Jewish Acceptance About to Die in Europe

 

There are any numbers of measurements which one can point to depicting threats to the continued acceptance of the presence of Jews. The increased levels of anti-Semitism and the accompanying violence perpetrated on Jewish members of numerous European nations is just the beginning. France has witnessed so much violence targeting Jews that they have called up reservists activating their military units and placed them at virtually every Jewish institution where Jews may congregate. This has meant that French soldiers are guarding every Synagogue, every Jewish school, almost every Jewish pre-school, a plethora of Jewish daycares and even some Jewish markets, especially in Friday afternoon as the Shabbat shopping rush takes place. Even with all of this has not completely prevented anti-Semitic attacks in France as the recent murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor in Paris, Mireille Knoll. This harmless lady was stabbed eleven times and violated in other ways before her apartment was set on fire. The bottom of the article lists a number of other similar anti-Semitic driven murders committed in the French recent past. The list is honestly frightening, and we are only in France.

 

Moving to the east we enter Germany on which we just reported on the assault of a Jewish youth on the streets of Berlin resulting in the youth being more seriously wounded than initially thought. This attack was simply representative of one side of a triple-sided closure of German Jews, two of them described in this USA Today article which defines threats from the Islamic refugee influx and the nationalist right-wing neo-Nazi and related anti-Semitic groups. The third threat comes from some on the extreme left who have taken to blaming the Jews for the increasing violence against the Jews themselves. As pointed out deep in this article, there has also been a rise in anti-Semitism on the left as well as the right and amongst some of the Muslims with growth coming from all the aforementioned sides. Even in the schools anti-Semitic bullying has occurred targeting girls and boys alike.

 

Sweden is not an ideal place filled with acceptance and love for their Jewish population which is facing increasing violence with Malmo becoming a city with what might only be called no-go areas for Jews. In Italy it is reported that from Malmo we go to Milan and the hate is the same anti-Semitism which has even infected soccer crowds. We are shown that being called a ‘Jew’ is one of the worst insults used by Italians which happens at soccer matches despite efforts by the authorities. Moving across the Channel to Britain we find that anti-Semitic hate crimes hit record high as violent assaults increase by more than a third in a year. These are simply an introduction as expressing Jewish themes or following actual religious obligations become crimes, these are the real signs that Europe will soon spit out its Jews if not worse.

 

But the real stories lie at opposing ends of Europe. Poland has recently passed a new law making a crime out of references to any Polish participation in the Nazis genocidal murder of Jews during World War II, thus making such a thought crime and against national speech code. Even worse is when even performing Mitzvahs and fulfilling Biblical commandments become criminal acts. How can a Jew remain living in a nation and raise a family when performing even the most basic and central command from the Torah, one demanded of Avraham by Hashem and practiced by the Jews during the Exodus before entering the Holy Lands and the rite by which every male child shares the same covenant made by Avraham when committing to Hashem and his ways and laws. The Mitzvah of the covenant to which we refer is Circumcision, an act which will become illegal and punishable by a punishment of up to six years in prison. This is what a new law recently proposed by Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir from the Progressive Party, a center-right, populist party, along with eight other members of Parliament from across the political spectrum. Should this become law, then the message is that Jews, as well as Muslims, are not welcome in Iceland and that any residing in Iceland who has a male child will be required to choose between following the laws of the land or the laws of their people and Torah. Any Jew who is honest will choose Torah and making the covenant for their child with Hashem and need to leave Iceland or become a fugitive from Justice. Such a law has been passed before in Europe back in Nazi Germany where having been circumcised was very likely a death sentence as it was considered proof positive that one was a Jewish male.

