Radio Europe 1: An army of shadows on the social networks destroys all the right's arguments while promoting the left's narratives

Among Europe 1's guests on Christine Kelly et vous (42:33-58:22) on Monday on the subject of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump were Gabrielle Cluzel and our old friend Philippe Karsenty. Gabrielle Cluzel (48:34) said that 

There is a type of conspiracy theories that are chic … So, you see, on the right you are treated as an abominable conspiracy theorist, if you start speaking about immigration, "you are awful conspiracy theorists"; on the other hand, whenever the Left is behind far-fetched theories, we get, "oh it's not serious", we are asked to believe them.

While the spokesman for the Comité Trump France made these revelations:

This situation of demonization leads to dehumanization and a desire to see [Trump] eliminated. … And the social networks have been taken over by an army of shadows which destroys all the arguments on the right while promoting the left's narratives. (8:33)

Related: No Wonder There Is So Much Hostility to Trump and the Republicans When They Are Constantly Being Called Racists, Nazis, and a Threat to Democracy

Immediately prior to their debate on the Trump assassination attempt, Philippe Karsenty talked with Christine Kelly about another, albeit far from unrelated, subject on which the spokesman for le Comité Trump France is not only an expert but probably the foremost expert: a discussion about the Al-Durah hoax and how, even today, 26 years later, that hoax reflects on the government censorship and fake news aspects on French television (37:47, 39:21-42:32) — something which the leftists on the current Alloncle commission on the neutrality of France's public TV and radio station seems intent on whitewashing.

 

Attaque sur Trump : “Quand c’est la gauche qui est complotiste, on ne dit rien !” (Gabrielle Cluzel)

Attaque sur Trump : “Quand c’est la gauche qui est complotiste, on ne dit rien !” (Gabrielle Cluzel)

Europe 1

2,129 views Apr 27, 2026 #europe1 #news #cnews

Aujourd'hui, dans Christine Kelly et Vous, Christine Kelly et ses chroniqueuses reviennent sur l'attaque manqué sur Donald Trump. #europe1 #news #cnews

 

Commission sur l’audiovisuel public : "ce sujet, qui est vraiment le plus gros scandale qui aurait dû exploser sur cette commission d'enquête, a été éteint" déclare @pkarsenty porte-parole du Comité Trump France #ChristineKellyEtVous @christine_kelly #Europe1 pic.twitter.com/jM47FxMMdJ

— Europe 1 (@Europe1) April 27, 2026

No Wonder There Is So Much Hostility to Trump and the Republicans When They Are Constantly Being Called Racists, Nazis, and a Threat to Democracy

Following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Association on Saturday evening, I was invited to appear on France Info Sunday around 3:10 PM.

(Here is the French version of this article: Rien d'anormal quant à l'hostilité ambiante contre Trump et les Républicains quand les Démocrates les taxent sans cesse de Fascistes et de Nazis.)

Aside from noting that the "political polarization" is entirely due to the Democrats, that if anything the attack justifies Trump's decision to build a ballroom in the White House, and that calling Donald Trump a "Christ-like figure" is absurd given how the left idolizes "saints" such as Barack Obama, Che Guevara, Mao, Lenin, etc., here, in essence, is what I said:

No Republican I know is surprised by the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

When you constantly call people racists, fascists, Nazis, or the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, it's hardly surprising that you want to confront these kinds of monsters by beating them up or even assassinating them. Even doing anything to bring about the Republicans' defeat at the polls—including election rigging. And why not?! After all, it's about stopping… Adolf Hitler.

Indeed, Greg Gutfeld called Cole Allen the only rational member of the Democratic Party, since he was the only one who wanted to (re)act on this "threat to democracy." 

This guy was not a crank. He was not deranged.  Don't buy into that narrative, because it lets these pompous asses off. … He was just following orders. He was operating on a filter that said Trump was Hitler, and therefore it would be immoral if you didn't take Hitler out. So his filter is actually making him logical. He's the sanest one in the group because he took them at their word. [When] MS-NOW says "Trump is Hitler", he's the sensible one! He went after Hitler! … You can't write this off as a deranged person!

