Three Weeks Could Produce Obama Surprise of the Week

 

One must first broaden their horizons to play at this sick little game. Remember that President Obama still has a little over three weeks left and he still has his pen even if it is too late for his phone to help. This all depends on what legacy President Obama believes he is setting, not what legacy he is actually achieving. When one allows their vengeful and oh so petty side to overrule all sense of propriety so many things become possible. One could see crippling the incoming President with such a mountain of impending disasters that he will waste his first year putting out fires and rescuing lost causes. President Obama has taken a pass at the United Nations Security Council all while pushing for a resolution to punish those uppity Jews otherwise known as Israel. He has all but eliminated any future the United States and Canada, as he was working with Canadian leftist Prime Minister Trudeau, drilling or mining for precious natural resources leaving almost the entire Arctic region for the Russians to explore and drain of everything he claimed to have rescued from the greedy hands of American capitalists. There are so many other fronts where he could even create calamities and disasters beyond the pale and since he is surrounded by sufficiently bright minds, nothing we add here will be giving them any ideas they already have not thought about, so no damage looking around and seeing what is the potential for mischief.

 

President Obama may not be actually capable of declaring war as that is reserved for Congress, but why would that stop him now, as he could provoke a state of war with Russia or China or Israel. President Obama has a long list of those who have not bowed to his preeminence, that is when he was not bowing to theirs (see images below). Protocols are one thing; bowing to the point of submission is completely different. President Obama entered office with little knowledge as to the actual importance of the office he was to hold. He differed to nearly every leader he met initially apparently believing it was polite. It was submissive and his actions afterwards proved that perception to be most accurate. Still, anybody receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace when still shuffling people around to complete their Cabinet and place their preferred people in Ambassadorships is bound to make anybody’s head spin giddy with the feelings of the moment and to honestly believe that it was a sign that he would accomplish great things. Now President Obama finds himself with mere weeks left, the next President hostile to virtually everything he accomplished and no real legacy except as probably being the President with the most number of presumed accomplishments reversed in the first year of the following President’s administration. The real problem with much of President Obama’s presumed accomplishments is they were either passed with a veto proof majority in Congress willing to support everything he proposed and to fall at his feet when required. Still, he was unable to get his energy plans and the carbon tax and credit system passed (even the Democrats realized that would destroy the economy irreparably) and only got his healthcare system, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, Obamacare) passed without a single Republican vote making it an albatross around the neck of every Democrat legislator, retreated from Iraq while announcing a date American troops would all but desert Afghanistan leading to the disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and largely Syria along with the birth of the Islamic State (not the Junior Varsity Obama labelled them but also a problem soon to meet a solution), started but did not finish a war in Libya leading to Syria redux, and generally underperformed. So, what to do to set things to right and gain something of a legacy?

 

President Obama Bowing to
top row: Saudi King, Japanese Emperor
middle row: Chinese President, Japanese Robot
bottom row: Queen of England, and the Pope

 

President Obama took care of the first thing on his bucket list, revenge on Bibi Netanyahu and destroying any possibility for peace between Israel and the Arab world. This also set the stage for a potential war between the entire world and Israel. His Security Council abstaining after forcing the bringing to a vote a condemnatory piece of garbage against Israel while leaving the Palestinians not even required to make a statement about peace will make it a required necessity for Israel to retreat behind the Green Line or face isolation from the world. This piece of garbage is making her once again completely vulnerable to another massive Arab assault with genocidal intents just as happened in 1948 and again in 1967. Israel surviving those wars, and even thriving, that was only by the will of Hashem as both times the survival of Israel was the miracle. President Obama does not wish for Israel to thrive, survive or anything resembling existing and he has no desire for any space to be the Jewish homelands. His orders to abstain and forcing the bringing of this motion after the President elect worked to have it postponed was a bastardation of his powers and a vile show of hatred. What was done is done and the world will never allow it to be undone. The world was embarrassed and forced to rescind their United Nation General Assemble passing of a resolution declaring “Zionism is racism” begrudgingly. The Durban 2001 World Conference against Racism which carried the official title of the noble sounding long stretching string of words, “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,” chaired by the esteemed anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Semite then United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Therese Winifred Robinson. This conference has been celebrated repeatedly and will continue to be celebrated for as long as Israel remains the Jewish State and its target will never change. The initial conference devolved into such a vile seething hatred of Israel and Jews in general centered around the “Zionism is racism” theme. The United States joined Israel in walking out. Later reviews of the Durban Conference were boycotted by several western nations to no avail as when hate runs rampant, especially when centered on the Jews; it gains a life of its own but given time will not end with the Jews and always results in horrors beyond the initial targets. Read the Bible, ancient history and even recent history including World War II and whatever will be the result of the current hatreds infecting the Arab and much of the Muslim world and rapidly spreading through Europe and beyond. But this is actually not of President Obama’s making, he has simply acted as it conduit assisting its spread and facilitating the general infection of anti-Semitism throughout the world and even onto the American college campuses where it infects the future leaders of the United States and the world. This will likely be President Obama’s greatest legacy.

