Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday, 23 November 2015

The European Union Times


Posted: 22 Nov 2015 03:47 AM PST


GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul did not mince words in a campaign stop at George Mason University, Virginia Thursday, labeling a call for increased government surveillance as “Bullsh*t”.
“So when they stand up on television and says ‘the tragedy in Paris means you have to give up your liberty. We need more phone surveillance.’ Bullshit.” Paul told a crowd of students who enthusiastically cheered.
“Are you allowed to use profanity? Is that part of the– are we in the free speech zone?” the Libertarian leaning Paul quipped.
“But here’s the thing is, they are collecting your phone records as we speak. They did not miss a beat. And even though we voted on reform, all of your phone records are still being collected and stored in Utah.” Paul explained, referring to the NSA’s bulk data collection program.
“Did it stop the attack in Paris? Not one iota.” Paul concluded.
Paul again stands out from the GOP crowd on the issue of government surveillance, being the only candidate, aside from Ted Cruz, to express a desire to stop the NSA spying on Americans.
Other candidates such as Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have called for increasing the NSA’s spying.
“I will fight to restore the Patriot Act’s metadata program to ensure we have the ability to connect the dots between known foreign terrorists and potential operatives here in the United States,” Bush said in a speech at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., this week.
“At least two of my colleagues in the Senate aspiring to be president have voted to weaken the U.S. intelligence program,” Rubio said at a conference on Monday. “The weakening of our intelligence gathering capabilities leaves America vulnerable, and that is exactly what’s happened.”
Rand Paul has continually opposed NSA spying, famously carried out a ten hour filibuster on the Senate floor in an effort to block an increase in powers handed to the agency responsible for monitoring Americans’ emails and phone calls.
In the days since the Paris attacks, intelligence heads in the US have called for an increase in the surveillance of communications.
CIA head John Brennan has called for a review of reforms such as USA Freedom Act, claiming that they have created ‘inadvertent or intentional gaps’ in security.
Brennan said that the Paris attacks should serve as a ‘wake up call’ for more digital surveillance in the US, despite the fact that France has much more stringent surveillance programs which did nothing to prevent the attacks.
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Posted: 22 Nov 2015 03:41 AM PST


The leaders of all countries should consider the potential dangers of war games and do whatever it takes to prevent the escalation of the world’s most hazardous conflicts, according to Robert Farley, a senior lecturer on diplomacy for the University of Kentucky.
Every global war gets started with a so-called “spark,” or crisis situation, Farley writes in an article for The National Interest. He goes on to pinpoint five modern-day conflicts that could incite World War III if political solutions can’t be found for each of them.
The first of the high-risk conflicts, Farley writes, is the war in Syria. The spread of the Islamic State is of critical concern to the world’s largest powers, including Russia, France and the US. But even if these states are united by a joint coalition, internal tensions may rise within the alliance due to the respective members’ different plans for Syria’s future.
Warfare between outside forces on Syrian territory would rapidly drag countries like Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia into the conflict, as well as other states from distant corners of the globe.
The uneasy relationship between India and Pakistan, which could deteriorate at any moment, could become another “spark.” If Islamabad-sponsored radical groups carried out terror acts in India like those that ripped through Mumbai in 2008, New Delhi’s patience could run out. In this scenario, if Pakistan suffered a major defeat at the hands of India, the use of tactical nuclear weapons could be seen by Islamabad as the only way to resolve the situation after it had escalated, Farley notes.
He continues by saying that the US, which has strengthened its ties with India in the last few years, would be very likely to step into that war as well as China, which could take Pakistan’s side.
A third possible trigger could be the East China Sea, where for the last two years China and Japan have been playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Both states claim those territories and have deployed their military in nearby zones. If that conflict ignites, the United States is bound by a cooperation and security agreement to take the side of its long-term ally, Japan.
Farley notes that in such a situation, China would be likely to act first by launching an attack on America’s military infrastructure in the region.
Moreover, the state of affairs regarding the South China Sea has continued to elicit global concern because of the confrontation between US and Chinese naval and air units. A loss of self-control by either of the sides could result in horrifying consequences. A war between Beijing and Washington would be a catastrophe itself, but the point here, according to Farley, is that Japan and India would most likely meddle in the warfare.
And finally, the last point on Farley’s list is the series of events that have been unfolding in Ukraine. The outcome of the whole situation largely depends on to what extent NATO is ready to interfere in the country’s internal affairs, he highlighted.
If NATO intervened in Ukraine, Russia would be forced to take counter-measures. Additionally, any attack on any of the alliance’s member countries could trigger a NATO offensive.
Farley concludes by saying that the world powers fail to understand how dangerous war games actually are nowadays and that the leaders of the most powerful countries should remain vigilant and mitigate crises around the world rather than fueling them.
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Posted: 22 Nov 2015 03:22 AM PST