 

Aurora Borealis Over Reykjavík, Iceland

 

Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are amongst the countries who have considered circumcision bans in the modern era. Thus far, none have actually been passed and stood challenges but it is very likely that Iceland will blast through that door and not simply unlock and open it. This will not be a polite passage of a ban as it has been made clear and indisputably shown that passing such a law banning circumcision would be a religious ban and insult to both Judaism and Islam and that believers of these faiths, one of the world’s largest and potentially the world’s oldest religions, would find residing in a nation with such a law on the books impossible. The problem is that once this door has been even cracked open, let alone blown off its hinges, will begin to allow the other nations who had previously considered banning circumcision will return to reconsider and this time having a precedent which they can point to as their license to follow suit in protecting infant male children from the imposition of barbarous actions of the religiously dogmatic parents. Europe has been moving towards considering religious people to be dogmatic and suffering mental difficulties and requiring social readjustment and potentially claiming such people as unfit parents. Adding circumcision to the intended acts of a religious person may soon come to be cause for placing a child under state care. This will be the threat which will send European Jews rushing for the exits taking their children where their safety will be better assured.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

America Election 2016 and Beyond

 

The question for the United States is not whether who they elect President in the November elections will be capable of making the United States strong and a force in the world again but whether or not what remains of the country will permit such a turn-around or will it take far longer or possibly never. Part of the answer will be staged around President Reagan after President Carter but that is a false narrative. First thing is that things happen at a much faster pace, almost light speed, compared to the late 1970s and early 1980s. We are talking modern dual and quad Pentium complete processing boards in a single chip all compared to a few years away from the 8080A processor and looking forward to clock speeds 100K system clock speeds. Today almost nothing outside a museum or high school science project runs so slowly and even the average calculator has greater computing power than the processor boards used on the Space Shuttle. The first thing one needs to remember is that President Jimmy Carter had under three months from when he knew with undeniable certainty he was leaving office while President Barack Obama has had four years more than that since he knew with certainty that he would be expected to leave office and two years more than that when he knew that he would have no effect on deferral elections and a full year since he could no longer effect any state elections. The big question is with little possibility of ever facing impeachment no matter what he does over the next year and nothing to prevent his going against Congress and ignoring the Supreme Court if necessary, what will he manage to accomplish and what has he already accomplished beyond things that President Carter would have died before serving such dishonors. So, exactly what will the next President of the United States be facing and other effects this could impose on the world.

 

 

Physician Obama Will Cure All Your Ills
at a Price of Your Freedom, Choice and
of Course you Cannot Keep Your Doctor,
Insurance Plan or Insurer and any Change
Even if it is Forced by Law Places You in a
Government Plan and Government Doctors
and Government Approved Coverage as
Dictated by the Surgeon Pictured Above

 

 

The biggest vacuum had been the complete evacuation of the United States military from the world’s stage. The wholesale retreat with little planning and no coordination or considerations of what the effects would be of leaving Iraq basically high and dry along with the planned retreat from Afghanistan given an out-by date will only have the enemies of a democratic and modern Afghanistan just lining the borders waiting for the last plane of American troops wheels to leave the runway before tearing that country apart and the countryside a week earlier when the American troops are too busy bugging out to be able to turn aside and prevent the complete dismantling of all their hard won gains. The complete disregard for the hard fighting and American and allied losses and the scores more injured, many with permanent disabilities and scars which will haunt them for a lifetime and to have their and their friends sacrifices simply tossed into the White House trash basket making many furious is completely understandable. The dishonors of the total disregard for their efforts and sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan, the breaking of the promises made by those same servicemen and women and of the American people added to the approval for women to be placed in combat units even if altering the requirements to be in such units and the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell replacing it with open enrollment for all forms and varieties of sexual orientations and proclivities; is it any surprise that when the service men and women also saw ranking officers being forced from service for putting the military ahead of political correctness and is it any surprise with many of the officers and higher enlisted men they served with and respected seen being forced or voluntarily leaving the service that many promising young officers and enlisted men and women leaving the service right behind them. This did not bother the people in the White House and the Pentagon went along as they are required to obey their civilian commanders and if these civilian commanders are demanding they make decisions they are unable to meet, then their only recourse is to leave the military altogether. As the number decreased the military was instructed to allow certain types who were underrepresented in the service to be given preferential treatment over traditional inductees. This only served to chase even more traditional service personnel to get out instead of reenlisting and making the service their life’s work and their goal in life.