 

President Obama still has his vexation with Putin for ignoring the greatness of President Obama and for opposing his Syria policy, a policy few have been capable of identifying. President Obama had his retreat into oblivion red lines which Bashir al-Assad crossed again and again no matter how far back they were moved. If memory serves us, President Obama had to retreat his lines until Russian President Putin stepped in and offered a false deal which was graciously accepted. Unfortunately, President Obama has a strange way of showing gratitude, he plots to belittle and destroy which may explain why so few have rushed to his side in times when he could have used friends. Sure, those from the extreme left and Democrats who depended on his goodwill stood there but that was their greed and their disgrace. President Obama might still cause a confrontation in Syrian airspace testing the Russian demands that any actions be coordinated with Russia. What might be the result of American and Russian pilots engaging over Syria?

 

China also has made President Obama look impotent as they have challenged former United States allies. Already the Philippines have reconsidered their faith in their alliance and dependence on the promises of the United States for protection. President Obama has actually managed to chase an ally into the arms of the Chinese despite a multitude of signs that there was a problem needful of attention. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivered a number of ever increasingly vile, insulting, obscene and crude references and names referring directly to the United States President. Japan has for the first time since World War II decided to develop their own active military forces including a blue water navy and is even considering finalizing their development and manufacturing of nuclear weaponry. Consider the irony and what it must take for Japan to actually consider favorably becoming a nuclear armed nation. That is an accomplishment for which one should feel deep shame, but some amongst us appear incapable of shame, they simply continue bumbling along making everything they touch turn into disaster after disaster. Taiwan is following Japan’s lead and also considering arming themselves with everything within their technological limits. They too are considering arming with nuclear weaponry. What an accomplishment, not only making some excuse for a treaty, sorry, our mistake, Presidential Agreement between the P5+1 and Iran guaranteeing the Mullahs of Iran can arm themselves with nuclear armaments in approximately eight to ten or twelve years, nobody knows as the treaty appears to be worded differently for each copy, the Russians have one version, the Germans another which appears very similar to the French and British, the United States has the most strident restrictive against Iran version and then there is the Iranian version which appears to be variable, able to mean whatever they desire when they desire it. Once the Iranians arm with nuclear weapons, the Saudi Arabian Royals promise they will acquire nuclear arms (they have an agreement with Pakistan for nukes when they need as they financed the Pakistani nuclear development program), the Egyptians and Turkish leaders have intimated they too will go nuclear, and who knows who else in the Middle East might think having a few nuclear weapons in their pantry might prove useful. President Obama, the proliferation President who armed the world for Armageddon.

 

We have not gotten to Libya, the Sudan and the general mayhem which has slowly begun to encompass the entire area of MENA (Middle East and North Africa). Then there has been the economic malaise which affected not only the United States but much of Europe as well. Then there has been the flood of Muslims into Europe and the United States and with them increased murder, rape, and other criminal activity including sexual gang rapes and molesting which manifested itself on New Year’s Eve as well as at other festive events as well as increased terrorism. Some have intimated that these refugees consist of an inordinately high percentage of single males between the ages of mid-teen years to late thirties and early forties, exactly the makeup one would send to prepare for an invasion acting as a fifth front tearing Europe apart from within. This has brought on fears by many that the refugees are an invasion disguised as a refugee problem in need of a humanitarian solution but will soon produce an Islamic resurgence in Europe resulting in Islam finally conquering the continent. That could be one heck of a legacy.

