Some Truths About Palestinians’ Condition and Israel in General

 

Some days one just feels the need to use others to tell the story. Sometimes it is best to just find videos aids in relating what one wished to convey. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what price can one assign to videos which have hundreds if not thousands or hundreds of thousands of frames, how many words would that equal? Well if we simply treat each video as five pictures, here are tens of thousands of words interspersed with actual words which number far less for expressing our thoughts as well.

 

Nobody who is being honest will claim that all is a bed of roses for the average Palestinian, especially in the refugee camps located in the Gaza Strip and the semi-autonomous zones in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). These camps are kept impoverished as a photo op primarily for Western media and the occasional Middle East reports. These camps are Palestinians who it is claimed all came from within Israel in 1948. With the average age of residents in these camps somewhere in the mid-twenties or lower, it is painfully obvious that a very small number of the ‘refugees from the Great Naqba’ were actually alive in 1948. These descendants, some third, fourth and even fifth generation refugees are kept in the camps solely to continue the myth of suffering, and their Arab keepers make sure they do indeed suffer as they are not permitted to work, own a home, or leave the camps and go live with relatives just as the camps in Lebanon and Jordan are also kept nationless and impoverished dependent on UNRWA aid and other charitable institutions many established for just that purpose. Another truth not often mentioned is that these camps receive the majority of their aid funding from the Western nations with the Arab world often making pledges which they rarely keep after an initial token payment. Perhaps a video from a Lebanese news report could shed some light that covers some of the opulence, the changing loyalties and where much of the aid originates, might shed some light.

 

 

 

 

 

The ironies in Gaza alone are enough to boggle the mind. Western and especially European news stories stick to the political line of the evil Israelis, read Jews, keep all the wealth for themselves and the Palestinians are left scrounging for food and clothing, that there is no electricity much of the time and the water supply is tainted. The Gazans are presumably largely living in the streets as Israel has destroyed their residences. There is a measure of truth to this as Hamas made sure that many apartment buildings were damaged, some severely, by using them as placements for their rockets. Meanwhile, almost all of the cement allowed into Gaza had been diverted to build tunnels which when completed will infiltrate into Israel allowing for terror attacks intent on abduction of Israeli civilians to be ransomed for terror prisoners from mostly Hamas and Islamic Jihad who rule Gaza jointly with Hamas having the majority position. Perhaps a revealing video on Gaza and the reality as there are very plush neighborhoods where Hamas is not permitted their use for attacks on Israel as these are the beautiful people of Gaza, some assuredly gaining their wealth as a result of their positions within the terror structure. The video ends with a broadcast recording of a youth repeating what he has been fed in his education as part of the political fight to assure that every child receiving their education from UNRWA or a Hamas or Islamic Jihad school will continue the war against the Jew. Note the youth does not mention Israel as Hamas has as its intent right within their charter the murder of every Jew and the conquest of the entire world. Nobody ever claimed they did not aim for lofty and high goals as for that they have it covered. After the youth’s tirade there is a nice ending shot of the other reality which comes from Gaza, see if you can catch it.

 

 

 

 

 

Agriculture is a staple industry for both Arabs and Jews. One difficulty is the division of lands claimed by both sides. The settlement often comes from the courts and is enforced by the IDF which always causes friction and claims of thievery and denials of any wrongdoing on all sides. These claims are most fierce in Areas where both Arabs and Jews have lands bordering or in close proximity to each other. In many instances the dividing lines are well known and there is even an amount of cooperation in getting both Arab and Jewish harvests picked in time and taken to markets. Often the problems are instigated by European ‘peace activists’ whose primary raison d’être is to instigate conflict. They have been known to arrive with counterfeit maps and deeds which they use to provide Arabs with ‘proof’ that the Jewish village has stolen their lands and their olive trees and that the trees raised by the Jews are actually their trees and this eventually with the assistance of Fatah and other terror influences leads to confrontations. Are there actual opposing claims which are valid? Of course there are as sometimes land is purchased from a charlatan whose deed may appear authentic but proves to be a forgery that does not hold up in court. Where a Jew or an Arab has preceding legal claim and no bill of sale can be produced proving change of ownership, the court rules justly in favor of the deed holder. But the court is more than fair with Arab claims as their claims are more often rewarded and recognized than that of Jews. Part of the problem for Jews is getting the lands transferred as for an Arab to sell land or property to a Jew and the Ramallah Palestinian Authority government finds out the person may or may not receive a trial before they are publically hung as an example of what happens if you are caught selling to a Jew. Thus for such transactions to be verified in Israeli courts, the authority for legal challenges, the Arab needs to appear before the land office and verify that in deed he has sold the land and only then is a new deed drawn up legally showing Jewish ownership of the land in question. There will not be any record as from whom the land was purchased so as to protect the Arab from being murdered for his horrific sin against the people. The media is always able to find witnesses from both sides of the argument on land and crop ownership and even a bad harvest is often blamed on the other side stealing water or whatever the complaint du jour might be. Again let’s see the video.

