Tag: geert wilders
What World Leaders Have Been Saying About Donald Trump

What World Leaders Have Been Saying About Donald Trump

While Donald Trump has been deeply polarizing at home, foreign leaders and dignitaries have a near-unanimous view of him. Outside of his increasingly fascistic rallies, the rest of the world is shocked by the antics of the Republican Party’s lead candidate.

Let’s start with Canada, now led by a Liberal government after a decade of divisive Conservative leadership. Canadian Prime Minister and internationally renowned heartthrob Justin Trudeau has avoided getting caught in Trump’s mud-slinging crossfire. “I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anybody that I stand firmly against the politics of division, the politics of fear, the politics of intolerance or hateful rhetoric,” he said during a town hall last December with Maclean’s, a Canadian weekly. He has made a point of showing the differences between his “sunny ways” and Trump’s blatant racism, especially in light of the fear-driven and racist election strategies used by the incumbent Conservative Party during the October 2015 elections.

What about Trump’s favorite punching bag, Mexico? The unwilling treasury of The Great Trump Wall has a long, frequently unhappy history with its powerful northern neighbor. Former Mexican president Vincente Fox summed up what seems like a common sentiment — “I’m not paying for that fucking wall!” — and current Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, perhaps demonstrating a sense of diplomatic civility for Trump’s sake, condemned his comments but wouldn’t go any further: “Some have hoped for the president to take a position on what Trump has said. The government […] fully discredits and condemns any expression of a discriminatory character and [any expression] that specifically hurts Mexicans,” he said.

The Europeans are, frankly, unamused. “I think his remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong, and I think if he came to visit our country, I think he would unite us all against him,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron a week after Trump made his infamous proclamation to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, whose country suffered terribly during the Paris attacks, took on Trump’s race-baiting. “Mr Trump, like others, stokes hatred: our ONLY enemy is radical Islam,” he tweeted shortly afterwards. His sentiment was not necessarily shared by all French politicians. French far right leader Jean Marie Le Pen, founder of the far right National Front Party who later kicked him out because he was so racist, has been upbeat about Trump’s candidacy. In a tweet, he wrote, “If I were American, I would vote for Donald Trump.” The endorsement came only days after Trump pretended to not know who David Duke was, after the former KKK Grand Wizard endorsed him.

German Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel compared Trump to Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, two notoriously right-wing politicians in Europe. “Whether Donald Trump, Marine le Pen, or Geert Wilders–all these right-wing populists are not only a threat to peace and social cohesion, but also to economic development,” he said only days ago. All were guilty of making unrealistic promises to their followers, he said, but he acknowledged that globalization needed to be reformed in a more equitable way. The loss of working class jobs among white Americans to cheaper labor markets has fueled much of Trump’s support this election.

Russian President and noted strongman Vladimir Putin has had positive words for Trump. “He is a bright and talented person without any doubt,” Putin said in December 2015. He added that Trump is “an outstanding and talented personality.” It’s only natural that Trump would be attracted to the leadership qualities of Putin, who has had political rivals killed or exiled.

In Egypt, the state’s official religious body said that “Trump’s hate rhetoric towards Muslims as a threat to the American community is totally erroneous since Islam exhorts peace and coexistence among all humans and it is unfair to blame all Muslims for the actions of a minority that manipulates the fundamentals of the religion.” (Although it’s unclear whether or not the body was equally as outspoken when Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Sisi’s forces killed hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters after he overthrew Egypt’s only democratically elected government.)

As the American election draws nearer, more international leaders will likely speak out against Trump, especially if he wins the Republican nomination. Whether or not his supporters realize the threat he presents to the rest of the world, they’re all making an effort to let us know.

Photo: Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Cadillac, Michigan, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young

FBI Probed Texas Gunman ‘Over Jihadist Sympathies’

FBI Probed Texas Gunman ‘Over Jihadist Sympathies’

By Jared Christopher, AFP

Garland, Texas — One of the men shot dead by police when he and an accomplice attempted to storm an event hosted by an anti-Muslim group in Texas was investigated by the FBI over alleged plans to wage holy war, court documents show.

