Israel is the Nation in Need of a Constitution

 

Israel is not going to change all that soon as the thirty to fifty people who run the nation are quite happy to fiddle while things slowly burn down. Part of the problem, and it is a large share, is that over half of those who run the government are not elected but all but self-appointed. There are the Justices who sit on the Supreme Court and the Attorney General, The Supreme Court selection for replacing a retiring Justice is one of, if not the, item which should top the list of systems which require change. Currently the Supreme Court Justices are chosen by a committee consisting of nine members. These are the Justice Minister who acts as the Chairman, a Cabinet Member chosen by the Cabinet, a Pair of Knesset Ministers usually one from the coalition and one from the opposition, two members of the Bar Association and finally the Chief Justice and two other Supreme Court Justices who are often chosen due to seniority. This starts to look like a conspiracy to continue the same policies with no real ability to alter the path when one additionally looks at the committee for selection of the Attorney General which consists of five members; a retired Supreme Court Judge, a former Justice Minister or Attorney General, a Knesset Minister tapped by the Constitutional Affairs committee of the Knesset, an attorney chosen by the Israeli Bar Association, and one legal expert chosen in the subjects of civil and criminal law chosen by the heads of the university law schools in Israel. When all it takes to select a Supreme Court Judge is five votes and three are cast by current Justices, one vote from the current Attorney General who is themselves appointed on the advice partly of a retired Supreme Court Judge, a former Justice Minister and an attorney from the Bar Association and you have what can be conveniently called an echo chamber and it becomes sufficiently evident why the Supreme Court votes almost to the Justice exactly the same as the Supreme Court has since its inception. Add to that the interpretation of the law such that the Justices operate under the auspices of the concept that everything and anything may be brought before the Supreme Court for a final decision.

 

One interesting thing is the Israeli Supreme Court consists of fifteen Justices where one could fairly say that the majority, vast majority, are left leaning or so far left the middle ground cannot be seen through the fog and rose colored glasses. The Supreme Court may appoint any number of judges to hear cases often with as few as three to as many as all fifteen for the most serious of cases brought to the court. Further, for the decade from 2000 through 2010 the Israeli Supreme court heard over 11,000 cases each year. The Israeli Supreme Court can be petitioned directly to hear a case without having it first heard in a lower court. This process is abused by NGOs, often NGOs registered in Israel but primarily funded by foreign governments. Quite often if an NGO states as its aim to serve the support and importance of human rights and/or the rights of minority and oppressed peoples, then you can bet that NGO is financed by the European Union, European governments and foreign NGOs so as to conceal their actual financiers. In any other Western Democratic or Republic such NGOs are required by law to be registered as foreign agents and are not granted official standing as an NGO representing that nation. Israel has twice passed such legislation only to have these very same NGOs bring suit in the Supreme Court where the laws were shot down and nullified. One need keep in mind that the Knesset input in selecting Supreme Court Judges is minimal when one remembers that should the opposition Knesset Minister vote with the Chief Justice and two other Supreme Court Justices and any one of the Bar Association lawyers that makes five votes and the judge has been appointed. The Prime Minister gets no real input and the Knesset does not need to ratify the choice, or simply put, the people have little if any influence on the Justices sitting on a court which has ruled that it can strike down any law, rewrite any law and all but, and possibly including, write laws they feel are necessary or would further empower the Judiciary over the remainder of the government and the people. We have also seen instances where the heads of the Police forces have banned people from visiting areas of the country including the currently extended ban forbidding Ministers of the Knesset from ascending to the Temple Mount. There was a recent case where the Security Shin Bet under the guise of investigating a crime rounded up teens and young men as young as twelve and held them without legal counsel at a secretive location refusing to allow their parents information about their child and used what in many nations would be considered at the least coercive measures and at the extreme torture to try a force confessions from youths they knew were innocent but whose suspected political leanings were not to the head of the Shin Bet’s liking.