Are you aware of the numerous attacks on minorities in the US? A Black man complains that he found a noose hanging from a tree in his backyard. A gay or lesbian student complains that homophobic graffiti was left on their dorm room door.

After a police investigation, it turns out that in almost every case, the alleged victim created the "crime" themselves in order to belong to the victim class.

Why? Since—contrary to what the melodrama enthusiasts constantly claim—there are not enough displays of hatred and racism (!) in the US, the left is determined to create them at all costs.

Over at Issues & Insights, Armando Simón has a compendium of hate crime hoaxes, while Fabius Maximus has many more examples. Turn also to the Fake Hate Crimes Database, which "builds on the work of Laird Wilcox, whose Crying Wolf (PDF) is the original book on this subject. The books Hate Crime Hoax and Hate Crimes: Criminal Law & Identity Politics are recommended."

That's is the reason why I call leftists, regardless of their country of origin, drama queens (locofocos, fireeaters).

• Three assassination attempts (at least) on Donald Trump.

• In June 2017, a man opened fire on Republican elected officials while they were practicing for the traditional charity baseball game. Steve Scalise was hit. It turned out that James Hodgkinson was a Bernie Sanders supporter who had read that Republicans were racist fascists. This information was disseminated, among others, by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

• In Virginia, it transpires that one Jay Jones running for the office of attorney general in 2025 fantasized not only about putting two bullets in the head of a Republican opponent but watching his children get gunned down as well.

• A man, armed, attacked a fertility clinic in 2011. He had read that the SPLC had called them "hateful."

• In September 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated during a meeting at a university in Utah. At his funeral, his supporters sont were called Nazis—including last September by former French government minister Aurélie Filippetti on this channel—and the SPLC had recently decided to add its Turning Point USA to the list of "hate groups" that, according to the left, are proliferating in the US.

All these would-be assassins acted after being Pushed To The Edge by reading that Democratic politicians and left-leaning journalists—not to mention teachers, like Cole Allen himself, in charge of educating America's youth—are calling these conservatives racists, fascists, Nazis, and an existential threat to democracy, while calling for "Maximum Warfare everywhere, all the time" against them. Let's not forget that throughout his presidency, Joe Biden referred to Charlottesville to brag about leading the fight against so-called white supremacists.

Above all, these assassins acted after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) labeled their targets racist and this NGO placed their names, or the groups they belong to, on its infamous "hate map."

However, the American press has either ignored or downplayed the major scandal that the FBI has just uncovered. When the SPLC raises millions of dollars to combat racism and extremism, they have used these funds—get this—not to fight the Ku Klux Klan and its affiliates, but rather to finance them—a notorious example being the torchlight procession in Charlottesville in 2017.

"They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups — even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes," FBI Director Kash Patel said. 

"That is illegal, and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved."

 … "Donors gave their money believing they were supporting the fight against violent extremism," Kevin Davidson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, said in a statement. "As alleged, the SPLC instead diverted a portion of those funds to benefit individuals and groups they claimed to oppose," Davidson added. 

(from Neo-Nazi, Klan 'Cyclops' and ‘Sadistic’ biker … 5 of the most shocking SPLC informants)

As Greg Gutfeld comments on Gutfeld!, this is how circular reasoning works. It is "a circular process: you must fund racists to get more racism to then fund more racists," meaning that "The party that started the KKK is still paying the KKK."

Memes have started flooding in:

SPLC: "In order to fight racism, we have to pay people to be racist."

"There's so little white supremacy, so we had to pay the SPLC to manufacture it."

What conclusions can be drawn from this charade?

The hatred of American conservatives is unfounded. The country is not a hell-hole of racism or a nightmare of fascism — far from it. The vast majority of American citizens are good people. There is so little racism in America, so few fascists in the United States, that the Left has to fabricate them, exaggerate their numbers, and (last but not least)… subsidize them.

In fact, the only hatred that exists is against the Republicans, who are demonized to the extreme, and the only extremists are the radical leftists who present themselves as holier-than-thou saints.

