The Potentially Imminent Syria Sinkhole

 

First please allow a small personal note. I had a senior moment two weeks ago today and am now typing left-handed as the right hand resembles a plaster club and is even less usable than normal. Surgery was performed on the one finger I was unable to set; so physicians, surgeon types, were employed. Now back to our regularly scheduled editorials and other stories.

 

There is way too much talk about Syria and what the Western nations, particularly Europe and more-so the United States must do to address the problems being exasperated by the horrific five years of the ongoing warfare. Much of the talk centers around seven major topics: refugees, no-fly-zone, safe-zone, containing Russian expansionism, ending the rule of Bashir al-Assad, strengthening the Iraqi government’s hold on central Iraq, and establishing America’s position, standing and unrivaled hegemonic superiority across MENA (Middle East and North Africa). On concluding the discussion of the pitfalls and awaiting disasters surrounding each and every one of these subjects, we will carry them to their inevitable conclusion if any of these paths are followed and then pinpoint exactly where things went off the tracks leading to each of these now end alternatives, disastrous alternatives. Let us simply start with some of the best of news for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the initial starting point for much of these situations were initiated during the President George W. Bush Administering of the area and even stretch back to principally French, British, Italian as well as the rest of the Allied Powers from World War I and particularly Sykes-Picot Agreement and the underhanded meddling for fifty years on average after a thousand years and more of Arab and Islamic rule. Let us look at what all this has wrought.

 

The Sykes-Picot Agreement is the underlying deceit which set the Middle East and eventually North Africa into a situation where the untenable borders set levels of internal intra-tribal rivalries vying for supremacy once the borders were released as independent nations. There are two dirty little secrets as to why to this day the nations which constitute MENA are a cauldron of explosives always roiling and why Europe is blamed. Europe gets the blame as they were the ones left holding a region where borders were traditionally meaningless and each tribe ruled by the oasis and wells they controlled. For over a thousand years either an Arab, Kurd, Alawite, Tripolitanian, Cyrenaican, Fezzan, Wahhabi, Houthis or a dozen others and this is indicative of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan and throughout MENA and beyond (see map below). There are multiple clans, tribal and even nation of origin divisions throughout the “Palestinian” populations in Hamas controlled Gaza, Fatah controlled areas of Judea and Samaria and within the “refugee” population (a fair number of which are now also Syrian refugees or Islamist rebels in various groups including al-Nusra and Islamic State presumably fighting against one another). The warring tribes rapidly led to one tribe being the dominant leader often through favor and arming by the departing Europeans or due to historic realities from the Ottoman Era or the Caliphate and even back to the Byzantine and even the Cyrenaic Greeks. These tribes ruled each country as drawn out by the Sykes-Picot Agreement often requiring an iron fist style dictatorship. The nations surviving the best, a relative term, would by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, the Gulf Oil Sheikdoms and Israel. The world of MENA is very much in flux and it will take quite some time and a great potential for violence beginning within and having a strong predisposition to drag much of the world into the coming maelstrom if the world leaders continue on their current course.

 

Sample of Potential Tribal Influences which
Could Decimate the Borders of Saudi Arabia and
Has Split the Borders of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya

 

Let us look now at the pressing seven problems starting with the refugees now streaming into the West from all across the MENA nations and beyond into the Horn of Africa and Central Africa. Other than Jordan and Turkey there are no other Arab States taking in refugees and Jordan is keeping them in camps with the intent of their returning to whatever remains of Syria if and when the war ends. Turkey is either placing their refugees in camps, largely women and children, or passing the men mostly with sufficient women and children, around fifteen percent on a good day, for Western media to have their touching pictures to pluck heartstrings. The reality is the flow of selected refugees is an infiltration and when their population breaks ten percent they become bold and past twenty percent they turn belligerent and start demands backed by violence to force their religious edicts and demands on the rest of what has now become a victim population. Once the Islamists pass thirty to forty percent the war begins and continues until the Sword of Islam has submitted the population or the prey of Islam grew in strength and found their reason to stiffen their backbones and stand breaking the Sword of Islam. There will be no middle ground as Islam, in its current Islamist form, allows no middle ground. Either all will be Islam or few to none can be Islam. That is why Europe, the United States and the rest of the world taking in Muslim refugees need demand changes before allowing another refugee to enter. First, the numbers of women, children and the elderly must outnumber the numbers of fighting age men. Second, the refugees will be required to pass a rigorous vetting process which validates their standing past, present and, with hope, future. Third, and possibly most important, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and other stable Islamic nations must collectively take in twice the numbers of refugees than the rest of the world. Forth, the refugees must take an assimilation program and allow them to be placed outside of the Muslim concentrations taking work and show true assimilation efforts or be returned from whence they originated. These refugees have long not been from Syria as they are from failed nations lacking order or a working economy as well as infiltrators, organizers and training personnel from various Islamist organizations and terrorist forces including but not limited to the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, Hezballah, IRGC (Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution; Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Hamas, al-Nusra Front (which left al-Qaeda according to the United States State Department and has been cleared to receive weaponry, training and other assistance –cash- and is a favorite of the Clintons) and numerous less or even unknown terror groups. The entire refugee system and assimilation of Muslims needs to aid them in learning, understanding, experiencing, appreciating freedom and finding the higher self-worth which comes from an independent life which once existed within Islam in their Golden Age. This could be the last hope of kindling the spark of freedom and liberty of the soul deep within Islam and perhaps finding a path to mutual acceptance instead of perpetual conflict.

