The SOTU-Why Bother?

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://https://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Watching the overly-long State of the Union Last  Night, I thought back to last week's NFL Pro Bowl, an absurd flag football affair preceded by various skills competitions-everything but a swimsuit competition. The obvious question is why do they continue having the Pro Bowl-as well as the State of the Union? You see one State of the Union, you've seen them all. It's the same old script.

Much has already been said by the talking heads about the SOTU, and there's little I can add. I could ask how many times President Biden said, "Folks....", but I don't know the answer without having to sit through a replay. What I would like to do is simply point out that there were two elephants in the room last night in the nation's Capitol, and it took Biden about an hour to even mention them in passing. Those were China and their Beautiful Balloon and our broken border with Mexico.

Finally, when Biden started talking briefly about China, his only reference to the balloon that had just crossed our country from sea to shining sea, was that the US had been tested and had reacted strongly (I am paraphrasing). Had he reacted strongly, he would have ordered that balloon to be shot down as soon as it was detected somewhere out West. Nor would he have allowed his military advisors-as he claims they did- to say they would wait until it had reached the Atlantic coast. Even then, instead of having strong words for CHinca in his SOTU, he was conciliatory. There must be a reason Biden won't get tough with China. Could it be that he knows China has him and his wayward son, Hunter, in their pocket? They have bought the Biden family. Enough said about that.

When it came to the border, Biden started giving talking points as to how many apprehensions had been made, blah blah, blah. He said nothing about how many illegals had entered the US during his presidency. Nothing about how an over-taxed Border Patrol had been taken from their normal duties of securing the border to simply processing illegals and sending them on their way.

It is true that Biden talked about the fentanyl epidemic. He wants to "crack down" on fentanyl, but he doesn't want to secure our border with Mexico, over which fentanyl enters the US in the first place after the precursors are sent to Mexico from China. Fentanyl alone is more than sufficient reason to secure our border-something Biden and his feckless DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas refuse to do. Then Biden added insult to injury by insisting on "comprehensive immigration reform" and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers etc. 

In short, it was disgusting. Sarah Sanders, the Governor of Arkansas, said it best in her excellent response when she said that this man was unfit to serve as president.

Is there any justice?

Euthanasia in the Third Reich

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

This article first appeared in New English Review.

Heil und Pflegeanstalt, Erlangen in 1890

Amid all the horrors of the Third Reich, including World War 2 and the Holocaust, one atrocity that is often overlooked (at least outside of Germany) was the program of euthanasia of mentally and physically handicapped people instituted by Hitler in 1939 when the war broke out. In Hitler's own terminology, these people were classified as "useless eaters". This program was referred to as "T4", named after the address of the office set up to oversee the program nationally (Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin).

Under this program, patients in nursing care facilities around the country (Heil und Pflegenanstalten) were identified and their cases reviewed by doctors indoctrinated in Nazi philosophy. Once approved, these unfortunates (regardless of age) were transported to centers set up for the purpose of killing them by gas. It was sort of a dress rehearsal for the eventual gassing centers such as Auschwitz. This program also included children.

This went on without consultation with relatives of the patients, and these families were eventually notified by mail that their loved one had died in the nursing care facility of various natural causes or illnesses. The remains were generally cremated.

Yet, the public gradually became aware, and curiously enough, as complaints mounted, the Nazi government discontinued the program in 1941, but then reduced the patients' diets to the point that they gradually died of malnutrition.

While researching my book on the history of the German town of Erlangen (Erlangen: An American's History of a German Town), I became aware of the tragic history of their own Heil und Pflegeanstalt   This information was included in the chapter on the years 1933-1945.

With all that as a background, I happened to find a 2019 German YouTube documentary on the topic of the Heil und Pflegenanstalten of Ansbach and Neuendettelsau, two towns near Erlangen in Middle Franconia (Bavaria). In watching the video, I learned that many, if not most of the doomed patients in these two clinics were transferred to the facility at Erlangen before being shipped on to the infamous Hartheim Castle in Austria, which had been transformed into a euthanasia center. It is estimated that over 900 patients from Erlangen were euthanized in killing centers such as Hartheim and another 1,500 were allowed to starve to death.