 

There is still time for more mischief with President Obama’s main obsession, the destruction of Israel using the grievance mongering Palestinian cause as the weapon of choice. He could recognize an Arab state of Palestine and actually map out the recognized borders. There is still an opportunity for more resolutions from the Security Council even to include an enforceable Chapter Seven Resolution demanding that Israel remove almost a million Jews from Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem setting as the recognition of Palestine in all but actuality, or even go as far as having the United Nations Security Council establish the twenty-second Arab state. The latitude available to President Obama boggles the mind and Israel has the largest bullseye centered on them even to the point of establishing that Jerusalem is actually an Islamic Waqf and as such is forbidden from even becoming the Israeli capital city and push such through the United Nations Security Council. As long as President Obama and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power design to work to Israel’s detriment, something both have shown a great propensity to accomplish driven by a particular and peculiar hatred for Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government, they can abstain from any motion and know that the remainder of the Security Council will most gladly concur with anything which damages Israel. This alone could make for the greatest damage not only against Israel, but against Europe and eventually the world, the entire world. Damaging Israel will embolden the Arab world which could easily lead to a general war similar to the 1948 Arab war against Israel. Such a war will not end with Israel and the spread of that war beyond MENA to the rest of Africa, Europe, India and even beyond to Asia and across the waters to the United States. Even an isolationist President Trump would have no other play, his hand would be forced. The dangers over the next three weeks and three days are legion and the best that could happen is nothing, absolutely nothing. We should all pray for quiet, peace and quiet with no further surprises.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Barack Obama’s Wild Search for Any Legacy

 

President Barack Obama entered office with even a great number of Europeans having sky high hopes for his future. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize largely due to his soaring rhetoric describing his desires and designs for a world blanketed in peace rather than strife, free of nuclear weapons rather than bristling with them, shared bounty benefitting all replacing areas torn by hunger and want, and his fresh message promising hope replacing despair. There appeared to be other areas of the world which also caught Obamaitis, a feeling of great hope due to dulcet tones of rhythmic rhymes and rhetoric promising the end of deprivation and the opening for all a grand cornucopia providing great giving filling the world with divine satisfactions and serenity, comforts and calm, lullabies and love. The world had to be at the leading edge of the Age of Aquarius.

 

 

This expectation of greatness and having found the leader for the new century who would wipe away all the old and stodgy ideas which presumably underlined the policies and failings of his predecessor, George W. Bush led to the reelection as if the expectations which had begun to fade could be brought to fulfillment if just the people would show their support and promise to stay the course with full support and continued adulation. Americans, as a whole, virtually all hoped that President Obama would be the President that all America could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with and repair the real problems facing the nation. Even, or possibly because of, many who initially feared that Obama would rule as what they perceived as an extreme leftist progressive anti-American still grabbed on to this prayer, this hope. I know as I was one such who had predicted that President Obama would be a President Jimmy Carter on steroids. I was wrong as I missed the part which would rival President Lyndon Baines Johnson with the steamrolling over all opposition; Constitution be damned. So now we sit in the closing months of a wounded Presidency which failed in even its own measuring stick. Gone beyond repair is Cap and Trade, Carbon Credits, the end of coal for energy, fracking continues, livable wage remains a dream, government run healthcare is in a shambles and the final crash is still ahead, universal nuclear disarmament is dead with the promise of proliferation like never before is about to spread these weapons across the most unstable Middle East and into North Africa (MENA) and, worst of all, there are numerous more wars with entire nations in various stages of disintegration as in Libya, Syria, Yemen and the Ukraine and the world seems closer than ever to the Eve of Destruction.

