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Vladimir Putin’s Fifth Column in the West

Spencer's favorite leader, Vladimir Putin.

Spencer’s favorite leader, Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin’s fifth column in the West

DOUG SAUNDERS (Globe And Mail)

When Russian President Vladimir Putin uses military force to menace Ukraine’s democracy and seize chunks of its territory, when he uses authoritarian laws to crack down on homosexuals and minorities and imprison dissidents, there are those among us, including a record number of elected politicians, who cheer.

A generation ago, Moscow’s fans and enablers would have all been on the far left. Today, with the exception of a marginal group of leftists motivated by anti-Americanism, Mr. Putin’s cheerleaders are all conservatives – some in the United States and Canada, and a record number who have just come to power in Europe.

Last week’s European Parliament elections saw a record number of Putin-admiring and Putin-emulating parties elected to Brussels. Some of these parties are anti-European Union, some are anti-immigrant, some are outright racist and anti-Semitic. They don’t tend to get along with one another, but one thing that unites them is an outspoken admiration for Mr. Putin.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the suddenly powerful United Kingdom Independence Party,used a magazine interview during the campaign to praise the Russian President, calling him the world leader he most admires. “Compared with the kids who run foreign policy in this country, I’ve more respect for him than our lot,” he said at a public event.

In words widely reported in the Russian media, he added that the EU has “blood on its hands” for supporting the democracy movement in Ukraine. Rather than posing a threat to Europe, Mr. Farage said, Russia has fallen prey to Europe’s “activist, militarist and expansionist foreign policy.”

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front (which sent the lion’s share of French representatives to Brussels) is an even greater admirer. “I think he puts the interests of Russia and the Russian people first, so in this regard, I have the same amount of respect for him as for Ms. Merkel,” Ms. Le Pen said this week, adding that “a lot of things are said about Russia because for years it has been demonized on U.S. orders.” She, like her comrades across Europe, wants to end sanctions against Russia and restore “traditional, friendly” relations.

Geert Wilders, the mop-haired head of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, has blamed the conflict in eastern Ukraine not on Russia but on “shameless Europhiles with their dreams of empire.” Ukraine’s democracy movement and the pro-European government it elected last week, he said, are run by “National Socialists, Jew-haters and other anti-democrats.” (In fact, extreme-right and anti-Semitic parties attracted about 2 per cent of the vote in the recent Ukrainian election.)

In the minds of such politicians, Europe’s response to Moscow’s incursions hasn’t been slow and mild; it’s been excessive. “We have always been told the European Union stands for peace,” Mr. Wilders said. “Now, we know better – the EU stands for war-mongering.”

These Westerners aren’t backing Mr. Putin out of pure Russophilia. Rather, they admire his embrace of a Christian and mono-ethnic identity for greater Russia, and his aggressive action against what they see as their enemies: European diversity and open borders, and minority groups – especially homosexuals and Muslims. Like them, Mr. Putin embraces the old conspiracy holding that Muslims are secretly plotting to take over Europe, a key plank for these parties.

That’s why North American right-wing anti-immigration activists, generally affiliated with the Republican Party and the right fringe of Canada’s Conservatives, have rushed to back Mr. Putin and the European parties that admire him.

American anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer made a point of appearing on the Russia Today network (shortly after most of its American staff had quit and denounced it as a Kremlin propaganda outlet) to attack the United States and endorse Mr. Putin’s approach toward Muslim minorities. “Barack Obama is somebody who has been embarrassed on the world stage by Vladimir Putin more than once,” Mr. Spencer said.

And Ezra Levant, the right-wing pundit with Canada’s Sun Media,cheered France’s National Front, Britain’s UKIP and the other Putin-backing parties for their European election victories, praising their embrace of Putinist ideas: “The EU’s de facto abolition of borders … has let millions of migrants move from the poorer parts of the EU to the richer ones,” he explained, warning of “mass Islamic immigration that contains large elements refusing to accept Western, liberal values.”

