Israel Palestinian Peace Cannot be Negotiated the Same Old Ways

 

The Western ideal of negotiated settlement between the Arabs and Israel is not possible. The first rule is that the negotiations have nothing to do with a Palestinian state. As soon as Israel is destroyed, the surrounding Arab world will move into the areas dividing up the lands and slaughtering any Palestinian resisting their dividing up the long sought after spoils. There is no intention in the Arab world for a Palestinian state. Their only concern is Israel’s vaunted military power neutralized, and the Palestinians are the sacrificial lamb that disguises their snarling teeth in sheep’s clothing. The Israelis know this and the United States State Department knows this and anybody who has studied the Middle East knows this. Presidents of the United States knew this until recently as they had studied the wars with the Muslim Barbary Pirates starting with Thomas Jefferson and the wars pacifying the Muslim separatists by Blackjack Pershing in the Philippine Islands, a war that continues to this day against the Philippine government. But as has been stated, much to the shame of all, history has become the purview of nerds and misfits. Unfortunately knowledge of where we’ve been is not a prerequisite for leadership, a dearth and deficit which can only prove to be a great disadvantage as leading without a grounding in knowledge with a decent footing in history is taking the wheel of the ship of state ordering the rudder be removed. Perhaps we should have a campaign debate and hold a History Jeopardy debate with points et al; we might even get Alex Trebek.

 

 

Alex Trebek of Jeopardy

 

The United States is in its Presidential sweepstakes in what is a wide open field as there will be no actual incumbent. Hillary Clinton will try to play the role of incumbent though the closest she really has been was out at the State Department or decorating the table with the staff for a State dinner where she would play arm candy, probably not her strong suit. Meanwhile there will be in the other contest one who will claim he is the Trump suit. The next runner-up we can feel the Bern or continue on Cruz control. Whatever the result the eventual candidates will never face questions which actually matter for the position of President of the world’s main super power, or at least potentially its main super power if their leaders so choose. There will be questions which would be better posed to those running for Senate and the House of Representatives as they presumably are charged to be the legislators of the domestic issues. The President has the position of presenting the United States to the world and presiding over the foreign policies and all negotiations. If a President has no knowledge of world affairs and history leading up to the present and the precedents set by such, they will fall into the trap of being completely dependent upon the bureaucrats from the State Department for their foreign policy. This would soon commit them to the failures of the past as the State Department is not as adaptable and is more invested in continuing that with which they are familiar and comfortable rather than working to effect change and adapting when challenges present themselves. Government or other establishment career bureaucrats are not exactly daring innovators as they are go along to get along let’s just do that which has worked in most other situations and stick to the book. When it comes to the Arab Israeli conflict the book is what has everything mired in the failures of the past. Past administrations have tried taking the Israeli side, putting space between the United States and Israel and even placing, as President Truman did in 1948-9, an arms embargo on Israel as they were at war with half a dozen Arab nations and expected to perish and none of these positions have brought peace. There has been one policy never attempted and never likely to be implemented but which would end the discussions at least for the foreseeable future. Let us attempt to see what it might be and wonder which of the current candidates would be most likely to implement such an approach.

 

We need to look back to the first ten to twelve years of Israeli history. The initial starting-point of the Arab Israeli conflict dates to dawn on a Shabbat morning, namely Saturday May 15, 1948. On that sunrise the nation of Israel was but hours old, had no functional government and only a provisional government holding power until formal election would be held. Such would have to wait as that dawn brought half a dozen Arab armies and various militias over her borders with a genocidal intent and the end of what was considered an insult to the superiority, preeminence and invulnerability of the Islamic world. It took over a year before the fighting drew to an obvious stalemate and armistice lines were drawn, today known as the Green Line and the Blue Line. The Blue Line serves as the accepted border between Israel and Lebanon. The Green Line separates the Arab Palestinian disputed areas and Israel. It needs to be understood that the Green Line was demanded by the Arab League to never be considered or used as a border as doing so was tantamount to recognizing the existence of the Jewish State of Israel, an anathema to Arab and Muslim pride and self-respect. The original borders recognized by the United Nations and decided by the General Assembly defaulted to the Jewish State when the Arab League refused to accept the evenly divided United Nations map leaving the lands undivided to Israel (see maps below).

