Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Messy Middle East

 

We may as well write one summary of the different threats to war and actual wars in an all-in-one article. Apparently the Iran negotiations appear to have the most dire predictions of which business as usual is probably the biggest threat of them all. Thus far no final agreement appears to be on the horizon and would have been out of the question and all the sanctions and potentially more would be the current business as usual. It is abundantly obvious that United States President Obama and his Secretary of State Kerry are willing to roll over and accept whatever crumbs the Iranians will permit them and still pronounce the ‘it’s not a treaty it’s a Presidential arms agreement’ treaty, the peace in our time agreement which has Secretary Kerry’s and Iran Foreign Minister Zarif’s signatures on it promising that there will be no unnecessary or over hostile acts by the Iranian government and their work (not that there was any) towards the production of nuclear weapons for ten years, as a momentous diplomatic agreement which will place Iran on the road to international acceptance and into the world of nations. The signs that there will be an agreement, not treaty, completed by the deadline, or a few days, months, years later after more serious negotiations, of the end of June with a potential aligning ceremony in the Oval Office on the Fourth of July which will just be further evidence of the importance of the reaching an accord. Then there are the assurances and uncertainties all depending on your source as to whether or not the deal in progress is an advantageous or detrimental agreement with the numbers of sceptics steadily appearing to increase the closer we all get to an agreement. The only assurances we have is that this agreement will be beneficial to all and that the people telling us this belong to one of two groups, those reporting about the particulars that even the negotiators admit is uncertain if the agreement will encompass said assurance or are part of the providers of information who are attempting to make any agreement a positive no matter how many half-truths and outright-lies they have to shovel to a swarm of ever hungry media swarm all in an effort to further President Obama’s second greatest achievement in office after Obamacare. Such a comparison alone should worry even the greatest supporters of the President and this deal.

 

So, what can we know for sure? For one, it is that the sanctions will be lifted, all of them, or as many as President Obama can humanly bring to an end. This has been made evident through encouragements given to many leaders of industry, particularly the oil and gas industry. It has been reported that the White House has encouraged the chief executives of the Dutch Shell company, Total of France, Italy’s Eni and Lukoil of Russia to initiate talks to normalize and expand the Iranian energy sector of their economy. There have been signals, mostly in Russia, China and Europe and not-so-much in the United States (quite curious this is) to also put forth feelers and prepare the groundwork and even go so far as to agree on principles of agreements which can be made to go active the very second that any P5+1 and Iranian agreement is signed and in effect. This has been the message over the past two months and has yet to diminish in its optimism despite the negotiations appearing to crumble as Iran pulls back and refuses to agree on what one would think are some of the most vital necessities for an agreement which would be observed and have inspections of such a nature as to make such compliances enforceable. These overtures have been made while the White House continues to make statements purporting normal progress at the talks and a general sense of agreement on some of the most vital issues. President Obama has communicated through channels in the media that there will be an intensive inspection routine including snap without warning inspections while the Iranians continue to believe that the negotiations specifically forbade snap inspections nor allow inspections of what Iran denotes as military infrastructure and bases nor permit any inspection without ample and reasonable, to be determined by Iran on an individual basis, notifications before Iran will permit any single inspection. The White House insists that Iran will come forth on its previous military and nuclear procedures, accomplishments and other vital and necessary information even on particularly touchy questions which within the last week began its metamorphosis into a very different animal where suddenly the Administration claims that there is little to be gained by forcing the point of Iran reporting its previous work as we know where they have gone and what they have achieved and everything has been above board all while the Iranians remain quite intransigent on permitting inspections of military bases or revealing the information on all previous nuclear activities and military progress in related fields. From apparent media reports over the past few days the Administration appears to have become omniscient on all things concerning Iranian past progress, military research and development, military progress on missile technology (which to many observers to be directed on developing a reliable ICBM which will supplement their ballistic missile inventory adding the ability to directly strike the United States which some may find an odd direction for such intense research if one is not developing nuclear weapons to place atop those ICBMs) and possible work on a nuclear trigger mechanism which is vital to the production of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. This was supposed to settle the arguments that Iran may be hiding vital work which would include some very damning information casting the long shadow of doubt on Iranian denials to be researching the industrial development of nuclear weapons.