 

 

Musical interludes aside, the world is far more violent with more conflict and more nations in a state of complete anarchy where the governance has either disintegrated or no longer cares or represents the population. The continued anarchy and destruction in Syria and Libya can be indirectly or even directly attributed to actions or lack thereof by the United States under the directions of President Obama and largely the State Department. There have been reports online and in the mainstream media of recommendations made by the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff being ignored and even directly countermanded by the White House. Examples of such advice being completely ignored which led directly to many of today’s problems include pulling almost every American military force after refusing to provide a new set of terms and protections for the troops as President Obama refused to permit the Pentagon to work with the Iraqi government leaving the State Department to negotiate which was postponed until a mere ten weeks before the then existing agreement lapsed. Then there was the shifting, sliding and finally fading to nothing Red Line in the Sand to bring destruction down on Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad if he unleashed chemical weapons. The final example we will give was the entire concept of leading from behind which directly led to the decapitation of Libyan governance without providing even a modicum of force in place providing time to form new governance resulting in tribal internal warfare tearing the nation apart.

 

Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon

 

To the present we are witnessing a change and President Obama taking the lead very quietly while attempting to force what his passivity failed to accomplish. We have witnessed stronger language targeting Russian President Putin while arming rebels more directly, though which rebels has been kept somewhat vague. Some reports claim they are al-Nusra and others who were once claiming allegiance to al-Qaeda but have since renounced any allegiances. Some unofficial sources not aligned with the State Department or Pentagon has shown alliances with some of these rebels with the Islamic State. Even more troubling has been the unprincipled support using American air power of Turkey President Erdogan bombing the one group which deserved the greatest support, the Kurdish Militias (Peshmerga پێشمەرگە), who have been the most successful against the Islamic State all the way back to their initial ISIS or ISIL stage and the main force rescuing the Yazidi while the world governments sat silent feigning helplessness with one exception which has provided light weapons, anti-tank weapons and special forces to train Kurdish fighters, a nation which must remain unnamed. President Obama has made the known fallacious claim that Turkey is fighting the Islamic State when the reality is they are attempting to wipe out the Kurdish forces and people in a genocidal war and assisting the Islamic State which has recovered Aleppo from Kurdish control. These anti-Kurdish efforts are pushing some Kurds to seek protection with Islamist forces they once fought against. Talk of turning friends into enemies, what a great strategy.

 

President Obama still claims his brilliant nuclear treaty with Iran, which even the French had to be beaten into submission after initially vetoing the agreement, prevents Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. The statement can only be made valid if one adds, “while I am President,” onto the end. Even the White House had admitted that Iran will be fully nuclear capable and free of any restrictions after just over a decade from now. Then we have the most recent evidence of the hard-line being taken in response to a pair of missiles fired from Yemen originating in the area held by Iranian backed Houthis Rebels. The American Naval forces were freed to respond in kind. Further the United States Navy was ordered to cross into the expanded regions now claimed by China after they built a number of new islands placing military assets including artillery and anti-ship missiles in an effort to control an important Asian trade route. This new and unprecedented stance by President Obama has come with minimal if any inclusion of the Pentagon or Joint Chiefs of Staff other than to relay the orders and is being executed in order to shore up support for Democrat candidates in the coming elections. This also permits Hillary Clinton to imply that she may have had a hand in this new direction by the White House to accommodate her stronger stance in foreign policy. It is all a feint to make her appear to separate from the lead from behind strategy when in reality she will not lead at all with one exception which is worthy of discussion before closing this article.

 

A President Hillary Clinton will continue to bow to Iranian hegemonic plans in the MENA region and continue to snub Egypt, Israel, Jordan and other allies unless they curry favor as was the way to play when she was Secretary of State with higher entry fees as she is now the President. Further, she will allow China to extend their hegemonic desires throughout the western Pacific Ocean and into the Indian Ocean. This will revive an ancient animosity between China and India, an India which is likely to surpass China as the most populous nation within a decade or two. Hillary Clinton will further aid the influx of Islamic immigrants all but unvetted into Europe, mostly western Europe, while also increasing the rate for accepting immigrants from across MENA and including the Horn of Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Islamic nations except Iran, they need to remain strong with a large and capable military with secret side deals done without Congressional oversight or knowledge when possible. There is one place where Hillary Clinton will not only stand strong but will seek new venues to pressure, Putin and Russia. For reasons known only to the least sane amongst us, there has been an undertone softly growing demanding that Russian President Putin be brought low and to bend and surrender to the “equality of women” and raise the position of Russian women to their “rightful place” in Russian society. This is partly the demand for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria as this would soon lead to a direct confrontation. Do not doubt that any Russian fighter caught entering such a zone, even after dropping their ordinance and simply transgressing on way back to base, they would be intercepted and very likely fired upon or, even worse, shot from the sky using missiles pressing the Russians to respond. Even if Putin would take such a situation and apologize, explain and request for unarmed aircraft, after dropping ordinance, for Russian pilots to use the “safe zone” for returning to base, the request would be refused bluntly and with no regard for any damage as such would be intentional. What is the end desired? We wish we knew!

