Republican Distress Self-Inflicted

 

The Republicans appear to be in disarray and acting as if they are completely unaware of the fact that they control both houses of Congress and the White House and are in the catbird seat exactly as the Democrats were the first two years of President Obama’s two terms. They are capable of setting the rules in the Senate such that they would have sufficient votes to ensure cloture by requiring a mere fifty-two votes ending any filibuster. The Democrat use of the so-called nuclear option set the precedent for adjusting cloture to fit your needs when you have the majority in the Senate. Yes, doing so would allow for the Democrats to do similarly when they gain fifty-one seats in the Senate and who does not believe they would do exactly as such anyway. The Republicans instead are fighting with the White House declaring the President’s budget dead on arrival. This is a party in need of better leadership as currently they are wasting their first and possibly only opportunity to prove they are the better option by acting as a whole to enact their vision for the United States.

 

I hear people demanding what we would propose if we think we have the answer. Well, perhaps they could actually get everybody on the same page instead of having a different set of priorities for every twenty or thirty Republicans. They need to have the Senate choose ten Senators and the House of Representatives choose twenty-five or thirty Representatives and have these people meet with the President and each Cabinet member in a series of meetings taking a week out of their schedules. Initially the President on the first day along with his preferred advisors should meet with the delegations and set a general structure for the ensuing week or even two and have the President and everyone else at the meeting express their preferences and ideas and have them discussed in a general sense setting up a framework. Then they should have meetings with cabinet members and the President each morning and then return and meet with the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate each with their own chosen delegates such that everybody has some input and in the end they reach a consensus which is acceptable to the President and his Cabinet and advisors. Once this framework has been set, then the House of Representatives and the Senate can begin to work on the enactment of these ideas putting them into action. These agreed upon initiatives should be enacted through the House of Representatives and the Senate in quick order and signed by the President getting a basic set of accomplishments enacted and presented to the public as actual accomplishments in the next election cycle. If their ideas actually capture the minds and match the ideas of the population in the majority of the nation, then the Republicans can reap the rewards and press forward with even more action and accomplish what they promised in the first place.

 

President Trump National Security Advisor McMaster
Speaker of the House of Representatives Ryan
President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate Hatch

 

The first thing they need do is revamp healthcare. An idea we would like to suggest is to keep the choice parts of the current system adjusted to make them include competition between the many insurance companies. Much of healthcare need be taken from the employers and returned to the people such that their demand for the most and best options and the insurance companies need meet their hopes at an acceptable price, this will bring healthcare costs back down within reason. Further, the government need remove most of the regulations, reporting requirements and other unnecessary paperwork which has completely destroyed the concept of a single doctor working from their home in the neighborhood where their patients reside as had been the case before the government needlessly intervened and destroyed affordable healthcare. The government should only require that insurance policies cover major medical allowing people to decide to pay for any minor care out of their own pockets. The one idea which the government should make illegal would be controversial but in the long run would produce lower medical costs, and that is to make group policies illegal such that companies, unions, and other groups such as retirement groups or social groups from offering insurance to their workers or members. Make individual policies the sole type of health insurance allowed and only require minimal coverages. We suggest only what used to be considered major medical which would include emergency rooms treatment with a deductible, surgical procedures, any hospital or clinical procedures again with a deductible, and hospital stays with a deductible. The deductibles would depend on the cost of the coverage with the less expensive coverage having a higher deductible while there could be specialty additional coverages which would cover these deductibles but this should be banned from health insurers offering. Such a system would produce insurance affordable at any level such that younger and healthier people could take the risk of higher deductibles and with people paying for most of their own healthcare we would see prices become lower for most standard healthcare needs. The main way to cut healthcare costs would be to put a cap on rewards for malpractice suits and make one vital change, the lawyers losing any malpractice suit would be responsible for both sides’ court costs and lawyers’ fees within set limits. This would lead to fewer malpractice suits as lawyers would be very careful to only take such cases which they felt quite sure of their case and winning the case, period.