 

Still, the date of the presumed coming out party has been set. The final particulars of the United States surrender are being completed, the promise that after the agreement has been put in place that all sanctions will be removed has been given though not admitted and one of the latest individual pieces has been the apparent agreement that the P5+1 (read United States) will provide Iran with several light water reactors which produce plutonium which is useable for production of nuclear weapons at a far less aggressive rate than the heavy water reactor at Arak. Further, Iran shall be provided with other technologies for civilian uses of nuclear power and enriched uranium and lastly, recently leaked information indicates that the Fordo nuclear enrichment site, which was built into the heart of a mountain and is considered impervious to any bombing attack, shall remain operating with promises that it will not be utilized for enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons and instead will limit the enrichment cycles to keep them beneath weapons grade of over ninety-percent. Secretary of State John Kerry has affirmed that the United States has already relaxed several sanctions and has stated the sanctions will be lifted immediately after any signing of an agreement without having performed any steps for verifying Iranian compliance with whatever limitations and restrictions that President Obama would request as part of the agreement. This has made Senator Robert Menendez (D- N.J.) sufficiently perturbed and suspicious that he has introduced legislation to extend the soon expiring sanctions over the Iranian missile research and development on Iran for another ten years as Senator Menendez is far from convinced that any progress has been or will be made as part of the current negotiations. Perhaps this should be the position of everybody else as the reassurances from Secretary Kerry and the President and his spokespersons leave much clarification and even initial information on many subjects with missile development is chief amongst them.

 

Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran are juxtaposed Saudi Arabia, Egypt and in a loose and unofficial manner including Israel. The problem is most obvious in Yemen where Iranian backed and armed Houthis are in an open civil war for the control of Yemen now mostly attempting to complete their takeover by solidifying their presence across the south-western third of Yemen, something Saudi Arabia is making particularly difficult. The Saudis are quite wary of permitting Iran from militarily threatening complete control and the ability to cause a severe blockage of trade around much of the world and particularly about European-Asian trade as well as almost one-third of the world’s oil supplies and much of Europe’s lifeline to Arabian oil. The first choke point is the Straits of Hormuz and the second is the straits named Bab-el-Mandeb that controls passage from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to eventually the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and which can be controlled from the south-western-most point in Yemen which remains just beyond Iranian reach for the time being. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have vested interests in the Bab-el-Mandeb waterway remaining open and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation nations have a vested interest in keeping the Straits of Hormuz clear and freely operating. Israel additionally has a vested interest in keeping Bab-el-Mandeb open as all trade out of Eilat’s ports in this southern-most city in all of Israel and major shipping point to Asia, something many believe is at the heart of the future of Israel, and who would even dare to challenge that. Further, having Yemen under the influence of Iran and with that, the potential of Iran to furtively place some special units from the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) into Yemen to spearhead an invasion into Saudi Arabia’s underbelly and then once the Saudis had dispatch troops to guard the southern border, then an Iranian led revolt by the Shiites who mostly live in the north-east of Saudi Arabia making that a second front likely tying up most of the Saudi forces making the nation susceptible to a mass Iranian assault timing all of this for during an announced exchange of forces thus allowing for Iran to at least have twice as many troops in southern Iraq than usual and also presenting a potential for turning those troops southward invading Saudi Arabia across the entirety of the border shared with Iraq where IRGC and other Iranian forces deployed to fight ISIS which has invaded much of the Syria and Iraq while making wild claims about being the heart of the next Caliphate. This would satisfy, if successful, one of the boasts Iran has regularly made about the Holy Cities, the most holy in Islam, of Mecca and Medina must be wrest from the hands of the deceivers and apostates, the Iranian Shiite name when referencing any Sunni Muslims. It would also be done in a direct challenge and risk infuriating ISIS which is also interested in the Holy Cities and would consider their being in the hands of Shiites as a moral imperative for ISIS and their Sunni Muslims to liberate them from the apostate hands of Iranian Shiites.

