What Happens When Islamist Extremist Terror Faces Vlad the Invader?

 

Apparently there were no newspapers, radio news or television news and nobody was much interested in the Chechen war of terrorism against Russia which caused troubles for the Russian government as nobody apparently knew how to fight this threat and remain unfazed, untouched, unshamed and completely oblivious to any and all the negative condemnations and accusations of human rights abuses, war crimes and negative fallout from the necessary acts which would prove effective once applied. But where to find a human who had nerves of steel, that glazed look in their eyes, and a stone cold heart who would be capable of rivaling Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Drăculea and lovingly by the peoples of Romania, Vlad the Impaler. The year was 1999 and the Russians found their man, a lieutenant colonel from the KGB back in the day stationed in Dresden, East Germany from 1985 to 1990. He was assigned a cover as a translator and interpreter while assigned to the KGB’s Directorate S with the other operatives who were actually agents using undercover identities. Putin worked in coordination with the infamous and often cruel Stasi Secret Police, who were often too obvious, where he assisted in selecting potential and approaching with attempts to recruit foreigners for assignments to carry out espionage for the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin wall and collapse of the Soviet Union would have left a lesser man in a desperate state but Vladimir Putin simply burned the KGB’s files, attempted to contact his similarly desperate seniors in Moscow who surprisingly were not in the office any longer as they too were scrambling to establish a new identity and position in the rapidly morphing government and governance. Putin landed himself in Leningrad and assumed position with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University. Then he was chosen probably in part because he was expendable, but he proved to be far more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose, he became the man of the hour and took the Chechen problem and smashed it head-on. Putin applied the full force of the Russian military leveling entire neighborhoods and eventually leveled most of the Chechen Capital City of Grozny and caused severe damage throughout Chechnya and severely disabled the framework, networks, coordination and effectiveness and when the Second Chechen War concluded they wrote their new Constitution which declared their being a republic within the Russian Federation and the terror problems with Chechen rebels have virtually stopped and Putin gained the love and admiration of the Russian people. His go to any lengths and make the losses of the and effects of the conflict so horrific for the enemies that they completely concede disputed territory and avoided any further conflict that the horror afflicted and the appreciation of his population for the end of threats by the enemy that it reminds us of another Vlad, Vlad Drăculea. Way back in the ancient days of March 16, 2014, we saw this parallel between Vlad Drăculea from history and similar current actions and popularity with the people for his making their lives safer by Vladimir Putin, and the facts that they were both named Vlad. So we went the extra step and took the inspiration of Vlad Drăculea being named by his adversaries as Vlad the Impaler, and we gave Vladimir Putin the title Vlad the Invader when he entered the Crimea, Ukraine. {For anyone so inclined to peruse our collection of articles thus far concerning Vladimir Putin under our reference of Vlad the Invader can go here care-of, dare I reveal it, Google.}

 

 

 

The rambling above has its reasons as we are likely to have one of those moments when the current resembles the past but as an echo put through an amplifier and a few special effects added. As established, Vladimir Putin, Vlad the Invader, is a get the job done, damn the consequences, because as long as the people are behind me and will continue to elect me to whatever position is required for me to remain above the consequences, then damn those consequences and its pedal to the metal and increasing pressure until the others squeal and beg for mercy, though we know no mercy. Still, there has been a pressure vessel being pumped as fast and as far and wide as the Saudi Arabia Wahabbists and the Egyptian Al-Azhar University trained Imams are able to, with the aid of the social networks, online videos and their charismatic appeal combined with descriptions of grandeur awaiting those who take action in the holy jihad against the Western World, which oddly enough to these Imams the Russian Federation which was salvaged from the collapsed Soviet Union had now been relegated to the Western World. Many of the youth are looking at a future with little if any promise and frustration building up such that they eagerly seek something or someone to blame for what is described to them as a conspiracy of the Western Powers who spread corruption and misery wherever they rule as they take what they want and ignore those living in these places. All the poverty and lack of opportunity is inflated into a global conspiracy blaming whomever their chosen target of the moment is which is about to be the Russian Federation, currently Europe’s largest Muslim country. One might say that they know not with whom they are about to open terrorist hostilities. These Imams have all the trademarks of terror instigators with the training and certificates to match. They have been operating mostly in Central Russia centering efforts with the Tatars, Russia’s largest Muslim ethnic group numbering about 5 million, along with estimated 2.5 to 5 million Uzbeks, 1 million Tajiks and 1 million Kyrgyz all who currently reside in Russia. These Muslims are being radicalized with mixed but slowly building the result of both Salafism and Wahhabism, ultra-conservative movements within Sunni Islam.