 

 

 

 

 

There is always the question of what to do when you are at a wedding and the bride and groom are inside about to come and greet their friends and nobody remembered to bring any rice to throw. But wait, we all have plenty of ammunition and what the, who will mind a little rifle salute. Of course little concern is expended in worrying where the bullets will fall back to the ground, well, not as long as everybody remembers not to shoot straight up in the air as that may end poorly and really kill the festive mood of the celebration. So, here’s to the bride and groom, fire away.

 

 

 

 

 

There are indeed hardships in Gaza including the destruction of a large investment and business designed to entertain and provide some relief from what is otherwise a hot, long and boring summer with nothing to do. One might reason that a water park might be just the ticket for the youth to enjoy some carefree time screaming and giggling as they use the slides and other attractions. Music might even brighten spirits and make the fun time even more memorable and enjoyed just that much more. Hold on to those memories the all too few who spent some time enjoying the water park and whatever you do, do not discuss or admit you ever frequented that evil, Zionist corruptive influence as the modesty police are apparently everywhere lying in wait for some unsuspecting youth to admit they had even a glimmer of fun in their life. The water park, what happened to the water park? Well, those destroyers of all that is fun and bright in Gaza destroyed the water park and the real source is quite revealing and potentially coming as a great surprise to many.

 

 

 

 

 

No coverage could be complete without the obligatory commentary done with a proper British accent which can be used by those wishing to claim this was simply a politically motivated, ‘hate’ piece of propaganda being sold as actual evidence that there does exist an other side, another opinion to the mainstream media Pablum fed endlessly to the mass media and used throughout Europe as the bludgeon to hammer Israel into submission. Never mind that it has been largely Arab controlled areas and nations which hold the refugee camps and refuse to allow the occupants, many of whom have close relatives living virtually within walking distance of the camp and they are refused permission to go live with or often even to visit with these relatives. These are largely not the original refugees from 1948 otherwise there would not be estimated upwards of over five-million refugees as the original numbers were under three-quarters of a million refugees who mostly answered the call of the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini’s call to leave their residences and take a safe position behind the glorious armies of the Arab world which were going to slaughter and erase every single Jew and any corroborative Arabs, defined as those Arabs not actively murdering Jews, and they would be permitted back to their homes and given a part of the spoils of the war, a war the Arab armies were assured of winning and doing so easily. The one promise the Arab leadership has kept is that they will be allowed out of their refugee status as soon as the Arab armies destroy Israel and kill every Israeli whatever their identity be they Jew, Arab, Druze, Bedouin, Kurds, or any other nationality present within Israel currently. The promise still stands that upon the defeat of the Jews and Israel the refugees will be permitted to leave the camps, the very camps which is all the majority have ever known having been born and raised and then having and raised their children where their children’s children were raised and then their children and then on and on henceforth and potentially forever. So, here is the promised authoritarian British accented commentary published on Aug 5, 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, here is another British accent this time reporting on the high costs for automobiles in Gaza along with some comments on the hardships the Gazans suffer and actually has a moment of honest criticism on why the vehicles still are unable to be imported despite Israeli blessings for the Gazan to do so but that would require the unity government to actually agree on some arrangement so that those who get paid no matter what or who is buying and selling, these people in the hierarchy must get their pound of flesh no matter what.

