Week in Review: Rising Terrorism Leading to a Clash of Civilizations, Tax Dollars Fund Terrorism, Welfare Discourages Marriage, and Much More

Week in Review: Rising Terrorism Leading to a Clash of Civilizations, Tax Dollars Fund Terrorism, Welfare Discourages Marriage, and Much More

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images, KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images, ISIS

Week in Review: Rising Terrorism Leading to a Clash of Civilizations, Tax Dollars Fund Terrorism, Welfare Discourages Marriage, and Much More

All you need to know about everything in the news this week

August 6, 2016

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Highlights:

Europe’s clash of civilizations

  • Writing for Foreign Policy, James Poulos noted that a growing number of Europeans believe the West needs to respond to Islamic terror with a crusade of its own.
  • “Though the internecine conflicts wracking the Arab world ensure the war against the Islamic State is hardly a war on Islam,” he wrote, “the jihadis are bent on a clash of civilizations.”
  • “[B]y martyring French Catholics who are old Christendom’s flesh and blood, they’re one step closer to getting one.” After all, Europe’s leaders have historically “recapitulated a vision of continental unity as old as Charlemagne.”

    • Co-sponsoring terrorism

  • The Obama administration reportedly made a $400 million cash payment to Iran as part of a $1.7 billion settlement. The payment coincided with the release of four Americans detained in Tehran and the implementation of the nuclear deal in January.
  • The cash withdraw was secretive and, for legal reasons, had to be conducted in foreign currency.
  • At approximately 3.6 tons, the cash was stacked onto pallets and airlifted to Iran on an unmarked cargo plane.
  • Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated that he believes the nuclear deal has not benefited the average Iranian.
  • “This is why I have for years been saying that we will not negotiate with the Americans,” Khamenei said. “[T]his shows that the problems we have with them in the region, in different issues, cannot be solved with negotiations.”

    • Japan’s new nationalist defense minister

  • Japan now has a new defense minister: Tomomi Inada.
  • “Hours before the hawkish lawyer was appointed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet in a limited reshuffle,” reported Reuters, she was put to the test when “a North Korean missile landed in or near Japanese-controlled waters for the first time.”
  • Japan, and Inada, may reach out to China and others as it seeks to neutralize the threat to security posed by North Korea.

    • Underreporting inflation

  • The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a variety of statistical calculations to keep the officially reported inflation rate as low as possible.
  • The real inflation rate is far higher than official reports suggest. If the government revealed the true state of the economy, the entire system could come crashing down, according to a ZeroHedge article by Charles Hugh-Smith.

    • EU befriends terrorists

  • In its migrant deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the European Union proved willing to break its own laws for social and political expediency.
  • The EU is planning to break more laws by paying about $110 million to a war criminal who became the first serving head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
  • Foreign Policy partially explained this newfound friendship thus: “For a combination of reasons—its strategic location next to Libya and Egypt, its largely ungoverned hinterland, and its porous borders—Sudan has become a major transit hub for refugees and migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Syria who are hoping to reach Europe.”

    • Other news:

  • On Monday, the United States began Operation Odyssey Lightning against the Islamic State in Libya.
  • A study by the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies has shown that government welfare programs incentivize unmarried couples to remain unmarried. Some unmarried couples with children could face a “marriage penalty” of sorts by getting married.

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