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

China and Words Whispered on the Winds

 

For as long as there have been predictive winds of the economic variety, the prediction has been whispered from quiet corners to shouted from the rooftops claiming this would be the time that China was finally going to pay for their economic shenanigans and face economic collapse. We have been extremely quiet about these predictions of doom on the horizon as the one thing the Chinese had been very adept at was finding some manner of continuing to meet predicted gains month after month, year after year. Their predictive gains have become somewhat more reasonable from the early 1990s where the reported gains stood around 11% to this past year where they reported merely 6% and are continuing to predict this can be continued. The problem the Chinese leadership is facing is they have pretty much run out of rabbits to pull from their hat and it is time to accept that even in China there can be a recession. But perhaps a little look back might help to explain.

 

China had some really rough years where Chairman (and virtual god) Mao Zedong was the absolute ruler and was executing the usual five year plans which are so precious to so many dictators. Equally precious to such five year plans is that they completely and utterly destroy the national economy and tens of millions die of starvation and other privations. The Chinese have literally tried everything in order to assure that whomever was at the top made a relatively high prediction of economic growth even to have gone to a fairly complete privatization resorting to a market based free enterprise system which had kept growth at around six to as high as nine percent for the past decade plus. To continue reaching such unrealistic goals the Chinese government has gone so far as to build entire cities where nobody was going to live just to add to profits. This also assisted the areas of the Chinese economy which is dependent on the price of copper. Building cities, even those nobody is going to inhabit, still required a fair amount of copper to install all the wiring necessary for a modern environment and using so much copper supports a higher price aiding the Chinese economic indicators.

 

Can the Chinese leadership find some miracle to pull off continued reported gains? Of course they can. After all, lying is always an option and that will work until the people rise up and overthrow the government demanding real and honest leadership. The Chinese watched the breakup of the Soviet Union and know that a contributing factor was pretending they could manipulate and lie their way to prosperity and the people would not be bothered by their lies. Apparently they were misled and paid the consequences. The problem in Russia was despite the change in governance there was little change in who governed and who owned all the wealth. China has wisely decentralized their economy and relied on free market principles throughout almost all sectors of their economy.

 

The Chinese leaders have found the one main problem with a free market economy, eventually even these engines need to cool off for a while and that causes an unavoidable recession. This creates one big headache for the leadership in China; they are expected to show profits and economic growth of at least five to six percent every year, period. That will be a real stretch in the next couple of years as their free market sector has reached the apex as things stand and now need to cool the system and take a few quarters, possibly a year or even two of reset and a settling of the economy before the next drive and prosperity again making all happy. The problem is the Chinese Communist Party insists in progress and growth every year or else heads will roll. In China, that is meant quite literally, thus the excessive need to find some way or reporting progress and gains in the economy. This would have been less of a problem had the economy not been buoyed with false growth figures in construction of uninhabited cities and the enforcement of a one child policy cause a drastic set of circumstances. Now China is facing a recession with a glut of male children entering adult life with poor prospects for matrimony coupled with an economic downturn thus even their rescinding the one child policy, it came far too late for these men in a society bereft of women. This adds another component which historically has almost always been solved in the same manner, finding a means of sacrificing a significant number of male citizens between the ages of twelve to twenty-something. That method has always been war.