Hartheim Castle in Austria

In the video, Als hätte es sie nie gegeben (As if they had never existed), there were clips of an interview with medical historian, Hans-Ludwig Siemen, as well as clips from his presentation on the topic, which took place in Erlangen. Siemen and Christine-Ruth Müller are co-authors of a book entitled, "Warum sie sterben mussten: Leidensweg und Vernichtung von Behinderten aus den Neuendettelsauer Pflegeanstalten im "Dritten Reich" (Why they had to die: Suffering and extermination of the disabled in the Neuendettelsau nursing homes in the Third Reich), published in 1991.

While watching the video, I happened to see a good friend of mine in Erlangen in the audience attending Siemen's presentation. I contacted him by email this week, and he quickly replied that indeed, it was him in the audience. With his permission, I am reposting what he emailed me:

Yes, that's me in the audience, Gary! Amazing coincidence! An act of providence really. I was there when Dr. Siemen spoke about the matter in the Volkshochschule Erlangen some years ago (before Corona). The reason is that in my mother's family, there were two physically (deaf and mute by birth) and finally probably mentally handicapped elderly women who died in the Bezirksklinikum Ansbach in the 1940s after they had been transferred from Neuendettelsau (Lutheran homes for the handicapped) to Ansbach where the Nazi physicians had total control. One of them died presumably due to the scanty "Hungerkost" diet, and the other one died in 1946, i.e. after the Nazi regime.

 I have been researching about their case in archives for years and will definitely write something about them because I feel they belong to our family although they have been more or less forgotten over the decades. Thank God both my grandmother and my mother told me frankly about them during their lifetime. I'll watch the video tomorrow in quiet. I'll touch base again with you afterward. Thanks a lot, Gary! Again I needed you to show me this. Wonderful connection!

All the best,

Helmut

The site of the Erlangen Heil und Pflegeanstalt is now part of the University of Erlangen Psychiatric Clinic. Recently, the city of Erlangen tore down some of the old buildings, but some of it has been left standing as part of a memorial to the victims. It is one of many examples of sites related to the Nazi years that have become the subject of debate. Should they be torn down, erased, or preserved in an appropriate context so as to remind future generations of a time that must never be repeated. Just a few miles south of Erlangen, the city of Nuremberg is wrestling with what to do with the surviving (but crumbling) relics of the Nazi Party Rally grounds.

As a side note, when Erlangen fell to the US Army in 1945, a World War 1 memorial to Germany's fallen was partially torn down by the Americans. While they left standing concrete blocks with the names of Erlangen's war dead, a huge statue of a seated soldier, shirtless, with a helmet, was removed as being overly militaristic.

My personal opinion is that in the case of Germany, these sites should be preserved in some manner as a memorial to the victims. In the US, we are having a somewhat similar debate over the preservation of Civil War memorials. History, good or bad, cannot be erased. It is there. All we can try to do is put it in an appropriate context and learn from it.

What Will Biden Say to Border Patrol Agents Sunday?

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

https://garyfouse.blogspot.com

 So President Biden has announced that at long last, he will visit the border on Sunday, specifically El Paso, which is swarming with illegal migrants. He will meet with Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Biden says he wants to assess the situation. At the same time, he is announcing new measures to try and get a handle on the crisis. I assume he will be accompanied by his feckless vice president (Kamala Harris-the supposed "border czar") and his feckless director of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. My question is whether he will meet with rank-and-file Border Patrol agents and look them in the eye. If so, what will he say to them?

Will he tell them that illegal migrants are comparable to "Jews fleeing the Holocaust", echoing a statement he made this week?

Will he tell them they "they are going to pay" for the so-called whipping that agents on horseback supposedly administered to Haitian migrants coming across the Rio Grande in 2021? That was a statement he made at the time and a charge that was proven to be false. Or will apologize for his past statement?

As he is talking to Border Patrol agents (if he talks to them at all) will Mayorkas be lurking over his shoulder ready to jot down the names of any agents who dare to speak frankly to Biden about the situation?

Frankly, I am getting ahead of myself because I frankly don't know how Biden can look those agents in the face.