 

The remaining six problems have no solution other than a hope and a prayer. They are all the result of grievous errors in judgement, poor planning, a foreign policy based in defeat, the removal of American presence and a total and singular White House policy to destroy the American influence and assistance in building a world based on mutual respect, liberty, freedom and basic human rights and instead encouraging tribalism and fracture of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and all other Western influences which were seen as an unwanted and negative influence over what was believed to have been the peaceful influences Islam had initiated during the years of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate before that. Someone making these decisions apparently must have missed the five hundred years of Arab and Islamist conquest and the intertribal violence which necessitated numerous severe crackdowns on such problems over the reported thousand years of peaceful existence. The problem was where it oft arises with Western nations who become tired of winning demanding their forces be brought home leaving a vulnerable and usually untenable situation so unstable that if things actually do not deteriorate immediately, then some unfriendly force has likely replaced the Western presence. This time the United States got some of both, Iraq became Iran West and Syria collapsed into a war with more fronts than a strip mall.

 

The premature withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq has had the actual desired effect permitting Iran to establish their presence in southern Iraq and the opportunity to expand into central Iraq permitting Iran to soon establish a second front in support of their interests in Syria, namely Bashir al-Assad. Talking about Syria and Bashir al-Assad; the United States has lately been claiming that their interest is in working out a change of power in Syria but whining that the Russians interests are interfering with any progress. Has anyone ever wondered and remembered how and why Vladimir Putin got his oversized Russian foot in the door. If our collective memories are still firing on all cylinders, then Vlad the Invader (as opposed to Vlad the Impaler as pictured in their element) was all but invited into Syria when President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to issue the “Red Line in the Sand which Bashir al-Assad would pay dearly from United States decisive and determined military action should chemical weapons be used back in 2012. That broad and definitive line got thinner and thinner and faded and faded turning pinker and pinker until it completely faded. Then came Vladimir Putin to the rescue and he has remained guarding Bashir al-Assad and his Mediterranean Sea military ports. Then there was Libya.

 

Vlad the Invader vs Vlad the Impaler

 

Libya was the culminating point where the Arab spring was going to be revitalized. Instead there was another power vacuum created and the nation fell back into its tribal factions while the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood backed terror organizations set up shop. One such group was in Benghazi where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her inner circle made the deal of a lifetime procuring Stinger Missiles for al-Nusra or who knows. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith were to arrange the transfer. The deal went sour resulting in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods all were murdered. There were reports that Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods held their position for eight hours before being subdued in a swarm of mortar fire. For reasons never made overly clear, there were no military or other assets available to ride over the hill and save the good guys. This is how we all got to this point and we are supposed to forget the past eight years of foreign intrigue and foreign affairs which have lighted so many fuses any one of which could be the initiator of the war of Gog and Magog while others lead directly to World War, which one are we supposed to be on, three, four, five or twelve? Those are the easy items to trace but then one must figure on a nuclear armed North Korea with a few more nuclear weapons than the CIA wants to admit, say maybe a cool fifty or hundred more with more than half either thermonuclear weapons or bombs made using the Soviet Union’s plans for their super EMP device. Additionally there is the little problem of Iran also building their own nuclear arsenal probably using the identical weapons plans they received from the North Koreans in exchange for advanced rocketry designs and testing of the North Korean ICBM designs. Well, we really need to continue with this foreign policy direction just to see if aliens are going to drop from the sky and save Earth. The coming ride is going to be interesting; as in the Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, it will be interesting.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Hillary Clinton Harrowed Conundrum