Update — Radio Europe 1: An army of shadows on the social networks destroys all the right's arguments while promoting the left's narratives

Greg Gutfeld just delivered the single most succinct and cutting indictment of the leftwing media's complicity in Saturday's WHCD attack:

"This guy did hear voices. They were Ted Lieu's, they were Brandon Johnson's, they were CNN's, they were The View, they were MS NOW."

"I… pic.twitter.com/1uuULdANGy

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) April 27, 2026

Modern French Anti-Americanism Regarding World War II: Distrust for Yankee G.I.s Coupled with Adulation for the Red Army

Many Americans don't realize it — not long ago, an American friend in Paris almost fell out of his chair when he heard an example of the distressing (and almost unbelievable) bigotry — but another common aspect of anti-Americanism in Europe is to denigrate the U.S. participation in World War II. Which occurs by contrasting the Yanks' role in defeating the Axis (don't you know?! It was only for greed!) with the Red Army's deeds, which are duly lionized. To the heavens.

I recently took this bull by the horns and wrote the following, which was published on one conservative website and, in shortened form, in one weekly newsletter. Both are based on my (English-language) post about the 70th anniversary of Stalin's death from three years ago, Some Mind-Boggling Revelations About Stalin, World War II, and a Century of Russian History:

• Obsessions françaises sur la 2e guerre mondiale 
• Les 4 Vérités Hebdo nº 1539, 3 avril 2026, p 6

In defending Greece at Thermopylae in 480 BC, 300 Spartans valiantly resisted the Persian army of Xerxes I for three days before falling as martyrs. 

Yet, it is not the tens of thousands of Xerxes' Persian soldiers who are hailed as brave, as heroes (even in Iran); it is the Spartans of King Leonidas who lost "only" a few hundred warriors.

Which brings us back to France in the 20th and 21st centuries, where we are constantly told that because the USSR supposedly lost some 50 times more lives than America during World War II, Europe owes the Russians more gratitude than the Americans.

In fact, I have never heard a conversation in France about the war without someone saying: "But les Ricains (the Yanks — short for les (Amé)ricains) did it only for their own (economic) interests." 

We are told that this is in no way pure, unadulterated anti-Americanism. Really? Are you sure about that? Think about it: In the context of this global conflict, how could anyone say—rightly or wrongly—that "the Belgians or the French or the Danes or the Filipinos fought the war for… their own interests?" It's nonsense. Utter nonsense. In fact, what it is is a charge used by the left only against the free-market capitalists.

Following Évelyne Joslain's article on the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe last summer (Les 4 Vérités # 1495), one reader reacted with outrage by what he called a "rewriting of history": "The Anglo-American troops," he insisted, "weren't heroes but amateurs fighting for their country's economic interests and nothing else." 

In the 1940s, more than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces. Do you really believe that there were tens of millions of parents in America who said, "Yes, beloved son of ours: leave our home (our Home Sweet Home), put on the uniform, get your gun, we want you to risk your life so Coca-Cola can sell more bottles to the French"?!

Many French people don't seem to realize it, but if anyone is fooled by this rewriting of history, it's none other than themselves: with leftist lies, everything is turned upside down.

The Americans, not the communists, are accused of waging war for their "own interests." While the peoples—nay, while entire nations—who are praised for their innate courage are the Soviets, not the Yanks. 

Besides, have you noticed, whatever they do, the Americans can't win. ("Damned if you do, damned if you don't.") When they go to war, it's for nefarious reasons. And when they try to stay out of war, they are condemned for their neutrality. 

"The numbers speak for themselves," claims Jean-Marie Pichard: "Total US losses in World War II were roughly one-fiftieth of Russian losses (military and civilian combined)." Doesn't Monsieur Pichard know why statistics are comparable to a bikini? Because both reveal a lot, but both conceal the essential.

Isn't the truth that the Soviet carnage in the Great Patriotic War was entirely due to the dictators' inclination to have no regard whatsoever for the lives of their subjects and to consider these soldiers, often poorly trained and "sent to their deaths", as cannon fodder (just like, 2500 years earlier, the Persians of Xerxes)?