Their victory is, he said, “a rejection of Obamaism, and a return to common sense, national conservatism. You could say it’s a bit of Stephen Harperism.”

To be fair, Mr. Harper has never endorsed such ideas. It is actually a bit of Vladimir Putinism.

Follow  on Twitter: @dougsaunders

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    • Sodium

      You have hit the score so correctly and I could not refrain from not letting you know how correct you are on Crimea. Until 1954, Crimea was an integral part of Russia. Indeed, it was Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the entire Communist Empire then, meaning the ultimate boss of the Empire, who gave Crimea to Ukraine, while he was drunk. But the real motive behind Nikita’s generosity had to do with his roots which happened to be from the Ukraine region. This is a recorded historical fact; and I have felt that I should make this point clear to the interested readers. You may call me a ” fifth columnist ? ” if you wish; and I know I am not.

    • Mehdi

      No worries then, let’s move on, apologies for an inappropriate remark…

    • Mehdi

      You did write one of your allusive comments and then deleted it. My family life and children’s education is not of your business, you don’t know who my Wife is, how my Children are educated, not anything further, and if you did, it still wouldn’t be any of your business. Stating that many Muslims don’t like it is not an argument. In conclusion: Mind your business, otherwise don’t be surprised if you get bad remarks back. Yes it wasn’t a nice remark from me but I’m not nice when my kids are at stake.

    • Mehdi

      You can conclude whatever you want., and hopefully get a life someday.

    • Chameleon_X

      It’s not OUR brothers who are beheading, but YOUR terrorists. So YOU tell them, fool. And while you are at it, tell your hero Ali Sina to stop lying about beheadings done “in the name of Islam”, when they were actually done “in the name of Christianity”:

      https://twitter.com/Chameleon_X_/status/473546984130093056

    • Chameleon_X

      I debunked this “no Jewish and Christian friends” Islamophobia claim starting on page 108 in my evisceration of Ali Sina’s book:

      http://issuu.com/islamophobiadebunked/docs/alisinabookreview

      You have been drinking deeply from hate sites, which has transformed you into a propaganda pawn.

    • Chameleon_X

      Well, I could just pull a Spencerism ploy and claim I WOULD win every Mortal Kombat match IF I played, which means I don’t have to play at all to prove it! Or I could boast instead about being the reigning champ among Loonwatchers on the world famous Richard Dawkins Honey Defender game (my score was 31):

      https://www.loonwatch.com/2013/11/dawkins-bin-laden-and-the-little-honey-pot/comment-page-2/#comments

      Uh oh, I hope I didn’t just tempt a bunch of people to completely waste their time again. That said, if you are looking for any excuse to distract yourself from doing something painfully practical, THIS mindless game is it — at least until you figure out how to rig it.

      As for Nabeel Qureshi, I don’t see him as a leading Islamophobe, but more of just an evangelist for Christianity (perhaps I am wrong). I am not interested in confronting anyone just because of their personal choices or because they rejected Islam. I am just interested in taking down leading Islamophobes who are motivated by bigotry and greed ($), and who spread hate and falsely legitimize injustices.

    • Mehdi

      So..hmm I don’t think I should ask this…but living with your mental condition and having a single-digit IQ…hmm oh well I suppose live and let live.

    • Chameleon_X

      “Yes I agree!” That’s music to my ears. Thank you for agreeing so emphatically, and without any condition whatsoever.

      But very soon you will be contradicting yourself, backtracking, making excuses, and adding conditions for why you now DISAGREE with your emphatic, unequivocal agreement. Impossible, you say? Not at all, based on my experience, because that is what ALL defenders and apologists for leading Islamophobes have done. After I humiliate their heroes by proving what cowards they truly are, apologists like you will suddenly transform the definition of “hero” into “flaming coward” – in other words, a “counter jihadist hero” and “scholar” who is too “busy” in his “scholarly” job of running from debate to engage any credible challenges whatsoever.

