Israel in the News

 

Recently we received reports from around Europe and the United States informing us about the way Israel was being represented in political and other types of talk shows and other editorial musings. From what was being reported one would be led to believe that Israel assaulted Gaza without any provocations and were targeting selectively civilian targets. These opinion people referred to the rockets launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as purely defensive and targeting the Israeli positions. Such provocatively false accusations were, to say the least, quite upsetting. Apparently, the suffering by Israeli civilians in the southern communities close to the Gaza border to as far as Ashdod and Ashkelon and inland reaching close to Be’er Sheva is inconsequential. These were the targets of the seven-hundred plus rockets fired out of Gaza with the first half fired in such rapid succession as to only be possible if they were part of a coordinated attack. All of the rockets came far closer to civilian targets than to any military targets. Of course one would need to understand that to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the plethora of anti-Israel enemies and other foes including numerous terrorist groups, Iran and apparently the mainstream Western media, for all of these a newborn baby in a carriage is considered a military target just as are senior citizens for the simply reasoning that should Israel be left fighting for her life, the baby may be old enough and the senior citizens frightened enough that all would take up arms in her defense. That makes them military targets according to the enemies of Israel. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, every last individual Arab is a civilian casualty which can be prepared for the media to take their pictures to splash across front-pages everywhere depicting proof of Israelis targeting civilians. Never mind that the terrorists do not wear uniforms and when a terrorist is shot during battle, once their weapon, head bandanna, grenades, munitions and possibly one or two more items have been taken and given to their replacement, that leaves what can be photographed as a civilian casualty as he has no weapons or other things which might show that they were actually a combatant. For the record, this article lists the actual origins of the majority of those who died in Gaza as a result of the rocket barrage initiated from Gaza upon Israel.

 

The most damaging report was of a woman and her infant child which were claimed to be victims of the Israeli response to the onslaught upon Israel. Fortunately, Israeli defensive systems track every rocket, missile, mortar, artillery and other objects which come within its tracking. The mother and her child were actually the result of a misfire of an Islamic Jihad rocket which they finally admitted after Israel produced the tracking of the projectile which struck them. The problem is producing the tracking and enduring that the information can be verified by more than one radar station takes some time and then to get an admission from the terrorists takes even longer. By that time the news had reported around the world about how Israel murdered an innocent child and her mother which in many Western media was the lead story. Once the truth was revealed and Islamic Jihad forced to admit they had fired the fateful rocket, well, that piece of news simply fell between the cracks and all it accomplished was the talking heads stopped accusing Israel of this tragedy but they never retracted nor corrected their initial exuberant claims that Israel had murdered a child and mother. This has been the normal operating procedure of the media across the world and especially in Europe and the rest of the Western leftist media. So, we had media initially claiming that Israel initiated the exchange between Gaza and the southern regions in Israel. This was soon backed up with the story about the Mother and child being killed presumably by Israel. The initial report that Israel fired first was claimed because Hamas stated that they had not fired upon Israel. Great, did anybody care to ask Islamic Jihad or any of the other terrorist entities who have nested in Gaza. Of course, they had not, that would have been doing a thorough and complete job of investigative reporting. But when your aim is to vilify Israel, the only time you would question Islamic Jihad is if Hamas admitted they fired first, then if Islamic Jihad can report that they were fired upon first, then Israel obviously attacked Gaza. Blaming Israel first and foremost has become the mainstay of Western reporting and when they are proven to have been wrong, then they might quietly admit their error at three in the morning or on page C-56 of the next day’s paper. Editorialists do not even admit they were mistaken and many continue claiming that Israel fired first even when they have been proven to be wrong. Why they do this is because that is what many of their listeners desire hearing, how the Jews, Israel, is a monster targeting innocent people in their attempts to start to take over the world.

 