 

 

 

 

 

Some reading with pictures, titles, subtitles, all mixed to compare and contrast what was the Apartheid in South Africa with the reality of Israeli politics including explaining why the ‘Palestinian’ people do not have equal rights as far as voting in Israeli elections and other discoveries such as those selfsame ‘Palestinian’ people do vote when, or should we say if, there ever are Palestinian Authority elections in Judea and Samaria or elections open and fair in Gaza either for the government of the Palestinian Authority, as they are now presumably citizens under a Hamas-Palestinian Authority governance, or a Gaza election which was held once with Hamas winning the majority of the vote, well, perhaps mere majority is misstating the reality of a landslide win for Hamas such that the government is often referred to as the Hamas government of Gaza. For all intents and purposes the ‘Palestinian’ people in both Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza have that very special kind of democratic systems where it is one person with one vote one time, or possibly twice if one should live that long.

 

 

 

 

 

And while we are speaking of Apartheid in Israel, the lie, here is another very impressive and wide span of coverage of Israeli inclusionary activities and the actions of openly assisting all in need from places of such a distance it seems improbable if not an impossibility, but Israel gave refuge to a boatload of Vietnamese refugees.

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s end this section with what could be termed a propaganda piece as the less seen side of Arab residences and neighborhoods in Israel, Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza are shown with musical background in a montage with some messages scrolled on the video. Sure this view omits the refugee camps which are cement construction apartment complexes which resemble many apartment buildings elsewhere but the camps have an added feature, they are gated communities which are fenced, guarded and have an official entrance which controls who enters and restricts seriously those wishing to depart. So enjoy a leisurely close, did we mention the nice background music?

 

 

 

 

The following is some select videos covering the Israeli reach out to the rest of the world in service to any and all they can reach with aid. These videos cover themselves so we will leave it to the videos that follow.

 

 

 

 

 

Save a Child Heart Services which brings children to Israel for heart surgery and also sets up and trains physicians in these nations and granting them an entire ward built with Israeli aid covering the entire program. Here are some videos on this remarkable program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in closing a video on the ideals of this remarkable program which runs on mostly donations to SACH. In a rare instance we will provide a way to donate to the SACH programs and their remarkable physicians, pediatric and child’s heart surgeons who specialize in heart surgery and related difficulties. Thank you for helping and know that a life of a child or of many children thank you with a smile and their newfound ability to dance their hearts out, actually their heart that you helped repair and save. Thank you.

 

 

 

And if you tell them where you got the idea, we would love the publicity as SACH knows nothing of this plea.

 

Thank You.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

 

The World After President Obama

 

There are those amongst my friends and acquaintances who fear that President Obama will declare Martial Law after instigating some false national emergency whose borderline irrational fear mirrors that of those who feared the same from President George W. Bush. There is too much precedent for such to occur and President Obama will step down and give way to the duly elected President in mid-January of 2017 after the 2016 November elections. The question remains what shape will the world present to the next President and what shape will they find the United States presenting them, allowing for actions to steer the United States after their inauguration. The one point that needs to be made is this assessment is made with absolutely no regards from which party or who will be the next President as we can cross that bridge when we reach it. The first thing is the President will face his power on foreign policy will start from a position of actual weakness not felt by the United States since the start of World War II and actually in worse condition than at the end of President Carter or any other. They will be facing a situation where every branch of the military will have had bordering neglect of weapons systems and other vital maintenance with potentially the nuclear deterrent and missile systems in potentially the worst shape with some munitions in such disrepair as to require their destruction and the necessary systems for producing and upgrading these vital assets also teetering on exhausted supplies and neglected condition as to make their management a simple case of dereliction of duty caused by strangled funding and intentional degradation ordered from the highest places. They will find the senior officers to be largely made up of a weakened corps of merely ‘yes men’ and actual pacifists who believe the United States military would best serve the world in the capacity to deliver aid but not necessarily deliver force of arms beyond the shoreline with the exception of utilizing drones and other stand-off weapons partially due to depleted manpower caused by decreased funding and the paring down of the military leadership through neglect to make efforts to retain the officer’s corps.