 

One young man was held for almost ten months, refused to be permitted to attend his first son’s birth, ritual bris (circumcision), and whose major crime was supporting the Hilltop Youth, a group of youths who support nationalist and Zionist policies and desire a return to Davidic Rule, have never committed an act against the government, most serious offense they commit is camping out and building rudimentary outposts on hilltops overlooking trouble spots which are less dangerous when being surveyed by these youths. The young man in question though had committed a grievous crime, Meir Ettinger committed the crime of being the grandson of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a Zionist and Nationalist Rabbi who argued for his causes and predicted the future extremely accurately before being struck down in New York City after giving a talk. His murderer was acquitted as his act of assassination was seen by the Jury as justifiable as the Rabbi had “extremist views” deserving of being shot. These “extremist views” were best expressed as “Am Yisroel Chai” (עם ישראל חי) , the People of Israel Are Alive, and he also continued the cry of “Never Again” which is a chanting that means the Jews will not go silently to their deaths ever again and murdering Jews will have a price. As was known by even the average Israeli who pays attention to anything political, Meir Ettinger and his friends in the Hilltop Youth were innocent of any wrongdoing and they were hauled in, denied council, denied parental access, held in a secretive location, arranged orders to allow stressful interrogation and extreme interrogation techniques and were sleep deprived for up to three days until their bodies shut down from exhaustion, placed in uncomfortable position, stripped of clothing and made to sit in metal chairs and even denied to have showers or change of undergarments. This was beyond anything used on actual terrorists who when denying and refusing to cooperate have been released for lack of evidence while here their evidence was they knew these kids were guilty of something even if it was not what was being investigated.

 

Another problem are the Basic Laws, laws passed by a simple majority just as any other legislation but deemed special and thus take their place as part of an ever growing excuse for a Constitution. Most of the Basic Laws were passed from 1948 through the early 1960s when Israel was an agricultural socialist society with many Israelis residing on communal farms. These Basic Laws have their place but as they can be amended, refuted, and new ones passed should the Knesset decide any law passed belongs incorporated into the Basic Laws such that they tend to lose their importance and meaning as they can be rescinded by a simple majority vote. Then there is the problem that the Supreme Court can also decide which ones can be amended, removed, added, deleted, twisted, beaded, braded, twisted, spindled and mutilated at will by a majority vote of the Knesset or orders from the Supreme Court. This again placed the judges of the Supreme Court as the ultimate rulers of the land and the Supreme Court had granted the Supreme Court absolute authority over all parts of everyday life including silencing us if they so choose to do so as it was Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak (August 13, 1995 to September 14, 2006) stated that all things are in his writings some of the following:

 

Aharon Barak, “Judicial Philosophy,” pp. 477 and 485

In my eyes, the world is filled with law. Every human behavior is subject to a legal norm. Even when a certain type of activity-such as friendship or subjective thoughts-is ruled by the autonomy of the individual will, this autonomy exists, because it is recognized by the law…. Wherever there are living human beings, law is there. There are no areas in life which are outside of law.

 

Barak, “The Constitutional Revolution,” p. 30

The basic values of Judaism are the basic values of the state. I mean the values of love of man, the sanctity of life, social justice, doing what is good and just, protecting human dignity, the rule of law over the legislator and the like, values which Judaism bequeathed to the whole world. Reference to those values is on their universal level of abstraction, which suits Israel’s democratic character, thus one should not identify the values of the state of Israel as a Jewish state with the traditional Jewish civil law. It should not be forgotten that in Israel there is a considerable non-Jewish minority. Indeed, the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state are those universal values common to members of democratic society, which grew from Jewish tradition and history.

 

Barak, “Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation,” p. 208

When the attempt fails, and the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state cannot be reconciled with its values as a democratic state, there is no escape from the need to decide. This decision must be made, in my opinion, according to the views of the enlightened community in Israel. This is an objective test, which refers the judge to the full set of values which shape the character of the modern Israeli.

 

Barak, “The Constitutional Revolution,” p. 34

If up until now judges were given “conventional weapons” to deal with legislation by way of interpretation and the creation of Israeli common law, now judges have been given “nonconventional weapons,” which allow nullification of legislation which does not observe the Basic Laws’ criteria.

 

This was a definitive part of Aharon Barak’s judicial philosophy which devolved, not developed, as his tenure on the courts and in practice where he gained contempt for the Zionistic, nationalist conservative swing the people of Israel took over his lifetime. The gaining of a distinct and traditional Jewish, and in many cases Israelite, determination and movement from secularist to a religious Zionistic populace where he saw the only way to salvage the utopian leftist dream was for ultimate power to be vested in the Judges which by their manner of selection remained stuck in 1958 Israel with its collectivist society and socialist governance could be maintained even if that required the judges to decide on each law if it should stand or be struck down or even rewrote to the judicial review standards which precluded change. His view of such is further described as we continue.