 

There has been near constant accusations and bloviating all about Donald Trump’s presumed short fuse. These attacks have come furious and provokingly and these are being used as chum in the water for the mainstream media to feast on; and believe us they have been coordinating and laying aside above the fold for every leading news-story; or should we say political editorial. These salacious assaults on Donald Trump would be far more convincing and less conniving if they were to include even a hint on Hillary Clinton’s short fuse and ill-tempered side which were a driving force behind much of what has displayed her being ill-fit to be the President of the most powerful nation on the planet. When Donald Trump has an emotional outburst, his response is verbal and short-lived. Hillary Clinton is known to carry forth for the remainder of life, hers or her newly acquired target. When Bill Clinton lost his reelection election she famously called the Christian Campaign Manager a “F—-g Jew B——d.” She became the wounded warrior and claimed that a “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” was behind the accusations of sexual misconduct of her husband. Beyond that, Hillary took charge of the intimidation, belittling, slandering, character assassination, media control, story massaging and sundry miscellaneous attacks targeting any and all allegations and accusations against Bill Clinton thus assuring that no more women, or bimbos as the White House labeled those coming forward, would be coming up with any additional accusations or verifications against the President. This was a well-coordinated assault just as well planned and executed as was the campaign to get out the vote except this was a suppress the evidence effort.

 

Hillary Clinton on the Prowl for Voters

 

If this was the extent of Hillary Clinton perfidy, there would be little evidence of her unsuitability for the office of President of the United States. Hillary claims how she has always been so transparent in all her actions that the public can trust that all her actions will be entirely open and able to be monitored by all who are interested. Apparently Hillary Clinton has completely forgotten her efforts at designing her own version of a healthcare system. Her committee contained some of the best minds in the progressive movement plus the fly in the ointment, Hillary Clinton. The public was left in the dark. Congress was left in the dark. The media, including the leftist media, was left guessing, being fed tempting morsels but actually only gristle and no red meat. The universe was led on the merry path of flowers and unicorns with all the wonderful reports of total free coverage with almost no additional costs. Perhaps the promises of everything for nothing proved to be the straw that broke the healthcare back. When Hillary Clinton and companies’ plan was presented to Congress, even the democrat faithful headed for the hills escaping as fast as they could. Her produced healthcare plan was such a monstrous and unwieldly conglomeration of regulations, legal demands, meticulous record keeping and required filings with the Federal Government that all who read the plan were flabbergasted. Commentary from numerous sources inside and outside, but close to the manners in which the plan was hatched, told of Hillary Clinton riding roughshod over all contrary opinions doing exactly as she thought best. This kind of leadership, totalitarian leadership, had actually driven a number of leading surgeons and physicians from participating or even signing the plan sent to Congress. They told of fiery outbreaks replete with profanity at some of the mildest of suggestions or alternative proposals where Hillary Clinton appeared to have lost all sense of reason.

 

Finally, there were numerous reports and even complaints filed against Hillary Clinton for abusive language, abusive treatment, violent outbursts and some workers fearing for their safety. These complaints and requests for transfer or alternate position from people who had nearly a lifetime of service climbing to reach a White House assignment and to then risk never making it back to their former privileged position was an acceptable sacrifice to be rid of Hillary Clinton. All of these point to Hillary Clinton not only having an explosive temper but also a short fuse with a vengefully long memory. Such was a temperament of throwing items, oft of value, for periods as long lasting as an entire day and even lasting through the next day or beyond as well. Some who have been found to get on the wrong side of Hillary Clinton have related that despite attempts to settle their differences or even apologize have failed dashed on the craggy cliffs which make up the beach at shoreline Clinton. Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be a person with a malleable core where beliefs come to die especially after receiving poor poll ratings. Taking the sum of these parts produces a picture of an unbalanced individual whose coworkers fear working anywhere near her spheres of influence.

