News and Analysis (9/7/15)

The FBI’s brilliant plan to deter Americans from joining the Islamic State: Send those who choose NOT to join to prison for thirty years …

• An American Family Saved Their Son from Joining the Islamic State. Now He Might Go to Prison (Washington Post)

… while some equally brilliant British newspapers propose solving the Syrian refugee crisis by creating more Syrian refugees …

• Refugee crisis: National Newspapers Start to Rattle the Sabres (Guardian)

… because “[t]his mass migration from the Middle East and beyond is a direct result of the neocon foreign policy of regime change, invasion, and pushing ‘democracy’ at the barrel of a gun” …

• The Real Refugee Problem – and How to Solve It (Ron Paul Institute / World News Daily)

… meanwhile, President Rouhani says, “Iran will sit at any table with regional countries and world powers if the outcome will be a safer, stable and democratic future for Syria,” calling the offer “part of Iran’s commitment to ‘international, Islamic and humane’ norms”:

• Rouhani: Iran Ready to Hold Talks on Syria with US, Saudi (AP /abc News)

“[A]mong some 6,200 candidates running for office for 92 parties, it seems certain that there will be not a single candidate from the Muslim population” and “hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been denied the right even to cast ballots”:

• Burma Launches Electoral Adventure with Muslim Politicians Excluded (Telegraph)

What Netanyahu means when he says Israel lacks the “demographic depth” to take in Syrian refugees, is that there are already too many non-Jews in the land:

• Israel’s Netanyahu Rejects Call to Take in Syrian Refugees (Christian Science Monitor)

“Free speech is non-negotiable and therefore, the demand to ban or proscribe any book, work or literature goes against our constitutional principles. [i]t will also be counterproductive because proscription or banning today … will actually make that work more popular”:

• Muslim Community Divided over Proposed Ban on Prophet Mohammad Film (First Post)

Allegations of police forcibly shaving men and of one man being beaten to death for wearing a beard reflect a “crackdown on religion, and everything connected with it … [that includes] restrictions on imports of hijabs and a drive to eliminate names considered to be ‘too Arabic’:

• The Men Evading Tajikistan’s De-facto Beard Ban (Guardian)

Turkey’s cease-fire with the PKK is over, which is bad news for the US-backed coalition against IS:

• Turkish Police Officers Killed in Bomb Attack (Guardian)
• Turkey Bombs Kurdish Militants in Retaliation for Deadly Attack on Soldiers (Christian Science Monitor)

“Jazal is a medium-sized field that lies to the north-west of the rebel-held ancient city of Palmyra, close to a region that holds Syria’s main natural gas fields and multimillion-dollar extraction facilities”:

• Islamic State Takes Syrian Government’s Last Oilfield, Reports Say (Guardian)

ImadadDean