 

 

Left UN Partition Plan Resolution 181 Rejected by Arabs
Making Original British Partition Arab and Jewish Lands
as Only Standing Agreement Supported in 1921 Arab League
and Zionist Congress Backed by British Crown as Valid

 

If a President were ever to understand that Israel took the remainder of the lands and built a nation which is determined to not merely survive but thrive no matter the threats or challenges instead of believing the State Department line that the Jews stole Arab Muslim sacred lands, then he might actually try something more effective than the past failures. The Israelis desire peace but not at the expense of losing their nation and towards that end the promise of defendable borders needs to be the primary concern. The matter of Israel returning lands has been satisfied with the return of the Sinai Peninsula, an area many times the size of Israel itself, and the release of claims to Gaza which is now in the hands of murderous terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other smaller families and splinter groups pledged to Islamic State, al-Qaeda and potentially others. These groups receive funds from the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Qatar and other Muslim and Arab sources and are equally threatening Egypt as they are Israel. Another fact glossed over were the nearly one million Jews dispossessed by their Arab and Muslim rulers who predominately came to Israel as refugees with barely any possessions and instead of placing them in camps and demanding the United Nations develop an agency with the singular responsibility of caring for them and their children and their children’s children into eternity or until they were permitted return to their former nations, they were welcomed and became functioning members of Israel and are today as vibrant and accepted as are every Israeli citizen and enjoy full rights. Another item glossed over is the numerous minorities such as Arabs, Christians, Muslims, Baha’I, Buddhists and virtually any other religious groups one might name who all have full rights as Israeli citizens including holding elective office, education, working and all other aspects while Israel’s neighbors cannot make the same claim about their Jewish citizens as they have none and the Arab Palestinians demand that any lands they eventually steal from the original borders of the Jewish State be completely cleansed of its Jews or they will annihilate them. This was put on its full and most gory display when two Israeli reservists made a wrong turn and ended up in Arab Palestinians areas. They were placed in the city jail in hopes of keeping them safe until they might be returned but the townspeople had a different idea. The police fled the building leaving them locked in the cells and the keys on the desk surrendering them to the mob which literally tore them limb from limb with one young teen making a display to the screaming joyous shouts of the crowd outside with the picture captured by a media photographer and secreted out and made public on newscasts worldwide as seen below.

 

 

Teenaged Terrorists Displays Bloodied Hands Sending Crowd
Gathered to Witness or Take Part in Sacrificing IDF Reservists
Tearing Them Apart with Their Bare Hands

 

Numerous peace offers and concessions have been made by Israel in exchange for promises and steps to follow, leading to peace yet every offer is pocketed and then peace is never forthcoming as in the end the Arab Palestinians walk away keeping every offer making it the required starting point. This had led to the now demand that Israel surrender half of Jerusalem and possibly even remove entire cities and manufacturing parks which employ Arab Palestinians as well as Jews in a state of equality and the Arabs receiving higher pay than even the Palestinian Authority average government employee. These are cities built in area C which originally was presented as remaining as a part of Israel and the Palestinian authority was forbidden building within yet now European governments and the European Union are buying exclusively lands in this area, building and bringing in Arabs to place facts on the ground and to force Israeli surrender of these areas which will leave Israel as vulnerable as she was in 1967 at the start of the Six Day War. This will only guarantee the next war and this time Israel might not be as fortunate as modern weapons are in every army in their area and combined the Arab nations easily have Israel outgunned and way outnumbered. Such a conflict might come down to the occurrence of a miracle rivalling the splitting of the sea. President Obama and Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry have all demanded that the borders for Israel be based upon the 1949 Armistice Lines which the Arab League had demanded never serve as such. What has changed? The Arabs in numerous attempts have been unable to destroy Israel so they are now hoping to use this entity they invented of an Arab Palestinian different from their brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, parents and relatives in Jordan, Syria (or used to be in Syria), Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and beyond because they must be different so they can claim they are indigenous and thus have a claim to their reconstituted nation of Palestine. Problem is there has never been such a nation as we find out every so often when let slip the truth and one of the biggest was when in an interview where Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive committee member, in a March 31, 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw stated for the record:

 

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”
“For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
As stated by Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive committee member, in a March 31, 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.

 

 

Perhaps the above quote should become required reading for those astute State Department career bureaucrats just so they can continue to consider themselves up to date and educated in the ways and machinations of the Middle East. The State Department has treated Israel as the land from Never Neverland which should be erased for the sake of peace and perchance restore Israel to her intended borders as per their existence on that Shabbat morning of Saturday May 15, 1948. There will be the cries that there are five or six or, who knows, seven million Arab Palestinian refugees. What will be left out is that these “refugees” have been living in actual apartment buildings and forced to be separate instead of allowed to be part of their parent country and were originally only slightly less than two-thirds of a million actual refugees originally. Put into a reference which is more appropriate, they were a few hundred thousand less than the eventual numbers of Jews expelled or driven from their homes across the Arab and Muslim worlds of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and that a goodly number of them are in camps either in Jordan, the original Arab Palestinian land where three quarters of the population are considered to also be Arab Palestinians, Gaza mostly just outside Gaza City, and Area A of the West Bank right outside of Nablus where Mahmoud Abbas is having his pleasure palace, office of the President and troop barracks to keep him as President built (see picture below). Perhaps the original plan where the Arab nations were awarded for their almost defeating Israel and then losing all the lands back to Israel in successive wars to keep Area A and negotiate (but to be nice why not just surrender) Area B while Israel retains Area C as the Oslo Accords spelled out and end the whole affair and call it done. The disputed areas contained in Areas A and B were roadways which were to have shared usage but perhaps many of those could be easily surrendered as well and conditions made for Arabs in Areas A and B who already have positions in the companies remaining in Area C to keep such employment.

 

 

 

All of Jerusalem would remain as the Capital City of Israel, undivided, and open to people of every faith as it currently remains never to return to Islamic imperialism as was the case from 1948 until early June of 1967 when the Old City, Mount of Olives Cemetery and Temple Mount were liberated and forever to remain freely accessible to people of all faiths or even no faith. As for any Arabs who were considered Palestinians remaining in Area C or Jerusalem, they would be granted a path for Israel citizenship dependent on their refraining from terrorism by any family member or they could choose to have their property bought at a generous price and be granted a severance of residency awarded which would easily cover any moving and other relocation effects and be permitted to seek citizenship or residence outside of Israel with a promise to not return to Israel. Such individuals should be granted automatic residence in any Arab Palestinian state which emerges from Areas A and B in the future. Meanwhile the Palestinian Authority would remain as the ruling body until the framework for a real government will be forthcoming. If Mahmoud Abbas decides to continue as President for Life, well, that would be none of Israel’s business unless he also continued to instigate terror and allow attacks across the borders. That should be termed as a declaration of war and any persons crossing an international border to commit terrorist acts would face a military trial with potential capital punishment. That too should be stipulated though such should be understood. Any Arab Palestinians in camps should either be relocated to the Palestinian Areas or permitted to remain in their current apartments and be given a path to citizenship in the nation where they have already resided for two, three or even four generations. As for those driven from their camps after they joined the insurrection against Bashir al Assad, their lives have taken a dramatic turn and are now amongst the Syrian refugees and as indistinguishable as could be possible and many which may have survived are very likely somewhere in Europe seeking shelter and all that was sort of eluded to or promised by Angela Merkel and her fellow leaders in much of Scandinavia and Europe. We wish the refugees and their new found national homelands the best of luck in all things. Honest, we feel your pain but not enough to offer much else.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How to React When Your Societal World is Threatened