 

Many have spoken similarly of Donald Trump, but from most appearances his tantrums have been largely bluster with little threat of physical violence, at least before the October Surprise of crass claims of sexual violence. Given the claims of violent actions, we would feel safer with a Donald Trump Presidency than a Hillary Clinton Presidency. Unfortunately, elections remain out by three weeks and it is still anybody’s election to win or lose. Donald Trump will be facing sexual harassment charges most of which are likely people coming forth for their moment of fame. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is facing a truly deep character fault which will have a direct effect on her Presidency. As to which one is most likely to get the United States embroiled into a war, it would be Hillary Clinton with her establishment of a “No Fly Zone” probably on Aleppo could escalate with the downing of a Russian fighter jet leading to a direct confrontation. That is but a single potential point of contention where a single miscalculation could lead to great problems soon thereafter. That alone is food for thought.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Potentially Unavoidable Apocalypse

 

There is a coming apocalyptic war which will spill throughout Europe into the Middle East and may result at some point to one side using nuclear weapons should that option become available and there is no reason to believe it would not as making a nuclear weapon in modern times is just a few steps higher than making a weapon with normal high explosives. Thermonuclear weapons might require a small cadre of dedicated physicists but a nuclear device such as the ones used against Japan are within the ability of many intelligent high school graduates as their construction is available on the internet for any enterprising individual to research. The difficulty, if there is one, is gathering the fissile materials; from there it is a simple matter of machining and choosing your designs. This is a horrible truth to place over the heads of millions of innocents who will pay dearly when the coming war enters its main and determinative battle phase. Imagine the war in Syria and spread it over the better part of three continents and potentially throughout the entirety of the globe with few exceptions. Add in a final set of battles using nuclear weapons, initially the fifteen to twenty-five kilotons and soon after breaking into megatons and thermonuclear weapons such as the type held by major nuclear powers and available to any nations willing to put the necessary effort into their production and there easily could be some non-State factions such as the Muslim Brotherhood or neo-Nazi supremacists who have sufficient resources, talent and safe areas of operations that they also could produce such weapons once they gain access to the necessary materials. Before such a calamity reaches the doorsteps of our lives we need to ask where this war could begin.

 

The sparking point could be simply anywhere in Europe and it will not begin with any nation as much as a civil war started by the populations themselves. The triggering point would be a massive multi-city coordinated terrorist event where the people in the stricken localities start a war with the claimed intent of vindicating those murdered in the terror attack. Such an event could start the spiral into a more general war with many people caught in the crossfire similarly to what happened in Syria except this would have spread across Europe city by city until it involved national armies breaking from their officers and stepping in to assist the people, or at least that was their intention. Once tanks start to roll on the streets the civil unrest would enter a completely different phase which would snowball until it became another war starting in Europe but this will range far outside of Europe. Many of the terror enterprises are loosely interwoven and could respond to the escalation taking over the military hardware and troops of sympathetic or easily toppled rulers in order to gain the use of military weapons. This could soon spread in such a manner as to include many European state actors pulled into a conflict which would be quickly getting completely beyond the control of normal safeguards as both societies begin to call for the saving of their way of life, their freedoms and the customs and other particulars they hold dear and are comfortably familiar with. Once it becomes nation against nation it will then call upon like-minded or treaty bound allies into the fray and from there it does not stop easily. People discount such events leading to such a conflagration but as they have not studied history they are not aware on what simple actions have dragged humanity into costly and often destabilizing conflicts. Take the second most costly war in history, World War I. This war began with the assassination of a royal family head, the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo by Achille Beltrame as the Archduke and his wife were shot while riding in their car after taking a wrong turn. The real attempt to assassinate Archduke Francis Ferdinand had been set along his scheduled route but a sympathizer saw him passing his location and took advantage of the opportunity believing he was serving his oppressed people and never expecting the horrors of World War I to come as a result of a few bullets into one world leader and his wife. The people called for revenge and soon thereafter it got beyond any local conflict and the entire globe even to include Japan were honoring treaties or simply choosing one side or the other. World War I was more about honoring treaties than revenge for an assassination and that is what is frightening about the world today.