 

Now let us have a quick discussion of ISIS and their claims of being the next Caliphate. This claim at this early stage is a bit presumptuous though over-the-top bombastic claims such as the ISIS claim of being the new Caliphate are apparently part and parcel of the culture and thus should be read as such. Is ISIS a threat? Of course it is but keep in mind that it had originally served as the al-Qaeda branch in Iraq fighting the United States during the Second Iraq War under President George W. Bush where these al-Qaeda forces had been adequately eradicated that President Obama brought all the troops home declaring in a speech at Fort Bragg on Dec. 14, 2011 where he stated, “It’s harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq–all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering–all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. We’re building a new partnership between our nations. And we are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making.” ISIS will remain as a problem for as long as the United States continues its little trip down memory lane returning to their isolationist roots but the sooner that there is a new President, hopefully one who realizes the role the United States played in the world as without American leadership who can the world follow? After World War II the United States dictated to its enemies as well as its friends in the world to lay down their arms as the world had to be made such that Europe would find some manner of non-belligerence and thus unable to start yet another conflagration which envelops the rest of the world endangering all. The United States was not going to allow Europe drag her into another conflict, especially when the toll for World War II was figured. Japan even went so far as to insist that they be deprived of a military force capable of attacking her neighbors be put into their new constitution. The United States also made sure to have a prolonged military presence in all of the western nations as are the Soviets in theirs behind the, Winston Churchill‘s coined phrase, ‘Iron Curtain.’ With what ISIS has claimed is their aim, perhaps a similar deal should have been placed on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) thus completely covering the lands which were affected by the war. Instead, the Middle East actually faced a difficulty forced upon them by the European powers of France, Britain, Russia and Italy after World War I named Sykes-Picot Agreement where states were carved out of the colonial areas which the European powers had controlled for over two centuries. These states looked, for all intents and purposes, as randomly drawn but further delving into the agreement it becomes obvious that where the lines were less important than was repaying certain promises and not others and leaving states which could never function as normal nations as their citizenry were from different factions which would require a strong and somewhat viscous dictator more than a caring leader. Iran was fortunate enough to remain unchanged as she had remained Persia and beyond the colonial disciplines of the European overlords. This is one area where ISIS has gotten things correct, Sykes-Picot was a disaster needing remedial action, though combining all into one homogenous Caliphate where the people, more likely subjects, would all need to meet a purity test or face death or reeducation. ISIS has risen to prominence largely due to the entirety of the MENA regions being unstable, surprise-surprise, which had come partially from the mess put in place after World War I. In many ways, by not arranging to have the nations covering individual areas such as an area for the Kurds even named Kurdistan, and unifying Sunni Areas separate from Shia areas, and place borders respecting tribal areas and allowing the people to make suggestions and using them wisely, not nearly random large nations which would be so consumed by inner strife that they would be unable to mount external troubles, which also did not work as we saw with the decade of war between Iraq and Iran. This entire false drawing of nations was doomed to fail and produce an even stronger order which would eventually reunite many of the Islamic Arabs into a larger and ready to conquer group, it is just ISIS will not be that group as it currently operates. There will eventually be a leader who will find the chord which will bring people to their cause far more willingly and not by force and threat of arms. First, the MENA must find their way through this current crisis and possibly agree to redraw the lines across the Middle East divided by natural lines which will produce a more homogeneous populace for each state so that it can function as an economic unit more than a military unit as the Middle East itself has for centuries been an area which thrived through trading between Asia and Europe which it could again find their niche as well as trading their own goods, especially petroleum which unfortunately will be a major factor in the redrawing should such take place.

 