 

More often than not, when one finds their world under existential threats, the society under threat attempts to mollify the perceived grievances; if one were to be completely honest, something such societies are often found to be in short supply, the perceived grievance is their existence and the fact that the targeted society considers itself more enlightened and one that is superior often because it is so accommodating to the other, to almost every other even attempting to be accommodating to those who wish to supplant them. In the society under threat there will be those who will propose that the only way to survive is to be as ruthless and barbaric as those who wish to destroy everything they have. These people will be rejected and accused of being boorish brutes who are uncultured and have no ability to reason and that they are the reason the threat exists and if only they would tone down their alarmism and allow those with minds deal with the problems and find a solution where both sides get what they desire and both can then live in comfort and equality where both sides would enjoy enlightened lives in relative peace and understanding. How one is met halfway if their starting point is the eradication of one society’s way of life and entire social structure is beyond my meager intellect to compute exactly how much of the one society can be sacrificed that will allow those who are the destroyers to be satisfied that they have destroyed a sufficient amount of the other society that they are satisfied and no longer desire to destroy the entirety of the other society. Would allowing the destruction of one third do or must it be a fifty-fifty split or perhaps the others are truly energized and really hate the society and will only be satisfies with three-quarters of that society destroyed. If their intended goal is your total destructions, then guess what, only your total destruction will quench their blood lust. And this does not mean just the creature comforts and advanced luxuries and the trappings of your society, they probably also want everybody from your society dead or subjugated into servitude under their cruelest of conditions and little short of that will do to end their drive to smash everything you have built in a blood curdling frenzied lust for destruction of every last vestige of those structures and intricacies and comforts your society had afforded you.

 

There are numerous signs that such difficulties are headed your way as these things are rarely a complete surprise no matter how well you managed to ignore the signs, they were there and there were those who were screaming out warnings but the majority simply preferred to ignore the warnings and claim that this too will pass. When it is pointed out that these adversaries are talking of world conquest the majority of your society will laugh and chortle that nobody dreams of world conquest any more. Where that may be true in your all so egalitarian society where learned and studious men discuss the great moral debates of the day and all conflicts are mediated and violence is just so distasteful, world conquest went out with the two great world wars and died when the Soviet Union fell. Well, that did not end the numbers of people who dreamed of world conquest. There are still active Communist ideologues who believe in a world existing in a Communist Utopia run by, who else, them, of course. The Islamic Republic of Iran dreams of a Shiite Islamic world where all surrender before their rule and obey their edicts and nothing other than the Quran and the Sharia rule men’s lives and men rule all women’s lives and Allah rules all lives as they interpret the will of Allah and they who wear the robes and sport the longest of beards with the wild look in their eyes are to be obeyed as they are the ones who control the necks which fall before the executioners axe for the crimes of heresy. Even Kim Jong Un believes his version of Communist enslavement will eventually rule over all that remains of the world after North Korea amasses sufficient numbers of nuclear warheads and the ICBMs with which to deliver them over the entirety of the globe starting with the United States then Europe and on until he is stopped or all else have been vanquished. If you believe that there are none who believe they were chosen by heaven to rule the world you need read no further than the Hamas Charter and founding documents to realize even they believe they have been chosen by Allah to bring Sunni Islam to the world and be those who will be chosen and blessed to be in the catbird’s seat and be the ultimate deciders of everyone’s’ fates. The exact same dream is at the core of Islamic State (formerly ISIS), the Wahabbists, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iran, the Saudi Royals and probably countless others some of which would surprise many people including those who thought they knew the person and never suspected they held delusional thoughts that they were destined for world conquest.