Germany and Japan also lost many lives (far more than the USA or the UK) — should we also praise the cultures of the SS and the fanatical Japanese above that of the Republican and Democratic culture of the GIs (and of their Tommy cousins)?! 

Furthermore, is Monsieur Pichard aware that among the millions of Soviet soldiers who, according to his worshipful prose, died because of "the Red Army's relentless defense of the homeland," hundreds of thousands lost their lives, shot and machine-gunned by… the very same Red Army? Yes, Order No. 227 from the Red Tyrant of the Kremlin forbade soldiers from retreating, ordering the troops behind them to coldly shoot their comrades if they disobeyed and returned, defeated, to the "safety" of the Soviet lines. And how many hundreds of thousands of "valiant" soldiers were in fact prisoners from the Gulags removed forcefully to join the Soviet army?

As for the "Russian steamroller [that] was inexorably advancing eastward," wasn't it due to Uncle Sam's 400,000 jeeps and trucks? This is the opinion of historian Antony Beevor, who writes that "Had it not been for the American trucks provided under Lend-lease, the Red Army would never have made it to Berlin before the Americans." 

In their memoirs, Averell Harriman and Nikita Khrushchev both quoted Stalin himself: "America is a country of machines; without these machines, we would lose this war."

Jean-Marie Pichard asserts that history should not be rewritten. Moreover, his contempt for the American people compels him to refer to their pre-war "pro-Hitler lobby" (sic). But in that perspective, one could hardly find a lobby that was more pro-Hitler than... the USSR of the "Little Father of the Peoples." 

Indeed, it's a rewriting of history to claim that the war began when Hitler invaded Poland. It's more accurate to say that the war (aka Stalin's War) began when Hitler and Stalin jointly invaded Poland, the Wehrmacht the western part, and the Red Army (two weeks later) the eastern part. Yes, for the first two years of the conflict, the Nazis and the Communists were allies. The truth is that the war would never have started without Stalin's approval and participation. 

Let's be realistic — the only ones who waged war for their own interests (economic or otherwise) were dictatorships: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, along with—yes—Communist Russia. 

You do not have to be of the Jewish faith to agree with the Talmudic saying: 

"If you are kind to the cruel, you will eventually become cruel to the kind."

This explains all Leftist politics in general, in any country, and is particularly true of the French indulgence towards the Soviets in the 1940s, contrasted with the mistrust of the supposedly treacherous Americans.

 

Après avoir été publié par Dreuz Info en mars 2026 (sous le titre de Stop à la russolâtrie : l’Occident a trop vite oublié les véritables GIs), l'article de Erik Svane — Ne serait-il pas temps que les Français mettent fin à leur anti-américanisme obsessionnel couplé à leurs fantasmes sur la Russie éternelle ? — a été publié en format raccourci en avril chez Les 4 Vérités.

A Historic Power Imbalance? The Left's use of the word “problematic” does not explicitly state the problem; We are to intuit it — There is a kind of délicatesse involved…

When my fellow academics refer — as they started doing a great deal toward the end of the last century — to the problematics of a topic, they are listing not annoying things that need to be fixed but intriguing twists that deserve extended consideration. 

Investigating the origins of the word "problem(atic/al)" — the adjective of which has recently enjoyed quite a renaissance among the Left — in the New York Times, the Columbia University linguist John McWhorter asks the question, What’s So Problematic About ‘Problematic’? 

These days, the plural “problematics,” as wrinkle-browed exegesis of complex academic issues, is a marginal term. So is the straightforward sense of “problematic” meaning “full of problems,” as in “Sunflowers are problematic as a large-scale crop.” The word is in wide circulation, but its current incarnation is as a euphemism for a very specific kind of problem or a very specific kind of person.