 

There are probably many other means for lowering court costs which we have not included which the Congress could enact. Removing regulations and paperwork would be one of the greatest means to relieve the burden on physicians who have had to form groups to defray the clerical costs imposed by both government and insurance companies who often are demanding additional paperwork simply because the government demands they file paperwork. Government is once again the greatest contributor to the costs of a commodity which they also demand everybody purchase. This is simply something the people’s need should have to accommodate and not employers or government as that is the current system which the people declared broken and becoming overly expensive with far too many forms. The government should never have the power to add costs beyond reason to an industry and then require the people purchase said product. As happened with car insurance, whenever the government demands people to purchase a commodity the price of such commodity will naturally skyrocket reaching the limit of what the people are capable to pay, not the actual required cost of the commodity. Simply ask yourself what would you charge for widgets if the government required every person to purchase one widget every month? You would price them set the highest price the market would bear rather than a competitive price because every other widget salesperson would be doing the same. The highest probability is all widget salespersons would agree to set an inflated price where all would become wealthy beyond what any normal competition would prevail had the government not required people to purchase your product. That is simple reality of life and not rocket science, or advanced economics. The proof of this theory has been the cost of health insurance since Obamacare hit the market. This is why competition must be returned to the health insurance markets and as much government involvement must be removed back to bare bones or less. No government involvement would be the most preferred state of healthcare. But first the Republicans need to unify and find some leadership which can work well with President Trump, both by leading when necessary and following when Trump is leading constructively. We can only hope.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Things We Need Know for After Inauguration

 

The mainstream media does have some useful information if one can stand reading long enough to glean something useful. What one need remember is the mainstream media is also the playbook, play caller, coach, quarterback, message board, megaphone and the best comical future picture painter imaginable for the extreme left and Democrat Party, though we repeat ourselves. Despite great agony and struggling through as many typos and misspelled words, we would like to think even more than we miss here at BTC; these are a few of the items we found.

 

The most important item which has been made clear in so many ways is that the Presidency of Donald Trump will have been the greatest disaster in American history. Once in office, President Donald Trump will have wasted the talent, what little there may be, of his Cabinet and anybody who is worth a plug nickel will have quit within the first six months, if not weeks or days, because they will find they cannot work with such a megalomaniacal dunce whose brightest ideas will be which club to use when playing miniature golf as he will not even be capable of playing real golf as well a President Barack Obama had. The American people will find that they miss having President Obama in the White House with his steady hand guiding the nation through peril after peril while a President Trump will be have been causing peril after peril. The predictions of disasters continued with the statement that President Trump will have started a war with China, Mexico, most of Europe, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, much of South America, possibly Canada and will be in bed with the Russians serving the demands and at the beck and call of Putin and being led around through Russian hackers feeding him information through Twitter posts. These were some of the highlights but there was far more.

 

The Congress will revolt against President Trump as the legislation he sends them will appear to have been written by one of the beauty queens from his pageant days or one of the fired apprentices. Congress will be forced to be the adult in the government and the Democrats are prepared to prevent President Trump from causing any real or serious damage to the standing of the United States in the world. The Democrats will follow through magnificently in their promise to protect the high standards set by President Obama in his dealing in foreign policy. The Democrats will have found many the Republican allies who also understand the need to protect the United States from President Trump and are prepared to block everything sent to Congress by President Trump (this one almost has a ring of validity even we must admit). There will prove to be many Republican lawmakers who will be adult enough to admit their party sent a man-child to do the grown-up job of president and will work to message this childish egomaniac’s feelings of self-worth by stroking his self-image while rewriting any legislation making it work for the people and help those who require government to assist them in managing their lives rather than giving the rich more wealth taken from the backs of the most needy. The idea that the wealthy can be enriched by taking wealth from the most needy has always baffled us as the most needy do not have sufficient wealth to even make the average American wealthier by any actual measure, let alone the wealthy. Of course we realize they really mean giving largess from the government coffers to the wealthiest rather than giving it to the most needy, though the government does appear to do a great amount of both. This can be seen in the fact that many on welfare have a decent apartment with air-conditioning, at least one television, more often than not at least one computer or game console, a microwave, cable television feed, Internet access and most have at least one vehicle. This is about average for a middle class family back in the 1970’s had with obvious changes due to technological advancements. Let us return to what we found in the media, mostly online versions of print media.