 

The rebuilding of the military power will take a concerted effort and require massive funding increases which will make any promise of reduction of the tax burden near to impossible to deliver on in the first two years without simply patching some of the most serious areas of military weakness due to nearly eight years of intentional neglect and lack of concerns for the consequences. There will be the need for some of the cancelled military productions and for consideration of developing modern replacement for some of the oldest of the vital systems. The B-52 heavy bombing corps is utilizing airframes mostly built before 1990 and using systems designed originally in the early and mid-1950s and receiving upgrades restricted to that airframe and other limitations due to restrictions resulting from the designs being of antiquated designs and technologies which would require extensive restructuring of the basic airframe which would more likely be better served by replacement of the B-52 fleet with a new long-range bomber designed with forward looking technology. Even the B-1 and B-2 bombers are utilizing old technology and would require a complete overhaul of systems and even design. The Air Force may be better served with considering a completely new strategy where the pilots of fighter squadrons no longer were seated directly in the aircraft but instead flying the fighters from remoted position of a dedicated stealth aircraft where multiple fighters are controlled from relative safe stand-off positions. Such remotely controlled aircraft could retain much of the size of the current airframes which now being remotely controlled the airframes could be designed with intent of making high-G maneuvers previously impossible to execute due to having a pilot onboard the aircraft. Such a fleet utilizing such design parameters would revolutionize air combat for the future in ways thought unimaginable just ten years ago. The same considerations could be utilized in many modern systems when their next redesign is due especially armored combat vehicles using similar control systems allowing for the replacement of crews with automated systems which would permit decreased size and vulnerability of profile while retaining the accuracy and armaments of modern warfare armored systems. Replacing the infantryman with a robotic system is not yet feasible but should be a priority task presented to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) with an expected rollout of several prototypes each providing the same abilities with additional features possible only in a robotic system. These systems would still require human operators who would make final decisions of when to shoot and when to stand down. It is doubtful that the American population is ready for terminator styled soldiers operating independently reliant solely on advanced AI (artificial intelligence) units quite yet, but even that would be a presentable concept when considering the demands that any military action place risk on the troops minimizing any possibility of human casualties.

 

The stress on military upgrading and rebuilding is simply due to the requirement of a force to back up policy is required if one intends to have a positive position in dealings with other nations or a defensive position which by requirement is overtly careful so as not to provoke anger or rejection knowing that the military is unable to back up and enforce policies and other demands including protection of the homeland and its interests overseas. This is crucial because the next President will be facing difficulties of the United States’ own making across the globe. Europe will be facing economic challenges which will render their policies being ever more defensive and cautious with numerous European nations facing unrest within their borders. The potential for an explosion of bloodshed within the European continent is becoming not only a future threat but approaching transforming into an imminent threat uncontrolled illegal immigration will be approaching the tipping point where the European culture will become challenged which will push the European indigenous population to the point where the decision will be the same as it has been throughout human history when two disparate and opposing cultures reach the point where the minority population decides to attempt, through intimidation and other threats, to impose their norms on the ever shrinking and aging majority replacing their culture and supplanting them as those wielding power going into the future. Should Europe when so challenged react in the fashion which has served them in the past, with such response as often typified be referencing the Inquisitions, the result will be just as or even more horrific. Europe as a whole has a very disturbing history of open warfare between competing positions which were demanding for far lesser changes in the culture causing horrific wars even including civil conflicts within one’s borders. The possibility of similar response today is all too real. One need not look that far afield to bear witness to such results where internal forces rise up and before all is decided, outside forces enter the war hijacking it to forcefully take over the nation wracked already in violence in an attempt to install a new set of leadership just as dictatorial, just as oppressive, just as cruel and potentially even more barbarous than the one being overturned. Such disasters even threaten to redraw the maps casting the formation for the sham and relativity designed solely to enrich foreign investments. Such is what is being fought over and is the main reasoning given by ISIS who is intent on supplanting both the former dictator and those who sought to replace their dictator with a modern system most likely with elected representation resulting in what is oft referred to as a democracy. Should ISIS prove victorious, there will be a new leadership in the form of a Caliph, an old title being restored so as to impose an old dictatorial leadership who takes their claim to the throne based on historic familial relationship to former Caliphs all the way to Muhammad thus adding a religious basis for their power. Such a religious tyranny would be very similar though diametrically opposed to the theocratic dictatorship of Iran, the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla in this struggle. The third leg of this societal struggle would be represented by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi who has yet to be fully defined and is the sole representative desiring to inspire his nation to become the towering example of how an Arab and Muslim state is capable of using elections as the tool for actually choosing the national governance but also guaranteed to be free and open elections even should he be defeated, and then comes the real test as to whether or not the newly elected leader after President Sisi also chooses to continue the liberal march into modernity or chooses to install themselves as the unchallengeable leader of Egypt. Meanwhile, there are three distinct powers currently vying to lead by two of these and the third simply has desires of surviving the current assaults on its existence which has been an active fight since its inception in May of 1948 and has been pressed to remain on the cusp between militaristic power and start-up nation with a thriving economy wishing only to be unleashed by the restraints necessitated by a constant threat of war.