 

There are always those who will claim they did not see it coming and will be upset that nobody sounded an alarm or warned of the dangers coming. These people have a long line of predecessors. There were those who claimed that the Norsemen who had boarded their ships and gone a Viking and had already raided the eighth village up the coast and then the seventh and then the sixth and suddenly the village is all up and arguing that the Norsemen gone a Viking would tire before reaching our village and they continued to claim this and even passed laws arresting those who would sew panic by building ramparts and digging ditches to aid in defending from an invasion which these leaders kept claiming would never reach their village as they were a safe distance up the river and that would protect them. These are the same leaders who will be pushing those who had warned and even been locked away for attempting to fortify the village and were released and sent to lead the defense against the men gone a Viking as they disembarked and were heading straight for the village. There was a similar disease called disbelief in the Middle East and eastern Europe claiming that the Mongols would bypass their city as their walls were too thick, too high or that their town held too little treasure or any of a myriad of reasons but when the dead bodies of the plague victim who were still alive when the trebuchet or catapult heaved them over those very same unsurmountable obstacles defending the city and the panic struck with people screaming and crying to those same incompetent leaders to save them and the leaders hid so as not to be thrown out the gates carrying as much of the city’s wealth in a futile attempt to appease the Mongols, but alas that never worked as the Mongols wanted more than the gold and jewels, they wanted the pleasure of conquest, the blood lust of battle, and the prizes won in the pleasures of the terrified women and the subservient men groveling at their feet begging for their lives, they were the first butchered as those who stood caught in their futile attempt to stay the Mongols or who rode out in defiance choosing what could possibly be called a good death as is it not better to die on one’s feet than on one’s knees?

 

The truth is that the leaders rarely see such troubles coming and it is not because they are honestly blind to the threat but because to address such troubles would assure they would be thrown from office and they are accustomed to the comforts for as long as it will last. Leaders are not those who seek challenges except in rare instances such as Churchill who seeing the buildup of the Nazi German war machine knew what lie ahead sooner or later thus he attempted to warn the people and the leaders. Anyone remember what happened to Churchill for all the warnings he attempted to provide? No, not leading Britain during the war but before war became thrush upon an unready British Isles? He was drummed out of office being called a warmonger and an old fool and virtually every other horrific name one could heap upon a man who had simply attempted to warn a people of the coming challenge and steel them for the war that was sure to come, it was only a matter of when and to what degree the Germans would have prepared. When the Germans rolled across the remainder of Czechoslovakia they would still have been easier to defeat than after they swarmed across half of Poland and sealed their eastern border with a treaty with an anxious Stalin who was not prepared for a war with Germany. Churchill’s final verbal fusillade to his noble members of the British Parliament after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Herr Hitler which was straight forward, to the point and true as he told them, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” There was far more indelible historical record of a man choosing the path of honor when those around him chose to ignore the threat and whose words are familiar to any student of ancient history or the study of war where the two famous quotes came at the shores of Thermopylae. When the Persian officer stood before the three-hundred Spartans and three to five thousand assorted Greek volunteers and demanded that King Leonidas and his men give up their arms and they would be allowed to live, his reply was simply, he exclaimed disdainfully and grinning without a doubt, “Molon Labe” or, “Come and take them.” Also, when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that the “Persians would fire arrows so numerous as to block out the sun,” his reply reflected the bravado of his King stating, “So much the better as then we shall fight our battle in the shade.”

 

Molon Labe When Demanded the Greek Spartans Surrender Their Arms King Leonidas Replied Molo Labe __ Come and Take Them

 

 

In this day there are very few who have the metal or bravado of King Leonidas or Winston Churchill though there are a few and one is also a great friend and supporter of Israel as praises her efforts and survival as being on the front line in the generational clash of civilizations which too many throughout the western world are in complete denial that there be such a problem and the real problem is their leader in the White House. The gentleman in question is retired Lieutenant Colonel and former United States Congressman Allen West who can be heard from his recent Times Square Speech below.