 

 

The United States Under Direction from President Obama
in the White House to End Production of the F-22 Raptor
at the Completion of the Run Then in Progress and After that
the United States Air Force to be Relying Predominantly on the
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as What is Good for the Rest of the
World Should be Just Fine for the United States

 

 

The reduced numbers fit with the plans in Washington as the funds saved by allowing for a smaller and less capable military with less equipment and the saved funds for all the cancelled weapons systems such as the F-22 Raptor as why should the United States have a fifth generation fighter vastly superior to that of other nations as shouldn’t the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter suffice, the exact same aircraft the United States is promising to any number of other nations such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Britain, Turkey, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Japan and Singapore possibly or already having made orders for delivery of this advanced fighter giving them the same aircraft as the United States, so what could possibly go wrong here as none of these nations would ever become an adversary, could they? But then again, the current White House has a model for the United States which is based on the European national body but this misses a crucial reason that the Europeans could safely function in this still dangerous world because after World War II the United States gave them all assurances that they could rely on the United States to have the great military upon which the rest of the free and Western World could depend. Well, that does create a problem because as the United States moves at an ever increasing speed to become just another European nation with a similarly weak border and shore control only military then who will protect the Western World and the free nations from the threats which are still legion in the world? Why worry about that, there are people we need to have become dependent upon government for their health care and we need those funds for supporting Social Security payments and Medicare. There are no longer the threats such as the Soviet Union and we are allied with China and so what if they are slowly building islands to claim the entirety of the South China Sea, they’ll allow trade ships to pass and Russia is our new friend as well as Turkish President Erdogan and the Iranian Ayatollah and Supreme Leader but not Egyptian President Sisi, he desires causing a reformation of Islam to purge it of the violent passages and instead form a religion which is not bent on world conquest and can coexist with all other religions and is against President Obama’s friends in the Muslim Brotherhood. Sounds like such a great plan whose ramifications are going to be so great.

 

Then there is the, as we have heard and been assured about repeatedly, wonderful healthcare offered by Obamacare. There has been uncountable people purchasing new health insurance coverage beyond even the most optimistic predictions. Never mind that there have been untold numbers of people who had their coverage cancelled for not meeting the extremely specific demands of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act which appears to explain a sizeable percentage of the purchases. The healthcare system enacted with a straight party line votes without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate and only making it to the President’s desk was the fact that there was a solid majority if Democrats in both houses to usher the legislation through Congress. There is an underreported side effect of Obamacare has been the ever-growing number of health insurance companies including one of the largest which have reported they are losing their shirts and the biggest losses come from the Obamacare government Exchanges themselves and their losses are significant enough that first off the rate of government reimbursement is insignificant as the amounts of their losses are too great and the 80% reimbursement still leaves them losing tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars and secondly the government payment schedules are shoddy and slow making their losses even more painful and damaging. Talking about losses, the economy which we are told has been recovering since early in 2009 but has apparently not reached the job market as corporate profits steadily climb. Isn’t corporate profits soaring while jobs are stagnant supposed to be a republican thing and the media goes completely bonkers, oh, wait, that’s it, the media thing would never point this out with a Democrat in the White House and if challenged it will become the do nothing Congress because the republicans are preventing the President from accomplishing the necessary changes necessary.

 

About a do nothing congress, let’s discuss this for a moment or so. There are a number of good things which can be the result of a truly do nothing Congress. Unfortunately a do nothing Congress usually means that the Congress is not passing leftist, socialist, communist and burdensome legislation which strangles companies in business, prevents new start-up companies from forming and make coordinating your company into subservience to the government and collecting corporate welfare payments. General Electric has realized mind-blowing profits by simply playing the government game of green energy projects backed by government funding for the past decades, very impressive and unlike the following list of green energy companies which went belly-up and the funding they received from the government: Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*, SpectraWatt ($500,000)*, Solyndra ($535 million)*, Beacon Power ($43 million)*, Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million), SunPower ($1.2 billion), First Solar ($1.46 billion), Babcock and Brown ($178 million), EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*, Amonix ($5.9 million), Fisker Automotive ($529 million), Abound Solar ($400 million)*, A123 Systems ($279 million)*, Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*, Johnson Controls ($299 million), Brightsource ($1.6 billion), ECOtality ($126.2 million), Raser Technologies ($33 million)*, Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*, Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*, Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*, Range Fuels ($80 million)*, Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*, Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*, Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*, GreenVolts ($500,000), Vestas ($50 million), LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million), Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*, Navistar ($39 million), Satcon ($3 million)*, Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*, and Mascoma Corp. ($100million) (*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy). There’s some big bucks to be stolen, we mean made in green business. These government “investments” cost the American taxpayers almost seven and a half billion dollars, sounds like a smart investment of their money, better bet it has been because there are trillions more to be thrown into the environmental vortex in the years to come. Isn’t government wonderful? Trust that the environmental area is just an easy target as there are even greater boondoggles out there just waiting for your tax monies now and in the future. Still, the scariest of all items would be if the race in the November 2016 elections are between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump (or worse, Hilary Clinton against Jeb Bush) as the choices for President which makes any third party with a sane candidate and some cash could become viable except the media will only play up a third party candidate they can bring down somewhere near the date of the elections a la Ross Perot.