 

The largest challenge looming on the horizon and very possibly to explode before the end of President Obama’s remaining time in office is of his own doing. The potential for the start of a struggle that would forever change the world may have started once President Obama completes his own set goal of bringing Iran back into the world of nations. The manner in which President Obama set out to perform this miracle would have entailed defanging Iran and then inviting them to join the nations of the world with peaceful intentions by Iran. Instead we have a United States President blindly charging forth demanding this will be his legacy, the making of Iran a coequal partner of the Middle East. The one unavoidable fact is that just as Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) will be his domestic policy legacy; just as, if not more, dreadful will be his foreign policy legacy as Iran becomes a nuclear power which will have established a basic arsenal of deliverable nuclear warheads consisting of minimally a dozen and more likely three to four dozen with at least one third being thermonuclear warheads (hydrogen fusion warheads). This will place Iran well ahead of whatever plans Saudi Arabia may have in place. This announcement may come at any moment all dependent upon the extent and advancement of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The truth is the world has absolutely no clue as to whether or not Iran already possesses a number of nuclear warheads hidden away from the prying eyes wandering across the skies both orbital and others ground based aircraft. The one truth we do know is that once it becomes obvious that Iran has become a nuclear power, then it will not take numerous other Middle East nations to develop and start building their nuclear weapons arsenals. This new weapons conflict may be solely restrained by the availability of Uranium in any form to be enriched to weapons level of over ninety-percent and then its merging with the rest of the warhead. Below is the list of known nuclear weapons states and an estimate on their numbers of warheads. Once Iran has announced or been determined beyond a reasonable doubt to be armed with nuclear weapons, then the list below will become somewhat obsolete as it is rumored that Saudi Arabia has a standing agreement with Pakistan to purchase approximately one dozen nuclear warheads just so Saudi Arabia will be covered while they acquire and build their own weapons thereafter. One can also expect that Egypt and Turkey would follow suit and develop their own nuclear weapons systems. The breakdown of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also referred to as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will tempt certain other members to choose to opt out and develop their own nuclear weapons. Some nations may decide to develop and build their own nuclear weapons while retaining their place on the NPT committees. Some of the other nations which might decide the time has come to join the nuclear club include Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Taiwan and Japan to name a few that came to mind. The nuclear club is perched to become a far larger club of nations where its membership will no longer be the reserved of the very elite but start to resemble another useless body, the United Nations General Assembly which has become a place where the barbarians sit in judgement making decisions that carry no weight behind them beyond the media attention they generate.

1) Russia 7,500
2) United States 7,100
3) France 300
4) China 250
5) United Kingdom 225
6) Pakistan120 (estimated)
7) India 110 (estimated)
8) Israel 80 (estimated)
9) North Korea < 10 (estimated)
10) Iran ??