Biden and Simple Possession of Marijuana

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

President Biden has made his pitch for the pot-smoking vote this week by announcing that he is issuing pardons for anybody who has been convicted on the federal level for simple possession of marijuana. This raises a lot of interesting points.

As a retired DEA agent, I did have occasions to work marijuana cases. Actually, most all of those cases were when I was a US Customs agent prior to joining the newly-created DEA in July 1973. With Customs, I was assigned to a group exclusively investigating the smuggling of large, commercial quantities of marijuana by aircraft, something that was quite prevalent at the time in the Southwest area bordering Mexico.

As my career continued in DEA from 1973-1995 when I retired, marijuana understandably became a lesser priority compared to heroin, cocaine, and later drugs like methamphetamine. The biggest priority now for DEA is fentanyl, of course.

At this point, I would like to introduce the federal drug law dealing with simple possession of controlled substances (drugs requiring a prescription or simply drugs that are illegal on their face, like heroin). The federal laws regarding drugs are under Title 21 of the US Code. These were the laws I enforced as a Customs and DEA agent. The statutes we were most concerned with and most often charged were smuggling, possession with intent to distribute, and conspiracy to do the same. There is a statute for simple possession. It is 21 USC 844.

It is important to note that no federal prosecutor would accept a case that involved someone arrested for simple possession of a personal quantity of drugs, especially marijuana. I cannot speak for every state and local jurisdiction, but at a federal level, we only cared about commercial quantities. That means that we didn't care about some guy smoking a joint in his home. But if his home contained 500 kilos of marijuana, that was not for his personal use. That was clearly what we called a commercial quantity. He was trafficking.

So now you might ask why is this 21 USC 844 on the books? In practice, it is used for plea bargaining purposes. Pleading to a lesser charge. It is especially handy when a defendant has cooperated with law enforcement to a great degree and deserves a big break. Let me give you an example. Let's say DEA arrests a guy transporting a load of cocaine in his vehicle, let's say 20 kilos. It turns out that he is just a "mule" who is being paid to carry the drugs from one place or one person to another person or place. The driver agrees to cooperate. He names the person who gave him the drugs and the name of the person he is supposed to deliver the drugs to. He also agrees to go through with the delivery to the intended recipient, which he does under the control of the agents. To make a long story short, everybody is arrested on both ends, and the driver testifies in court. In return, he is allowed to plead to a lesser offense (21 USC 844 in many cases).

That's what we are talking about. Nobody at the federal level is chasing pot smokers and throwing them in federal prison for having a personal supply of marijuana or any other drug. The US Attorney's office would never accept such a case. So this is no great act of mercy by President Biden. 

Biden also wants the government to review whether marijuana is properly classified as a Schedule One drug, like heroin. On its face, it seems ludicrous that marijuana and heroin would be in the same classification or schedule. The reasoning is-you can agree or disagree- that like heroin, marijuana is judged to have a high potential for abuse and has no medically recognized use. You can read the list of schedules under the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 here. Interestingly, cocaine and fentanyl are listed under Schedule Two because they do have certain legal medical uses.

The bottom line is that virtually all the beneficiaries of this pardon are people who actually committed more serious offenses, but were allowed to plead to the lesser charge of 21 USC 844-simple possession either because they cooperated with law enforcement and/or simply agreed to plead to the lesser charge.

You are not going to see Cheech and Chong walk out of federal prison where they have been serving time because DEA agents found them smoking marijuana on a street corner.

Austrian President Wants All Austrian Women to Wear Headscarves

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

-"Mommy, why are we fleeing Austria?"

-"So I don't have to wear a fricking scarf"!

Notwithstanding recent events in Iran, the president of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, thinks that it is about time to ask all Austrian women to wear headscarves out of solidarity with Muslims. Fortunately, the position of president in Austria is largely ceremonial, and most political power rests with the chancellor.

How about defending the right of Muslim women in Austria not to wear a head scarf if they so choose? How about solidarity with Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian woman who recently died in police custody after being arrested for not "properly" wearing a head scarf? How about solidarity with the people in  Iran who are protesting Amini's death and being killed by Iran police and Revolutionary Guards?