 

By the end of President Trump’s first year even the most stalwart Republicans will have fallen in line with bringing impeachment against the President simply out of abject fear he is on track to force the next world war, had proven dangerously reckless with threats of using nuclear weapons and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will have reportedly had to step into the breach and invalidate Presidential orders to launch nuclear missiles. The similarities of the accusation for President Trump once in office to start wars, infuriate adversaries and allies alike and threaten the future existence of the world through madly wild and careless use of nuclear weapons as a threat and actually attempting to launch nuclear missiles to be similar but even more over the top than the predictions made about Ronald Reagan after he won the election and both before and while he was in office. The madness the mainstream media is predicting can only be found in rare old movie plots where somebody goes off their rocker and orders nuclear weapons use such as in the movies “Failsafe” and “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” The ever more hyped predictions of doom are only exceeded by the forlorn lamentations over the fact that President Obama is not permitted to continue in office and remold the United States as had the nearly four terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These discussions almost universally then diverge into discussions of how had President Obama run against Donald Trump how Barack Obama would have won in the largest and most humiliating landslide even beyond President Reagan. Some even add how had Bernie Sanders won the primaries, then he too would have cleaned Donald Trump’s clock easily gliding to victory. And then we get the Russians stole the election for Donald Trump and from there we find ourselves back in the Donald Trump will simply be the puppet of Vladimir Putin and he will be the Manchurian Candidate preprogrammed by Russian hackers to do Putin’s bidding. Those Russian hackers are good if they can reprogram people wirelessly, or is it Donald Trump is a Russian built android sent to run the United States for their needs? That is about the only stories not found in the mainstream media, yet.

 

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

 

With all this, there will be wild speculation on how the world and the nation of the United States will be dependent upon Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and just about every proper-thinking American working tirelessly to protect the nation from the inevitable debacles which will be coming from the White House and raining ruin everywhere if not checked. This presumed future is then compared with the glory which was President Obama who for eight long and challenging years arduously and tirelessly worked to prevent the economic collapse of the world (or was it universe) and prevent ever more wars and so gloriously earned that Nobel Peace Prize and was worthy of so many more honors. We are forewarned how we will be shell-shocked by the bald faced incompetence of the incoming President and how his Cabinet will resemble a three ring circus after the initial appointees realize that President Trump is merely using them as window dressing and targets on which to place the blame when President Trump’s harebrained ideas explode on contact with reality. I guess that hope that things would return to normal with the United States playing a steadying role in the world are simply pipe-dreams as the media has explained in gruesome details. The United States presumably is about to crash and burn under President Trump as compared to the glorious years under President Obama’s tutelage.

 

All this pessimism demands we give our idea as to what is coming after January 20, 2017. Unfortunately, the initial actions of a Trump Presidency are dependent upon what outgoing President Obama does in the next days leading up to noon of Inauguration Day. We really do mean up until noon on that day and perhaps past if the ceremony takes place minutes late as is usually the case. Should President Obama take a Paris conference accord proposal for the establishment and invention of an Arab state called Palestine carved from the lands legally belonging to Israel and without Israeli consent and signature on a treaty, then President Trump will have a difficult task facing him immediately after taking office. Should President Obama have his co-conspirators bring a Chapter Seven Resolution declaring Palestine a reality with full Statehood recognized by the UNSC with the Green Line (the 1949 Armistice Line between Jordan and Israel demarking the front lines and the Israeli lands illegally occupied by Jordan) then President Trump will need coordinate with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a response and course of action to overturn the decision. This will be possible and an eventuality as such a resolution, Chapter Seven or any other manner of resolution, is illegal as it breaks the United Nations Charter Article 80 which recognized all the demarcations and wordings of the Mandate System and all other resolutions in effect from the League of Nations. This makes the Jordan River the eastern border of the Jewish State of Israel. That is the international law recognizing the Israeli eastern border and there is no mention whatsoever of any Arab entity or Nation west of the Jordan River. This was also the reason behind an Egyptian Justice who sat on the International Court of Justice when the UNGA requested a ruling on the Security Barrier Israel had erected to prevent further suicide bombers and other terrorism. The barrier accomplished much of what it was intended to accomplish and the ICJ did not demand it be removed. As noted yesterday, the Honorable Justice El Araby warned the UNGA and others that filing further ran some risks, as he stated,

 

“The international legal status of the Palestinian Territory (paras. 70-71 of the Advisory Opinion), in my view, merits more comprehensive treatment. A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently side-stepped. The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain.”