 

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg
top left: in Car Immediately Before Assassination, Top Right Lying in State
bottom picture Pictured with their Children Official Portrait

 

Mutual defense treaties which require entire groups of nations to jump into a conflict once a member demands assistance exist and NATO is simply one such treaty. NATO, as an example, could be called to assist any member state who has become embroiled in a conflict which they feel they might require greater assistance. NATO had an interesting set of members of which Turkey is one of the longstanding members due to their strategic control of the Bosphorus Straights which control access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and from there the Atlantic Ocean and the world. These narrow waterways were essential for Russia to deploy her ships and thus the NATO powers bribed and forced Turkey into NATO in case there became a time when the West would desire to blockade the Russian Black Sea fleet from gaining access to the Mediterranean Sea. It really is that simple and Turkey just sent tanks into Syria. The picture of how an intervention can be conducted under the idea, which is obvious when one looks at the bombings in Turkey, which violent attacks originate from the terror groups within Syria who are adversarial to Turkey and their government and President Erdogan in particular. What would be the ramifications should Turkey’s President Erdogan be assassinated or an attempt was made on his life but failed only grievously wounding him but leaving him to survive. By the time he came out of surgery which saved his life the war could have already been started and Turkish jets bombing targets in Syria, specifically the western holdout areas of the Alawites and Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. It is also the base for the Russian fleet in Latakia, Syria. We may remember the near tipping point reached when a single Russian fighter jet was shot from the skies over Turkey, or at least seemingly over Turkey as it was attacking within Syria and these fast aircraft have large turning radii. Now imagine an airstrike which missed the Syria barracks in Latakia and instead struck the Russian docs sinking two Russian warships and killing fifty or a hundred Russian sailors. How long before Putin declares war on Turkey who then calls in their NATO marker and instant World War as Russia too has such agreements with the likes of China, Iran, some Arab League nations and other eastern Asian nations. The Arab League would necessarily side with Russia believing that Turkey would be incapable of standing against such forces and not figuring on Europe and the United States and Anglosphere nations backing Turkey. Doubtful such will happen, but there was a presumed coup in Turkey recently and that could have turned out much different if it had been a serious coup threatening the governance.

 

One item that bears keeping in mind, wars seldom start where or how we expect them to. They start with a relatively insignificant shot from one rifle or crossbow or a sword placed within some leader of a following religiously, politically, or even a cause. The Arab Spring, or Arab Winter as we had predicted, began with one vegetable hawker committing suicide in protest of unfair taxes and laws and self-immolating and Tunisia exploded followed by Egypt and down the row of dominoes giving us Syria and also Libya thanks to some overactive interventions from far away in Washington D.C. and someone leading from behind and an overanxious Secretary of State seeking another feather for a Presidential run seeing and grasping what appeared to be a golden opportunity for nation building. Somewhere in these plans things unraveled and we have a dysfunctional Libya with warring tribes and terrorist entities. It, like Syria, is an open hotbed and perfect location for a terrorist group such as the Islamic State to manufacture the bombs of their choosing. One has to figure that at some point the Islamic State has come into weapons such as nerve gas or even radiological materials of weapons grade uranium. One can only guess what their true capabilities might include. Once a nuclear device has been manufactured, it would easily be deliverable to anywhere in Europe including Great Britain. It could be built and concealed inside a cement truck and hidden under a load of dried cement resulting from a traffic holdup which allowed the load to set in the truck. Who would chip away at half a ton or more of cement to inspect the vehicle and once inside Turkey it could easily transverse the entirety of Europe taking it to any European capital city or large metropolitan area for a nuclear terror attack. What comes after such an attack? Yep, there is no telling but it would not be good, that much we can count upon.

 

Riots can spread and become to have a life of their own and who knows where such could lead. Terrorism can spark unrest which could easily get out of hand. Ultra-nationalist right wing parties are gaining strength throughout Europe and these parties preach an active approach to what they term is an invasion, and who knows for sure, they could be right. Can anyone tell me the results of passing a law to expunge a nation of all non-citizens referring to them as a risk and a threat which the country no longer believes they can allow? Should one incident get out of control with some troops opening fire on unarmed civilians which they are gathering for deportation under the auspices of the new citizens’ only laws, what would come next? Once one nation cleans their population of all foreign noncitizens and shipped them over the border to the next location? Where would this lead once the majority of a continent has cleansed themselves of everyone who is not just like their pure racial idea of their country and there are a few million dispossessed people, what happens to what is now an enraged army of people? Currently the Middle East and Northern Africa are roiling points and Europe is not that far from exploding into riots and other uncontrolled violence any one of which could result in some very undesirable turns of events leading to greater areas of violence stopping who knows where assuming they stop at all. The world at present is a powder keg and it would not take much to light the fuse, assuming it has not already been lit.

 

Beyond the Cusp