 

The final stage is China and her continuous efforts to claim the South China Sea and all the islands found within that general area. The problem is there are other nations who claim these islands and who hold claims just as valid. There is a chance of a conflict here though one has to imagine that China is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of Asia as her size and modernized army with weapons to match and including nuclear weapons. This is the main reason that Japan, Taiwan and even the Philippines might all be slowly reaching the conclusion that if they are to prevent China taking over the islands one after the other inexorably slinking towards their main Isles thus posing an ever growing threat to these Island nations, they are considering that which would have a decade ago been unthinkable, joining the nuclear armed nations so as to have equal threat potential against China. More as an aside than a warning, one must also remember that the most recent Russian madman, Putin, has delusions of reestablishing Greater Russia and now that China and Russia are back on speaking terms, they have been talking of an alliance for sharing technological advances, nuclear technology, weapons research and development. This has an ominous side in that most terrorist groups have either Russia or China at the head of their supply chain. All taken in, we find the nation of the United States with a military that many have pointed to as merely having the strength the United States could project at the very start of World War II, Russia and China ascending, Iran, supported by Russia and China, being handed nuclear weapons and a very large industrial scale systems to construct said weapons from where they will begin to exercise power over the Middle East and perhaps beyond to Central and South America through Venezuela and Cuba being aided by Russia who appears poised to reacquire the lands of Eastern Europe and Central Eurasia, reestablishing the concept of a Greater Russia. Additionally there is China with an ever more capable navy claiming and taking one island after another while claiming all of the South China Sea and threatening to replace America as the preeminent power in the Pacific including the coastal areas in South America and made all the worse as the United States had gifted China with owning the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal even before the turn of the calendar to the twenty-first century.Then Iran has as luck would have it control over the Straits of Hormuz through which almost all of the Middle Eastern oil is transported to the world and is taking control the straits of Bab el Mandeb through their proxy in Yemen, the Houthis, which grants them control over the Suez Canal as this is where the Red Sea enters the Gulf of Aden leading to the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the world thus granting Iran control over one third of the world’s trade and oil while China controls the busiest sea in the South China Sea as well as the second busiest canal in the Panama Canal. How much more change can the world hope to endure?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

A Chance America Riding Off Into the Sunset

 

There has been speculation about what role the United States will play on the world’s stage as threats abound of various severities and natures almost everywhere one looks and still we hear from United States President Obama that he awaits final strategy and complete plans laid out before him from the Pentagon before he can act. This excuse from President Obama for not committing to some plan of action sounds unrealistic, especially as it is well known even personally after having served in the United States Army, the Pentagon has plans, War Scenarios, for near any contingency which might arise. This makes President Obama’s excuse of not having any plans before him sound quite lame. Even had the Pentagon not had an exact battle plan in place when ISIS first reared their ugly heads and started chopping heads, especially since some belonged to the United States, you can bet the Pentagon went to their files and had cobbled together six ways come Sunday for dealing with ISIS which probably had added contingencies for removing Bashir al-Assad from power and potentially addressing the Iranian nuclear issue as well. The one thing is, they were not short of was plans. The only thing necessary would be for the President to choose one and they would be implementing within forty-eight hours. Each set of plans would have in the full layout exactly which units were trained for that exact mission and which of those units was at full strength and had a ready status. They would have decided whether or not to use the ready actions units of which at least two brigades of Army would be on immediate deployment status and I can assume the Marines, Navy and Air Force have similar plans for immediate response to any call up.

 

We can trust the Pentagon has plans and that all the President need do is pick up that phone he claims he could use to call for action if Congress did not pass his legislation in a timely manner and instead call the Pentagon and request their actions and plans be presented. Then he could pick up that pen with which he threatened Congress to use to write Executive Orders and use it to sign off on a plan of action and then write an Executive Memo to the leaders in Congress informing them of the impending actions and the Pentagon would take care of the rest. There is one contingency for which the Pentagon likely has plans but would be unable to implement them until the President ordered them to follow and support somebody else’s initiation of actions. That is President Obama’s famous plan of leading from behind, better known as following which often is the action of those too cowardly to commit to actions and stick their neck out, something which would be risky against ISIS but the President can go ahead and stick his neck out, the military would be out in front and would do or die even knowing that in the end the President would claim the glory, after all he took out Osama bin Laden haven’t you heard. Leading from behind is not an option on this crisis but President Obama is not one to make definitive decisions which might have him owning his actions. President Obama would rather simply follow and take only that action was dictated by somebody else, the United Nations, the European Union, NATO led by another member, actually President Obama would follow anybody, well, anybody but Israel. Were Israel to engage ISIS, it would not be a complete surprise if President Obama gave weapons to ISIS through some obscure middleman leader of another nation who might be supportive of ISIS though doing so would be risky. But until somebody else takes the lead we can expect more excuses over action from the White House.