The problem will arise due to there being vested interests and moneyed interests in controlling valuable assets, especially oil. A very large example would be Saudi Arabia which will never permit the taking of their oil fields just because the majority living there are Shiites nor would they ever release their ownership holding of Mecca and Medina even to an international Islamic trust. Iran would never allow its oil fields to be given to another group made up of Arab descendants because the major population is not Persian. Any future settlement in the MENA area is going to take some serious and strong Islamic leadership who are more interested in helping the people than they are in glorifying themselves in this life which will always have some basis in control of resources. As things stand right now there is no real nation of Syria nor is there any nation of Iraq, both are consumed in internal and external conflicts tearing them apart. There were those who called for dividing Iraq into three nations, one Sunni, one Shia, and one Kurdish. This still would not have been advantageous for the Christians and the Yazidi and other tribes with either minority Islamic sects or older religions such as those following a version of Zoroastrianism. Still, any plan was bound to hit some snags but such a division might have produced a better system that would have been better able to resist ISIS and their onslaught which currently has Sunni areas of Iraq either facing Shia vengeance or Sunni purist vengeance without any government in place of their own and no trained military as the Iraqi Army was currently majority Shia and has retreated to protect Baghdad and the Shiite south with large amounts of Iranian assistance and now apparently United States assistance in supporting the Shiite operations as the Iranian and United States troops are quartered together, have joint planning sessions and the United States arming and close air support is coordinated through the Iraqi government which is under the strict influence of the Iranian government which has left the Sunni and the Kurds out in the cold and on their own. This has produced much more serious consequences for the Sunni who had depended on the Iraqi government and military for their protection which has left them at the mercies of whichever force has control of their lives each hour while the Kurds far back even during the United States military occupation after removing Saddam Hussein from power had become a semi-autonomous region with their own militias and governance allowing them to survive without any assistance from the Iraqi government, military or otherwise. The Kurds have become a safe haven for the minorities and have provided better and more varied protection for minorities than the United States and their supported Shiite government in the south leaving the Sunni completely out in the cold. What can be done to settle the problems in the MENA regions will take somebody with a plan which answers the many difficulties such would involve and the means of enforcing such against vested interests that would be less than advantageous for the population. The people need to be the primary concern and their needs must be the overriding priority forcing the drawing of any future borders. There must not be any restrictions as to the number of states, their interactive cooperation and other concerns. It is likely that a loose federation will prove the best solution, I am just glad that I do not have to find the best solution though if I find the magical resolution, I will be pushing it here where unfortunately few of the really powerful people will find it, at least not as things stand or maybe I am mistaken. This will need to wait for a different time. The one other area we have yet to address will not make it into this article, but I have written much already on the difficulties within Israel and the need for another brilliant solution here where none can exist that both sides would agree upon as both sides believe they have the unassailable right to all of Jerusalem if not also all of the lands themselves.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Welcoming NORAD Back to Cheyenne Mountain

 

The United States military has decided that the conditions are currently of sufficient threat that they have decided to send NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) to scurry back to the warm confines of the Cheyenne Mountain complex and its independently supplied internal electricity generations and grounded steel walls where they have no susceptibility to an EMP pulse no matter the degree of severity, even the most fearsome solar storm which might char and disintegrate the entire North American electronic grid. Apparently the decision to reposition to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs has struck a snag or two or more. They claimed the savings and ease of commute made the move economic and practical sense, especially as the Cold War had past and there is no overriding threat demanding they continue using a base which provides the level of protection as the Cheyenne Mountain Facility. Well, well, what could have occurred to alter that line of reasoning and should the average American be concerned, well, concerned at least as much as the military and the commanding staff of NORAD apparently are being. Perhaps if we view the reasoning we can decide exactly how much of a threat there is and whether serious concern might be necessary.

 

The reason announced by the military for returning NORAD was that it is now feared that the North Koreans and potentially their allies in Iran have perfected miniaturizing of their nuclear warheads and might place one atop a North Korean mobile KN-08 mobile launch vehicle. This sent the military command of NORAD scurrying within one of the world’s safest locations deep within Cheyenne Mountain buried deeply under a few thousand feet of rock, mostly granite, and encased in steel and concrete with two sets of blast doors unrivaled, one backing the other making a double door with a dead space between them to absorb any force which might manage to pierce the outer door. These blast doors close making the tunnel reaching the Cheyenne Mountain a perfect arc opened at both ends so as to pass and blast-wave from a nuclear or other device detonated near either entrance an easily followed natural flow-path right through the mountain, past the blast doors, and on out the other side. The Cheyenne Mountain location not only easily houses the necessary personnel to cover and maintain their functions without break along with their families and a full garrison of Marines but also hold the supplies that would permit operating completely closed-off safe from any attack, especially any nuclear or EMP attack. We described a means by which both Iran and North Korea could launch and use a weakness in the radar protection and by mimicking the orbit of a weather satellite, an orbit both nations have used previously for launches, near the end in the final paragraph of our article titled, ”Is North Korea Sabre Rattling for Attention or Real Threat?”