 

After these quotes from some of the bravest of men to have ever lived and after hearing a man who did everything to protect his men in Iraq even to the point where he committed an act that he knew as he did so that it would likely cost him his career if the commanders above him did not stand behind him, they did not. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West commanded the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq where he was losing men to IED (improvised explosive device), which work a lot like mines, at a rate he knew was unsustainable and starting to affect morale. One of the terrorists responsible for these devices and who Lieutenant Colonel Allen West knew had knowledge of where his men would be ambushed with an IED and the location of those making the explosive devices but he refused to respond to his interrogators. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West entered the interrogation tent and ordered everybody out of the tent leaving him alone with the captured terrorist where Allen West decided to try a new form of special interrogation and took his sidearm from its holster and raked a round into the chamber and discharged a round into a sand-bucket used to assure that weapons were not loaded during interrogations. The terrorist decided that he would rather not test Lieutenant Colonel Allen West’s patience further and provided all the information desired. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West returned to his office and called his superior and informed him of his actions. He then calmly briefed his commanders and they devised tactics and actions for the next day. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West in very short order was relinquishing his sidearm and his command and was soon forced from the service after twenty-two years’ service. He will always have the respect of his men and many other patriots and some, myself included, would follow him in an assault on hades if that were necessary. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West was elected to the United States Congress in Florida but when his district was joined into another with the advice of his own party, he lost a clearly rigged primary as he was not what one might call a party man who could be counted upon to vote the party line as he only would vote his conscience, and we cannot have such people in Congress as what might come next, integrity?

 

As any of the heroes from above would have advised, when somebody claims over and over year in and year out that their primary aim is to kill you and destroy your way of life that only fools and politicians refuse to believe their threats. Iran has been chanting for over thirty-five years, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and they continue to do so every Friday rain or shine. Despite that the political leaders in too many parties and places claim that these chants are made for domestic consumption and the Ayatollahs would never make good on these threats as they realize that by doing so they would be inviting their nation’s destruction. In all honesty, they will eventually try to make good on these threats and the deal recently reached set the clock ticking down to the inevitable date when they will finally have the ability to fully follow through on these threats. As Lieutenant Colonel Allen West stated, in the near future the deal just made by President Obama will make Iran an economic power and within five to ten years they will become a military power and between ten to fifteen years they will become a nuclear power and beyond that all bets are off and both Israel and the United States will be facing an Iranian monster capable of fulfilling those threats. Does the western world really desire playing Russian Roulette with Iran because if they do, I have news for them, they will be going first and in this game Iran is insisting they use an .45 cal. semi-automatic pistol which makes going first a guaranteed losing proposition. But still there are those in the western world who will be eager to join the Ayatollahs at the table and pick up that weapon and the obvious will result and the Ayatollahs will gladly continue to load one bullet into the .45 cal. semi-automatic pistol and handing it to their adversary from the west and allowing them the privilege of going first. If the leaders are as big the fools as many we have currently, they will gladly oblige. Unfortunately they will be taking all too many of us with them, so choose your votes carefully as your life does depend upon this.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

