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In this mailing:
* Con Coughlin: DeSantis's Doubts over Ukraine Will Strengthen Putin, China, Iran
* Raymond Ibrahim: 'Use a Nail Gun to Nail the Heads and Crucify Them': The Persecution of Christians, February 2023
* Amir Taheri: Do Babies Still Win Wars?


** DeSantis's Doubts over Ukraine Will Strengthen Putin, China, Iran ([link removed])
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by Con Coughlin • March 19, 2023 at 5:00 am
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forward/email/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gatestoneinstitute.org%2F19504%2Fdesantis-ukraine&pubid=ra-52f7af5809191749&ct=1&title=DeSantis%27s+Doubts+over+Ukraine+Will+Strengthen+Putin%2C+China%2C+Iran [link removed]
* From the start of the conflict one of [Putin's] key assumptions has been that the Western powers were too weak and divided to sustain their support for the Ukrainian cause, and so it is proving.
* This depressing picture will undoubtedly be interpreted by Putin as justifying his view that the West would eventually lose interest in the Ukraine conflict and that, for all the public pledges of support, the Western alliance does not want Ukraine to win after all.
* There are also wider global security implications: if Putin is able to get his way. In Ukraine, he will be encouraged in the belief that he can expand his territorial ambitions into other parts of Europe. Other adversaries of the West will not fail to see a second US retreat as yet another vacuum -- a green light for their territorial expansion, as well.
* For example, an investigation undertaken by the Dossier Centre, a group funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a long-standing critic of Putin, has warmed that the Kremlin plans to take over Moldova by the end of the decade, a threat also delivered in early February by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as a year ago by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko "standing in front of a battle map that appears to show a planned invasion of Moldova, along with Ukraine."
* Moscow has also threatened to attack airfields in Poland, a NATO member state, which would require a military response from the entire NATO alliance, thereby provoking all-out war between Russia and the West. At that point, the conflict would very much become a "vital interest" for Washington.
* Fortunately there are still countries such as Poland that have no intention of abandoning the Ukrainian cause. On the contrary, the plucky Poles have just reaffirmed their commitment to Kyiv by becoming the first NATO member state to send warplanes to Ukraine: Warsaw is planning to send four MIG-29 fighters.
* It is a move that the Biden Administration and other allies should be encouraged to replicate. That is leadership -- and what many Americans seem starved for: a Churchill, not a Chamberlain. A reminder: it would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to have stopped Hitler before he crossed the Rhine.
* In an attempt to persuade DeSantis to change his mind, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invited the Florida Governor to visit him in Kyiv.
* It is an invitation DeSantis would be well-advised to accept.

No one will be more delighted at the deepening scepticism expressed about America's continued involvement in the Ukraine conflict than Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

No one will be more delighted at the deepening scepticism expressed about America's continued involvement in the Ukraine conflict than Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At a time when the Russian leader is desperate to turn the conflict in Moscow's favour, any indication that the US and its allies are losing interest in their support for Kyiv will simply encourage Putin in the belief that he can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Recent comments by a number of prominent Republicans have indicated that, far from backing the Ukrainians in their existential battle for survival against unprovoked Russian aggression, their primary objective is to scale down American involvement at the first available opportunity.

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** 'Use a Nail Gun to Nail the Heads and Crucify Them': The Persecution of Christians, February 2023 ([link removed])
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by Raymond Ibrahim • March 19, 2023 at 4:30 am
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* "[T]he soldiers of the Caliphate... captured five Christians and slaughtered them, praise be to God." — barnabasaid.org, February 15, 2023, Mozambique.
* "I went to the police station to report my daughter's kidnapping, but they refused to accept my complaint and forced me out of the building." He made repeated attempts to file a criminal complaint... the police ignored his pleas." — Morning Star News, February 13, 2023, Pakistan.
* " [I]n all cases involving forced marriages of underage minority girls.... The accused first rapes the victim and then uses the cover of an Islamic Nikah [marriage certificate] to escape punishment..." — Morning Star News, February 13, 2023, Pakistan.
* "Sunita is just 19, but now her whole life has been physically and mentally scarred [by acid thrown in her face].... Even if he is convicted for his crime.... We all know how our society treats acid attack survivors...." — Morning Star News, February 13, 2023, Pakistan.
* "Kill them wherever you find them [a verbatim quote of Koran 9:5]. If you are a tradesman, use a nail gun to nail the heads and crucify them on woodwork. If you are a truck driver, run them over...." — Islamic State operative, terrorism-info.org.il, February 6, 2023, Sweden.

An Iranian migrant was arrested after he made death threats against at least two Christian priests in Paris, at the parishes of Saint-Sulpice and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Pictured: Saint Sulpice Church in Paris, France. (Photo by Sam Tarling/Getty Images)

The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of February 2023:

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Democratic Republic of Congo: On February 12-13, Muslim terrorists massacred 22 people in the 95% Christian-majority nation. The terrorists were members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), "a Ugandan armed group that has operated in east Congo for decades.... It has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and stages frequent deadly raids on villages." Although Reuters claims that "There was no indication as to the motive" of the attacks, others are more forthright. Discussing the ongoing terrorization of the DRC, the human rights group, Open Doors, wrote:

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** Do Babies Still Win Wars? ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • March 19, 2023 at 4:00 am
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* China, Russia and Iran spend almost twice as much on the military as they do on the health and well-being of their citizens. Their military expenditure as a percentage of GDP is more than twice the average of OECD countries, while their healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP is less than half of the OECD average.

For the first time in more than six decades, China has experienced an actual fall in its population, set to lose its ranking as the world's most populous nation to India. The need to tackle the demographic deficit may be present, at least in filigree, in Beijing's increasingly belligerent discourse about Taiwan. Pictured: Chinese soldiers in a military parade on October 1, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Since the Chinese sage Sun Tzu authored The Art of War around 2,500 years ago, almost all writers on military affairs have asserted that a rapid rate of population growth is the sine qua non for a nation's decision to go to war.

More recently, this theory was elaborated by the Swiss mercenary, General Antoine-Henri Jomini, in a series of books that have been "must reads" in most military academies since the 19th century. Echoes of the same theory are present in On War, the military "bible" written by Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian general and military historian, in the 19th century.

Thus, the Indo-European tribes left their ancestral homeland in Central Asia because they could no longer feed a rapidly growing population. Seeking more fertile land and pastures for their herds, they embarked on invasions to their west and south to find the resources they coveted.

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