 

There are further reasons for moving NORAD back to its original safely, armored, buried, EMP proof and self-supporting location which they abandoned in favor of easier access as they have been monitoring since 2013 as reported by an ABC News reporting coverage from 2013 by Martha Raddatz ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent which can be viewed below. Needless to say that placing NORAD back where they should never have left will be a far cry from ending the threats from a nuclear armed North Korea, who has been threatening a nuclear EMP first strike against the United States, or Iran as they also could use such weaponry to cover far more evil intents than just striking NORAD. There is the possibility that either Iran or North Korea could launch at a closer target causing just as much harm on the global scale and have a dastardly effect on the world or the United States. North Korea has regularly threatened their South Korean neighbors and even regularly launched rockets into their waters and threatened far worse. Iran, on the other hand, has threatened not only the United States but also Israel, Saudi Arabia and other of her neighbors. Iran is currently engaged in three wars already, there is the Syrian Civil War where Iran and their terror allies of Hezballah fight the plethora of Sunni militias all having some degree of attachment to al-Qaeda or other terrorist organization, fighting in Iraq against ISIS, a Sunni terrorist organization which follows a strident version of the Quran by which they have destroyed numerous historic relics and other precious items claiming that because they were objects which they determined were un-Islamic and thus unworthy of being displayed and especially considered precious or of any value to the human race, and now Yemen where they are arming the Houthis and may even provide them with intelligence as well as command and control assistance.

 

 

 

 

The threats made by the likes of the Ayatollahs of Iran and those made by Kim Jong-un are usually merely saber rattling meant for domestic consumption and to give the people faith that their nation is able to stand against anybody. The fact that they get media coverage as well bolsters the belief making them appear more important. The other problem is that in many ways the leadership of both Iran and North Korea actually do mean those threats they make and would act upon them if they felt they were readily executable. This makes the North Korean threats to use a hydrogen bomb on the United States as an EMP generator to destroy the North American electronic grid far more serious. The fact that these leaders continue to allow their people to suffer unnecessary hardships due largely to their leaderships’ threats of warmongering which leads their nations to face sanctions is just as monstrous and evil as one can get. The further fact that they and their coterie live lives of lavish excess eating caviar, roast duck and champagne while their people, especially the people of North Korea, starve or make do with tree bark and grass soups can only be defined by Evil as the word for such extravagances and lavish life styles and the unbelievable difference between the lives of the privileged few enjoy as compared to the lives of their military members is only exceeded by the further difference approaching the same scale between the lives of apparent excess lived by the members of the military compared to the veterans and the population as a whole. The members of the military are not the problem as in many cases parents push their children towards the military such that they can have a better level of life than the parents had suffered. These radical differences exist almost as a caste system between the political leadership at the top, the military in between and the population and the elderly living lives beyond any desperations than most of us are capable of even imagining, let alone understanding. The most absolute depravity is displayed with the fact that the North Korean elite actually will make these threats and back them through actions which if ignored might actually lead to the North Korean leadership in particular to reigniting the state of war which continues to exist between the North and South Korea simply to hold talks where along with the demands from the leadership is also requests for food and other aid to be given the people to prevent even more deaths due to starvation, malnutrition, and the desperate lack of medical attention to treat and care for the people.

 

What makes these situations even more horrific is that these conditions are not all that uncommon throughout many of the third world nations. Contrary to the apparent belief, very few if any of these situations would be alleviated by changing their governance to a democracy as this would simply result in their electing the elites back into power. The first step the world needs to take also is not necessarily food aid and other such generosities as providing such aid deprives the farmers of a local market for their produce which results in their requiring aid because they are unable to sell their produce. Where aid most likely will be required to feed the entire population, the farmers must also be able to market their produce. The kind of aid which would go the furthest would be to allow corporations to set up factories and thus provide a basis for an economy and set the nation on the road towards a functioning economic base which is currently nonexistent. These factories also need to provide jobs not solely in the major cities but throughout these nations. Currently many of these nations lack even a rudimentary base for economic production which stands between them and receiving such investments.