 

 

Pick Your Presidential Poison Pill
Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton
or Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush

 

 

The great achievements, negative as they may be, of President Barack Obama will turn out to be the pull out of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and the arming of Iran with potentially nuclear weapons, the disruption of Syria and Libya, the almost turning of Egypt over to the root of all Sunni terrorist organizations, the doting support of Putin, the Ayatollahs, China, and all things collective at home. Only the final one might be reversible while the gains of Russia, China and Iran will be far more difficult to push back, especially Iran as that became a mandatory agreement when it was pushed through the United Nations Security Council and as such the law of the land as dictated by the Constitution. His health care system could be completely erased, redacted, eviscerated, declawed but not modified into Republican Obamacare Lite as that would only lead to a manufactured, or would that be manufractured, set of additional rules dictated by bureaucrats which would only produce a more massive boondoggle than we already have. The solitary cure would be the complete redaction of the entire healthcare act and the weeding out of the additional protocols which were hidden deep inside defense spending bills, omnibus spending bills, and virtually every other needed legislation such that it would be like weeding a football field (pitch) which had been allowed to go to seed for a couple of decades manually. The weeds are everywhere and easy to find but with time they pop up every so often anywhere demanding constant dedications and diligence. Thus it would be gutting all the hidden agendas. Another item which needs to be addressed but will never see the light of day is an amendment to the Constitution which forbids anybody other than a vote of Congress to manufacture or initiate any rule, law, regulation or other enforceable item, idea, report, licensing, administrative move of any applicable implication or consideration no matter how much easier it would make the government’s job especially if it lays the onus on private enterprise or private citizens and only the enforcements writ into the legislation by Congress shall be permitted with every Federal court responsible for eradicating all such items found resulting from present legislation and only applying the exact dictates of the legislation and regarding bureaucratic additions and stipulated legalese as voided from the record and Congress charged to define those items they thought they had allocated to the agencies as that is unconstitutional in the strictest and most liberal interpretations of the constitution which relegates the making of laws to the Congress and not to any Administrative agency which is a part of the Presidency and not an arm of Congress. That would remove probably two thirds of all regulations and required bookkeeping for small businesses and large and especially the small business who can ill-afford a lawyer, accountant and expert in governmental forms just to run his arcade or soda bar.

 

In the end, President Obama was not any worse than many former Presidents when it comes to increasing the size and scope of government domestically as President Lyndon Baines Johnson very likely holds the record until President Barack Obama with President Johnson’s War on Poverty, Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and a whole host of other giveaways at taxpayer expense which easily contested him for the top spot depending on the end results of Obamacare which looks very much like, once three quarters of health insurers go under two years after Obama leaves Washington and the Federal Government is called upon to straighten out the mess which means takes total control over health coverage negating all need for health insurance and instead opening a market for above the Federal Medical coverage health providers which will be largely like HMOs or other type of system except they along with one or two others will own a medium sized hospital with every diagnostic and surgical tools and systems with some of the finest physicians in the United States working with them where your basic healthcare would be provided at the costs dictated by the government and all other care would either be included in your subsequent membership level or at a pay as you go level which people would need to pay should they require such procedures. This would be the platinum standard of health club care where members of this club have purchased in their level of membership. There is always a way around any requirement if your pocketbook is deep enough.