From an American perspective, I would defend the right of Muslim women in the US to wear a headscarf if they feel it is their religious duty. I would also defend their right not to wear it if they don't want to. But the bottom line is that this foolish Austrian president is misdirecting his "solidarity".

Mahsa Amimi

The below article from Unzensuriert (Austria) is translated by Fousesquawk.

 https://www.unzensuriert.at/content/156135-vdb-wir-werden-alle-frauen-bitten-muessen-ein-kopftuch-zu-tragen-aus-solidaritaet/

Caption: Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen asks Austrian women to wear headscarves out of solidarity with Muslims

Federal presidential election  29 September 2022 16:24

Van der Bellen: "Will have to ask all women to wear a head scarf-out of solidarity".

"Beloved Austria", "Austria with all my heart" is written on the ad posters of Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, with which he campaigns nationwide for his reelection. But how much credibility are his messages? Can we trust a federal president and really elect him as head of state if he asks women to wear a head scarf out of solidarity with Muslims.

"Not just Muslims, every woman can wear a head scarf"

Many, perhaps, have already forgotten, but when Alexander Van der Bellen was hardly in office, he said verbatim on the ORF-Broadcast, "Report":

"It is the right of a woman to dress however she wishes, that is my opinion on this. Incidentally, not just Muslim women, every woman can wear a head scarf. And if it continues with this Islamophobia actually spreading, the day will come when we will have to ask all women to wear a head scarf. All in solidarity with those who do it for religious reasons."

Why doesn't Van der Bellen wear a head scarf?

When the federal president made this statement, he had been in office almost one hundred days. In social media, there was a lot going around because of the call for solidarity. Die Presse pointed out a few critics.

"Does anyone know if (Van der Bellen wanted to make a joke?" Peter Bussjaeger, Professor of Federalism at the University of Innsbruck, subsequently asked. Manfred Juraczka, former club chairman of the Austrian Peoples' Party in Vienna, likewise used the statement for critique via Kurznachrictendienst (Headline Service). "So much for the election claim that hashtag vdB (Van der Bellen) is a man of the middle." Another user also immediately made another suggestion to the head of state: "Mr Van der Bellen, why don't you set a good example and wear a head scarf?" 

Rocky Mountain High Middle East Studies

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                           

   

Nader Hashemi

Nader Hashemi is the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver. In the wake of the recent stabbing attack of Salman Rushdie by a Muslim man trying to cash in on the fatwa issued decades ago by the Ayatollah Khomeini, Hashemi has a hare-brained theory as to who is really behind the attempted murder.

It's the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.

The Jewish News Syndicate has the details.

 https://www.jns.org/university-of-denver-professor-says-mossad-likely-behind-rushdies-stabbing/

To the uninitiated, one might think this guy is smoking his socks or whatever it is they smoke in Colorado. But in reality, this is precisely what I have come to expect from Middle East Studies departments in universities across the nation. This is typical of Middle East Studies scholarship.

These departments are about as academically valid as gender studies, and LGBTQ studies departments. In truth, they are pan-Arab, anti-West, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hotbeds dedicated to teachings of people like Edward Said and his post-colonial Orientalism, which teaches that anything connected to the West is racist, colonialist, imperialistic, and whatever other negative label you can attach.

Just as "academics" like Hashemi are loathe to admit that any country outside of Israel in that part of the world could be involved in terrorism, any problems in the region are the fault of Israel, the US, and the West. Oh, they'll condemn any dictators in the region who have been friendly to the West, but the real underlying reason they want to see these particular dictators fall is so that they can be replaced by an Islamist regime. But it's never the fault of Arab/Middle Eastern society or Islam. The only reason they hate the West and Israel (according to them) is because of Zionism, injustices to the Palestinians, and colonialism in general.

But it's always somebody else's fault.

It is also worthy of note that in the cash-crazed atmosphere of academia, much of Middle East studies in the US owes its existence to oil money from countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who want to see their brand of history, politics, and Islam promoted to gullible US students. Thus, they contribute money to establish these departments and make sure they are staffed with the "right" kind of professors. Pro-Israel professors need not apply. Why would they want to work in that type of hostile environment?

