Random Comments, Observations and Sundry Thoughts

President Obama faced the Ebola epidemic panic by being intimate with some nurses who were treating Ebola patient. But this was not the end of his bold moves as he made an inept appointment of an Ebola Czar. One must wonder whether President Obama realizes that the Surgeon General should be the government official who is answerable for the addressing and ameliorating the methodologies and procedures being employed to in the battle to contain and eradicate this serious and potentially fatal disease and its spread. Perhaps somebody from the media might want to inquire how acting Surgeon General RADM Boris D. Lushniak feels about being supplanted from his authority as the leading healthcare official of the United States. While at this they might also ask where he has been since the outbreak of Ebola with the first case of a Liberian man in Dallas, Texas.

United States Secretary of State John Kerry had his government-provided jet suffer mechanical failures and was forced to take commercial transport from the negotiations with Iran in Geneva. One has to wonder why he was made to suffer this discomfort of having to travel like any regular first class passenger. Having never afforded first class travel, I can only fathom the comfort he was subject to. Further, Secretary Kerry also blamed the lack of peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the Israeli inability or unwillingness to surrender to the Palestinian demands in order to make said peace for the emergence and spread of ISIS across Syria and Iraq. Apparently Secretary Kerry was unable of understanding the inferences and conditions demanded by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas when he all but bluntly stated that the only agreement he could ever accept had to include the complete eradication of the Jewish State of Israel. Then again, perhaps Secretary Kerry fully understood and basically saw no problem for Israel committing suicide in order to please and satisfy the Palestinian maximalist demands.

Talking about ISIS (pronounced in our circles as is-is in the same manner as President Clinton who prophetically stated that, it all depends on what the meaning of ‘is is’), there was a new propaganda message for the Western World released with three new spokespersons in order to send personalized messages in three languages, English, French and German. Each spokesperson had a personal message for the leader of their respective national leader, English for British Prime Minister Cameron, French for Frances President Hollande and German for Chancellor Merkel. There was the prerequisite threat to plant the ISIS flag on top of the White House, can they not think up anything original, the White House threat is really getting tired but then if your aim is to one up al-Qaeda, then hitting the one target they failed on would become your number one aim for gaining immortality and further righteous blessings from the extremist Muslim world. We have also heard that former Iraqi pilots who served under Saddam Hussein are now training ISIS terrorists to pilot MIG 21 and MIG 23 jet fighters which were captured with the Tabqa airbase in Syria. Rami Abdul Rahman, one of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights commented, “They have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for Saddam Hussein. People saw the flights, they went up many times from the airport and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back.”

Not to be outdone, the United States has taken selected volunteers from the Iraqis fighting against ISIS to the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in Arizona and is training them to become pilots using old British BAC 167 Strikemaster training jets. Additional reports claimed that these pilots were selectively being trained on the Boeing A-10 Thunderbolt II close support jet fighter more familiarly called the Warthog by those who appreciate these formidable aircraft for their specialized abilities virtually unequaled by other close support aircraft. These pilots once trained are presumed to be taking the fight to the Syrian battlefields with ISIS. What may be troublesome to those who have fought against the retirement of the A-10 Warthogs from service by the United States Air Force and who have even suggested these aircraft be transferred to the Marine Corps, a suggestion which has received some degree of agreement from some within the Corps as the A-10 Warthog would provide service well suited for the Marines’ mission statement as a front line expeditionary force which often finds itself tasked with establishing the initial base for future operations often in conjunction with the Army. Might the training of these pilots on A-10 Warthogs be in preparation of transferring these aircraft to these fighters in the Middle East? There’s an idea that could not possibly go awry, could it?

There was a meeting in Cairo, Egypt this past weekend to gather funding pledges under the pretext of rebuilding Gaza replacing or repairing homes, clinics, schools and other public and private structures and infrastructures making life whole again for the Gazan residents. There were countless pronouncements that there would be sufficient safeguards to prevent the previous reallocation and misallocation of building supplies and funds to rebuild the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror structures, bunkers, infiltration tunnels, tactical tunnels, command and control bunkers as well as resupplying rocket and other weapon supplies and stores. These statements of intent are only necessitated because this is exactly what happened the last time that Gaza was presumably rebuilt by the generous contributions from the world after the last conflict where they also made similar guarantees. Those guarantees were made in response to questions as to what use the funds pledged would go towards, would it be as in the past when many of the funds and building supplies from the last reconstruction of Gaza after the Gazan war launched by Hamas against Israel and a good part of the provisions and funds were diverted by Hamas for their own use. What the gathering should have been named is the ‘Let’s make it less painful and completely rearm and rebuild all Hamas’s weapon, rocket and armament stores and rebuild their bunkers and tunnel systems so they can restart their next offensive against Israel in minimal time.’ I realize it does not sound as altruistic or have a catchy phraseology, but then neither did the real title which was, ‘The Cairo International Conference on Palestine Reconstructing Gaza.’ Time will tell how much of the building materials and funds end up diverted to rebuild and resupply terrorist infrastructure and how much of the reconstructing of Gaza is left incomplete to be reused for future funding drives.

There have been reports that President Obama and the United States negotiation advisors have reached a decision concerning the upcoming continuing less than optimally productive Iran nuclear program negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 nations of United States, Britain, France, China, Russia plus Germany. One might recall that the last negotiations resulted only producing an agreement to extend the terms already in place from the last agreement and set a new deadline for six months into the future. The fact that this set the date as November 24, 2014, which just happens to be after the midterm American elections and which could not have been exactly what was desired by anyone such that any agreement might be used as a part of the campaign by Republican candidates. This delay may have been necessitated by the conclusion which has been reported unofficially, which makes sense as if it were to be reported officially before the midterm elections, what good did the postponement for six months provide, as the reports claim that the United States negotiators are ready and willing to meet the Iranian demands most of the way in exchange for their assistance in combating ISIS. Never mind that Iran is already engaged in fighting ISIS as they are assisting their ally Iraq which has already come under assault by ISIS terrorist forces. The rumors claim that the United States may be prepared to permit Iran to retain and operate as many as ten-thousand centrifuges while Iran demands the right to operate nineteen-thousand centrifuges. The Iranians are also demanding their Qom enrichment facility be left intact. The Qom facility is ensconced deep within a mountain making it unassailable by even most of the most powerful bunker-buster bombs and whose inner workings and operations are imperceptible to satellite and other conventional observation making them only assessable by direct inspections presumably when the IAEA inspectors are permitted by Iran, not the most dependable method. The last time the United States attempted to make unprecedented concessions to Iran they ran into a surprise as the British were astonished at the American offer and the French were apoplectic driven to use their veto to prevent what they viewed as a total surrender. Will there be another example of sanity shown by either the British or the French, we can only wait, hope and pray.

Beyond the Cusp