 

All of this will eventually reach the desired conflict but unlikely the desired end being aimed for by these outside forces who are instigating and also enlisting mostly illegal immigrants from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. These are numbering also in the millions as there is little enforcement and what there is can easily be worked around. The plan is not difficult to ascertain as it is the same as what has worked so perfectly with Islamic conquest since the early 700’s when they first spread out of their thin slivers of habitual areas on the rims of the Arabian Peninsula, some things never really change much. Step 1: infiltrate with immigration both legal if given the opportunity as was just extended by Angela Merkel and jumped on the bandwagon were François Hollande and Barack Obama, all of which are in denial of Islamist terror potential with the unchecked waves of ‘refugees’ which have an imbalance of men aged mid to late teens through mid-thirties all able bodied, single and many wearing designer cloths talking on the latest model iPhones. Step 2: demand changes to accommodate Islam and begin terror strikes to set area on the edge needing just the right bold strike of organized wide front of terror to send them beyond the cusp and likely unable to recover before the end plays out. Step 3: start to take position in the government and get trusted Muslims in position which are elected and push the non-Islamic native population from the area allowing them to remain either as Dhimmi paying the Jiyza or having converted to Islam which will get them observed to catch them still practicing their former religion in secret. Then the final Step 4: make the push to take the entire nation through force and install a theocratic dictatorship.

 

 

 

There will be a one-step solves all problems as Vlad the Invader shares the shock value though Vlad the Invader needs to be somewhat more tactful and within societal norms as even stretched by a long and grinding war one may not use Vlad the Impaler methods of impaling the bodies of those enemies taken prisoner and the dead left on the field of nettle by the invaders all on pike poles impaled with the other end of the impaling weapon firmly thrust deeply into the ground making for a gruesome and horrific sight which had the desired shock and flight rather than fight reflex from his enemies. The Ottoman Turks who were constantly trying to take the Romanian lands are reputed at one point to assign their most feared and similarly barbarous with his tactics to the point of appearing unbalanced or completely insane. His response to the request that he take care of the Vlad Drăculea problem and he ungraciously refused claiming that fighting a foe who showed to be even beyond the cusp by the Ottoman Turks most egregious commander who used shock value tactics himself but was quite terrified of Vlad the Impaler and thus the effect of peace and freedom from Ottoman rule. Vladimir Putin will still use the tactics he learned while studying methods within the KGB, the original trainers of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas as well as other expert murderers such as Che Guevara, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tso Deng, Pol Pot and too many others to list.

 