Final point: Call me naive, but which country do you think is more likely to order the assassination of an innocent man like Rushdie, Israel or the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world? I am not saying that Iran was involved, but the original fatwa came out of that country, and they never rescinded it after Khomeini's death. They are a despicable regime, so Hashemi can defend them all he wants at the cost to his own reputation.

USC: Dept. of Education -Office for Civil Rights to Investigate Anti-Semitism at Campus

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

We have been following the ongoing story of Rose Ritch, a Jewish student at the University of Southern California who has been the target of the pro-Palestinian mob on campus because she supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Therefore, she is considered a Zionist, which to the pro-Palestinian mob is a dirty word. Ritch was driven from her position in student government due to the attacks against her, many of which were flat-out anti-Semitic. 

When USC President Carol Folt issued a statement expressing sympathy for Ritch over her ordeal and condemning anti-Semitism in general, the Middle East Studies Association jumped in to criticize Folt. You can read the background of the Ritch story here.

Now the Office for Civil Rights within the US Department of Education has decided to investigate the matter as to possible violation of Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. I am cross-posting an announcement by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed a complaint to the DOE/OCR.

This is a positive step although I have been critical of DOE/OCR's resolution of the UC Irvine investigation several years ago as to complaints of anti-Semitism at that university. Hopefully, the investigators will realize that this goes far beyond the free speech right to criticize Israel. All too often, criticism of Israel, which is legitimate in itself, has crossed the line into insults directed at Jewish students and Jewish people in general on US university campuses. I know that from my own personal observations. I have seen it and heard it.

Are We Watching Trump Impeachment 3?

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

https://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Let me rephrase the title of this piece: Are you watching Trump Impeachment 3? I am not.

Oh, I am following the progress of the proceedings, but after the two impeachment trials against Donald Trump, the second of which was after he left office, I am really skeptical as to the objectivity of this proceeding. Not that I defend what happened on January 6, I don't, but given the make-up of this panel, seven Democrats (including the ubiquitous Adam Schiff) and two Trump-hating RINOS, it's hard to put much faith in this show trial. (House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy originally chose Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana, both of whom were rejected by Nancy Pelosi, at which point the Republicans declined to participate, and Pelosi named Lynn Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Delaware, both Trump-haters.)

Nor am I swayed by this latest appearance of a lady named Cassidy Hutchinson, who has testified to hearsay statements made about Trump while riding in the presidential limousine, the so-called "beast" on January 6 when video shows he was riding in an SUV on January 6. In addition, Miss Hutchinson's hearsay statements are contested by the Secret Service agent who reportedly made them. There is also the question of a handwritten note that Hutchinson claims was written by her but may have been written by someone else. At least she didn't testify to Russian hookers peeing on Trump's bed.

Of course, the mainstream media, from the New York Times to the LA Times, thinks that this is the bombshell witness who will finally bring down old Trump-just as they called Michael Avenatti, "Trump's worst nightmare" not to mention a serious possible presidential candidate in 2020. Well, Trump's worst nightmare (Avenatti) is now in jail though I'm not sure it's a NY jail or an LA jail, but no matter.

As we recall, Trump Impeachment Trial Number One centered around his alleged collusion with foreign powers in the 2016 election. It centered largely around his phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It came in the backdrop of all the charges of Trump having colluded with the Russians to sway the 2016 election in Trump's favor. Remember all that? The Steele Dossier about those Russian hookers with loose bladders, the Carter Page wiretaps under a FISA court order, based largely on the Steele Dossier, which the FBI brass knew was questionable and unverified-not to mention paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. That sordid mess involved Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, and the whole gang. The setting up and the railroading of Michael Flynn. It was not the FBI's proudest moment. Now we know that if anybody colluded with the Russians, it was Hillary Clinton and her gang. It was they who paid for the Steele Dossier.

There was so much made of Trump's conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine asking for an investigation into what happened when then-Veep Joe Biden got the then-president of Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, the corrupt energy company that had Hunter Biden on its board of directors at a salary of tens of thousands of dollars a month. Nobody ever tried to impeach Joe Biden for that even though they have the smoking gun video of him bragging in a speech how he successfully got the prosecutor fired by threatening to block a foreign aid package to Ukraine.