 

Of course there are indicators that these problems may be coming to what are currently considered first world nations as the economic bubbles have begun to deflate one after the other and in some economies the house of cards is already collapsing. This is evidenced in Europe where the attempt to place all nations on a single currency has simply led to exposing the disparate economic models causing economic collapse as this unitary currency system collapses where had these nations retained their own currencies then there economies could have survived these downturns as their currency would have been permitted to respond to the change in their economic situation according to each individual nation allowing for a more favorable return on investments which cannot be had under the unified currency of the Euro. That their currency was beyond their control simply exasperated their financial difficulties and making any response simply beyond their control as they have no means of altering the value of the currency to respond to the situation and difficulties faced. This problem was unavoidable for as long as each nation was permitted to set their financial and economic policies while sharing a single currency. This removed their ability to control the single most important item in their economies, the cost of labor. Once the cost of labor separated sufficiently from the values set for the Euro itself made the problem become irreconcilable. These problems which are only growing while those nations with healthy economies are increasingly pressed to support the less wealthy nations within the European Union in particular, and to an extent throughout the third world, the difficulties are only going to be pushed to a point where the whole financial constructs begins to fray to the point where there are no longer solutions under the current systems. In too many cases simply continuing to patch the problems while ignoring the central causes will lead to what we would call the “point of exasperation” which is where the nations giving support are brought down as the cost and needs for support reach levels beyond any reconciliation and all hope is lost and the people then turn to their governance and demand relief leading all too probably to revolutions where the violence makes even the hope for investment to flee and refuse to make investments where such expenditures are the only hope for salvation and the start of normalcy.

 

Still, where is one to take the first step towards addressing the problems, and in the case of North Korea even coming to grip with the reality the people face, and after making that assessment then turning the nation around and giving the people hope. There exists no single solution though in many cases it is the leadership’s setting of priorities which has simply aggravated the situation leading to a downward cycle which results eventually, if permitted to continue, to the unsettling set of conditions in North Korea. Solutions, and not just feel-good knee-jerk reacting, must be found and those solutions are not pumping food and funds as simply feeding the hungry for a week, a month is not going to provide the hope and the means for the people to help themselves which is so desperately what is needed. In many of these situations there exists a disparity where the very wealthy live almost in a different world than do the masses. These situations are of a kind which led to revolutions which is what eventually led to the changes in the Western world though not all nations benefitted fully from the gains made since the industrial revolution and now the information age. The efforts to attempt to bring a third world nation into the information age in one fell swoop are not the solution as such an economy is unsustainable when considering the education and familiarity with such tools is taken into consideration. One needs to walk before they can run and the same can be said for national economies. The initial problems are infrastructure, both materially and by the population as a whole. When these problems are what is addressed then there can be progress but simply shipping tons of food aid which sometimes sits unloaded and goes bad rotting in place for the lack of trucks and a distribution network as even aid packages require a certain level of infrastructure before even that is of any substance. And yes we realize that in places like North Korea and Iran part of the problem is the governance though that is an even more difficult nut to crack. There is no universal solution and as far as the threats from North Korea and possibly Iran, there is no solution beyond preparing for the worst and hopefully cutting the head off the hydra and preventing it from simply replacing that bad head for another. Iran is a nation with the wherewithal to save itself if only the people can be freed to take on the challenges directly, but that cannot happen while their leadership is intent on spreading their version of Islam to the world. Such belligerence is not to be tolerated and must be opposed, something the P5+1 negotiations is apparently refusing to oppose rather than complying in the hope that things will improve before World War III is launched from the missile pads within Iran. North Korea will remain beyond help for as long as the leadership is tolerated rather than opposed and the situation resolved. Step one is provide a path to better governance through ending the state of war between North and South Korea, until that is addressed there can be no change to the situation. These are stark and difficult challenges which is why they are also the most pressing and dangerous challenges the world is currently facing with the growing gap between the first and third worlds, a gap that is threatening to become unbridgeable.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Surely it is March Madness

 

Usually for March Madness one fills in their brackets with the sixty-four teams and then predicts the winners of each down to the national championship. It takes skill, knowledge and a fair share of luck. The March Madness I am referring to is society seemingly busting at the seams everywhere one looks. The recent shooting in Ferguson, Missouri where somebody used the cover of the crowd protesting outside the police headquarters building to shoot two police standing outside the building striking one in the shoulder and the other in the face. These police were not part of any investigation, had not shot anyone had not done anything to warrant this shooting other than they were police officers in Ferguson. This was a horrific act of violence which is unfortunately not all that unexpected especially when remembering the shooting of two police officers in New York City who were merely sitting in their squad car and were police and thus deserving of whatever they got. Disrespect for societal norms and authority is once again growing across the world. The protests which have taken place in much of Europe have also had their share of riotous behavior and the breaking of police lines to assault specific targets often with ties to Jews such as Synagogues and Jewish Schools and Yeshivas.