Its newest usage is a way to say, without saying, that something is perpetuating a historic power imbalance — especially when it comes to race. An example is “Your fave is problematic,” a catchphrase that got around for a while starting in the 2010s as a way to call out fandom for people whose values are deemed to be incorrect. Fandom for the television host Trevor Noah earned this designation when a series of his old tweets, including coarse jokes about subjects such as “fat chicks,” surfaced in 2015. The most recent star deemed to be problematic was Patti LuPone, who in a recent New Yorker article referred with rather acrid dismissal to two Black stage stars.

It’s significant that this use of the word “problematic” does not explicitly state the problem. We are to intuit it. There is a kind of délicatesse in this, a way to circumvent the thorny national conversation about concepts such as intersectionality, wokeness and cancel culture. That impulse toward euphemism, too, is a natural part of language. And it is no less clear as a result.

In other words, what is problematic is something to feel ashamed about. I.e., it has something to do with "racism" and (what is preposterously called) America's "original sin." Typical leftist mentality…

Note to leftists: all societies throughout history have had historic power imbalances (although rarely racial). Nothing did more to correct these than America's capitalism — a synonym for the free market.

 … As for the ancient Greeks, the transformation of a word that meant to propose something would surely have struck them as otherworldly. But then again, “nice” started out meaning “ignorant.” In any language, plus ça change … well, the more they change.

One last problem for consideration: You might imagine someone of Harding’s era would recognize the expression “no problem,” but it didn’t really come into circulation until the 1960s. Sometimes what seem like very ordinary words or expressions are recent coinages. My favorite example is “oink.” The first written “oink” is in 1910. Before that, a child who was asked what pigs say would probably answer either “squeak” or “wee-wee,” as in the little piggy that went “wee-wee-wee all the way home.” And if you think about it, “wee-wee” is closer to the sound of pigs than “oink.” Bring back “wee-wee”!

In the Beginning, America's Democrats and the Europeans Alike Strongly Supported Israel; What Happened? The Jews Had the Gall to Stop Acting Like Communists

What the heck has happened to the Democratic Party? 

Over at PJ Media, Rick Moran asks one heck of a question in his article about Graham Platner (i.e., The Man With the Nazi Tattoo [Who] Is Blowing up the Democratic Party). The question could also be applied to (West) Europeans, whose countries were steadfast allies of Israel immediately after its creation and for two to three decades after that. (Remember the Suez Crisis of 1956, with Brits and Frenchmen allied with the Israelis against the Egyptians?)

What has happened to the Democratic Party? The strong support for the creation of the state of Israel in the immediate aftermath of World War II by Democrats convinced Harry Truman to support the motion at the UN for Israel's creation (among other factors). About 70% of American Jews either identify as Democrats or vote Democratic in elections.

The answer may be surprising to some, but the fact of the matter is that shows the entire planet's affection for social democracy, democratic socialism, or socialism pure and simple, or whatever you want to call it, and to have each country's citizens treated as welfare beneficiaries. And for the first decades of its life, the Jewish state acted more as a communist nation. (Toda to Sister Sarah for the Instalink.)

Remember the kibbutzes? These were collective communities, many of whose leaders stood in awe of Comrade Stalin, as they did around the world — the degree of far leftism in the Wikipedia article on kibbutzes will make your eyes roll — and I know of Danish friends, including a former girlfriend, who went over to Israel for several months to live the Kibbutz experience, meeting volunteers from around the world. Indeed, Denmark was full of Maoists in the 1960s, which formed collectives — groups of (mostly but not only) young people dedicated to turning an apartment building or a mansion into a communistic mini-paradise where the many inhabitants share meals and chores — some of which survive to this day. 

The general assumption is that leftists worldwide started turning on Israel after — and because of — 1967's six-day war, but what is unmentioned is that (although the modern state of Israel was founded largely by secular Jews — war hero Moshe Dayan, for instance, was apparently unconcerned about the symbolism of liberating the Wailing Wall and it was only under pressure that, in full uniform, he left a note among its cracks) by this time Israelis were largely in the process of turning away from the kibbutz experience, i.e., what appeared to many left-wingers around the world as betraying the Marxist principles leading to a bright new future around the world. 

