Who Killed Jason Arday?

Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor exposed as a fraud before the whole world, killed himself last week. To the left, this is the media’s fault.

[BRIEF]

• London Mayor Sadiq Khan called it “a pernicious public shaming that other people in his position simply wouldn’t have faced.”
• M.P. Zarah Sultana wrote: “If Jason Arday were a white middle-class academic, he would not have been hounded by the British press in the way he was.”
• Author Ibram X. Kendi wrote that “to be a prominent anti-racist black scholar is to know you are a target.” The title of his essay: “The Media Lynched Jason Arday.”

That response exposes so much of what is wrong with both Britain and America. The elites will jump on any excuse to cry racism. Arday was not lynched—he killed himself. He is the one responsible for his death.

• But there is an organization that played a supporting role. The villains are not those in the media who exposed his fraud. It is those in academia who enabled it.

The whole story shows the sickness within higher education. Cambridge University put an obvious fraud on a pedestal. By the university’s own admission, they now have to investigate their own hiring process. Somehow the institution that created Arday has become the least-discussed actor in its own scandal.

• Cambridge University and the rest of Britain’s elites are unwilling to accept any correction over this. They don’t learn from their mistakes: They are too arrogant to believe they make mistakes. Instead, they blame their problems on racism.

Arday himself was the same way. Dr. David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, wrote to Arday about his “plagiarism concerns.” Arday accused him of “bullying and harassment.”

• He had been surrounded since birth by people who told him he was brilliant and special. As a result, he couldn’t take correction or admit he was wrong.

Herbert W. Armstrong called this the “intellectual leaven” infecting higher education. We see that leaven taken to extremes in Arday.

• Instead of showing students what they don’t know, this world’s education awards them prestigious degrees, tells them they have great knowledge that most don’t have. It puffs them up, like leaven puffs up a loaf of bread. And when someone tells them they’re wrong or exposes their shortcomings, they can’t take it.

Telling the truth about Jason Arday was not the problem. Lying about him for years was.

For the vast majority, this intellectual leaven won’t be as immediately fatal as it was for Arday. But how many millions go through life refusing to be corrected because they are filled with education on material subjects but know nothing of spiritual truth?

• The result: Millions of people who think they know everything and can be taught nothing.

A refusal to be corrected leads to death (Proverbs 29:1). Cambridge University and the British elite continue to walk this way. Will you?

Iran Is Preparing for the Next Round of War

The June 17 “memorandum of understanding” between the United States and Iran expired yesterday, meaning that a ceasefire that was broken roughly 25 times is now officially over. President Donald Trump said yesterday that he does not plan to extend the agreement. But even if he changes his mind—again—it is apparent that Iran has no intention of holding its fire.

Media reports suggest Iran is gearing up for more active combat against the U.S. and Israel:

• A “senior Iranian official” told Reuters yesterday that Iran is preparing for a “fully offensive” posture. The official claimed that “Iranian entities must be prepared to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and the wider region” to break the U.S. blockade of Iranian maritime trade.
• The Wall Street Journal reported on August 16 that Iranian and Arab officials say Iran’s leaders have been getting “their forces ready to widen the war and raise the costs for the U.S.,” while “increasingly talking about offensive operations on enemy territory.” The Journal implies this could include ground operations in Kuwait or other American partners in the region.
• Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, an Iranian analyst close to the government, told the Journal, “There is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun.” He claimed that throughout the ceasefire, the Iranian regime has engaged in “limited, incremental escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation.”

What has Iran been doing? Over the past two months, Iran has rearranged military leadership positions to give the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps more control over the conventional military and the manufacture of missiles and drones.

• The Journal writes that Iran’s main goal “is to inflict enough pain to ensure the kind of attacks Iran has endured with the 12-day war last year and the continuing conflict aren’t repeated.”

In other words, Iran wants to push.

Daniel 11:40 prophesies that a power called “the king of the south” will trigger a global cataclysm “at the time of the end.” Since the 1990s, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has written that the radical Islamic world, led by Iran’s radical regime, is this “king.”

• Daniel 11:40 specifically says this bloc will “push” against its rivals. Iran is demonstrating this “pushiness” in its direct defiance, resistance and targeting of the U.S. superpower. Bible prophecy reveals it will spark a massive war—but not with America.

To learn who will confront Iran, read Mr. Flurry’s free booklet The King of the South.

Germany Amasses Record Number of Troops

The German military now has its highest number of personnel since conscription was abolished in 2011. In a nation beset by bad economic and political news, Deutsche Welle hailed it as “a comparatively rare success story.”

The Bundeswehr employs 186,700 troops as of July 31, the Defense Ministry reported yesterday. This means that its plan to increase that number to 260,000 by the mid-2030s is on course. (It also employs 81,000 civilians.)

• The German military has grown by 3,700 (2 percent) since July last year.
• Applications to join the military are up 26 percent year-on-year.

German authorities thought recruiting the extra soldiers they wanted would be a real challenge. So far, they’ve had no shortage of volunteers.

It’s another component of Germany’s rapid military transformation. In our February issue, we wrote:

From the earliest issues of the Trumpet newsmagazine in the 1990s, we focused on Germany’s military rise, continuing the legacy of Plain Truth editor in chief Herbert W. Armstrong, who died in 1986. … In the 1990s, we saw Germany unite. Then we saw it get strong. Now we see it militarizing.

Our decades of warning about Germany are proving true, one headline after another.

IN OTHER NEWS

Russia has created 10 new drone-launching bases: Russian forces have built or expanded at least 10 military bases near the borders of Ukraine and Belarus, intending to deploy swarms of new jet-powered drones at Ukraine, the Telegraph reported Sunday. The strategy is meant to overwhelm and penetrate Ukraine’s air defenses by sending large numbers of drones simultaneously from several locations. The development is yet another sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unyielding ambition for conquest.

Russia deploys warship near Germany: Russia’s Admiral Kasatonov frigate, which is known to carry nuclear-capable cruise missiles, was seen near the German island of Fehmarn in the Baltic Sea last week. Russia hasn’t commented on the deployment, but it is a reminder that Europe faces an active and aggressive power to the east.

Canadian government accused of ‘euthanizing’ a senior against her will: Brigitte Stegemann was put to death by government workers from the Canadian Medical Assistance in Dying program on July 10. Stegemann had previously refused to be killed by the government, seeing it as a form of suicide, which is against her Christian faith. However, while her granddaughter and “primary contact for all medical and personal care decisions” was on holiday, MAID workers met with Stegemann on July 7, assessed that she could make her own decision, and recorded that she wanted to die. Three days later, they came back and killed her, allegedly without the required final verbal consent of Stegemann. Whatever the circumstances, euthanasia is “Medical Murder.”