No-go areas in Sweden increase from 55 to 61

So sad to see what is happening to Sweden these days.

That figure about the no-go zones is from the article "Sweden: A Failed State?" over at Gatestone Inst.

Another choice morsel about folks who fought for the Islamic State and then returned to Sweden:

Swedish news outlets have reported that the Swedish towns that receive the returnees do not even know they are returning ISIS fighters. One coordinator of the work against violent Islamist extremism in Stockholm, Christina Kiernan, says that "...at the moment there is no control over those returning from ISIS-controlled areas in the Middle East".

Hard to believe that a country would so actively and intentionally destroy itself.

Afghans and the rape epidemic in Europe

Why are Afghan refugees and asylum seekers at the forefront of a rape epidemic in Europe? That is the question that this article in The National Interest tries to address. 

Here is the author's best guess:

This brings us to a third, more compelling and quite disturbing theory—the one that my Afghan friend, the court translator, puts forward. On the basis of his hundreds of interactions with these young men in his professional capacity over the past several years, he believes to have discovered that they are motivated by a deep and abiding contempt for Western civilization. To them, Europeans are the enemy, and their women are legitimate spoils, as are all the other things one can take from them: housing, money, passports. Their laws don’t matter, their culture is uninteresting and, ultimately, their civilization is going to fall anyway to the horde of which one is the spearhead. No need to assimilate, or work hard, or try to build a decent life here for yourself—these Europeans are too soft to seriously punish you for a transgression, and their days are numbered. 

And it’s not just the sex crimes, my friend notes. Those may agitate public sentiment the most, but the deliberate, insidious abuse of the welfare system is just as consequential. Afghan refugees, he says, have a particular proclivity to play the system: to lie about their age, to lie about their circumstances, to pretend to be younger, to be handicapped, to belong to an ethnic minority when even the tired eye of an Austrian judge can distinguish the delicate features of a Hazara from those of a Pashtun.

There you go. Europe is the spoils of war. No need to assimilate, work, or do anything at all. The Europeans are soft and stupid. Sounds pretty accurate to me. 

A Prayer for Egypt

From A Sense of Belonging.

God, Five more policemen were killed today. Several high-profile militants were killed this week. And to avoid adding their number to the roll, Egypt’s churches canceled summer activities for the next three weeks. The intelligence services are finding material – warning the Christians and raiding the hideouts. Yet extremist elements are finding recruits – threatening Christians and targeting checkpoints. God, the cycle must end somewhere. May it be with the least blood. Criminals must be found, God. But give them justice greater than death. To the degree possible, help raids end in capture. Peace must be established, God. But give Egypt justice greater than security. To the degree possible, help rights end in responsibility. Death comes for all, God, when you will it. But in Egypt the past several years, it has come too soon for too many. In eternity you cancel death. May Egypt live as if you canceled it now. Amen.  

Paul Wood on Trump's Poland Speech

Loved this insight from Paul Wood at his blog, A Political Refugee from the Global Village. I think he is making a really good point--that President Trump is willing to recognize an obvious reality that neither Bush nor Obama were willing to acknowledge, or perhaps even able to see.

Here is most of the post:

Trump's speech yesterday at Warsaw was a very good one, though I have mentioned that I disliked him seeing the Assad regime and Iran as hostile.  

George W. Bush went to lengths to insist the West was not in conflict with Islam. He declared war instead on an abstract noun, terrorism, even though you can't win a war with an abstract noun. Barack Obama said the terrorist murders in Paris, several massacres ago, were "an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share", even though values are not really universal.

Donald Trump yesterday at Warsaw declared that Western culture, not universal values, are under assault in Europe and the U.S. This is an important step forward.

Read the rest of it here. And do leave comments over there.