “Implementation Day” of the Iran nuclear agreement.

But subsequent revelations have put the prisoner exchange in an even worse light.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 3 that $400 million worth of cash was transferred to Iran on the same day the hostages were released, at the request of the Iranian officials involved in the hostage negotiations who “said they wanted the cash to show that they had gained something tangible.”

Senior Justice Department officials had objected to sending the cash at the same time as the hostage release, but their objections were overruled by the State Department.

Clearly, Iranian officials consider the cash payment to be a hostage ransom. The commander of the Basij, a volunteer force affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, gloated in January that the United States had bought the freedom of the American prisoners with the payment.

The Tehran regime has arrested at least six more foreign visitors since the payment was made in January, including Reza Shahini, a dual Iranian-American citizen, and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese national with U.S. permanent residency.

Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman based in Dubai, was arrested in October while visiting a friend in Tehran.

Even more disturbing is the case of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Levinson went missing after interviewing David Belfield, an American convert to Islam who fled to Iran after he assassinated an exiled Iranian opposition leader, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, in 1980 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Clearly, Tehran has concluded that crime does pay.

The Obama administration’s hostage deal is a dangerous precedent that puts more Americans at risk of being targeted by Iran and its terrorist surrogates to extract ransom payments in the future.

This is part of the hazardous legacy that Obama will leave for the next president. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Cash Deal Encourages Iran to Take More Hostages” please click HERE)

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Radical Muslim Cleric Found Guilty of Supporting ISIS

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For over two decades, the radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary has been preaching hate to British Muslims and encouraging acts of extremism. He also was made several contentious appearances on Fox News’ Hannity program.

Now a London jury has found Choudary guilty of supporting the terrorist group ISIS.

The maximum prison term he faces under the United Kingdom’s Terrorism Act is 10 years. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 6.

The 49-year-old Choudary had made a series of YouTube videos in which he actively promoted ISIS and encouraged Muslims to join the cause.

In 2014, he pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Choudary and his associate, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, were found guilty of motivating others to support the terrorist group between June 29, 2014, and March 6, 2015, in violation of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Many people connected to Choudary were later convicted of terror offenses, including Michael Adebowale, who killed British soldier Lee Rigby in 2013.

Dean Haydon, who heads the London Metropolitan Police Service’s counterterrorism unit, considers the conviction a significant victory.

“These men have stayed just within the law for many years, but there is no one within the counterterrorism world that has any doubts of the influence that they have had, the hate they have spread and the people that they have encouraged to join terrorist organizations,” Haydon said.

“Over and over again we have seen people on trial for the most serious offenses who have attended lectures or speeches given by these men,” he continued. “The oath of allegiance was a turning point for the police — at last we had the evidence that they had stepped over the line and we could prove they supported ISIS.”

The radical cleric has been on record saying: ‘We initiate the jihad against the kuffar [disbelievers] to make the name of Allah in the highest. He never considered defending yourself part of jihad. He said you need to send in the army. … It is about time we resumed conquering for the sake of Allah.”

Choudary also encouraged his followers to tell their children that Islam would eventually conquer the world.

“Next time when your child is at school and the teacher asks, ‘What is your ambition?’ they should say, ‘To dominate the whole world by Islam, including Britain, that is my ambition,’” he said. (For more from the author of “Radical Muslim Cleric Found Guilty of Supporting ISIS” please click HERE)

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