If one were to question Vlad the Invader’s metal, one need go not very far to get results, just ask the residents and rulers of Georgia, Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, Chechnya and especially Chechen Capital City of Grozny as they will all weave a similar story of brutality and no apparent tactics beyond that of intimidation though overwhelming damage, loss of life, and senseless bombardment with the only explanation being that if a target was known then why not take out the whole block and every block around it and most of the ones on the outside of those just to make sure if the target was attempting to escape. This is not beyond other KGB rumored methods as in Lebanon one of the people taken hostage in a Hezballah raid was a Soviet Union official along with a few British, French, an Italian and a few Americans. The Italian was released with the threat for each nation to release all the Islamic terror suspects and those who already faced trial and were serving their sentences. The next day, after receiving intelligence that indeed a Russian national was taken there was an immediate Soviet response. An embassy vehicle drove by the headquarters building in southern Beirut where they rolled out the heads of three Hezballah terrorists captured the evening after the abducted Russian was confirmed on the ensuing morning. The heads included a note informing them where the rest of the bodies were buried and informed then if they had not released their Russian hostage, they could expect more deliveries. The Russian was standing at the gates of the Soviet Union’s Embassy later that very night carrying a letter of abject apologies and no Soviet Union citizen was again proving that when barbarity is met with superior barbarity the message is fully understood. The fact that the American hostages were amongst the last to be released was even more proof that one cannot answer barbarous hostilities with words and negotiations which include empty threats which the terrorists fully understand will never be carried out because the nations they are fighting obey the rules of war. This leads to the situation where one will act predictably which means their every move can be anticipated and thus their terror adversaries were always at least one step ahead.

 

Surprise and brash acts are the only tactic shown to work other than almost carpet-bombing entire cities or regions, acting impulsively or deliberately contrary to logic and all predictability and even with undue force and sinking not only to their level but a number of levels deeper just to assure that your message that you will destroy whatever it takes to shock the terrorists and their leaders to such an extent that they beg you for an end to the attacks or whatever utilized which got their full attention of the terror forces and it would be unwise to reignite such a game which required one to chance another person’s life. Such games and such stakes must be eradicated before another life is needlessly wasted. Never again must be the stated policy of any democratic nation and it must be strictly followed no matter the consequence. To cave to such demands only endangers everyone else as there becomes the idea that if one kidnaps the correct person or sufficient numbers of victims are kidnapped that a free nation will then cave to the demands placing one person above that of the entirety of the remaining population. Putin knows how that game is played and is willing to play such a game in the most brutal way. Where such is apparently such a violent and callous manner to treat life but it is the only way to prevent future lives being placed in danger making every foreign tourist a potential target and eventually that target becomes anybody anywhere. Odd as it may seem, the Russian policy could very well be the only manner in which to take such situations to their final manner and logistically defused in a manner which ends the kidnap threat as it gains the terrorist foe no gains. We need to unfortunately learn this answer ourselves or we will be subjecting the entirety of the Middle East in the actions not taken over the next few years. Careful planning before any situation becomes the news crisis of the decade until next week once the government caves to the demands. That is the reason terrorists must never be negotiated with, only destroyed wherever they stand.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel Must Forcefully Answer Terrorism and Refuse to Suffer the World’s Wrath

 

The savagely and horrifically butchered Jewish Rabbis murdered in their Jerusalem Synagogue in the midst of morning prayers resulted in wild and joyous Palestinian revelry replete with the handing of candy to the children and sermons from Imams praising and lauding their heroic martyrs with political and religious leadership calling for more acts of such violence on Twitter, on Facebook, in religious services, in schools, on giant murals with the faces of the cousins who committed these savage acts and across all forms of media. The tepid denunciation given by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas resulted from direct pressure from United States Secretary of State Kerry and was drowned out by all the reverie and elative celebrations in the streets of Judea, Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza. Then there was the reaction from United States President Obama who after meekly referring to the terrorist slaughter of holy men in a house of worship with the following statement, “I strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack on worshipers at a synagogue in Jerusalem, which killed four innocent people, including U.S. citizens Aryeh Kupinsky, Cary William Levine, and Mosheh Twersky, and injured several more. There is and can be no justification for such attacks against innocent civilians. The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the victims and families of all those who were killed and injured in this horrific attack and in other recent violence. At this sensitive moment in Jerusalem, it is all the more important for Israeli and Palestinian leaders and ordinary citizens to work cooperatively together to lower tensions, reject violence, and seek a path forward towards peace.” Did this oral equivalence of a stock announcement lacking any moral indignation or revulsion by President Obama really end warning and calling for, of all things, in his own words, “more important for Israeli and Palestinian leaders and ordinary citizens to work cooperatively together to lower tensions, reject violence and seek a path forward towards peace.”