As Philippe Karsenty pointed out a few weeks ago (when the spokesman of le Comité Trump France was asked why so many Jewish VIPs in France rallied to the defense of the government television's anti-semites), 

 … these Jewish figures … are first and foremost left-wing before they are Jewish. And there is nothing more dangerous for the Jewish people and Israel than left-wing Jews. They are the ones who have led Israel to its worst defeats, to its worst compromises. They are the ones who got one of the worst American presidents toward Israel elected: Barack Obama. They are the ones who got the Islamist Zohran Mamdani elected mayor of New York… Left-wing Jews are narcissistic masochists, corrupt financially or intellectually.

 … [The al-Durah] affair illustrates the profound bad faith of the left and its conspiracy-minded cronies who claim that the French press is serving "Zionist propaganda." In reality, from France Télévisions to Le Monde, including Libération and L'Humanité, the overwhelming majority of the media landscape adopts, on the contrary, an obsessively hateful stance towards Israel, as everyone could see after the massacre of October 7th. … Leftism is a mental illness!

Indeed, Israel itself is lucky — as is the world — that over the decades, the country's inhabitants turned away from the leftist direction, and, to a certain extent, rediscovered its religious roots. See Dennis Prager's notes in his Rational Bible books for Deuteronomy 4:28 (pages 57-58, see below), where he mentions Jewish non-believers through the centuries and through the millennia, Jews (among them Karl Marx) who were lured by other, secular, religions: the founder of Prager University explains "What Happens When Jews Abandon God."

Update: Check the comments section to see the prediction that Da Tech Guy made as far back as 10 years ago…

Homophobia? What Nobody Tells You About the "Hate Crime" of Leaving Skid Marks on Rainbow Crosswalks

When you think about it — and hardly more than for 15 seconds or so, if that long — then the charge that kids and adults alike leaving skid marks on rainbow crosswalks represents some kind of anti-gay homophobic hate crime turns out to be little more than nonsense.

Last Saturday (as mentioned a couple of days ago), Instapundit's Ed Driscoll linked to Powerline's memes in the Week in Pictures — while Sarah Hoyt did something similar by linking to… Sarah Hoyt's personal website.

With regards to Powerline, among this week's cartoons was the one at the very top of this page. The main message of the joke is quite serious: that the woke PC leftist drama queens go berserk over one type of "crime" — is it even a misdemeanor?! — while, conversely, being open to and understanding — certainly if the person belongs to the correct oppressed minority — to far worse types of crime, not excluding (attempted) murder.

But another, perhaps lesser, issue is that — again, when you think about it — the skid mark-leaving on rainbow crosswalks has nothing to do about homophobia or transphobia (or whatever other phobias you want to talk about) in the first place.

It is about kids, or teens, or tweens — and even adults (young or otherwise) — having fun. Who knows? Maybe a number of the skid mark-leavers have been gay themselves?

Leaving grayish skid marks upon gray asphalt is simply not as noticeable as upon parts of roads which are painted in vivid and brillant colors (is it okay we say flamboyant colors or is that also homophobic?) — and even, with the rainbow motif, in multi-colored stripes.

There are only bike riders and car drivers "ruining" the rainbow display and that, in dramatic fashion with their wheels; there don't seem to be many "far-right" pedestrians coming with paint or tar or anything to pour something over the display…

Whatever the colors' symbolism is supposed to represent is simply not of much interest — if any interest whatsoever — to these people and what matters to them, the excitement of leaving one's mark. 

If I am wrong, then by all means make your case in the comments…

But if Dennis Prager is to be believed, on the other hand, LGBTQ+ 'Pride' Is Totalitarian:

The vast majority of Americans believe in tolerance of LGBTQ+ individuals but not in organizations expressing pride in them.

Why is this?

Because "Pride" is not about tolerance. "Pride" is totalitarian.

Tolerance is about behavior. "Pride" is about thought.

If the founder of Prager University is likewise wrong, feel free, again, to tell him/us so in the comments section…

Related: • The "Racism" Invective: How the Left's Mindset Works  

• Double Standards: How Can One Insist That Illegals and/or Anchor Babies Are U.S. Citizens If Indeed "We Live on Stolen Land"?!) 