      Now let’s start by running down the list. One of your heroes is David Wood – really? I severely humiliated him THREE times on Twitter (i.e., EVERY time he engaged me after I challenged him). And then he clucked and ran away by blocking me to avoid any further humiliation. The same happened with Zuhdi Jasser. I utterly destroyed his pathetic arguments TWICE, after which he ran from all of my challenges to his lies. He blocked me on both of his Twitter accounts because he could not tolerate my crushing, fact-driven annihilations of his propaganda. I also completely destroyed “Glen Roberts”, the owner of The Religion of Peace (TROP) web site, in a private email debate. After I took away all of his hate toys, he ran away from me too. That one was particularly delicious. I also proved him to be a flagrant liar, since he refused to correct his web site even after he was unequivocally proven wrong.

      I also challenged most of the funders and promoters of Islamophobia too, like David Horowitz, Frank Gaffney, etc., but they NEVER debate anyone. They are too busy feeding at the Zionist lobby pig trough that funds them. Why would they EVER risk cutting off the hands of hate that provably feed them? Moreover, their knowledge of Islam is near non-existent. Their Zionist and Neocon. goals are overwhelmingly political. To them, promoting hatred of Islam is just a means to an end.

      I even challenged (and continue to challenge) the Botox bimbo cheerleaders of hate, like Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabriel, Ayan Hirsi Ali, etc., but they NEVER debate on any scholarly level whatsoever. They simply can’t. They’re just propaganda parrots, nothing more. Moreover, they’re way too chicken-shit to debate me. They run too. They ALL run.

      Speaking of bimbos, I have also repeatedly challenged Bonni Benstock-Intall (on Loonwatch when she comments, AND on Twitter). She is the Zionist who owns the hate site Bare Naked Islam, but she refuses to debate ANY credible challengers as far as I can tell. Like everyone else, she runs from me, most likely because she is paid to by the same Zionist lobbyists who fund most organized Islamophobia. I could go on and on with more Islamophobe names, but I think you get the point.

      I have even gone after the “House Muslims” like Maajid Nawaz and party-boy Anjem Choudary, who have proven ties to the British government. Maajid blocks anyone and everyone who challenges him to a serious debate, as he did me from almost the first tweet. And Choudary is a complete clown who engages virtually no Muslims seriously challenging him. I have challenged him many times with valid and scathing fact-based criticism, and he simply ignores me, like all the other preachers of hate and lies do. The Twitter timelines do not lie. They are proof that what I say is accurate with respect to the lack of scholarly engagement and debate by ALL of these Islamophobes vs. ALL credible challengers.

      And then there’s Ali Sina, clearly another one of your heroes. He avoided me too, like all the others, but I knew he had one severe weakness that would do him in that most Islamophobes don’t have in such excess: pathological narcissism. I played on his narcissism and taunted him for weeks every day until he finally started to engage me. Then he FIRMLY agreed to debate me provided I read his trashy 420+ page book cover to cover. He even agreed to the four debate topics in advance, which were subtopics addressed by his book. So I read his book cover to cover, as he required. I made copious notes and highlights too along the way, since I predicted – quite correctly in hindsight – that he would try to back out of the debate by claiming I didn’t read his book. He did exactly that based on ZERO evidence, and the pathetic loser even demanded I take his rigged “quiz” to prove I read it!

      What this fool was not counting on before the debate even began was my “review” of his book to pre-empt this exact exit strategy. He had no choice but to formally waive his final “quiz” requirement when he saw how thoroughly I had addressed his book. In other words, ALL debate conditions were met, and he formally agreed that they were met, including the “quiz”. But this was immediately before he started reading what I wrote. He just assumed it would be easy to rebut me, but then he discovered that he had no rebuttal whatsoever that could possibly win. He then danced for days around a silly argument that he couldn’t get the document in PDF format to load it into some silly “reader” app – even though the document was available 24/7 on the web, everyone else could easily download it in PDF format, and it was even sent to him directly via email!