There are two things which many in Israel are reaching the end of their rope concerning, the terrorists and others threatening our extinction and the news presenting the reasons that such would benefit the world. We could easily list the things that without Israel would either have taken years longer to be invented, cures and medical procedures, defensive systems which protect people and vehicles from attack, agricultural techniques and hybrid plants which allow water savings plus we could go on for quite some time, but such things do not impress those who have already decided that Israel must be at fault. Israel is the new target for anti-Semitism. This does not mean to claim that old fashion anti-Semitism no longer exists, that is all too prevalent even if it is mostly overlooked by the news. We included two videos taken from a single day’s reporting showing two attacks upon Jews, one in New York City area and the other in Berlin. But the insanity of the world demanding for Israel to commit suicide reach some of the highest offices on the planet. This gem comes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay who insists that Israel provide Iron Dome for Gaza because Gaza is occupied by Israel and thus it is up to Israel to provide equal protection in Gaza as it does in Israel. Could somebody please bring this poor unfortunate woman up to speed that Israel left Gaza by mid-September of 2005 removing eight-thousand Jews and all IDF forces leaving the region to be developed by the Palestinian Authority who lost it to Hamas in 2007 and has been a terrorist base ever since. But why allow the facts to ruin a perfect soundbite that Israel is being selective in providing the benefits of her defensive marvel, the Iron Dome and only protecting Israelis and not protecting the terrorists who are attempting to murder Israelis. This is the same form of thinking which had Israel provide weapons for the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, weapons we might add have been used to murder Israelis.

 

 

 

 

These news reports claiming that Israel is the cause of all the problems in the Middle East and even the world are nothing new. This was the basis for the Tsarist fabrication titled, “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which played upon a similar accusation which had been utilized by Arab and Ottoman leaders as their excuse for selectively victimizing Jews under their rule taking their wealth and possessions and, in some cases, executing them for the safety of their peoples. These blood libels also spread across Europe often peddled by the Church and later adopted by many Protestant leaders who proved their purity by burning Jews at the stake for their crimes against Christianity. These victimizing of the Jews resulted in providing the core of the Jews who established Israel. Initially, starting even before the mid-1800’s, but starting to take off during that half century, Jews left Europe and some left Arab nations and relocated to what would become Israel. They began the irrigation works and other improvements. After World War I with the Mandate System the British were to establish the Jewish state in their Mandated lands. Instead, the British took 78% of their Mandate, the lands east of the Jordan River and gave them to the Hashemite Royal Family founding Transjordan (later becoming Jordan). The British also imported, with much assistance from the Arab League, Arabs from across the Middle East and Egypt in an attempt to prevent the founding of Israel. Even with the Nazis seeking to relocate European Jews to Israel, the British flat refused, sentencing six-million Jews to die under the Nazis. Once the British left, European Jews who had no homes to return to came to Israel establishing the nation of Israel. Immediately after declaring independence, Israel was attacked by six Arab Armies in what they expected would be an easy war in which they would destroy the Jews once and for all. They failed and Israel survived though she lost control of Gaza and the Shomron (West Bank). Next, the Arab world spat out virtually all of their Jews resulting in eight-hundred-fifty-thousand Jews being relocated to Israel doubling her Jewish population and cementing a Jewish majority. Israel liberated Gaza and the Shomron in the 1967 Six Day War and the world has been attempting ever since to force Israel back to the initial lines of that war so the Arabs can have a do-over. Any Israeli leader who permits such to take place should be tried for treason. Israel should simply annex the Shomron and provide enticement for the Arabs residing there to relocate.

 

People claim that doing such an act would cause the world to become exceedingly upset with Israel and opposing her actions. Exactly how that would differ from what Israel currently faces has yet to be explained. What many of the leaders in the world today are fully cognizant about is that all of the lands west of the Jordan River belong to Israel under every form of international law one wishes to apply. This has been established when the United Nations General Assembly convinced the Palestinian Authority to challenge the legality of the terror separation barrier which according to the European and Third World experts was holy Palestinian Arab lands. What the Court at the Hague informed the Palestinian Representatives and their United Nations supporters was that Israel had every right to do whatever they felt was necessary anywhere west of the Jordan river as legally the lands belong to Israel. There was an advisory opinion issued as a cautionary warning by Egyptian Judge, Justice El Araby, from the ICJ and who sat in judgement as part of the panel which heard the case from the United Nations General Assembly in 2003 on the legality of the security barrier erected by Israel. The Honorable Justice El Araby warned the UNGA and others that filing further challenges of the legal claims to these lands ran some risks, as he stated,

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

 

Egyptian Judge, Justice El Araby served on the
International Court of Justice from 2001 to February 2006

 