Investigators were delving into the backgrounds of the two suspected Islamist gunmen — they were roommates, The Los Angeles Times reported — who opened fire with assault rifles outside Sunday’s controversial exhibit of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

A quick-acting Texas policeman shot the two suspects before they were able to enter the venue in Garland, a suburb of Dallas.

There was no confirmed claim of responsibility for the failed attack, but several US media identified the shooters as 31-year-old Elton Simpson and 34-year-old Nadir Soofi.

The pair shared an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona, the LA Times said, and CNN broadcast footage of FBI agents raiding the alleged address.

And in court records seen by AFP, Simpson was sentenced to three years’ probation in 2011 after FBI agents presented a court with taped conversations between him and an informant discussing travelling to Somalia to join “their brothers” waging holy war.

The prosecution was unable to prove that Simpson had committed a terror-related offense, but did establish he had lied to investigators when he denied having discussed going to Somalia.

Private terror watchdog SITE said that at least one Twitter account linked to a known militant of the Islamic State jihadist group has claimed the attackers as sympathizers. But Simpson’s father said his son had simply “made a bad choice.”

The White House said that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the investigation, which Texas police said was ongoing.

“There is no form of expression that justifies an act of violence,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that investigators were looking into the “assailants’ ties to organized terrorist activity.”

The American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group listed by civil rights watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group, had organized the event, which drew about 200 people.

At the event, attended by Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders and AFDI co-founder Pamela Geller, supporters held an exhibition of entries to a competition to draw caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Many Muslims find drawings of the prophet to be disrespectful or outright blasphemous, and such cartoons have been cited by Islamists as motivation in several previous attacks.

AFDI had offered a $10,000 prize for the winner of the contest, which was billed as a “free speech” event.

Police said two men wearing body armor and toting assault rifles drove up to the conference, jumped out and opened fire on an unarmed security guard.

Garland police spokesman Joe Harn told reporters the guard was shot in the ankle and that a traffic police officer in the vicinity responded, taking down the two better-armed assailants.

Commentators were quick to draw parallels to a January mass shooting at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris that killed 12 people and wounded 11 more.

“There is absolutely no comparison,” Jean-Baptiste Thoret, the magazine’s film critic who only avoided the attack because he had been late for work — told Charlie Rose on PBS, according to an advance transcript Monday.

“You have a, as you said, a sort of anti-Islamic movement (in Texas)…the problem of Charlie Hebdo is absolutely not the same,” added Thoret, flanked by Gerard Biard, chief editor of the magazine.

Biard added: “We don’t organize contests. We just do our work. We comment on the news. When Mohammed jumps out of the news, we draw Mohammed.

“But if he didn’t, we didn’t. We don’t…We fight racism. And we have nothing to do with these people.”

On Twitter, jihadist Abu Hussain Al-Britani, who SITE identified as British IS fighter Junaid Hussain, described the gunmen as “two of our brothers.”

But Simpson’s father Dunston told ABC News that his son, who he said worked in a dentist’s office, simply “made a bad choice.”

“We are Americans and we believe in America,” Dunston Simpson said. “What my son did reflects very badly on my family.”

Wilders told AFP in an email that he was concerned he may have been targeted because he, like one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists killed in January, is on a hit list circulated by Al-Qaeda supporters.

“I am shocked. I just spoke for half an hour about the cartoons, Islam and freedom of speech and I had just left the premises,” he said.

“This is an attack on the liberties of all of us.”

The Dutch politician said he would return to the Netherlands but plans to come back to the United States next week for another speaking engagement.

Geller called the shooting a “war on free speech.”

“What are we going to do? Are we going to surrender to these monsters?” she wrote on her website. “The war is here.”

Photo: Geert Wilders via AFP