 

Regarding the Islamic World's History of Slavery, a NYT Book Review Tries to Be Nice and Understanding

As The New York Times reviews Justin Marozzi's CAPTIVES AND COMPANIONS: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World, America's "paper of record" in no way resorts to the same kind of common depictions reserved for slavery in the United States as a country or region flagrantly condemnable (what am I saying? Damnable!) and abhorrent while ranting about the (ridiculous) concept of America's "original sin." 

No, it turns out that NYT reviewer Thomas Meaney wants to be tolerant, contextualize, and put things into perspective, condemning Western "myths" and "lazy generalizations" while drawing comparisons (or contrasts) with abominable Westerners such as George W Bush and Belgium's King Leopold II (his case can hardly be denied), not to mention… the patriarch Abraham. 

Nothing in his review about the generalized castration of the Muslims' male slaves or the fact that the Transatlantic slave trade pales in comparison to the fate of Africans forced to reach their Arab masters' regions, given that the "brutal" Middle Passage, however horrific, consisted, after all, of lying still in a ship (certainly, inhumanely, like sardines and in their own filth), which is still hardly comparable with the fate of Africans forced to spend weeks walking the entire way to their Arab destinations and that, indeed, across one of the hottest regions in the world, i.e., the Sahara desert (which, needless to say, allowed for more — for far more — deaths).

As it happens, the history about the Muslims' slavery in the Arab regions never seems to be condemned outright in the NYT's book review, but boils down to asking a simple question: How Should We View the Middle East’s Legacy of Slavery?

As … the British journalist Justin Marozzi … showcases the many types of enslaved people — eunuchs, harem women, mercenaries, unpaid laborers — who populated a region that stretches across modern-day Libya, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia, all the while demonstrating how the realities of bondage in these places differed from the more familiar chattel slavery of the West.

Until the late 19th century, slavery was a near universal institution, though it was practiced in so many varieties that the word could hardly encompass them all. Marozzi’s account begins in 632 with a “free-spirited woman” in the first caliphate who took a slave to bed, assuming it was her right as set forth in the Quran.

 … Marozzi refers to his scope of interest as the “Islamic world,” apparently because slavery, like so many other iniquities, was justified by the existence of rules found in religious codes. The Prophet Muhammad, like Abraham, was an untroubled owner of slaves, and “the legitimacy of the slavery, as pronounced upon by the Quran, is not up for debate,” Marozzi writes.

 … Most enslaved people over the span of the centuries were held in bondage for life, and treated inhumanely by their owners.

How significant was racism in the practice of slavery by Muslims? Marozzi suggests that the advent of racial prejudice in the Middle East might have preceded the rise of modern European racism by several centuries.

 … Marozzi … appears to know how easy it is to descend into lazy generalizations about Islamic culture, and, in doing so, to prop up Western self-regard. Nevertheless, Marozzi appears reluctant to wriggle free from some of the most robust myths of the Victorian age.

French Media Outlet: "Today, Donald Trump is the most rational and the most Cartesian national leader on the planet"

Regarding The War in Iran, Philippe Karsenty has been a guest on various media outlets, from BFMTV's debate shows — where the spokesman of le Comité Trump France says that "the degree of Israel's infiltration of Iran's secret services is quite impressive" — to Europe 1 — where Philippe Karsenty affirms that "today, Donald Trump is the most rational and the most Cartesian leader on the planet." (Merci à Sarah pour l'Instalien.)

   

No Pilot Left Behind: CSAR Details Explained — Code Sandy, Code King, & Code Jolly

Belgium's RTBF has an article explaining exactly how a CSAR operation, divided into three mission components, is carried out. It can be likened to Sarah Hoyt's link to Behind the Black's Robert Zimmerman post, where one Cap'n Steeve proceeds to give what is probably the best explanations of the history of the missions (and SERE) since Vietnam, as the 25-minute video is recounted by a former military pilot (and current civilian pilot) himself. (“Will you be worth the trip?”: If you can get to the end without tearing up — as the captain does — then you are more stoic than I am…) As for the RTBF link, it is in French, but do go there for plenty of dramatic photos and videos from Iran's Zagros mountain range.