 

United Mizrahi Bank, p. 352

With legislation of [the new Basic Laws] a substantial change occurred in the status of human rights in Israel. They have turned into constitutional rights. They have been given supra-legal constitutional status. A “regular” law of the Knesset cannot change them. Regular legislation cannot infringe a protected human right unless the demands set out in the Basic Laws are met. Nonobservance of the constitutional demands turns the regular statute into an unconstitutional statute. This is a statute which bears a constitutional flaw. The court can declare its invalidity.

 

There is this infamous quote often attributed to Barak is that “everything is adjudicable,” which was often presumably the motivation and empowering ideal through which the meaning was taken that the High Court should be able to rule on any matter, including cases involving Israeli military activity in Judea and Samaria and breaches of civil liberties, and not just on issues relating to national laws. Even if Aharon Barak had not stated such, the courts in Israel today, and especially the Supreme Court, are acting as such and seldom refuse a case where they are the sole practitioner of whether legislation passed duly by the representatives of the people who instructed the members of the Knesset with their support to produce legislation as an unwritten contract bound in the ballot box now sits beneath the raised gavel which determines whether or not the people and their elected officials are capable of self-governing or are they merely children who have no right to address the issues of the day as they see fit. This is why it is long past time for the Knesset to appoint a select committee, they may wish to make sure the Supreme Court does not get wind of this as they would strike down the committee as a threat to the state and its omnipotent judiciary, and direct them to draft a Constitution based on the theories of limiting the power for a King such that he collects no amassed wealth and must serve the people faithfully and beyond their best abilities. A solid Constitution which places all before the people’s elected officials to decide and limits judges except in the most drastic and obvious of errant departures into forbidden grounds protected by the constitution and not the will of the adjudicator, are left to apply the law faithfully and with the intents of the people. A Constitution which places the police, military and secret services under civilian control and where any officers or enlistee speaks out defaming the state or its elected and appointed individuals which are empowered by the people is punished under codes of proper conduct for military personnel in uniform or representing the State. The Knesset should remain as the house which appoints the Prime Minister but the second half of the legislature should be directly elected by the people. The nation of Israel could be divided into proper districts. These Israeli Voting Precincts for Upper House might be considered as the Negev, Jerusalem & Area, Coastal Plain & Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, Sharon Valley, Western Galilee & Mt. Carmel, Sea of Galilee & Valleys, and Upper Galilee & Golan with each receiving with Five Seats Each for forty seats plus, Three Super Districts; The North (Western Galilee & Mt. Carmel, Sea of Galilee & Valleys, and Upper Galilee & Golan), Central (Jerusalem, Sharon Valley and Tel Aviv), and the South (, Coastal Plain & Dead Sea with the Negev) with Five Seats Each for a Total of Fifty Five.

 

Israeli Voting Precincts for Upper House Totaling Fifty-Five

 

The Upper House described above, let’s call it the New Sanhedrin, will ratify appointments to the cabinet and senior appellate judges including the Supreme Court. The Knesset (lower House) as stated will appoint the Prime Minister. This method allows the Parties to make their coalition and the Knesset would run exactly as it does now with elections when their term ends after four years while the New Sanhedrin terms will not be dissolved should the Knesset coalition crash and burn, they will serve three year terms with the vote being taken every three years on a set date on the Hebrew Calendar. With the Prime Minister who was appointed as the leader of the coalition and was initially tapped by the President, who will remain being chosen as they are now, after all, we would not want to end the good old party people never change ever and the same problem people show up just in a different Cabinet Ministerial location so that the incompetence gets spread through all of the government. That is why the small adjustment where the Cabinet Ministerial position first have to be validated by both houses thus there will be less if any invent a cabinet post to make this one feel important and receive additional pay while preening around. Then the people placed in these positions must be approved by the New Sanhedrin upper legislature. Hopefully this will lead to placing people from outside the Knesset body into Cabinet posts such that the person responsible for an area of the government actually knows something about the work the department actually performs.