      Keep in mind that this was just my “warm-up” to our debate, and I generally avoided the four agreed debate topics in this document to keep it separate from the four debates. Nevertheless, after all was said and done, I completely eviscerated the core claims of his book, along with Ali Sina’s character, and a whole lot more. Moreover, it was exceedingly easy to do so! I whipped off 130+ content-rich pages (nearly 70k words!) in just over a month, mostly on weekends, crushing one claim after the next. I even quoted his book over 300 times! It was actually delightfully entertaining. Since you have clearly not seen it yet, here it is again:

      http://issuu.com/islamophobiadebunked/docs/alisinabookreview

      Refute it if you can. But I have to warn you that not even one Islamophobe has dared to challenge my work yet, even though I have challenged MANY to do so. They all run when I confront them, as you will too, sooner or later. As for the proven coward and liar Ali Sina, he frankly and embarrassingly ADMITTED that he could only make it to PAGE FIVE before he decided to concede our debate! He is now my little Islamophobe pet. I OWN Ali Sina. I OWN your pathetic hero. Or let me explain it to you better, more in your own words: That bitch’s a$$ is on MY silver platter. Got it?

      And just yesterday another Muslim was inspired by my work to finish his own debunking of Ali Sina’s book. It is also a very good effort, and covers many points I was not able to get to (I only covered less than half of my notes) or that I missed entirely:

      http://issuu.com/abdulmajeed8/docs/103

      I encourage everyone to read this destruction of Ali Sina as well, as I have. Also, please give his review on Amazon (coming soon if it is not already there) an upvote so that Ali Sina’s followers cannot downvote his review into oblivion.

      So now that Ali Sina has been thoroughly humiliated and owned, that leaves only about one credible Islamophobe “hero” left: the terrorist-linked Robert Spencer. You know, that guy whose web site you visit “every day”. I have lost count of how many times I have challenged him to debate me, nearly every day, and this chicken-shit coward runs from me too! Others, such as leading Muslims whom he has not yet blocked, various non-Muslims, those that support him, etc., have all delivered my challenge to him directly and publicly via Twitter and other means. However, in EVERY last case, he simply refuses to acknowledge my challenges (or even the tweets of those others he normally communicates with) because he knows that would definitively indict him as the flagrant coward that he truly is. If you don’t believe me, then why don’t you try to ask him why he runs from me, and why he avoids a credible scholarly challenge to his claims. Do it, and watch your “hero” whimper away like a sick puppy. And while you are at it, please ask the terrorist-linked Spencer why he falsely legitimizes 1) extreme hate and injustices with his claims and 2) the collective anti-Muslim hate that is the logical response to his claims.

      So thank you very much for agreeing with me that your heroes are complete, spineless cowards and phony scholars. Any real scholar, as you emphatically confirmed, would seek out debate rather than run from all credible challenges to his or her claims. Time and time again, they ALL run from me.

      Your heroes have been weighed. They have been measured. And every last one of them has been found wanting.

    • Tanveer ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Khan

      Taqiyyah is only allowed when my life or belongings are in danger. You’re worthless, I have nothing to fear from you.

    • Mehdi

      Interesting, btw you seem to have anger management issues. To answer your point, I judge people for what they do or say. Just by reading some of your comments, I had my yearly dosis of bigotry and idiocy, hence the conclusion that you have little if nothing in your brains. Just for the record, I don’t live in an exclusive Muslim world, many of my closest relatives and friends are not Muslim, including my deeply beloved wife, the difference between them and you is in terms of behavior, but that’s probably too complex for you to grasp. No hard feelings, but you’re just too stupid, it’s okay, you’ll live with that.

    • Omar_the_Egyptian

      Where do you come from?My guess is the gutters of gehad watch

  • Mehdi

    Not even sure there is a head there

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