Impeachment Trial Number 2 accused Trump of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. The trial was actually held after he had left office. It ended in another thud.

So now we have Trump and others allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election based on reports that there were suspicious goings-on at election centers in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Was there hanky-panky going on in those cities on election night? I'm not sure. William Barr has testified that whatever election fraud might have occurred, it was not enough to affect the outcome of the election. I take him at his word. I would also add that I am not comfortable with the tape of Trump's telephone conversation with the Georgia secretary of state as to "finding 11,000+ votes" that would put him ahead. In that same conversation, however, Trump speaks extensively about hundreds of thousands of suspicious ballots cast. Was Trump soliciting fraudulent votes in his favor or asking that suspicious Biden votes be investigated? In that same vein, I was never comfortable with what Al Gore and his lawyers tried to do in Florida in 2000. But this is the reality: If it's a close election, there will be recounts. And yes, I do believe that election fraud does exist in general.

As for the January 6 hearings, we will have to see if Ms Hutchinson's words are true or rebutted by others in the White House and/or Secret Service. Of course, no matter what comes out of the hearings, this is about preventing Trump from running in 2024 and-if they can- getting him indicted for his post-election actions including on January 6. Did Trump actually incite a riot on January 6, 2021? You may argue that his take-no-prisoners stump speech riled up the crowd, but he told them to march "peacefully and patriotically" down to the Capitol to make their voices heard. Legally, that's pretty exculpatory.

Italy: The Human Cost of Illegal Migration

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

This article from Il Giornale is rather long. It took me two days to translate it, but it is well worth a read. This is how immigration has gone off the rails in Italy (as well as other Western European countries). No control over who is allowed in and who isn't. The result is hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, radical Muslims, and various and sundry types of criminals. That has resulted in dead Italians, raped Italians, and Italian police being assaulted by people who should not even be in the country. 

The article mentions San Siro, a  neighborhood where I lived during my years in Milan in the 1980s. How sad to hear how it has been taken over by squatters and riff-raff.  

 https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/immigrazione-criminale-i-reati-compagine-straniera-2041566.html

Rapes, fights, "cultural" crimes: The criminal immigration that frightens Italy

17 June 2022 - 07:23

The violent side of immigration between sexual crimes and attacks on police: " In Italy, a stable presence of the foreign component"

Francesca Bernasconi and Rosa Scognamiglio

Women and girls molested or raped in the middle of the street. Police officers and Carabinieri punched or threatened with knives. And girls mistreated or killed by their own relatives because they rejected the traditions of their own culture and wanted to live Western style. These are the crimes and attacks that appear on the news pages and involve criminal foreigners. And the phenomenon of criminal immigration, born contemporaneously with the arrival in Italy of social and cultural groups from various countries in the world, a phenomenon which, from the 1970s, has transformed the peninsula into an immigration state. But how has this trend transformed the criminal panorama?

The presence of different social, ethnic, and cultural groups inevitably brings about a transformation of criminal-specific points, (as) explained to Il Giornale by the criminologist Francesca Capozza, author of the book, Criminal Immigration, which analyzes the phenomenon, showing the face of foreign crime in Italy. "You see the stable presence of the foreign connection that takes the form of organized crime, within that municipality, of terrorism, as well as culturally-motivated crimes".

The numbers of foreign crime

Immigration is not synonymous with criminality. It's the opposite. Beginning in the 1970s, however, in our country, an increase in the arrival of people from other parts of the world with different customs and habits has been recorded. In addition to people who migrate legally, there are those (who migrate) illegally. This new movement has brought about a change in crime because, in addition to Italian crime, there is added the foreign component, which has gone on to change the general panorama of criminality and security.