 

The shuffling of the deck chairs on the HMS Knestitanic sailing the icy-waters of incompetent Ministerial appointments will come to an abrupt end. One example is the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman, who during his career thus far he has held Minister of National Infrastructure, Minister of Transport, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Strategic Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs and currently is Minister of Defense. Either Avigdor Lieberman is one of the most intelligent and diversely capable or he had to be ill-prepared in at least one of his positions. Ehud Barak is another regular Minister having been elected not only to hold many varied positions but also served in cooperation or as a member of a number of parties. Israeli politics can confuse even those familiar with parliamentary systems as politicians make new parties, merge parties and change parties sometimes like they change socks. Tzipi Livni has headed two parties while serving in four, where one was a merged pair of parties. Her Career began and appeared steady and content with Likud but then Ms. Livni got the idea that she was destined for greater things and saw her opportunity with Ariel Sharon and his breakaway party from Likud forming Kadima which has a mixture of numerous Ministers from other parties across the political spectrum from Likud to Labor. Kadima started to fail after Ariel Sharon fell into a coma eventually passing. Rather than bite the bullet and join a party Tzipi Livni founded her very own party with some of the remnants from Kadima and a few others who believed there was opportunity as the signs were right, well, almost. Her party was called Hatnuah, meaning “The Movement.” Then she saw this party sinking fast and she made herself an opportunity to share the Prime Minister position with Labor Leader Isaac Herzog. Then problems began as it was noted she was not bringing the numbers of voters hoped and the Labor rank and file felt they were sacrificing too much to gain too little and the Zionist Union, the merger of Labor and Hatnua which the media wanted to defeat Likud that there found Zionist Union defeating Likud going into election day by a margin of 24 to 21 on average. The election result was slightly different with Likud garnering 30 seats while Zionist Union did receive their 24 but obviously insufficient to lead a coalition. This bode poorly for Livni who if she desires a future may have to simply swallow hard and join Labor and hope to rank sufficiently well enough to gain a seat in the Knesset. Tzipi Livni has been Leader of the Opposition for which she is eminently qualified as she has spent much time opposing everything while sitting in the opposition or in the government. Her other positions is a list of many positions including Minister of Regional Cooperation, Minister Without Portfolio (for which she is eminently qualified), Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Immigrant Absorption, Minister of Housing and Construction, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Justice. She must be a very capable person. The advantage of having a bicameral legislature which divides responsibilities and a Constitution which defines every branch of government with specific capabilities, responsibilities and limitations, and it is the limitations which often are the most important. The described government arrangement for Israel with a bicameral legislature with the Knesset remaining as currently configured but with the courts made at least indirectly controlled by the people rather than controlling the people and everything else it desires while all but replacing its Judges all but by themselves without any limiting factor within the control of the people. The arrangement was just an idea for the sake of offering and starting the discussion and not a serious suggestion unless the Israelis, my fellow Israelis, read and decide that the framework described has potential as an idea with which to start a national conversation. The described system also would encourage the Prime Minister to find some ministers from outside the government or assure that those chosen from within the government actually are competent and not just blindly pretending to manage something they actually do not understand. The real reason for this discussion is to limit the judges, especially the Supreme Court which even cancelled the financial agreement made on order to start production of the offshore gas fields demanding that the profits be invested in welfare and other socialist, virtually communist, programs because the people who invested in the drilling and took all the chances and took the risks should not reap benefit from their venture, not when foreign funded HGOs can petition the Supreme Court to spread the wealth making sure they get a share with which to further attempt to destroy Israel. That should have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How Democracy Dies in Israel

 

Though we had discussed thoughts of this nature we could only obliquely refer to our suspicions but thanks to Caroline B. Glick for her article which is the meat of our commentary and worth reading as her manner and ability to cut to the bone and serve the meat on any subject is particularly poignant and we would feel as if we had deprived our readers of every morsel and fact within her article The Fruits of Subversion which we read in Jewish World Review which is one of many places where Carolyn Glick can be found. The discussion we will attempt will be to delve into some of the ramifications; both the potential, and the other simply dread and hopefully never come to pass. Needless to point out, adding to a Caroline B. Glick article is not a task for the queasy and in this endeavor failure is not only an option but even a probability. I guess by now we can simply assume that Caroline B. Glick is a reporter and editorialist extraordinaire whom we hold in high esteem. Now let us proceed and try and tackle this not so simple task and hope for the best.