 

Then there were the mainstream media reports of these absolutely detestable, abhorrent, gruesome and vile slaughters of four Rabbis in their Synagogue in the middle of their Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in West Jerusalem and nowhere near the so-called ‘occupied lands’ which either worded their report in such a manner as to imply these murders and the injuries, many so severe there may be others who will succumb to these acts of terror, as being understandable and possibly deserved. One report in the mainstream media of one European nation actually used the lead-in to their commentary stating that Israeli police killed two Palestinians in a gun battle and only well into their coverage did they manage to include there had been a terror attack committed by the two Israeli Arabs who died resisting arrest, something they likely had decided they would do in order to cement their status and shahids. Almost every report mislabeled the two terrorists as Palestinians ignoring the fact that they came from East Jerusalem and were Israeli citizens, as are all who live in East Jerusalem. When Israel annexed East Jerusalem they granted those Arabs residing to receive Israeli citizenship as was considered proper and decent handling of the people whose homes were now considered to be within Israeli borders. One of the consistent Western politicians complaints is that Israel would need to grant the entirety of the Palestinian residents citizenship if they annexed any of Judea, Samaria or Gaza, which is exactly what Israel did when they annexed East Jerusalem restoring wholeness to their capital city and also to those living in the Golan Heights which Israel has also annexed. Probably the most insensitive act was committed by the Spanish Parliament which held their vote and passed recognition of Palestine within hours after the news of the savagery committed in the Jerusalem synagogue.

 

These actions, statements and media coverage by the Western World has proven to any rational and sane observer to have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that Israel has been deserted and become a pariah amongst the nations and no longer can expect any fair and levelheaded treatment, judgment, considerations or interactions for the foreseeable future with the exception of Canada and the small minority who have proven by their past support to be capable of equitable treatment. What Israel must now consider is what actions are warranted and develop sufficiently thick skin and begin to turn a deaf ear to those who have proven their inability to think objectively when Israel and her foes in the Arab and Muslim worlds including and especially when it concerns the people invented by the Russian intelligence agencies, the ‘Palestinians’. So, that brings us to the question of what exactly are the causes behind these terrorist actions and is there any way to prevent them or what deterrent could be enacted which would make the price for any act of terror against Israeli civilians so dear and severe that the Palestinian leadership and Imams no longer glorify terrorism and martyrdom attacks.

 

The first thing which must be made clear is that the incitement which causes these murderous terrorist acts refers to the intended victims by a select set of terminology which also is informative. In the incitements they call for the murder of ‘settlers’, ‘Zionists’ or ‘Jews’ but seldom is the identity of the targets for terror referred to as ‘Israelis’. This is not a war over land, water, self-governing or any of the pretenses which the world has decided have to be the valid and sole categories which drives terrorism as these are ideas the Western minds can handle and they refuse to view these acts truthfully for what they represent. This is a war of ideologies, of religions, of the means to fulfill the prophesies of the Quran and the Hadiths. The driving impetus behind most of the actual acts of terror and definitely behind the impetus for the incitement which nurtures the societal elevation of those who die and thus receive eternal life as they have exalted themselves into martyrs, into shahids are religious and presents the murdering of Jews is an act of great honor by the Quran and dying while committing such acts guarantees one’s acceptance to heaven where they receive great gifts and servile women. This is a war to prove that Allah is greater than Hashem, that the god of Abraham, Ishmael and Muhammad is greater and the only true deity and rules over the G0d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and thus the Muslims will defeat the Jews and such is inevitable because Allah wills this and has set the eradication of the Jews as one of the steps to world domination. No amount of land that leaves even a shred of Israel and any Jews inhabiting the entirety of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea will satisfy the bloodlust and religious fervor which drives their terrorism and satisfies the demands for vengeance in the name of Allah their Imams fill within their sermons. In the charter of Hamas it calls for the eradication of Israel and of all Jews anywhere in the world and the establishment of a caliphate which will rule over a Muslim world. Fatah only wishes to eradicate Israel.