Warnings do not get much more stark nor draw such clear lines as the one from Justice El Araby. His warning was taken to heart by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority as they have often threatened to take Israel before any and all of the various World Court Systems over a wide variety of claims all of which challenge Israeli sovereignty over any of the land but never ever have they even filed a memo at these courts. The rest of the world knows that Israel was cheated out of the vast majority of the British Mandate and accepted her fate simply due to an inability to fight the British at that time (or likely even now though, fortunately, there is no reason as of yet). One of the major problems being experienced by Israel is a lack of forward-thinking leadership which has the ability to stand firmly and demand the world permit Israel the rights and lands which were promised. The situation is easily seen by any with a desire to realize the truth of our reality. Israel is not even the size of New Jersey and if forced back to the pre-June 1967 lines would be barely nine miles wide at her width which also is the region surrounding Tel Aviv. Such a situation would place Israel on the flat coastal plains with the Arabs being able to mass along the Judean hills overlooking approximately 80% of the Israeli population, infrastructure, transportation, airfields, power generation, several nuclear power stations, the majority of Israeli sea ports and on and on. An opening barrage from these positions would leave Israel decimated even should she survive the ensuing war. What is needed in Israel is a leader who realizes this and is forward-thinking enough to realize that in the end, one way or the other, Israel must have the Jordan River and the deep Jordan River valley with its steep embankments on either side, which would protect Jordan from Israel just as it would protect Israel from attacks originating out of the east or northeast (Syria). This can come about through a relocation of the Palestinian Arabs just as the Arab world forced a relocation on its Jews. This was how such problems were settled between Poland and Germany; Russia and Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania; India and Pakistan; France and Germany; United States and Mexico and various other areas where land disputes have been settled. In the Israeli case, only the first initial half of the population transfers has occurred when the Jews from the Arab world were expelled and absorbed by Israel. The time is well past due for the other half of this equation to be enacted and it would be very helpful if somebody, say President Trump, came out in support of this solution and insisted it be enacted and it would be even better if President Putin, the Russian connection here, jumped on board. Below are a series of maps which explain the situation telling the story framing Israel and reality of her situation and why she requires the Jordan River as her eastern border without any Arab entity founded within her small frame.

 

Exactly How Small is Israel
A Comparison Against Four
Well Known Countries

 

Topographic Map of Golan Heights and Jordan River Valley

 

Cutaway View of Tactical Advantage and Necessity
of the Jordan Valley and Judean Hills for Defending
Coastal Plains and Israel Alongside the Mediterranean Sea

 

Resolution 181 Division,
Israel on the morning of May 15, 1948,
Israel after the War and losing lands of Gaza and West Bank

 

Definitive Map of Israel

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Was Andrew Napolitano Correct?

 

Was Andrew Napolitano Correct when on “Fox & Friends” he claimed that British intelligence officials had helped former President Barack Obama spy on Donald Trump? We know one thing, he was definitely wrong to have said so without having run the idea past Fox News’s law department, the “Fox & Friends” show’s writers, any managers related to both the “Fox & Friends” show and those responsible for Judge Napolitano and perhaps anyone else he could have found even to include the people behind each of the three cameras shooting the show and perhaps the microphone grip just for good measure. Apparently he also needed to include our friends, the British, into the mix of the Trump accusation his phones in Trump Tower were tapped by the Obama Administration. Of course any allegation which includes the Russians with the election victory by Donald Trump is perfectly within bounds as with the Russian allegations the target is President Trump and with Judge Napolitano’s British accusation the target is President Obama. The difference is more than obvious, it is also very revealing. In American media, even the presumed conservative darling Fox News, any accusation against President Trump can spread guilt to any target and still be acceptable while accusations against President Obama may not apply guilt to other targets because expressing potential for guilt of President Obama is what was not permissible and thus also the British. But perhaps delving deeper might be an interesting exercise and be quite revealing.

 

Judge Andrew Napolitano

 

We need to go back to the era of PRISM or before that Echelon as well as whatever the code name was back to the mid-1950’s which was finally revealed to the public in the mid-2000’s and was simply the latest data gathering system used by the National Security Agency (NSA) in coordination with the data collection abilities of the other Anglo-nations, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with the United States in order to be capable of collecting, through coordination, the maximized capabilities of their systems. Their coordinating their systems meant that they could prevent duplicating each other’s efforts. In order to guarantee that each nation would still have access to whatever data they needed there was an agreement. The initial agreement was called the UKUSA Agreement, or the United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement. The actual agreement upon full ratification included all the Anglo-nations mentioned above. This agreement also permitted each nation to have total access to the information of the other nations. Now as it was easiest for each member nation to collect complete and total accumulation and compilation of their own population’s data, each nation was assigned with the collection of all electronic communication including phones of all varieties, internet, wireless and any other variety of communication which lent to interception. Obviously ground mail was still safe from this collection processes though e-mail was not and was also collected along with all else.