 

Beyond this, President Trump has already indicated he will work towards repeal of UNSC Resolution 2334 recently passed under Chapter Six due to the United States efforts behind the scenes and their blatant determination to injure Israel punishing her because she refused to roll over and die when demanded to do so by President Obama and his team during the Iran farce of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and their drive for nuclear weapons parity with the United States or, at the least, Israel as well as only complying with most but not every demand for concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) while the PA simply sent more requests for concessions for the President and State Department to draw out of Israel. This was payback for the lack of subservient compliance with edicts from upon high, or at least the second floor of the White House.

 

Then there are the promises made by candidate Trump which a President Trump will need to deliver. The first and biggest is tax reform. Trump made some bold statements for initiatives for tax reform. His plans realize that all taxes are actually paid by the people and that such taxes as sales tax and taxes on businesses and industry are simply folded into the price of products which serves two counterproductive results, first the increased price makes United States products priced from the world market where if the prices were more competitive with the other nations, especially those which subsidize their industries generously making United States products unaffordable by comparison and second the higher price hurts the middle and low income people the most as they are paying the taxes and fees. Removing taxes on industry and businesses will make for lower prices on products and slower rate of inflation as sales beyond the border will increase simply due to this one tax being eliminated thus allowing for increased production to meet the new demand which will provide more jobs and eventually rising wages as employment reaches higher percentages as there will be increasing demands for workers. Second the simplification of the income tax levels making them generally lower across all salary ranges and the reduction of claimable deductions will make taxes more fair as with fewer deductions the wealthy will have fewer shelters from income taxes and thus will be paying tax on greater percentages of their income though the lower rate will make this reality less painful for most. Finally, lowering Capital Gains taxes will result in more fluidity in the investment business which will allow the movement of investments to more promising industries and will subsidize innovations. The resetting of Capital Gains such that it does not penalize investors moving funds from one investment to another facilitates start-up companies as there will be more funds available from which to get seed monies invested. Hopefully the congress will resist any urges for recalcitrance and the Republican majorities can show spine and certitude of their convictions and enact the changes to the tax codes and systems.

 

Repeal of Obamacare will be another big challenge as there are some vested interests and too many of those sit in congress. Obamacare grants power over healthcare and its being provided to the people and despite the refusal of Democrats to admit there are established committees which will decide when a person is no longer a viable contribution to society and thus will receive only the most marginal of healthcare and will not receive any life prolonging treatments which are expensive as such high priced care is out of the question. These health panels are not referred to as death panels but that is one of the functions they provide. Still, there are some provisions of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act (ACPPA) such as the provision which makes denial of insurance due to preexisting conditions is liked by most as the provision for retaining children under their parents’ insurance through age twenty-six appeals to young adults as well as parent with children in college or graduate school seeking advanced degrees. On the other hand, insurance companies are finding the ACPPA to be a disaster and many are pulling from providing insurance under the law. What need be is return much of the pricing of insurance and the setting of levels of coverage by different plans instead of a one size out of three or four is all you get. The ACPPA also demands certain items be provided coverage and everyone must include such items in their plans. Prenatal care is no more universally necessary as people over sixty have little use for prenatal care just as people who will be having children usually do not need assisted living coverage. Allowing for the tailoring of insurance plans to fit the individual would allow for greater coverage at reasonable prices. All that is actually required for near universal coverage would be a few simple requirements. First and of great importance is all plans covering hospital care past two or three days of being hospitalized with full coverage costing additionally, what used to be called major medical care while leaving routine care payments the responsibility of the patient, prescription drug minimal plan which would cover the price of medications after a minimum is cleared or a set percentage and priced accordingly, and there have to be other such items which would represent minimal coverage or the base plan. Then insurance companies can offer different plans or even a cafeteria style insuring where you choose exactly the parts you desire with price breaks for say every five items granting a percentage in savings. The final item is portability, the ability to take your health insurance across state lines, from one job to the next and other similar challenges. By having employers provide a healthcare bonus if they desire rather than their providing their idea of a great plan for their employees, this too would bring down the general cost of health insurance and could also slow the increases in healthcare costs.

