Geert Wilders: Time to Drain the Swamp - Also in Europe Amir Taheri: Lebanon: Is Cheat-and-Retreat Back on the Menu?

In this mailing: Geert Wilders: Time to Drain the Swamp - Also in Europe Amir Taheri: Lebanon: Is Cheat-and-Retreat Back on the Menu? Time to Drain the Swamp - Also in Europe by Geert Wilders • November 26, 2017 at 5:00 am Our democracies in the Western half of Europe have been subverted. Their goal is no longer to do what the people want. On the contrary, our political elites often do exactly the opposite. Our parliaments promote open-door policies that the majority of the people reject. Our governments sell out sovereignty to the EU against the will of the people. Our rulers welcome ever more Islam, although the majority of the people oppose it. Our democracies have become fake democracies. They are multi-party dictatorships, ruled by groups of establishment parties.... The establishment parties control everything, not just the politicians in their pay, but also the top brass of the civil service, the mainstream media, even the courts.... They call us "populists" because we stand for what the people want. They even drag us to court. We need to show that Europe's streets are our streets, that we want to stay who and what we are, and do not want to be colonized by Islam. Europe belongs to us! Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), casts his vote in The Hague during the Dutch general election that made his the second-largest party in the Netherlands, on March 15, 2017. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images) Next month, I will be visiting Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. I have been invited to speak to a group of Czech patriots. The Czechs are a freedom loving people. In 2011, on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan, they named a street in Prague after this great American president and freedom fighter. This fact reminded me of a shameful event in my home town of The Hague, the seat of the Dutch Parliament and the government of the Netherlands. Look for a Ronald Reagan Street in The Hague and you will find none. A proposal in 2011 to name a street in The Hague after Reagan ran into fierce political opposition. Leftist parties, such as Labor, the Greens and the liberal D66 party, argued that naming a street in honor of Reagan would "do the image of the city no good." The whole affair ended in a disgraceful political compromise. Last year, a short stretch of a local bicycle path was named the "Reagan and Gorbachev Lane". Continue Reading Article Lebanon: Is Cheat-and-Retreat Back on the Menu? by Amir Taheri • November 26, 2017 at 4:00 am Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (right) meets with then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon, on October 14, 2010. (Photo by Hezbollah Media Office via Getty Images) The Arab League holds an emergency meeting on Lebanon. France and the United States agree to work together to contain the Lebanese Hezbollah. Russia indicates support for compromise. Iran's official government invites everyone to "joint diplomatic efforts" while the unofficial government promises fire and brimstone against attempts at curbing Hezbollah. These recent Middle East headlines remind me of "The Adventures of Emir Arsalan The Famous", a popular Persian picaresque novel written in the 19th century. At one point the eponymic hero, searching the world for the great beauty Farrokh-Laqa who may be nothing but a fantasy, feels as if his life has become a constant repetition of exactly the same events and images. The novel's conceit echoes the Pythagorean theory of "eternal recurrence," according to which whatever is going to happen has already happened again and again. Continue Reading Article