The statistics, reported in the XIII Report of the Antigone Association on conditions of detention, tell of a rise in the number of foreigners present in Italian jails, which, beginning in the early 1990s, has undergone an "unstoppable" increase. Now, according to the data from the Justice Ministry, updated on 31 May, 2022, detained foreigners make up 17,136, of a total of 57,067 people in jail: a percentage that slightly surpasses 30%, as also confirmed by Francesca Capozza, who speaks of official data," which do not record, therefore, any unverified, subsequent involvement". In the large cities, however, this percentage goes up so much that, according to what is specified in Il Giornale by counselor Riccardo De Corato, "in Milan, over 70% of the prison population of San Vittore is composed of immigrants."

It is necessary, however, to point out that among the foreign detainees, the percentage of illegal migrants, reported in the Antigone report, is "between 60-80% depending on the type of crime. Not just that.  "Almost all of the migrants who commit crimes have previous arrests," points out Counselor De Corato. "I believe many of the illegals present in Italy are fleeing their own country of origin because they evidently have unfinished business with the justice (system), they probably can't walk around free or they risk heavy sentences. Otherwise, you cannot explain the motive in which they prefer to pay money to the smugglers, risking their lives at sea, rather than reach Italy by other means. I do not believe that they are all fleeing from war."

These percentages refer to criminality in general. But the activity of the foreign component varies according to the type of crimes committed. The XIII Antigone Report of 2017 connected the presence in jail of foreign criminals mostly to property crimes, relative to drugs, and connected to prostitution. "The type of crime mostly committed by them," Dr. Capozza explained to Il Giornale, concerns crimes against property (27%, in particular, thefts and robberies), against persons (31%, particularly deliberate personal injuries), violations of drug laws (about 31%)". On the other hand, the percentage of foreigners detained for Mafia-type crimes is low.

Rapes and  sexual molestations

It was shortly after dawn on August 9, 2021, when a 26-year-old Italian-South American was surprised from the back, dragged by the arm, and raped in an excavation ditch for water pipes in a construction site at Cascina Gobba, just steps from the San Raffaele Hospital, by a 31-year-old Egyptian without a regular residence permit. On the other hand, last December 6, a young (female) commuter was attacked on the Milan-Varese train by two young men in their early 20s. The first, who was reportedly the "lookout", is an Italian with drug addiction problems; the other-the material perpetrator of the attempted rape- is a Moroccan with a prior police record and illegally in Italy. And then the horror of New Years' Eve: nine young girls were molested by a gang of foreigners just steps from the Duomo (Cathedral) of Milan during the festivities for the beginning of the new year.

"I beg you, stop" That desperate cry, then the horror from the illegal (migrant)

"The data from Istat (Italian National Institute of Statistics) speak clearly: Foreigners are 5 times more (often the perpetrators) in respect to crimes of sexual violence than Italians," points out Counselor Riccardo De Corato-notwithstanding the tightening of sentences, the molestations and the rapes are not diminishing. The policies that (protect) women do not seem to have taken effect within part of the foreign population-and the serious episode that took place New Years' Eve in Duomo Square confirms it- that they continue to consider the woman as an object, a property, with which, the man can do as he wants".

On June 2, five adolescents were harassed with shocking molestations on a train to Peschiera returning from a day spent at Lake Garda. The perpetrators, not yet all identified, reportedly directed racist insults at the young victims."You are white, you shouldn't be here (on the train-editor's note) ". A worrisome phenomenon, which signals a negative record in Lombardy (region), relative to sexual crimes. "In our capital (Milan-editor's note), the trend of the past few years has never seen a drop, unfortunately," adds De Corato-"On the contrary, it is rising slightly given that from 273 cases in 2011, it has passed 285 in 2021. In my opinion, the situation is very troubling."

"Culturally motivated" crimes 

No less alarming is the tendency relating to so-called "culturally motivated crimes", i.e. those crimes that ripen in a cultural context in contrast with the systems of rules and values in the host country. "The explanatory theories of foreign crime identify (multiple factors) of delinquent behavior in which the interior conflict between the culture of origin and value systems of the host country," explains Dr. Capozza, "which, within the same person, produces a contrast between  divergent cultural systems and norms (and) can lead to discomfort, insecurity, and confusion with the risk of maladjustment, psychiatric disturbance, and criminality."