 … Combat SAR (or CSAR), for Combat Search and Rescue … is a distinct mission within the art of warfare, for it seamlessly blends aviation, special forces, intelligence, air command, electronic warfare, and emergency medicine into a single, unified operation. …

Code Sandy

 … A legacy of the rescue missions of the Vietnam War, "Sandy" designates the escort and coordination aircraft that provide protection during recovery operations. Historically, this role was first filled by the A-1 Skyraider, and later—in the more recent tradition of the U.S. Air Force—most often by the A-10 Thunderbolt II, with F-15s and other MQ-9 drones also providing support. 

Their mission: to locate targets, keep the enemy at bay, coordinate the scene, conduct route reconnaissance, escort rescue helicopters, and—if necessary—deliver immediate fire support. U.S. Air Force manuals continue to explicitly associate the A-10 with "Sandy"-type missions and rescue escort duties. Sandy serves, in a sense, as both the sword and the forward-deployed "eye" of the mission. It does not perform the extraction itself, but rather makes that extraction possible—most notably by establishing the "Sandbox" security perimeter.

Code King

Thereafter comes the "King," referring to the HC-130J Combat King II—the aircraft specifically designed for personnel recovery missions (though the MC-130J Commando II may also be utilized). It serves as a command and control platform, extends the operational radius of the recovery force, and—most importantly—is capable of mid-air refueling for rescue helicopters; this capability is essential when an extraction must be executed over long distances, at night, at low altitudes, and without a second chance. The U.S. Air Force specifically defines it as a platform dedicated to personnel recovery missions, command and control, and helicopter refueling. King constitutes the logistical and tactical backbone of the operation; it is its central element.

Code Jolly

Finally, "Jolly" refers to the rescue helicopter itself. Today, the name is borne by the HH-60W Jolly Green II, the successor to the Pave Hawk. It is the aircraft designed to enter contested zones—by day or by night—to recover an isolated pilot or commando, pick up a rescue team, and make a rapid exit. The U.S. Air Force explicitly positions the HH-60W as its dedicated Combat Search and Rescue helicopter, engineered to recover isolated personnel in hostile or denied territory. To this end, it is equipped with a FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared) system—an advanced thermal imaging system that enables the crew to detect and identify targets or individuals, even in total darkness, through smoke, or in adverse weather conditions.

Aboard the Jollys, one also finds the mission’s other—human—heart: the the Pararescuemen—the famous PJs—nicknamed Guardian Angels. Their role extends far beyond the image of a rescuer dangling from a hoist. The Guardian Angel structure is dedicated to Personnel Recovery across the entire spectrum of operations, and PJs are trained to conduct rescues under fire, stabilize the wounded, infiltrate, exfiltrate, survive, and improvise in degraded environments. It is they who transform a technical recovery into a safe return.

Over at The Telegraph, James Rothwell and Akhtar Makoii add that 

Experts say a rescue mission of this nature is likely to require 24 “pararescue” operatives and two Black Hawk helicopters, assisted by in-air refuelling aircraft to extend their reach over Iran.

US pararescue operatives receive training in combat medical care, evacuation, air-dive physiology, and additional skills to survive in chemical or nuclear environments.

On finding a casualty, they may need to provide him with medical treatment in place to ensure he survives the journey to safety.

“Harrowing and massively dangerous is an understatement,” one former pararescue commander told CBS News.

RTBF:

Lorsqu'un pilote américain tombe derrière les lignes ennemies, l’armée ne lance pas seulement un sauvetage, elle déclenche une mécanique complexe mêlant repérage, commandement aérien, hélicoptères de récupération, avions d’escorte et forces spécialisées. C’est ce que l’on appelle une mission CSAR, pour Combat Search and Rescue. L’opération menée pour récupérer le pilote tombé en Iran en a rappelé la logique implacable : aller chercher un homme isolé avant que l’ennemi ne mette la main dessus.