 

This should be sufficient start of ideas to chew upon. Our final item is about how the atmosphere and entire mood of the media has changed since the election. First we have the panicking over the rise in “fake news stories” which have appeared of late. What is most amazing about the “fake news stories” is that many are carried by the mainstream media and not alternative media as much. Another anomaly is that much of the “fake news stories” come from leftist sources and are amplified as they spread across platforms and blogs take these “fake news stories” as being real news and thus making themselves less credible for using what they thought was actual vetted news as they found it in the New York Times, Salon or other such news sources. The uproar over “fake news stories” coming from the media was confusing until we found that there have been a number of nations, the United States and Germany, which have set in place a Department of Information which is designated the ultimate source for real news and for debunking “fake news stories” printed and placed before the public. We gave this deeper coverage in a recent article titled, “The Emergence of Departments of Official Government Truths”. There has also been a resurgence, a rediscovery even, in the fact that there are homeless people and greater care for our mentally challenged citizens who all too many are left out on the streets. Crime rates have become an issue as has any even hint of hate crimes. The greatest fake news and hate crime combination has been the Great Hijab Crime Wave we discussed where a series of Trump supporters attacking, taunting or otherwise belittling and intimidating young college women on university campuses who were wearing a hijab which apparently caused these white males to turn into vicious and demanding monsters. All of the stories proved to be unsubstantiated and were retracted by the very women who brought them forward. Then there are all manner of societal ills which we have not seen coverage of for the past eight years which are creeping back into the new and we can expect the floodgates to fly open on January 20, 2017 in such ferocity that these reports will seem to be as manufactured as the “fake news stories” have struck. Hold on, it is going to be a wild ride going forward, but let us hope we actually do go forward and not flying off into some dark hidden side track which leads to someplace nobody knows for sure.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Islamic Hierarchy Should be the Target as Well as ISIS

 

Is Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or al-Qaeda offshoot) honestly that horrific a threat and challenge that it should be treated as an individual threat needing a solution before any further assessment can be conducted? If you were to make this an inquiry of the United States State Department, they would answer in the affirmative and probably make Islamic State the sole terror threat requiring attention. Pose this same question to the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their answer would place Islamic State as the immediate threat but would follow that up with a litany of other threats hiding in the background, in the darkest of recesses. So, which assessment is the most accurate and which should be utilized to address future actions. Obviously the Pentagon assessment is more in depth while the State Department takes a mere cursory glance seeking the least invasive path and the least need for involvement having a minimal footprint. This demands further explanation more as to why the Pentagon explains a path which is far deeper and requiring greater invasive solutions and the State Department leaves most of the problem unaddressed and untouched. The reasons are simple and would be obvious to any observers. The Pentagon is funded by the width, depth and breadth of a threat and gains funding and importance through greater involvement. The State Department gains funds by having obscured threats which it can assign staff to investigate and report threats in such a manner as to allow them to linger, requiring greater inspections over the longest time frame. Thus any military assessment should be judged knowing their report will make the threat the greatest potential possible while State Department assessment should be realized to define the situation calling for minimal involvement in order to preserve the situational threat generating further investigations. The best path would more often than not be somewhere between the two assessments.

 

So, what do these realities have to do with Islamic State? A fair analogy would be somebody waking one morning feeling poorly and upon looking in the mirror they notice there are red blotches all over their face and further checking they find more such red blotches all over their bodies. Reacting to these skin lesions they make an appointment with a physician. The question becomes what type of physician they should call. The initial assessment is the patient has a skin condition so they might make an appointment to visit a Dermatologist and treat the skin ailment while ignoring the underlying disease. The result is the patient will remain ill and would need visit the dermatologist repeatedly while if they had visited an Internal Medicine Doctor they quite possibly would have been admitted to a hospital and undergo a more rigorous cure than they would receive from a Dermatologist but would also be cured. Simply put, if you have the measles you do not visit a dermatologist, you visit a doctor of Internal Medicine. The State Department is the Dermatologist and the Internal Medicine Physician would represent the Military. So, the military will present a harder path with the greatest potential challenges you will be presented with and some painful choices need to be made. The State Department provides for a simple and immediate repair of a situation while leaving the underlying problems churning away and no difficult choices would be necessitated. So, the path you choose will likely be somewhere between the two, which one you follow more closely will dictate the level of curative actions and their lasting effects.