ISIS Revealed in Congressional Research Service Report

The news reports have depicted the relative ease with which the former al-Qaeda offshoot and now solo terrorist army ISIS has sliced their way clearing a large swath across the Sunni dominated central regions of Iraq from Mosul southward and now closing in on Baghdad. There have been comparisons between the ease with which ISIS forces have conquered areas which took the United States many long months to clear out and liberate. Some have even spent some time informing the readers that the ISIS troops are the reanimated remnants of those forces that the United States defeated in those very same areas during the surge and in other fighting. The commander of the ISIS forces is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of the persons held by United States forces and released in 2009 from the United States Camp Bucca which was located near Umm Qasr in Iraq. In many ways this story of his release is somewhat misleading and because of the date of his release there are those placing the blame on President Obama but because all of the detainees in Camp Bucca were transferred into Iraqi control by an agreement in 2008 others have placed the blame with President George W. Bush. So, what is the truth in this sordid mess? Well, neither of the two Presidents of the United States placed any hard restrictions against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi being released as he was not of any particular importance and did not hold a senior position or command any forces back in 2008 through 2009 so there was no particular reason to detain him over any other detainee. The people who did permit his release were the Iraqis so if anybody must be placed in the limelight for having released the man who has risen into the position of the most feared and potentially dangerous terrorist leader in the world, I guess it would have to be the same man who is now most threatened by his approaching forces, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Sometimes the natural order in which events play out do actually hold the guilty to be threatened when the rooster comes home to roost, or the terrorist leads his army to your doorstep.

 

This leads us to the report provided to Congress by their research arm, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on the present situation and probable future ramifications of the perceived threats. According to the June 20 report CRS asserts that, “Several leading representatives of the U.S. intelligence community have stated that ISIS maintains training camps in Iraq and Syria, has the intent to attack the United States and is reportedly recruiting and training individuals to do so.” Their report also quotes al-Baghdadi making a threat quoting his declarations where he stated, “Know, O defender of the Cross, that a proxy war will not help you in the Levant, just as it will not help you in Iraq. Soon, you will be in direct conflict, Allah permitting, against your will.” Back to the CRS report, it further states, “ISIS attempts to assert control over the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq’s Al Anbar province, and its June 2014 offensive in northern Iraq underscored the group’s lethality and ability to conduct combat operations and manage partnerships with local groups in multiple areas over large geographic distances.”

 

Retired Army officer and military analyst Robert Maginnis talked about how ISIS has prepared to execute such attacks in Western nations, especially within Europe and the United States stating, “It already has many hundreds of jihadists with Western nation passports. Those battle-proven jihadists will eventually return to their Western homelands to carry on the jihad using the violent ways learned in Syria and Iraq. And now that ISIS controls a giant swath of the Middle East, the Western jihadists have a training platform, financing and a cheerleading state sponsor.” Another pertinent set of comments came from spokesman for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby pointed out, “If you look at the map of Iraq, I mean, sort of the central swath going from north of Samarra around Tikrit all the way up to Mosul, that’s ISIS controlled territory, by and large, and we’re seeing them try to solidify those gains and to continue to threaten Baghdad. That’s kind of the general lay down.” In its conclusion, the CRS report stated, “The offensive in northern and central Iraq, led by the Sunni Islamist insurgent and terrorist group ISIS, has raised significant concerns for the United States. These concerns include a possible breakup of Iraq’s political and territorial order and the establishment of a potential base for terrorist attacks in the region or even against the U.S. homeland.”

 

So, what can be concluded from all of these commentaries, reports and other information? The most obvious item is that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has memories of his stay as a guest of the American military at Camp Bucca in Iraq and some of those memories are apparently not the most pleasant. We do not know and likely will never know whether or not he drew any special interest by the CIA and whether he had faced any special handling and questioning. Where the lack of any reported concern or importance being noted thus far we might believe that his detention was no worse or better than any other detainee. Still, al-Baghdadi has a real special hatred for the United States and appears to have special plans for vengeance or simply a strong desire for payback. We also can deduce that he is a person who is driven and knows how to accomplish the goals he sets for himself and those whom he leads and that his troops are highly motivated. As for their level of training, it has been obvious by the assaults made in Iraq and Syria by ISIS that the followers of ISIS are very well trained in explosives and the many forms of terrorist bombing techniques. As for their level of war fighting, we know they had no difficulty defeating the Iraqi military units they faced but reports of those confrontations said more about the lack of motivation and ability by the Iraqi military than they displayed any real abilities of the ISIS terrorist troops. With the dispatch of United States Special Forces trainers, intelligence personnel, logistics oversight and tactical officers, we can hope to see how well the ISIS units perform against determined and motivated military units. Unfortunately for the United States advisors and support personnel being deployed, I have my doubts about the efficiency and abilities of the Iraqi forces. The fact that tens of thousands of Iraqi troops stripped off their uniforms, threw down their weapons and abandoned their heavy weapons along with their armored vehicles and then attempted to blend in with the civilian surroundings does not bode well for the competence of the Iraqis. The cowardice displayed by the Iraqi troops could easily lead one to believe that there was some conspiratorial complicity between the Iraqi troops deployed in the Sunni areas and the ISIS forces which would permit the outright gifting of their equipment and other military assets to ISIS. The slaughtering of so many civilians and presumed troops does place such a theory into doubt and we will never know the truth as dead men tell no tales and those who survived will very likely not desire to present themselves as evidence or witness for fear of retribution from one side or the other.