 

The real harm done by President Obama is that he has set by his foreign fecklessness which has destroyed the entirety of the Middle East and North Africa and allowed terrorism to spread into Central Africa and complete its hold on the horn of Africa. It has provided Iran with control over the southern exit of the Red Sea by basically occupying Yemen through arming, training and supplementing a nativist clan’s Civil War against the rest of their nation of Yemen thus holding sway over two vital chokepoint waterways, Straits Of Hormuz which controls the flow of oil from the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates along the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea and Suez Canal with the Bal el-Mandeb at the extreme southern end of the Red Sea which also closes access to Asia for the Israeli port of Eilat which is considered an act of war as a casus belli under international treaties and law. President Obama has also empowered a reinvigorated Russia, at least militarily invigorated, and furthered China’s growing claims to the western Pacific Ocean and South China Sea and all the trade routes therein. On the nuclear front he has modeled his treaty with Iran basically around the treaty made by President Clinton with North Korea even going so far as to establish the leaders of the negotiating team including the same members as the former disaster which led to a nuclear powered North Korea. This treaty has yet to be signed by either side and the Iranians have already declared the treaty a dead deal as they claim the United States negotiated in bad faith as proven by suspected actions and basically so that Iran can proceed with their nuclear weapons program ignoring all the obligations presumably in place as an unsigned treaty has been expounded with great fanfare by the Administration as their signature accomplishment as the world disintegrates and burns all around them. All in all, President Obama had done more to destabilize the entire globe than done by any single leader or groups of leaders including Peace in Our Time famed Neville Chamberlin and his faithful if less than enamored Édouard Daladier did when they ushered in World War II because as every war up until World War II from out of antiquity when the first clan took heavy branches as clubs and rocks as projectiles and set upon the neighboring clan killing the adult men and older people of both genders and taking the young children and women as their newest members of the clan, the casualties have steadily risen in almost every war and then dropped after world War II until now. The current war, the War to conquer the world should Islam prove victorious with a great deal of thanks to President Obama who made it possible or the War to Defend the Free World from the Onslaught of Islam and the Forcing of the Reformation of Islam where the Mecca Quran is Declared to Supercede all of the Medina Quran inverting the current later verse superseding the earlier verses from Mecca. (For a quick synopsis and a number of useful links in the comments visit our article Which Quran, Mecca or Medina? for a quick summary and reasons for the differences between the two writings of the Quran and why it is being interpreted as it is today across both Sunni and Shia Islam. Thank you.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Turkey Needs to Prove They Belong in NATO Now

 

United States Secretary of State John Kerry toured the nations of the Middle East seeking allies who would be willing to provide support for the operations spelled out by President Obama for dealing with ISIS. Secretary of State Kerry began his trip visiting NATO partner Turkey in hopes that as a fellow NATO nation they would eagerly support the efforts of their NATO ally. This assumption was sorely mistaken. While I was not privy to the look on Secretary Kerry’s face when Turkish President Erdogan, or whichever functionary was assigned to give the government refusal of intent to cooperate in any way, but I can take a good guess at his feigned surprised, you can knock me down with a feather astonishment look on the face of John Kerry. Why anybody would be surprised at the Turkish refusal should not be holding high position in the government of the United States as anybody holding even the smallest knowledge of recent history should remember that it was Turkey that refused to permit and United States, a NATO ally, troops to be deployed from Turkish soil when the Second Gulf War to remove Saddam Hussein from office was initiated. This prevented a second front from being established in the north of Iraq and permitted many top officials from the Hussein government to make their escape into Syria and possibly even into Turkey itself. The official commentary from the State Department simply stated that Turkey is opting out completely from the coalition and its efforts in Iraq and Syria. This should have further been expected considering Turkey being amongst the original and continuing supporters of ISIS.