 

So, what could Israel do which would possibly have the effect of ending the incitement or at a minimum reduce the quantity of such incitement, especially in the schools and in children’s programs. While giving the Palestinians land would have little if any effect on the war, permanently annexing lands inside of Israel thus expanding her borders would have severe ramifications as such an action would restate that the Jewish People and the Jewish State not only stay here but it expects to grow and fill all of the land with even more Jews as well as Christians and other religions even to include Islam. Perhaps a sliding scale with even a terror attempt which had failed triggers the annexing of a quarter of a square kilometer all the way up to five square kilometers for each fatality caused by any act of terror might dissuade the instigators from pursuing further horrors. After annexing a full square kilometer for every four rocks which are thrown at vehicles it might actually spawn attempts to curb the calls for such attacks as the cost would be very steep for minimal effect and damage. The total area of Judea and Samaria which the Palestinians reside is 5,860 square kilometers which would rapidly shrink unless there was a change in the programs reducing much of the incitement and glorification resulting in a reduction of the violence. Such a program would need to be announced and implemented without even a shred of timidity. It should also move anybody whose family was ever found to have a connection to terror outside the altered borders to a sufficient distance to avoid a repeat of relocating them too quickly in the future. If this placing a cost for terrorism on the Palestinian lands results in Israel acquiring all of Judea and Samaria, then that is where it will lead and it will have removed the terrorists from that land making it safer and will provide Israel with the defensible borders she actually needs and resolves the peace process. Should Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas leaders be responsible for allowing the terrorism to continue, this form of punishment will eventually, and more likely quite quickly, resolve the problem and Israel will have incorporated the Arabs of Judea and Samaria who were not part of the terrorist structure, a laudable goal if ever there was such out of the morass which the peace process has produced.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

It’s All About Defending the Ideas from the Enlightenment

The Age of Reason that was achieved in Europe originated during the Period of Enlightenment is and was not unique to the Western culture, such had occurred before and hopefully will continue to appear anyplace where it has either never existed or been lost due to decline of a civilization. The form of reason to which I refer is that which holds personhood as one of the central and most vital of all resources and as such worthy of protection and empowerment. This is the sort of reasoning upon which freedoms and liberties are based and without which civilization reverts to some form of barbarism, be it based upon tribes, clans, religion, idolatry, or other identity through which all who are considered as outside or the other are considered unworthy of protection for their lives, freedoms, liberties or even kindness. Such enlightenment is currently most prevalent in the advanced industrial nations of the West, a number of eastern cultures and is coming into its own in a select number of developing nations who are embracing the ideals of equality under the law, equality of opportunity, acceptance of differences and other central pillars of an enlightened society.

Many who preach about enlightened societies like to put forward the canard that such societies are relatively new to the civilized world. The truth of the matter is that enlightened societies have existed numerous times throughout human history; they just usually fell before the rampaging conquest by more brutal and barbarous tribe, hordes or other equally infamous descriptors. Some examples of such enlightened societies would be the Hebrews when they actually followed their biblical laws and performed mitzvah and kept their religion and its limitations as their guide in life, the Greeks (actually Macedonians) under Alexander, Rome to some extent before they went off the rails and anointed Caesars and gave them god-like stature, some of the many dynasties in both China and Japan and those societies which were guided by Buddhism in its most benevolent forms and likely others. In each of these societies the freedoms and liberties that are usually present in an enlightened society were often reserved for citizens and only rarely and most often to a lesser extent actually extended to all who resided within the boundaries of the State or Empire. The one major problem which cursed these earliest of enlightened societies was the distance between the central governance and most of the rest of the society. This allowed for some of the provinces and cities more distant to not necessarily live up to the higher standards set at the heart of the kingdom. This is one of the reasons that it is claimed that truly enlightened societies were impossible before faster means of travel and electronic communications allowed for universal application of centralized governance to enforce the laws uniformly. Where this is somewhat true, communication has been capable of sufficient speed for some time. All that was necessary was the organization and desire to set up routes of communications.