 

We have also been granted a peek into the measures taken by the forces of ISIS and much of their looting and stealing of cash, gold, silver and other precious items from the banks and stores in Mosul depict well regulated troops who have very good intelligence and have a well figured set of protocols which will maximize their ability to gather funds which can be used to advance their cause and father them more advanced equipment and arms. We are not made aware if ISIS is receiving monetary assistance from the Sunni oil rich nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and others even if such funds were only provided for their efforts in Syria and against Iran and Hezballah. We are aware that they are fanatical and quite willing to murder anybody they meet who they determine are not as religious and devout as they would demand. This was made so very evident by the hundreds if not thousands that they had murdered claiming they had transgressed against Sharia. The one apparent sign of weakness has been the unwillingness or just plain lack of desire on the part of ISIS to tackle the Kurdish militias in the north beyond Mosul and the fact that the Kurdish units were capable of recapturing Kirkuk from ISIS forces. We do know the level of training and proficiency of the Kurdish Peshmarga, and their motivation is almost off the charts high and they have no intention in giving up one inch of the lands they currently hold and may very well prove to be the most proficient troops in fighting against the ISIS terrorists.

 

The other reality we have gained is that ISIS will try to find any means available to attack and injure the United States, both military and civilian targets. Should ISIS take control of a large segment of Iraq then they would have their own area which could act as an actual nation but a nation run by terrorist forces of ISIS much like Lebanon is currently run by Hezballah who have taken control of the government and now also run much of the Lebanese military units. In some ways the fact that Iran is now finding it necessary to fight to save Iraq from the ISIS terrorist military is a special form of payback as it was Iran who financed and assisted al-Qaeda, including the precursors for ISIS when these terrorists were fighting the United States forces during the American efforts in Iraq. So now it looks as if Iranian military forces will be required to fight against the very monster their government created in the efforts to cripple the United States after they overthrew Saddam Hussein. The one fear which should have the majority of Americans watching every deployment of United States military forces is the slow but steady increase of personnel into Iraq. They need to remember that Viet Nam started long before President Johnson escalated the deployment to the massive levels at the climax of the war in Viet Nam with advisors sent to simply train and provide intelligence by President Eisenhower in the late 1950s. The other disaster which at least currently does not appear possible would be the temporary unification between Sunni and Shiites bringing ISIS and Iran troops, including the Iran sponsored terrorists all in one large assault on the West in Europe and the United States. There has been evidence indicating that Iran has plans in place for attacks against the United States and now this evidence that ISIS shares that desire makes one wonder if these two might not simply work together in order to destroy the western nations and their technological advantages. With the United States currently appearing to be in remission, the possibility for these terrorist entities to cooperate increasing their relative strength may not be as impossible as the media would want us to believe. Even if it were the slightest of possibilities, it would be prudent to watch and be prepared should such an alliance be cobbled together, then seeking allies at the last minute would be too little too late. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” a truism stated by Thomas Jefferson.

 

Beyond the Cusp