 

The other problem is that Secretary of State Kerry is running into brick walls where many nations he has approached claiming they support the idea of what the United States has laid out but we are not really able to assist these efforts at this time. In Egypt President Sisi and the rest of the military hierarchy are not about to forgive President Obama and Secretary Kerry for the United States support for the Muslim Brotherhood and their continuing opposition of the military government which won the election after the army overturned the government of President Morsi as part of bringing an end to the massive demonstrations against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi and their application of oppressive laws designed to make a path for Sharia and an end to the secular civilization in Egypt. There will be no support coming out of Egypt for anything coming from the Administration of President Obama, period. Secretary Kerry must have felt like he had won the lottery after his stops in Turkey and Egypt when Saudi Arabia and the Emirates promised financial support but denied to offer any boots on the ground against ISIS. Part of the reasons behind the Sunni refusals also is due to the threat to Shiite Iran that ISIS potentially poses and that ISIS is far more likely to take its fight to purify the true Religion of the Prophet, Sunni Islam, ISIS is predictably more likely to take their forces against Shiite Iran before they tackle the perceived impure governance by the Saudi Royal Family and the other leaders in the Emirates and across the Sunni world. Check back with Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt after SISI had been severely degraded after their successful overthrow of the Shiite Mullahs in Iran, providing there is any semblance of ISIS that survives an assault on Iran. Until then, the Sunni Arab leaders will not feel the threat and could see the potential for ISIS to, at the least, degrade the arch threat they face, Iran and their sycophants Syria and Hezballah. These results mean that President Obama and his grand plan will place all their expectations for victory on the two groups who have an immediate reason to take on this struggle, the remaining remnants of the Iraqi military and the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who rescued many of the Yazidi peoples who were surrounded and threatened by ISIS forces and are defending the lands populated by Kurdish peoples. Of these two groups the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias are by far the more capable and likely the most capable of forces who make up their lack of numbers with a fierceness and steadfast convictions. The rest are unlikely to offer any ground forces, or even air support, without the United States also putting forces on the ground and even then they will be reluctant and only provide support troops who are able to serve in the rear and unable to perform combat duties with any measurable effect.

 

Still, the reluctance of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and other nations from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is to be expected as these nations are often willing to fight to the very last American troop before they will risk a single of their own troops. They might be willing to provide support troops or combat troops who would hold and guard supply depots and support areas such a motor pools but would be restricted as a condition of their deployment into the theater. Many understand that any problems in MENA locations which the United States determines as a threat, even if it also threatens the nations which are parts of MENA, will refuse to provide troops to fight anywhere outside of their own borders and support any numbers of United States troops being deployed to eradicate the threats to these nations and once the threat has passed they demand that the United States troops leave their territories until the next threat. All of this has been the exact scenario in countless confrontations ever since the Ottoman Empire was defeated as part of World War I and the division of those lands into individual nations over the following couple of decades. This was even the case for most of the fighting during World War I against the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the Arab tribes who resented Ottoman rule and mostly refused to join the battle. The main exception, and it was such an exception that it became the theme for a blockbuster movie, was the Arab revolt which was organized, held together, and led by a single British officer, and possible madman, Major T. E. Lawrence (often mistaken for Peter O’Toole). In all honesty, the film “Lawrence of Arabia” took so much liberty in depicting the Arabs as unorganized tribal forces who suffered from rivalries and discipline difficulties where the reality is most of those led by Major Lawrence were disciplined forces under direct command of their officers, uniformed, and many were captured initially fighting as part of the Ottoman Army and volunteered, initially demanding, to be permitted to fight to overthrow the Ottoman Turks. The movie engendered numerous law suits contesting how many actual people were portrayed to such inaccuracy that the families took umbrage and insult to their honor. There is also the fact that there were other British and French intelligence officers who, like Lawrence, led Arab units. The possible reason that the movie was centered around T. E. Lawrence was likely due to two factors, American journalist Lowell Thomas gave Lawrence much coverage in the West, particularly in the United States, and the extensive and self-aggrandized recounting of Major Lawrence’s accomplishments and importance found within his penned accounting titled, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” Maybe we could use another rather eccentric British officer about now, or maybe not.