 

There has been a shadow government operating in concert with the administration of a foreign power, that of President Barack Obama and the United States Department of State. This government has taken upon itself the pursuit of an agenda which is completely the opposite of that of the elected government. These individuals have taken upon themselves to assist the aims of President Barack Obama and report to the State department, administration appointees and even the Secretary of State or the Director of Central Intelligence Agency any deviations from the presumptive and United States approved policy potentially taken or in the plans of the government in Israel. Examples from the article included reporting the plans for a strike on the Iranian nuclear sites and we might discern that other such treasonous revelations granted the United States and Obama Administration would include any objections or arguments which Prime Minister Netanyahu might have regarding any peace and concessions and any resistance to of President Obama’s carefully laid out agenda which he and his tools in Israel believed to be superior and a better path for Israel going into the future and against the will of the voters and their elected governance. The problem is that this infection had spread throughout much of the highest ranks including the general staff as well as the intelligence community. Caroline Glick mentioned some names but we suspect, as does she more than likely, that the disease is rotting through many institutions who see their job description to include preserving the democracy their politics support, the people be damned, as what do the people know about the realities of the world and the best of paths for the state of Israel. Another place where this rot had held sway since the beginning of the state of Israel and through the same process of self-appointing replacements and choosing those of identical political philosophies while punishing those who hold contrary opinions even to the point of demotions or forced retirement from serving the country is the Supreme Court and likely the entire legal and judicial system.

 

Perhaps this might be a good time to confess that we did not vote for Likud and much of the reasoning was a dislike and distrust of Prime Minister Netanyahu and wished that there was some way of either limiting the number of total years or terms a Prime Minister is permitted to serve and after that set period of time they would need to set aside their leadership of the nation and allow another to be the representative of their party as Prime Minister even if they continued to lead the party. Such an example might be that Prime Minister Netanyahu after serving, say, a decade holding the office of Prime Minister he would need appoint another from the party, or better yet, have the party choose the new Prime Minister designate to represent that position for example it might be Gilad Erdan, Yuli Edelstein, Yerael Kats or any other Likud member in good standing. Perhaps with such a limitation allowing for fresh leadership even if the same party remains as leading the government year after year after year which might prevent the self-appointed demi-gods from perverting the elective process and the choices of the people and destroying the democracy in order, in their minds, to preserve the democracy.

 

Part of the problem, as we estimate the situation, is that due to sclerotic and often paralytic political power structure which retains a small group of leadership holding all of the positions including Prime Minister and his Cabinet that stresses the top positions in the military, courts, intelligence and other political and security positions which are not elected directly or indirectly by the people into using their privileged positions and access to the decisions, plans and other intelligence including both external, internal and even secretive plans which only the very highest military position and heads of intelligence have privilege to acquire and who are trusted by the people not to overstep their boundaries and serve the people and its government. What is even more disturbing is the seeming support these paragons of perfect knowledge, or at least self-perceived as such, have abused their positions and forfeited the trust of the people and the government they are presumably serving have been celebrated and even granted privileged acceptance and praises from their political allies who are leaning on these people of rank to allow for their political goals and views to be implemented through abuse of force and forfeiting the votes of millions of their nation’s citizenry. The actions of the previous Director of the Mossad, Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan, and commanders such as Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Gola, compared Israeli society to the Nazis on Holocaust Remembrance Day; the General Staff’s vilification of Sgt. Elor Azaria, for killing a wounded terrorist in Hebron; and the drumming from his position as a commander of an Infantry Company of Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner for striking a European leftist instigator who had earlier broken a number of Eisner’s fingers and caused other equally painful injuries which required medical treatment.

 

Ya’alon and General Staff

 

The general policy being empowered by these paragons of democracy, well, at least in their own minds, and that of the extreme leftists, the defeatists, the leftist media which is to say the majority of the mainstream media, the European Union, United Nations, European government and media, and worst of all the anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli Administration of President Barack Obama is one duly leftist in its approach to all policies and completely placating and forgiving empowering the Arab Palestinians and the terror infrastructure and support systems all in the name of peace at any price even to include the complete compromise of the freedom and identity of Israel as the Jewish State. The obvious question is why these generals are not simply forced from service and replaced with other senior officers who hold more reasonable understandings of the power and responsibility of the military to serve the governance elected by the people. One reason is that it is very likely that the Supreme Court would intervene and return these general staff officers and likely find some choice names of officers who are approaching senior positions and blame them for attempting to overthrow the general staff and they themselves would find themselves drummed from service and potentially incarcerated, thus is the established leftist shadow governance. As far as removing such generals from the IDF, such a move would necessarily require the support of the Defense Minister and MK Ya’alon leans left himself and would likely defend these generals and may be partly the reason that Ya’alon was chosen for the position such as to have a person who could work with the generals the IDF offered and not one to shake things up and rock the boat. The entirety of the system of unelected policy experts who are pursuing their own agenda is an echo chamber which amplifies the problem which will take a brave and ready to fall on their political swords for the nation and its people.