 

One wonders if President Obama has even requested the Pentagon produce their plans for dealing with ISIS and said plans actually called for the United States to sit this round out. We can figure that the United States is loath to send troops back into Iraq after being pulled out by President Obama in a manner that military planners had informed the President was a premature action which would cause more problems than it could solve. The one problem leaving a residual force would not have addressed was President Obama winning reelection on his promise to bring our boys home come something (keeping it family friendly) or high water. The Pentagon may have been requested to provide plans which would include supporting UN or EU or NATO action taken to facilitate leading from behind at which time the Pentagon action would most likely be exactly what we are seeing, doing nothing waiting for somebody else to take the initiative so they could follow thus leading from behind again allowing President Obama to risk nothing which actually making a choice and lead would mean. But this begs a question; what happens if the United States is about to return to her historic role of isolationism where the United States trades with her friends and with her enemies but on a lesser scale and dares not interfere in worldly matters allowing them to work themselves out without United States interventions. United States entering an isolationist perspective would only allow her deployment of troops to be limited and almost always to support trade more than worrying about such trivialities as world balance and defeating evil, that’s better left to the knights of Europe who have always done this before. Of course this before was before the United States encouraged Europe to stop their militarism and that the United States would spread her umbrella and cover them so they could turn to less harmful pursuits such as taking on debt and squabbling amongst each other, just this time no world wars starting in Europe, that was the deal the United States imposed on Europe. But now it appears the United States may be folding up that umbrella and claiming not to see the storm clouds rising out of the Middle East, a denial which is difficult to swallow.

 

The going theory is that the United States will return to the role of the world’s police and enforce the good behavior between the nations extending force projection where needed. That is not the historic tendency of the United States after any major conflicts; her historic stance has been a laissez-faire attitude of simple sitting back keeping her hands politely to herself, which is the norm from the United States. The average American knows little about world affairs and cares even less. The average American was defined by President Clinton in his initial campaign for the Presidency with his slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The stupid in this case was George Herbert Walker Bush (the elder and first Pres Bush) and the elections proved it as President Bush did not gain reelection largely due to his having broken his promise of, “Read my lips; no new taxes,” and then was forced to raise taxes by a Democrat Congress in order to get his budget passed with the military spending not slashed by the Congress. The election of President Clinton over reelecting President Bush was all about domestic policies over foreign policies.

 

You start to talk about foreign policy with the average American and their eyes gloss over and they drift into some zombie like state all catatonic and in shock after the first two or three sentences. Talk about immigration, taxes, domestic hot-button issues, government spending of which all is unnecessary except those they are or will receive, and the economy then you will engage in a sometimes heated debate. Talk about money and they will listen, talk about something happening in the Mille East or Asia and they will repeat what the media stated, that is bad, that is good and those people sure have as rough time, but then they will turn it back to how the government needs to take care of things at home first. The average American has all the sympathy you could ever ask for and they will donate more to charities than any other peoples on earth but when it comes to sending their young men off to fight in what they mostly see as somebody else’s war, then they need a ton of convincing and President Obama surfs waves, seldom makes waves when it comes to world politics. The President came from a past as a community organizer, read rabble rouser causing trouble to force government actions usually spending more money of which they get the lion’s share, and knows little outside of Chicago, let alone outside of the United States. He treats foreign policy as if it was a plague and to his outlook, as well as many Americans outlooks, simply does not go past the horizon and possibly not past the water’s edge.