 

On another front the actions of European governments and the European Union have started yet another campaign against Israel by financing and erecting buildings and placing Arab businesses or families into these structures immediately as the finishing touches are being applied. All of these structures have been placed in Area C where Arab building is forbidden by the Oslo Accords. Area C was presumed to remain a part of Israel according to the layout and the assignments of rights to the lands in Areas A, B and C. Area A was presumed to belong to the Arabs while Area C was presumed to remain a part of Israel and Area B was the part to be negotiated as to where the actual border would be placed. Obviously the Europeans have chosen to nullify the Oslo Accords as far as the restrictions upon the Arab side while altering the particulars to make the rules even more stringent and restraining on the Israelis. There may even start once more the idea that all of Jerusalem must remain undivided and as such all of Jerusalem must be rewarded to the Arabs once again and then demand a five, or maybe a ten or even a twenty mile wide thoroughfare complete with an eight lane highway, dual rails for passenger train traffic, a third and fourth rail lines for goods traveling between the two parts of the Arab entity, a special wide two lanes in each direction for busses and another three wide lanes in each direction for trucks and tractor trailers and other commercial traffic, rest areas appropriately set along a scenic path for those who desire to walk between Judea and Samaria to Gaza or the other direction. This causeway and thoroughfare right of way would also become owned by the Arabs completing their state. When Israel demands to know how they are supposed to make transit from north of this zone to south of this zone it would not be surprising for the European Union, United Nations and President Obama to be backing a plan that everything south of the Arab thoroughfare would now belong to the Bedouin Tribes and be formed into the first ever Bedouin State where any claiming to be Bedouins may raise their families and tend their flocks. Israel would then what, be warned any actions against this equitable settlement of every problem that they should take it quietly before the world comes up with further divisions of the lands and reasons every Jew must be removed until every Jew resides in Tel Aviv. Kidding aside, and there are those who will claim that this would be a fair start to an agreement if only it addressed whatever other claim that could be imagined, Israel had faced some rather astounding votes taken to denounce her or to refuse to allow any academic interactions.

 

Such was recently voted upon in the London University where over two-thousand students, professors and other staff voted on whether to boycott all of Israeli academic institutions. The results were revealing as seventy-three percent favored the ban and sixty percent of the professors supported the ban. Fortunately this was simply a nonbinding resolution as the fact that a mere four-hundred-twenty-five people refused to accept and approve this motion is a frightening prospect that the new anti-Semitism, the anti-Israel or often referred to as the anti-Zionist platforms and resolutions are often introduced. It comes complete with the similar refrains such as I am not against Jews, just the Israeli government and the existence of Israel. Talk to these anti-Israel types and they will inevitably prove to be anti-Zionist as well. When asked to list exact things the Israeli government has committed they inevitably list the theft of Arab lands and the Occupation of Gaza and the (West Bank) Judea and Samaria. When asked if they hold similar opposition against China or Turkey you will mostly get the deer in the headlamps stare of complete vapid dumbfounded stare. Then you need to slowly coax these afflicted people back to life or they will stand there until they collapse and are hospitalized for suffering from some unidentified ailment. It has a name and it is unaware or creeping anti-Semitism. You have to explain that China swallowed Tibet around 1951 and has illegally occupied Tibet ever since and that Turkey invaded Cyprus in July 1974 and took half the island before being stopped and there the armistice lines was drawn and Turkey cemented their claim and hold on the northern half of Cyprus by kicking out the Greek citizens residing there and brought in families from Turkey and gave them the vacated houses. Now, if your poor afflicted person appears to have regained their composure you can ask again about if they hold any other nation responsible for their occupations and see if they have internalized the information you provided, the likelihood is nothing will have changed.