 

The final item we will attempt to cover is why it may be time to find a new Prime Minister to replace Netanyahu, from Likud if necessary. The nation needs a bold leader who is willing to take whatever steps are required to enforce the will of the people. Such a person would be, by necessity, somebody with an almost careless outlook and one who does not prefer the limelight and instead simply desires sacrificing to serve the nation and its people. Unfortunately such a person is unlikely as a parliamentary system is not usually capable of taking dire steps even when many see it as necessary. A Parliamentary system most often places a party functionary who has the right pedigree often the result of years of steady service to the party as a dedicated soldier. This is how Ya’alon became Defense Minister as did the rest of the Prime Minister’s inner cabinet. One of the complaints we have often heard was that there was such a seeming dearth of politicians who would be worthy of being the next Prime Minister. Even when other parties are added to the discussion with their presumed additional candidates there are still very few if any additional candidates who might excite the people, or at least none of us here. We did have one we would have hoped would offer themselves as a challenger for the office of Prime Minister as the lead of their party but they made a couple of defeatist comments, one in particular which displayed a serious deficiency which displayed they were not ready for prime time, let alone Prime Minister. If anyone has any ideas on a viable challenger, please encourage them as Israel cannot long survive these closed systems and their ruinous effect acting against the will of the people. The leaders in the legal systems, military, intelligence and law enforcement systems are presumed and designed to serve the people and the government and to implement the desires and policies of same, not take it upon themselves to be gods and rule taking power upon themselves simply because they see themselves as superior to the elected governance. Such is a closed system free of outside forces for change thus not reflecting the will of the people as they serve and should not be placing themselves above the people and their welfare, which is also against Torah.

 

Thank you all,

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Radically Changing Power Structures in the Middle East

 

First allow us to note the passing of a great Constitutional scholar and jurist, Antonin Scalia, who was seventy-nine and had served for twenty-nine years on the Supreme Court. There will be a ton of second guessing on whom exactly President Obama will pick to replace the conservative, Constitutional scholar but the one thing we would like to put forth is they will mostly be wrong. President Obama’s previous choices of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan surprised almost all in his previous Supreme Court appointments. Our guess is of a more general nature as we believe his choice will be an academic who shares the leftist view of a living and ever mutating Constitution in which all forms of new and existing rights can be found to be implied if only the founders had the wisdom of the leftists of today. Whoever President Obama chooses will have the effect of changing the nature and status of the Supreme Court likely for a long while into the future. President Obama has had the rare opportunity to leave an indelible mark on the Supreme Court as he has had the opportunity of appointing one third of the current members sitting on the Supreme Court. This will be the true legacy next to Obamacare and the initiating the accepting of tens if not hundreds of thousands of Syrian and other Middle Eastern “refugees” and potentially resulting in millions by the time the entire story becomes known. One can hope to be pleasantly surprised that the President’s appointment turns out to be more of a purist when interpreting the Constitution as being appointed to the Supreme Court has shown some strange and unexpected results as people take the honor to heart and have the importance of the position lay heavily on their minds and their direction of thoughts on the exact definition of protect and defend the Constitution will inevitably mean to them. We can only hope for a discerning and wise person who weighs all the ramification of their decisions.

 

 

Antonin Scalia Supreme Court Judge
79 years old, 29 years on Supreme Court

 

 

Everyone has, including us to some extent, expressed their feelings on the path to nuclear weapons power that Iran received in the Iran Nuclear Agreement 7/14/2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the inevitable ways it will change the entire makeup and distribution of power across the Middle East and many, again including us, have attempted to predict what the wholesale introduction of nuclear weaponry across the Middle East and potentially slowly seeping across Norther Africa and whether it will make Nuclear Armageddon more likely or usher in an understanding of the new and ruinous implications of starting a war might cause to bring as the outcome. Of course if anyone was looking to bring the greatest possible turmoil, chaos, death and destruction on the world as a whole and not care about the consequences because that turmoil, chaos, death and destruction actually was their only goal, then the nuclearization of the Middle East and beyond is exactly what the doctor ordered. A nuclear armed apocalyptic maniac is the exact formula to a future which could act to set human development back ten centuries or potentially lead to the next round of massive mutations across all surviving life forms eventually leading to the next apex predator to rise to the top of the food chain and with any luck also me closer to human development than the simple brute power of T-rex had attained before they and their species being brought down by an assumed impact wiping clean the slate of development leading to mankind’s rise to eventual dominance.