At a G20 summit in Turkey, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission has denied that Europe’s open borders allowed the Paris attacks to take place.
“I read here and there, I hear here and there that the true explanation of the events that took place in Paris is due to the fact that Europe is a continent with open borders, a continent that showed a certain generosity when it comes to dealing with the refugee crisis: this is not my analysis” he said.
“My belief is exactly the opposite of those and those who believe that the explanation underlying the attacks would be the European model.”
“He must see that those who organized these attacks and those who perpetrated them are exactly those refugees flee and not the reverse. And therefore there is no need to review the whole European refugee policy.”
“I try to make it crystal clear that we should not mix the different categories of people coming to Europe. The one who is responsible for the attacks in Paris cannot be put on an equal footing with real refugees, with asylum seekers and with displaced people.”
“These are criminals and not refugees or asylum seekers. I would like to invite those in Europe who are trying to change the migration agenda we have adopted – I would like to invite them to be serious about this and not to give in to these basic reactions. I don’t like it.”
“Do not confuse the perpetrators of criminal acts in Paris with the asylum seekers, with migrants who have good reason to knock on our doors; and do not confuse those who committed these atrocities with those who flee the philosophy and mentality that inspire acts that unfortunately we have seen in Paris.”
In other words he is saying, there will be no policy change in Europe. In their view, the “migrant crisis” is that there just aren’t enough of them in Europe yet.
When was it declared that Europe’s borders were to be opened??? Juncker admits that “Europe is a continent with open borders“.
Yes, the Schengen agreement means that Europeans are free to travel to other EU countries, but there has never been an open border policy declared, which would allow people from outside the EU to move there.
But for several months now, what we have seen is the EU dictators ignoring the fact that these people are ILLEGAL (does this word even mean anything anymore?), and screaming that they must be “distributed” all across Europe.
Then when that failed, they held a hushed-up Malta summit to persuade African countries to swap illegal immigrants for skilled legal immigrants, which also has failed.
They are trying to get as many non-European immigrants as possible into Europe because it is obvious by now that they want to annihilate the European genetic line. This is not some paranoid conspiracy, the people behind this have themselves admitted that this is what they want.
Legally speaking, this is genocide as it breaches the UN genocide conventions. It is a crime to target a group for harm or destruction, and turning a group into a minority with mass immigration certainly does meet that definition.
Indeed, we are all living in desperate times where normal is considered abnormal and abnormal is considered normal. Illegal means nothing and law is enforced only where and when wanted. A Godless and lawless society…
        
Posted: 22 Nov 2015 03:00 AM PST

Australian police arrested six people as anti-racist and anti-Islam activists clashed at a Reclaim Australia rally in the southeastern city of Melton. A large contingent of police separated the two groups.
At least 300 people came to the “Reclaim Australia” event at the Melton Civic Centre to speak out against the construction of a mosque in Melton, located just west of Melbourne. People carried signs reading, “Integrate or immigrate.”
The rally was organized to protest the decision by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) that overruled the local council’s denial to issue a permit to the Melbourne Islamic Centre to build a mosque in the city.
A counter-rally was held nearby, with communist antifa demonstrators from the “No Room For Racism” campaign gathering in their hundreds to support the Muslim community. Activists chanted: “Muslims are welcome, racists aren’t.” despite recent Muslim terror attacks in Paris, France.
Strong police presence was reported, with officers forming a wall between the two groups.
The situation got heated when scuffles between the groups broke out. Violent protesters were dragged by police from the crowds and arrested.
One man was detained for assaulting a police horse, three people for possession of weapons and two more we were apprehended for other violent acts.
The two groups pushed and shoved each other, as police intervened wearing full body armour.
Some Muslims at the rally reportedly covered their faces out of fear of retribution, according to social media posts.
One protester spoke adamantly about the need for immigrants to assimilate at the Reclaim Australia rally.
“I want my kids to have the same upbringing as I had, I want our kids to be able to sing the national anthem, have Christmas carols at their schools and not have to put up with the hijab,” ABC quoted him as saying. “Why do they need to build their own mosque and their own schools when they can send their kids to our schools? They need to assimilate and become a part of us.”
Meanwhile, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said that freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest needs to be respected, but not bigotry. “If you are out there peddling hate, you are not a protester, you are just a bigot. It is simple as that,” Andrews said.
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Posted: 22 Nov 2015 02:22 AM PST

On Friday Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said: “I think we should have a database on everybody who comes into this country” and added “hopefully, we already have a database on every citizen who is already here. If we don’t, we are doing a very poor job.”
Carson made the remark as he filed for the New Hampshire presidential primary in Concord.
The question was posed after Donald Trump declared earlier in the week during a campaign stop in Idaho “security is going to rule” if he is elected.
“We’re going to have to do things that we never did before,” he responded when asked if he would permit the use of warrantless searches.
“And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
“I would certainly implement that,” Trump said about a database tracking only Muslims, but not all other American citizens. “Absolutely.”
“I hope that we have a database on everybody!” Carson said when asked by a reported to comment on Trump’s remark.
“If we don’t have a database on every foreigner who comes into the country, we’re being negligent. I want us to be able to know who they are; I want us to know where they came from; I want us to know where they’re going and why they’re here.”
On Friday Trump backed away from the comment.
Asked by Sara Murray of CNN if he would rule out Muslim databases, Trump replied he didn’t “know where you heard that.”
Asked again by Murray if he supported the idea, Trump did not answer.
“I never responded to that question, Sara,” he said.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 10:54