 

The only actual effrontery which, though expected in this office, likely somewhat blindsided the Administration of President Obama would be the utter refusal to cooperate by the Turkish government. The government of newly elected and first publically elected President, Erdogan’s refusal not only to provide troops on the ground, but to refuse to provide air support, the use of Turkish airfields or even the use of Turkey itself to house troops or supplies or to launch strikes on ISIS in both Iraq and Syria should be taken as a virtual resignation from NATO as he has proven that under his guidance Turkey has split from NATO and moved closer to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. This should have been expected as this was the exact reaction and lack of consideration or cooperation which Turkey gave President George W. Bush for utilizing Turkish ground from which to launch a second front in the initial stages of the 2003 start to the Second Iraq War. Apparently the Turkish refusals were just as much a shock and surprise as they were a little over a decade ago. Perhaps President Obama had relied on two things, the fact that he believes he is the anti-Bush President and thus should succeed where President George W. Bush had failed, and that he considers Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be one of if not his closest friend and confidant amongst all the leaders in the world. Apparently the friendship felt by President Obama is not reciprocated nearly as much as he might have anticipated and hoped. Still, with what is reputed to be some of the finest information gathering abilities available to advise an American President, one would have thought that President Obama would have been advised on how poorly his hopes for coordination and cooperation his plan would be rejected by the Arab nations he was presumably offering to help and particularly he would have been informed that the only NATO ally was not going to be onboard with the plan. Why President Obama was not forewarned is a question whose answer we will never know.

 

Still the Turkish refusal to once again assist their NATO allies in efforts in the Middle East begs some serious questions. The first, most obvious and of paramount importance is why Turkey remains within NATO. Perhaps there is no means of removing a member once they have been accepted. The one obvious fact is that the experiment of allowing a nation which historically, since the fall of the Byzantine Empire, has sided with the Muslim and Arab forces of the world including being the central home to the last Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, would be considered and granted membership in NATO, a Europe centered mutual defense organization. The reason has more to do with the when and why NATO was originally established. On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, was established with twelve Western nations making up its membership; Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United States. The organization was established to resist the pressures of the Soviet Union and their iron grab over Eastern Europe and to provide a united front which was to provide a greater defensive front for the individual nations by tying their defense against aggressions into the Three Musketeers pledge of all for one and one for all. A short period later on February 18, 1952, two additional states were granted membership; Greece and more importantly Turkey. The most obvious reason leading to the inclusion of Turkey in NATO was desirable as Turkey ruled over the Bosphorus and Dardanelles which are the two straights which control access to the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea which served as the southern route for Russian and Soviet Naval vessels, their western most all season port in the Crimean Peninsula. As the Soviet Union collapsed the reasoning behind NATO, and especially Turkey, should have dissipated leaving the entire alliance to the dustbin of history. But such treaties and similar large organizations, such as labor unions, find new but not necessarily improved, raison d’être. This has been the reality of NATO with it coming up with reason after reason as the years pass which its members generally agree are sufficient excuses to continue the organization. But now that the newest raison d’être is to provide a unified front and mutual protection against potential threats emanating out of Iran or any other threats across the Middle East, the consistent refusal by Turkey to permit any use of their lands and bases or to volunteer their troops or air force joining efforts in the Middle East. What the reason is for having kept Turkey as a member of NATO after their refusal, especially the manner in which they revoked permission with hours left before the invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iran, causing the delay of the deployment of the forces which were to have assaulted Iran from the north and removing entirely the northern front from the strategy, potentially making the entire plan more likely to fail, is beyond reason and can only be attributed to the belief that the Turkish refusal to honor their obligations as a NATO ally was a once only event. With it now established as their policy and not an exception, there is absolutely no conceivable reason to permit Turkey to remain as a member in NATO and doing so is simply an endangerment to the entire membership of NATO. Somehow, it is very doubtful that their refusal again to cooperate in efforts by NATO ally members will have any consequences as any insult or antagonism of Western nations and alliances comes without consequences. Working contrary to the efforts and intentions of any other alliance or nation will definitely have immediate and serious consequences, especially efforts against, the Chinese, the Russians and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Working contrary to the United States is one of the few acts which has no apparent consequence, well, unless the nation refusing to obey the United States is Israel, the nation which appears to be held to a singular set of rules, consequences and restrictions with expectations of morality of actions on a scale beyond that applied anywhere else and to no other nation, even the United States though they come in a relative second place on the expectation scale imposed by such as the United Nations, the NGOs, the plethora of human rights organizations and the opinion of the web of nations.

 

Beyond the Cusp