 

There have been other changes which are probably not as dire or noticeable as yet on how these developments will play out. The biggest has been the introduction of highly effective antiaircraft missile batteries at both ends of the Middle East with Iran to soon have delivery of the Russian S-300 antiaircraft batteries to Iran and the recent deployment by the Russian forces defending their port and the Alawites in the area including Bashir al-Assad of the S-400 antiaircraft batteries. These systems render an air assault or targeting within their range far riskier and problematic. Further, with Russians manning the S-400 antiaircraft batteries in Syria, they are far less likely to be shut-down as was the entirety of the Syrian air defense network by the Israelis when they bombed the nuclear development complex facility in September 6, 2007. These changes in the balance of power brought by these changes are going to be difficult to discern as the variables are significant. One also has to add two other important notes to this volatile mix of conditions, one from the Middle East and the other affecting the Middle East.

 

 

Russian S-400 Antiaircraft Batteries
Now Stationed Around Latakia, Syria
Placing Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport
Easily Within Range for Interception

 

 

The first is the affect that North Korea may play onto the Middle East puzzle as well as the future of the United States. As we and numerous others have pointed out is the fact that both Iran and North Korea have practiced and actually placed satellites into low earth orbits which have polar orbits rather than an equatorial orbit which makes them pass over the United States mainland alternately from the direct north and from the direct south. The northern approach is not that important as it would pass over the teeth of the United States NORAD and other defensive systems placed to intercept any Russian attack during the cold war and thus would be facing formidable defensive structures. The interesting passes are the one approaching from the south, particularly those passing over Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico and crossing over the United States anywhere from New Mexico to Arizona where the entirety of the United States monitoring systems have one of the largest blind-spots and thus vulnerability. Both Iran and North Korea have practiced what is understood by military strategists to be the perfect height and orbit for delivering an EMP, or Super EMP which is the latest craze, device to explode near the center of the United States and southern Canada taking out the entirety of the North American power grid. The resultant damages to the transformers and other high voltage system hardware as well as destroying virtually all of the software run control systems would result in as high as ninety-five percent civilian deaths in the first decade with the largest loss being at the front end two years having the greatest impact.

 

Such an assault could effectively take out almost all of the ground based systems the United States would be reliant on for its defense from invasion or to retaliate against their attacker. This would not mean the perpetrators of such an assault would be free and clear of retribution raining down on their heads as the United States has a large enough contingent of its forces located around the globe that United States power projection would remain credible. The large nuclear missile carrying submarines, often called Boomers (hey, we do not make up these names, honest) would still carry in their tubes sufficient nuclear strike capabilities of destroying virtually the entirety of human existence globally and definitely could remove the populations of North Korea and Iran without losing their critical and definitive threat against any others planning in taking advantage of the problems back home caused by such an attack. Where this would bring little solace to the Americans facing brutish conditions as their entire food and other supply networks would have been destroyed in such an attack, this deterrent power of the United States nuclear powered Navy that eventually the United States would return onto the world stage meaner and leaner but even more determined to take vengeance unto which the world has never known. The last part in this section of the puzzle is that Iran and North Korea have had a high level of cooperation in nuclear development and rocket/missile technology. Keeping such in mind, the recent test carried out by North Korea of a hydrogen powered nuclear device now believed to be, here comes the new buzzword, Super EMP device capable of on detonation generating a series of EMP Gama-radiation waves which could destroy if detonated over Kansas City or St Louis or anywhere between which would be sufficiently potent to effect sensitive electronics in San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D. C., Norfolk Naval Base, Andrews Airforce Base, the Pentagon (except for its shielded emergency generators), Richmond on down to Atlanta, Georgia. That would include the East and West Coasts leaving potentially the Coronado Naval Base and Marine Base intact and slight possibility of not destroying the Bremerton shipyards. Still, such a wide ranging area of destruction of electronic devices would be devastating and would be felt world-wide as there would be other ramifications such as GPS satellites not receiving update information largely controlled by the United States and a loss of large sectors of the Internet, phone networks and any other functions which pass through the United States communications hubs which carry the largest volume of the entire world’s communications. This would have far reaching effects many of which are irreplaceable and even unpredicted. The best case scenario, and only best case scenario, is that such an attack never occurs; but with a child-like egotistical and maniacal megalomaniac in charge in North Korea who believes himself one of the most powerful people ruling a giant amongst nations who murders any general or even family member who attempts to implant even the slightest glimmer of reality into the equation being executed on the spot, who knows? Just think about the day, which might be today or tomorrow, when Kim Jung-un decides it is time to teach the United States a lesson. Just ponder that for a moment and then try to return to your normally scheduled day as such would never happen, would it? Adding the Iranian fanatical and suicidal Mullahs in Iran and have fun sleeping tonight, they do not really mean it when they claim to desire bringing chaos, turmoil, misery and a general state of conflagration worldwide just so their messiah the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who will emerge from his hiding place down a well in Qom where he has been hiding since before the year 1000 AD. You cannot make this stuff up. So there is that threat and they share technology and many believe the tested nuclear Super EMP device tested by North Korea recently was actually an Iranian design and was carried out by North Korea for the Iranians so they would not break their treaty quite yet.