 

Making war on Islamic State is a requirement of immediate urgency, President elect Donald Trump will need answer the riddle of how far does he wish to peel back the onion. A fully committed military campaign to destroy Islamic State presence in Syria and Iraq could be executed taking no longer than three or four months. The time it would take would depend on how ruthless and how close to barbarism the military forces will be permitted by their Rules of Engagement (ROE). The obvious problem with such tactic is that such a solution does little to permanently change the situation. When choosing civility while fighting barbarians, one makes leaders and financiers unaffected, they will just wait for the opportunity and start right up anew. The sponsors must be made to pay a price, even to threats on their lives, before anything will change. This was proven in all theaters of World War II where German leaders needed to be hunted down even to the last bunkers in Berlin and the Emperor of Japan had to be convinced the allies could utterly destroy his nation without losing any of their military forces. This has also been proven in the current “War on Terror” where we are treating the rash and ignoring the disease.

 

By now most Westerners realize the problems caused by terrorism and the threat posed by Islamic State. Where many fall down is in linking the two problems and realizing that these two problems though often unrelated directly, both have a root cause and any logistics, funding, know-how or other support for both are derived from the same pool of sponsors. The source for both terrorism and Islamic State come from the various wealthy and powerful governing entities throughout the nations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and the infrastructure put in place utilizing the tribal make-up of the society often pitting one tribe against another tribe in order to procure additional power and a broader area from which to operate. Should one trace the cash flowing into the coffers of Islamic State one would see a trend that the same monies also fund the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, al-Qaeda and other Sunni terror masters and their operations. Much of the funding originates in or by those close to the Saudi Royal family as well as graft skimming funds from government funding by Egyptians and other Sunni ruled nations supporting the Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood, forces worldwide. There also exists an extensive Shiite terror networks which is not quite as expansive but still a very real threat. These groups are financed, organized and run by the Iranian government and the Grand Ayatollah (Arabic:آية ‌الله العظمی) and Supreme Leader of Iran. The leadership of these terror forces controlled by Iran starts with the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) who incorporate the leadership of Hezballah and oft time Hamas as well. The reach by Iran is not as diffused as are the disparate Sunni terror forces. Much of the reason behind this is simply numbers. The Sunni make-up slightly over four-fifths of Muslims worldwide while the Shiites find themselves around a mere 17% of Muslims worldwide thus Shiite power structure by necessity must be more centralized and rigid while the Sunni can easily create anywhere from three to five separate groups.

 

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC

 

What people in the United States need know is that the current fighting between Islamic derived forces and the Western forces, particularly in and around the Mediterranean Sea is just the latest stage in the war with the Barbary Pirates. Truth be told, the European interests back to around 632 onto the current age have felt constant rumblings of discontent filled by dreams and desires to return to their ages of conquest and swallow Europe as they have tried before only to meet a standoff or complete defeat as was Andalusia, as was Spain. Much of the march of Islam colonizing the entirety of MENA has been accomplished by Sunni though there have been Shia heroes through the ages. Still, this fight to choose the ultimate ruler, the single Caliph who talks the talk but all are curious if one can be found who additionally walks the walk. Despite gaining a sizeable following and demanding he be recognized as Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not become the Caliph restoring the Caliphate as the requirement is a vast stretch of lands which are individually owned and most have real air power which would decimate any ground assault not possessing sufficient air cover, something which likely plagues al-Baghdadi day and night and he likely dreams of having sufficient fighters and the people to launch adequate air support. The Arab and Islamic worlds are far too tribal and fragmented each refusing to particularly perform feats of great valor and have somebody outside your team ending up with all of the glory. The tribal overriding thought power need be abandoned should Islam ever desire to become great again and have yet a second sense of glory and accomplishment. Such an accomplishment will take a true Caliph, one such as the last Imam, the one who leads the final conquests leading to an Islamic World running under Sharia, the Islamic Code of Laws as preached by Mohammad and the original force.