There has been a lot written and said about the need for Islam to go through a reformation such as Europe experienced with the reformation of the Catholic Church, the founding of Protestant forms of Christianity which called for a more enlightened and accepting Church, and the spread and final acceptance of the scientific revolution as a result of the Renaissance with its injection into the society of critical thinking. I like to claim that the pinnacle of achievement of the entirety of the Enlightenment, Renaissance and political evolution was the Declaration of Independence which led to the formation of the United States. The Magna Carta was a giant step forward in this evolution of societies which actually was very likely a necessary step in the processes which led to the Declaration of Independence as was British Common Law. Do not take this as claiming that the United States itself is or has been the pinnacle of human endeavor and accomplishment for that is not my intention. The United States has had a remarkable history both due to and despite its actions. The United States were not the first of governments to abolish slavery which negates their record being spotless. The mere fact that slavery was permitted leaves the United States as having been imperfect and to this day the United States can work and improve upon its current state of affairs. What makes the United States special is its unique ethics and the fact that it has accepted that it is an experiment in the self-rule by men of men and that it must necessarily continue to experiment and seek new ways to extend and broaden the freedoms and liberties for which it was intended at its formation. This was the apparent wishes of those who were the men. The political philosophers, social philosophers, pragmatists, dreamers, master of poetry and prose, and people from as varied a set of backgrounds and professions as ever collected in one endeavor, who together forged the trifecta of documents; the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights; which began what has thus far been the grandest of accomplishments in self-governance by man known as the United States. These people of great visions wrote in their diaries and the letters exchanged between them of their hopes and dreams and of what could be in the future if only those who followed them kept true to their inspired causes and dreams. They knew what they had produced was imperfect but, as stated by Winston Churchill, “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Since the earliest of societies which contained elements of what today is recognized as an enlightened society, it was not until the latter half of the Twentieth Century that global conditions had reached a point where one ideology could conceivably rule all of planet Earth. This also means that only in the most recent period of history has the potential to eradicate all vestiges of enlightened society been a possibility, perhaps not viewed as likely, but still a possibility. Such would be the case if the central societies which are the wellspring from which such ideal and ideas flow were to be eradicated by conquest or simply through malicious destruction simply to deny these societies of having any direct influence of the future. The most obvious attempts in the recent past which had as their central pillar the replacing enlightened societies, which valued freedoms and liberties for the individual with self-determination an option for each as the driving force in their lives, with centralized power dictating every facet and decision in each person’s life were Nazism and Communism. In both of these instances it took a total commitment by the powers and protectors of enlightened rule to defeat these threats. In each case there was a great expense made in lives and treasure in order to initially slow and eventually stop the spread of these dehumanizing governances and then the eventual defeat, though some vestiges of both remain to the present day. It may be noted that communism still holds in its grip a fair percentage of the human race while, fortunately, Nazism has been eradicated from being the governing force over any country, for now. But is there a new force, or the resurgence of an old force, that is threatening the continuation of an enlightened society’s presence in the World? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Islam is the current threat and challenge to the ideal of an enlightened society where the individual is empowered and holds the largest influence over their own actions, desires, opportunities and everything else which defines them, their place in the society and their opportunities and path they follow. What makes this even more sad is that for close to half a millennium Islam served as the keeper of the enlightened view of governance and society. It was under Islam that the individual was empowered to think freely and where new concepts were not immediately dismissed out of hand as blasphemous. Now Islam is the enemy of such thoughts, freedoms, liberties and individualism. Modern day Islam has a rigid system where the society assigns the individual’s place in the order of things and dictates virtually every action from waking to sleeping. Independent thinking and personal liberties are not permitted under Sharia, Islamic Law. Islam has even gone so far as to define themselves as the antithesis of all that the West holds dear. The leaders of Islamic society have stated unequivocally that their biggest desire is to unseat the Western society’s grip on the world and replace what is today considered enlightened laws with their Sharia Law and the accompanying stringent restriction on personal actions and freedoms to do as one believes is best for themselves and instead force all into a mold of what the Quran defines as the perfect man or woman. No leeway, no wiggle room, a set in stone parched existence serving Islam and being a good Muslim exactly as written in the Quran. And the possibility that they will succeed is far higher than I am comfortable with facing.