 

 

North Korean President for Life Kim Jung-Un
Signaling that He’s Number One!

 

 

The other side of the coin is Israel. The Israelis have not been taking all these developments as fait accompli but instead have been working, one could say feverishly, on their layered missile and aircraft defense systems. The world was given a demonstration of the effectiveness of the Iron Dome on locally launched missiles, mortars and rockets during the last Gaza war. Since then there have been further upgrades made possible by the data acquired during that conflict. Many of the upgrades were software but the other was a new interceptor which would improve the accuracy and lethality of the system, a system which already proved to be over ninety percent accurate in its initial deployment during the last Gaza Hamas war. Israel also has a multi-layered system of interceptor which would make interception possible on an ICBM or Continental Ballistic Missile such as what Iran would need to use if launching from within their borders. Should they launch from Syria or Lebanon then the intercept would be performed by a faster reacting system such as the Iron Dome or other slightly more encompassing system. The kind of layered system which will be required to keep Israel and the Israeli population safe from any device with the emphasis on early detection and removal of threats on their ascendant prefecture over the downward flight as it is most often on the approach to target after apogee that missile systems deploy avoidance technologies. While the Israeli nuclear capability has been pondered and guessed at, it is still not 100% proven if such systems exist or where and how they would be stored and/or deployed, what delivery systems exist and whether these systems kept in hardened bunkers atop ICBM and Continental Ballistic Missiles or if they exist, are they simply bombs requiring aircraft to fly the mission to deliver these weapons which may not even exist. As we covered recently on February 13, 2016 in our article What Israel Must Learn from President Obama concerning, amongst other items of importance, the F-35 JSF and its serious limitations and no freedom of action when using these fifth generation fighters that they make second guessing any nation relying on these systems to come under United States control potentially at the most critical of moments. Further, the fact that an EMP device would necessarily affect the very support systems which would allow the F-35 JSF to deploy would be destroyed or isolated such that they could not release the aircraft when most needed, the F-35 JSF would become just so much advanced electronics and composites composited dead on the runway. There are a number of other links to other articles both ours and outside corroborative articles all worth a quick read as they lay out much of the thought patterns since even before 2010 when we first finally got around to addressing the next generation of aircraft which are going to become a necessity for air defense at close range and possibly further missions run from a control aircraft. Perhaps another article is due on such future systems; we will try to look into such but no absolute promises on when.

 

 

The Mouse that Roared
A comedy to lift the spirits

 

 

As is noticeable the world is changing, the sides are lining up and one errant move could force ramifications too dire to face but face them we must; otherwise, they could occur and have no mitigating systems in place to avoid hostilities falling into place where one act creates another leading to a more vigorous act which forces a full deployment and the next thing you know the Grand Duchess Gloriana XII of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick will order Prime Minister Count Rupert of Mountjoy to deploy their finest archers to voyage across the seas and attack to defend the honor of the wines of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick from a California cheap imitation. The troops under Field Marshal Tully Bascombe, a recent promotion of sorts, assault the United States and , well, you will need to rent the movie “The Mouse that Roared” and enjoy Peter Sellers at his hysterical best, well, next to the Pink Panther. Unfortunately the world today is almost as insane as the Mouse that Roared but all too dangerous to really joke about, but we must keep a balance and our sanity so some light hearted entertainment might mitigate the sense of dread, well, for around an hour and a half. Think we will make some buttered popcorn and watch a movie, later.

 

Beyond the Cusp