 

We can bet that should the Democrat candidate become the next President, they too will do little as they can in foreign policy. We need remember that the Democrat candidate will not likely be Hillary Clinton but more likely somebody not even announced as of yet. Ms. Clinton’s campaign van has the wheels flying off and the engine is about to quit. The van is driving down the road to oblivion. But what if it is the Republican candidate, you inquire. There we need to find out who will take the lead and which ones do not survive the first three or four actual primary votes. We can make some specific and general observations. Rand Paul is an isolationist libertarian who believes if the United States hurts nobody then nobody would target the United States. Of all the governors and ex-governors running, only Jeb Bush might be a President inclined to use military force and actually have an active foreign policy. Others have claimed that they will repair the United States relations with Israel as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia largely undoing some of the changes made under President Obama. Still, such actions do not necessarily mean a return into Iraq to defeat ISIS unless it becomes a dire threat to the stability of the Middle East. Only Senator Marco Rubio has direct experience with foreign policies as he in on the Senate Intelligence Committee which gives him access beyond the average Senator under the need to know doctrines. Almost any Republican candidate becoming President would easily take four months to a year to become fully briefed on every hot-spot that the Pentagon had plans and counter plans and different options under each plan and time granted each. Such amounts of information is why the President has a Secretary of Defense whose staff is divided so they can divide their work and attend to each contingencies. Still, the final decisions and person who must form the overall foreign police and who has to call in the troops for action when deemed to be necessary lies with the President and the President alone. That is one of the reason it is said that it is lonely at the top. We still have no real available input that any of the Republican candidates would press for an interventionist approach to foreign policies.

 

Likely the most pressing foreign policy might already have their hands tied should President Obama make any Iran nuclear deal somehow into a treaty without gaining Congressional affirmation. Such a decade long deal would actually prevent the next administration from taking any actions without smoking gun style proof that Iran had broken the agreement but as the agreement includes steps all the way through twelve years with little margin for change in the terms or even the terminology during that time period with the Iranians presumably free to complete their desired goal of deliverable nuclear warheads and the ICBMs on which to place them after ten years according to President Obama’s own admission which would leave them at a minimum two years to produce as many weapons systems as they are able starting with an unknown amount of LEU (low enrichment Uranium) with which to work and all of that Uranium a simple two day’s processing to be made weapons grade HEU (highly enriched Uranium over 90% purity) and then they would be capable of molding the cores and producing actual weapons. All of this is a guess of what the eventual agreement will appear to say and Iranian compliance to the terms and inspection protocols as well as their answering numerous questions about previous work performed largely by the military which Iran insists is an unprecedented and unnecessary invasion of their privileges and privacies. So, when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program the next President may be acting with his hands tied and possibly looking at a negative response from a nuclear armed Iran claiming their dominion over Iraq and dismissing the need for United States interference in their area of control which they will claim includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and who knows where else by January 21, 2017 when the next President takes office. After Iran there will be other situations such as Russia and their low-grade war with the Ukraine and its possibilities, China and their expansion Islands being built and potentially taking territorial control semi-legally over the entire South China Sea giving them control over one of the most active shipping lanes in the world. Speaking of choke points for shipping, Iran already has menacing control over the Straits of Hormuz where almost one third of the world’s oil is shipped by tankers and may through their proxies in Yemen, Houthis can also threaten to control the Bab-el-Mandeb which would cut off the southern exit of the Red Sea making the Suez Canal unusable and the Israeli southern port to the orient and Africa blockaded, a casus belli which could lead to a state of declared war by Iran on Israel and Egypt as both would have their shipping access to the world impeded illegally as Iran would have no other excuse other than they could close all shipping. These are just the top three and none of these includes the ISIS threat which may grow to the point where Iran and ISIS meet on equal footing with ISIS having gained an Air Force even if of a limited nature, and tactics which are prone to working, at least working well against the Iraqi army. ISIS has had far less success against the Kurdish Militias such as the Peshmerga (literally “one who confronts death”) and the People’s Protection Units (known as the YPG). These have held the northeast parts of Syria having an astonishing turning point in the city of Kobanê as well as the northern third or so of Iraq where the Kurdish forces saved thousands of Yazidi and whose Yazidi Militias have joined ranks with the Kurdish Militias. We could continue to the other continents and their probabilities for causing distress but that would leave Antarctica as probably the only safe haven if you desired no strife, or at least not yet.

 

Beyond the Cusp