 

The good news was the last Liberian has been released from the hospital marking their final Ebola victim to have received treatment. It appears the fears of a worldwide pandemic were a bit premature but they also restricted travel out of the afflicted areas and may have prevented the spread of Ebola further. The heroic acts by many healthcare professionals who volunteered and placed themselves in the midst of the outbreak of this deadly disease should be lauded with high praise. They were likely instrumental in preventing the spread of this epidemic into the world and making it a pandemic. What is a pity is that it takes an emergency before many of us turn our attentions to some of the people who need assistance the most and instead join the protest which only requires one’s attention and time for a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning spent carrying a sign for those few hours each week. Perhaps if one is truly dedicated to the cause they camp out at the protest site over the weekend and display their dedication and definitely join up if there is planned a stronger statement where specific targets are to be targeted. At the other end of the spectrum, an American aid worker who had volunteered in Ebola infected Africa to aid in battling the epidemic has tested positive for Ebola and will be admitted to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland to be treated. Our hopes and prayers are with this goodhearted person struck by the very ailment they had sought to relieve and treat in others living with them in Africa.

 

Further, the war against ISIS has taken a few baby-steps in containing and possible taking back the city of Tikrit in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Iraqi military and the militias have shocked their United States trainers and imbedded advisors who have complained to the Iraqi government that these forces have been committing atrocities. The reports claim that some of the atrocities committed by the Iraqi forces border on the same level of violence and disrespect for those captured and in their custody as have been leveled on ISIS. This had disturbed their American trainers and if not rectified could lead to the removal of all United States trainers and other support personnel. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said the images amounted to “disturbing and serious allegations.” Below are a pair of photos the first reveals a captive being either hung while blindfolded and restrained or actually having been flung from what appears to be a guard tower with the second depicting a man who had recently been dragged by a yellow rope tied to his right ankle. Both are examples of treatment of prisoners which is unacceptable from a properly trained military and are acts expected of the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIS, not United States trained troops.

 

captive ISIS suspect hanging from guard tower by Iraqi forces

 

Captive ISIS fighter who has just been dragged by his right leg by Iraqi Special Operations Forces from the “Golden Brigades”

 

 

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the big news are the lost e-mails from her private internet server of Hilary Clinton. This is simply the latest in a maelstrom of troubles and tribulations which are surrounding Ms. Clinton leading some to question if she would even care to run for President and face an even more thorough investigation of her actions by a seeming hostile media. Of course the media cannot get tired of chasing down every lead or hint of misadventures by Hilary going forward. The real problem is that Hilary lacks in charm as much as her husband simply oozes charm which means every explanation she gives simply gets her deeper into the already deep mire of scandalous accusations. It is still our contention that Elizabeth Warren is the media chosen darling they hope will become the Democrat candidate for the 2016 Presidential elections. There are a number of potential candidates waiting in the wings but the odds of a democrat winning election to the White House is considered edgy as the odds of a candidate, other than the Vice President, of the same party who have held the White House for eight years are historically poor.

 

Also in the news is the continued fighting under the ceasefire in the Ukraine despite assurances from the Russians that they have nothing to do with the fighting. This leaves many to question where the rebel forces obtained their heavy weapons. Did they have howitzers in their basements, tanks and APCs in their garages and heavy machine guns hanging over the mantle atop the fireplace? The fighting in Syria continues with the death toll rising now estimated to be over two-hundred-thousand civilian lives alone and who knows how many fighters have died. In Nigeria media reports have apparently confirmed that elite South African mercenaries have joined with the forces at the front lines in Nigeria’s war against the extremist Islamic terrorists of Boko Haram. There is a fight worth waging but the world has mostly turned a blind eye to the struggles against Boko Haram which is just as necessary as is opposing ISIS. They have become one and the same as Boko Haram has officially tied themselves to ISIS and claim that they are fighting to establish the Caliphate. The same goes for the forces from Libya who have been announcing their intentions of invading Italy and taking control of Rome and with it Vatican City where they plan on making the cathedrals into Mosques and claiming supremacy over all of Christendom in the process. Such an assault would be a test for NATO and one which Putin would carefully watch for developments which might signal the death of NATO leaving additional nations Putin wishes to claim for Russia more readily assaulted if NATO has become ineffective by the witness to lack of concern or action in Italy. What a world we live in and yet, somehow we each and every one of us make it to the market and have milk in the refrigerator and can pop some popcorn and watch sports or other television allowing us the serenity of ignoring the crazy madness all around us.

 

Beyond the Cusp