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and into Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

There are realities which must be faced and faced immediately. Before there can be progress the new President already has a large pair of conflagrations he need work out a solution which will probably require a fair number of military service personnel. A President Trump must use all the forces at his disposal in order to remove Islamic State from the picture. After this has been accomplished the next task will be forming a governance or set of governances such that Libya becomes a normative entity capable of trade with the world which will bring wealth to these governing bodies and the people as well. Once Libya has been resolved and returned to viability it will become time to deal with Russia and do similar for Syria. Russia will press for the entire area be returned to Bashir al-Assad while the remaining “rebel” forces will protest loudly and just as vehemently as they have all along. Meanwhile, a refuge for the Kurdish population will necessarily be needed while Turkey and her President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are edging towards conquest and taking lands formerly belonging to both Syria, a lifelong enemy, and Iraq, whose Saddam Hussein had stashed thousands of barrels of nerve agent and other chemical and nuclear weaponry in an attempt to evade justice. Erdoğan’s hopes and dreams of reestablishing the Ottoman Empire will be muted. Once again all these solutions do little to nothing about remedies for the tribal alliances and primitive culture which keeps the nations of MENA suffering while other nations quite distant as in the Horn of Africa and as far east as Pakistan and Afghanistan are all experiencing national traumas from forces at the tribal area. These problems were exasperated by the imposition of the Sikes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which set arbitrary borders, making self-rule all but impossible. Sikes-Picot ignored tribal alliances and clan structures splitting these entities between three nations in some cases and two at others which simply added wood to the fire. Sikes-Picot also redrew the maps of Eastern Europe breaking up the Austria-Hungarian Empire. All of this eventually led to World War II and has set in motion the potential for a third shooting war, World War III. The problem is amplified with the knowledge that Eastern Europe is also facing economic distress along with threats from Russia to incorporate them back under soviet style land and they wish to remain free.

 

These areas are powder kegs just waiting for the fire from a mistakenly tossed match or misread of any situation to have the entirety of these places to sheepishly huddle under Russian wings. The United States lack of influence throughout the MENA area as well as the entirety of the globe for the last eight years has left foreign policy in such turmoil as to provide room for threats from all sides and levels. The world, and the United States and allies in particular, are facing an invigorated Russia, a China willing to manufacture Islands in order to further their goal of taking certain Islands which they claim as have other nations. These threats are backed by a new and proficient fleet China is building, a worthy blue-water fleet. Add to this the dual threat of a nuclear armed North Korea who has already developed and tested a number of nuclear warheads and appears to be attempting to manufacture an EMP device to knock out the power grid in North America thus neutering the United States military and causing widespread death. Along with North Korea we also will be facing a nuclear armed Iran who has the missiles with advanced guidance and range capabilities with which to deliver them. Once Iran is confirmed to have nuclear weapons one can safely assume that Saudi Arabia will call in their markers for their financing of the Pakistani bomb thus instantly becoming a nuclear armed nation as well. After this the proliferation across all of MENA will likely occur with blinding speed. From that point the rest of the world will be rapidly acquiring nuclear weapons and from there to annihilation of the human race is a short trip and it all might take place in a blink of an eye. It is truly sobering realizing how so very close we are from slipping beyond the cusp into a reality even Hollywood was unable to imitate believably.

 

The race now is to educate and bring the third world somewhere even with the advanced world. By this we mean to teach them from our mistakes such that the world benefits. These newly acquired nuclear capabilities must be impressed not to use them for the sake of humanity. At the same time the world need share its many secrets and the desire to go into space beyond just the solar system but to other star systems even beyond our cluster setting out to truly become a space-born people. That need be our goal if we plan on being a long lived species. I guess we will soon know if the Earth will become the origin of a truly enlightened space based society or will the Earth need await the next great catastrophe to rid it of a stagnant humanity so another intelligence reaches senescence and go off into space and be the long lived Earth born species.

 

Beyond the Cusp