The reason that Islam stands a better than average chance to overtake the enlightened societies of the Western industrialized nations is very simple, the industrialized Western societies are currently experiencing an identity crisis. Much of the West, especially Europe and the United States, are unsure of what they stand for and where it is they intend to proceed going into the future. And the leadership of the Islamic World has noted the confusion and weakened will of the West and knows that their best opportunity to take over not only the West, but the entire globe is very likely better right at this moment than it will ever likely be again. In Europe there is a monetary crisis that has many of the nations at each other’s throats over who can finance who and can they expect payment of these loans in the future or will they simply disappear as new debt is rolled up by the countries with the weakest economies. The United States has a President who believes that the biggest problem in the world today is that the United States was trying to police everybody else and spread their culture even where it was not acceptable to the elite or leadership of other nations. In response to the United States having been such a dominant power, President Obama has withdrawn the United States from the lead and taken the position of leading from behind. The main problem with this approach is that the rest of the enlightened and industrialized world does not have a true and real leading country other than the United States and such is not about to change in the near future. Should President Obama be reelected to a second term the West may not survive a free world without any leadership. The United States was the combination of the rudder and the keel and without these two essential parts; the free world’s ship has no direction and is threat of being capsized by a sufficiently large shock, a large wave. There was likely never a worse time for the presumable enlightened Western World to have a full blown identity crisis, yet that is apparently their state at this time. The socialists are attempting to undermine individuality and replace the individual with the collective and individual desires and pursuits with the collective good. This tug-of-war between the collectivists and the individualists, especially those rugged, go-it-alone, individualists, is simply tearing the fabric of Western enlightened society to shreds. Many on the extremist elements in the far left have gone so far as to ally with the Islamist interests as they see in them a kindred group who also seek to pull down the individualists and traditionalists of the enlightened society and replace it. Many of them are not oblivious to the fact that the Islamists are diametrically opposed to most of the leftist collective moral relativism and acceptance of alternate lifestyles, but they are betting that when the time comes they will be able to reason and compromise with those who wish to implement Sharia and thus be enabled of implementing a collective society which reflects their multicultural, morally relativist, universal acceptance, free love society and the Islamic influences will be accepting because they will have worked together. If they think that they are facing resistance from those who oppose them in the current Western society then they are going to be acquainted with something that in comparison makes their current situation appear to be all flowers and incense. The one saving grace may be that the enlightened West has been in disarray before and then faced a threat to their core beliefs and entire existence and responded in an appropriate manner with the zeal and confidence necessary to survive and defeat the efforts of those who would have completely erased their society from the face of the Earth. What they had better wake up and realize is that the current threat is actually the greatest one the enlightened Western society has ever faced. This time the forces against enlightenment actually realize and know their side is the side of death and darkness, and this time they celebrate these facts. That makes this time very different though the manner of defense may be very similar to past times. Whatever may come, if the enlightened society has a future, it has to solidify and realize that none of its internal squabbles have a nickel’s worth of meaning in the fight to come which will be for all the marbles. I know, never mix and compare nickels and marbles, it confuses people and we need to clear away any confusing fog and take a close and unobstructed scrutiny of what the immediate future is threatening.

Beyond the Cusp