 

This brings us to another side of China of late, pressing her claims to areas beyond her natural borders and the stationing of troops as a provocation on these fronts. Much of these provocations have been taken in the South China Sea where Chinese activities and demands are threatening long existent and heavily traveled sea trade routes. Add in the Spratly Islands which are claimed somewhat obviously by the Philippines and Viet Nam and add in China and you have instant conflict. This conflict over the Spratly Islands goes far further than the land based claims as should China successfully claim the islands they would also set solid their claim to the South China Sea as their own little private bathtub square in the middle of some of the most heavily travelled sea lanes in the world. This would allow China to control these sea lanes demanding taxes be paid on all cargo, disrupt naval exercises and travel in what are considered as international waters and be a provocation to war all rolled up in one package. The Spratly Islands are likely the end goal of the island building exercises taken by China in the South China Sea and could quickly escalate into an open confrontation should China use their newly built Blue Water Navy to enforce their claims to these waters. Additionally, there are the conflicting claims over the Diaoyu Islands as the Chinese claim and the Senkaku Islands as the Japanese claim (see map below). These two sets of claims are both very sensitive areas but thus far the Chinese appear to be more concerned with their claims for the Spratly Islands as they would cement the South China Sea as strictly Chinese and thus grant China control of the busiest Asian sea lanes and one of the most heavily traveled sea lanes internationally. This might also be the case simply due to the Japanese having a far more developed naval capability compared to Viet Nam and the Philippines and nothing more.

 

Diaoyu Islands as the Chinese Claim
Senkaku Islands as the Japanese Claim

 

The likelihood of an actual war breaking out over the Spratly Islands is considered by many to be a remote possibility. Of course the possibility of China building an island chain to the Spratly Islands and then placing Chinese troops, aircraft and shore batteries and placing naval assets moored to the Spratly Islands is also considered remote. The potential for open conflict with the Philippines calling in their support guaranteed by the United States could be a potential for a quickly escalating situation over the South China Sea, an area the United States desires to be open and free of any interference with trade as much as anybody. Even the Japanese have direct concerns over the Chinese increased territorial claims into the South China Sea. This could easily become a future flashpoint though such is unlikely until some situation would force the United States to emphasize their presence elsewhere pulling assets out of the western Pacific region. One such scenario would be a war in the Middle East threatening the oil shipments from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf oil kingdoms where the United States would also be bound by treaty obligations. With the current United States Navy cut down to well under former levels of actual warships and also less support vessels meaning that the Navy would not be capable of staging on two separate fronts without leaving large segments of the world outside the reach of American naval assets. This is the situation faced currently as the number of front-line aircraft carriers has been reduced such that with one being refurbished then there would not be a full battle group to send into a crisis area forcing the redistribution of assets from areas considered less threatened, though where that might be is a difficult judgement in itself.

 

China is facing economic downturn for the immediate future barring some unforeseen manipulation of forced conflict requiring wartime production which would permit direct government infusions stimulating the economy in an unnatural means which would only make recovery from such a step even more drastic when the correction comes. No nation can continuously show the kinds of gains China has claimed indefinitely and eventually there must be a cooling-off period as the market resets and decides on its next direction for expansion. China did have the advantage of not being a modern, first-world economy after World War II and then struggling through the Mao Zedong five year plan years where things actually managed to worsen thus allowing for a long stretch of recovery, modernization and finally incorporating free market principles and now China is at a top point from which a reset is long, long overdue and pretty much unavoidable short of declaring war. One hopes that even China has progressed beyond using war as an economic stimulus where all markets are crashed to support the war effort allowing for a period of growth and rebuilding when the war is over. One had also best pray that the same is true in the Middle East where the people have reached the end of patience with dictators and are revolting in nation after nation which could threaten to engulf the Middle East, North, the Horn and parts of Central Africa and potentially Europe starting from Turkey and moving westward and northward and even including Russia in a bid to regain some of the lost power of the Soviet Era. Any blow-up in the Middle East and affected areas could be exactly the opening China would need to cement their claims to the waters and international shipping lanes of the western Pacific-Indian Ocean routes and disrupting world trade in hopes of using taxation of trade and other measures to continue to show profits at any cost. As long as tariffs and trade wars are considered a viable economic tool to be found in some national tool kits, then the world is still a dangerous place as long as that remains so.

 

Beyond the Cusp