Then there are other factors to take into consideration, for example, "the precarious economic conditions in which the immigrants are in," the expert continues. "The social marginalization of which they are often victims with the subsequent risk of "labeling", the absence of social groups and family references can favor the adoption of delinquent behaviors."

Among the culturally oriented crimes, those connected to the phenomenon of forced marriages are notably on the increase. According to the latest data released by the Viminale (Interior Ministry), two out of three victims are foreigners with a strong incidence of Pakistani women. "I believe that there is, at least on the part of some, also a large problem underestimating certain phenomena that are ignored and characterized as habits and customs of a culture (that are) to be respected," adds De Corato. "I am referring, for example, to the niqab (face covering) and female genital mutilation, the latter practice to which many children, daughters, and (non-EU) foreigners in our country are being subjected."

Estimates relative to infibulation (University of Milan, Bicocca 2019), on the other hand, account for 87,600 victims in Italy. Of these, 7000 are (female) children and girls little more than adolescents. "There is evidently still much to do to spread the culture of respect and equality in respect to women," concludes the security counselor for the Lombardy region. "Sometimes, we open our eyes realizing how serious the condition of cultural segregation is in which women are kept, here (Italy) as well, when incidents like that of Saman (Abbas) occur. Then everything falls back into forgetfulness, and we pretend not knowing that many Muslims consider women to be anthropologically inferior and subordinate to men." 

Attacks on police

Not just rapes, thefts, robberies, or "culturally-motivated" crimes. Violent immigration also affects the police. The latest incident goes back a few days when at Pisa, a (non-EU) foreigner, aged 30, attacked a policeman, hitting him with a violent punch. Not just that: During the episode, the young man reportedly destroyed the glass of the patrol car. 

In May of 2021, instead of being attacked, two police officers were working in Milan when a pair of North Africans in the country illegally went into a rage insulting the officers. Then the violence: Kicks and punches directed at the officers, both injured, so much they had to go to emergency care. One of the two police officers was treated for a fractured hand with a (recovery) prognosis of 25 days, while the other was diagnosed with a contusion on his elbow. Earlier, in January 2021, a group of foreigners had surrounded police officers, threatening them with a broken bottle and punching them several times.

According to the report, "Beaten cops" in 2021, furnished by ASAPS. the Association for safety on the streets, in 2021 physical attacks on officers totaled 2,655, more than 7 per day. Of these, 37% were caused by foreign citizens. But why this fury directed at police and Carabinieri, with the risk of being arrested? "On the one hand, the linguistic difficulty and knowledge of the culture and the rules make it difficult for the foreigner to be able to communicate and comprehend the social and judicial system in which he is inserted," explained the criminologist Francesca Capozza. But there is more. In fact, the expert continues, "on the other hand, the police at the time of the crime, represent the limit and the law from which they themselves are fleeing, or that they struggle to understand and accept, thus reactive emotions connected to them pour out."

The risk of radicalization

The data relative to the phenomenon of violent immigration, which clearly concerns only the extremist and radical fringe of the foreigners who reach Italy, outlines scenarios that are not very reassuring for the future. Milan, where the presence of illegal migrants has reached 50,000, is among the Italian cities most at risk. "It is evident that the choice of moving to Milan is not accidental. There is money, well-being, and work.  But there is also the question. The point at which many neighborhoods of the city are now (run by) the foreign element," explains De Corato. The public housing of San Siro, for example, is almost all occupied by Arab squatters. The same can be said for Corvetto, where there is a strong presence of foreigners from Eastern Europe, Roma (Gypsies), and Africans. They are all places where the government has lost contact with reality, and where, in my opinion, the situation is irreversible. And it is obvious then that the risk rising, violent criminality is elevated." 

Though the prospects are not encouraging, and the process of radicalization is a conceivable eventuality, we are not facing an irreversible crisis. "The only solution to guarantee the safety of our citizens is the presence of police on the ground. In Milan, for example, up until some time ago, there were neighborhood watches. Where did they go? The only deterrent is the presence everywhere of men in uniform, on foot, and the social concierge," concludes the Lombardy counselor. "But in the current state, with entire neighborhoods under assault by foreigners, it is practically impossible to apply solutions of this type. The people are afraid."