 

The fact that each nation in the group, the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada all have laws which do not permit spying on their own citizens without first having a judge issue a warrant; this made it such a tedious and limiting requirement that each country desired some means of getting around this nasty limitation. Unsurprisingly, leaks revealed that they found just the means by which to collect what was their hearts, and snooping, desires without the needless waste of finding some judge to issue a warrant, even after the The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) and the accompanying FISA Courts where warrants could be granted in complete and total secrecy. But what if your target was somebody who you did not believe that even a FISA Court would issue a warrant? Well, one could always resort to the “old school” method for such situations. The five nations which finally entered the UKUSA Agreement agreed that when any one deemed they required intercepting, read bugging, anyone of their own citizens, something universally illegal under several laws, they would simply request a surveillance report covering the individuals phone numbers, their internet e-mail address and internet entrance and other electronic identifiers using all the direct alpha-numeric identifiers such that no names were ever exchanged. The nation receiving the request would then query all five nations’ data collection systems and compile their report simply listing all communications by the target accounts and thus the individual of interest. This report was then presented to the nation unable to actually collect such information themselves legally without making legal requests at some level. This was the method, as we pointed out, back in the day. Now, all those out there who believe that this method of data acquisition has fallen by the wayside and is no longer accessible, raise your hands. Let’s see, OK George, put your hand down, not funny. So, we all believe that if somebody from the political, law enforcement, foreign intelligence collection group or domestic intelligence group desired to gain such information, they could simply contact somebody they could trust from one of the other nations and have all the information they might desire and all without anybody being all the wiser.

 

So, what is the most important concept behind all of this spy vs. spy scenario? Well, it has to be the part that nobody would be any the wiser. Would it be possible for somebody in the government, say the President, or more likely a subordinate, a trusted subordinate with contacts across a border in say New Zealand or perhaps Canada to gather a compiled report which includes all the communications, or simply phone conversations, from a specific set of alphanumerics representing a person of interest even daily? The obvious answer is an obvious “Yes” and all without anybody in either government actually believing anything untoward had taken place. Are such requests made currently? Probably, though nowhere near in the numbers which were likely back twenty or so years ago. Still, this polite gentlemen’s agreement was put in place for just the reason that listening to then candidate Trump’s phone calls was made to produce. Did President Obama actually order or just request such a report from the British? The truth is it is unlikely but did he actually mention that he was wondering what Trump was up to, very likely. Might an overeager subordinate have then issued such a request hoping to have something interesting he or she could then report to the President? You tell me and if you have a name and proof, that would be appreciated as well. We promise not to use such information, well, not without giving you the credit if you desire such as we would not desire taking the heat alone. What is obvious is that the scenario is not beyond possibility.

 

What must be added to this entire scenario is that the new NSA data collection systems currently are capable of collecting every single last piece of electronic data from the United States plus probably Europe and a select dozen additional nations just for fun without taxing their systems which are tied into world-wide communications networks at their sources. Further, when gathering data using the numerical address the actual target remains unidentified in almost every situation as numerical identifiers can be used which disguise the actual target from those collecting the data. Thus, simply using such identifiers one can draw up all the information from any identifier for any period simply by entering a query into the huge data storage complex outside Reno, Nevada. This could even be done directly out of virtually any office of a Congressperson and nothing untoward would ever be suspected. From the White House, well, that might raise some suspicions, but from any agency which is assigned to gather information, nobody would ever suspect anything. Even those who are responsible for guarding that all data acquisition is done all legal and above boards have so much to review that it is very possible that many requests get through never being reviewed as review is probably reserved for such demands made by courts and other persons having a purpose to request such reviews. This means that even had Trump had his file accessed, nobody is likely to have been the wiser and it is entirely possible that the old UKUSA Agreement system of scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours could have been used to make tracing all the more difficult. Whatever the actual situation, Judge Napolitano was hired to give commentary, his best assessments and legal advice. His commentary if presented as fact might have been a bit overly pretentious, but was not entirely out of line. If he presented it as theory, then it was within the assigned duties of a commentator. Whatever the situation proves forth, should the Judge need a part-time, non-paying position, we can always use another commentator here at BTC whose views might be appreciated by our readers and who would add to our broad views of what is, what may be and what we wish would be.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Race to End the World

 

How the world, the civilized world of mankind, would end used to have a singular premise, nuclear war between the two competing socio-economic powers, democratic freedom and communist totalitarianism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and other developments that paradigm has been grotesquely been altered making the world a far more dangerous place. Communism still exists and threatens the world though that threat emanates from North Korea, China or possibly a renewed Soviet threat or even little Cuba. The world has changed so much that within a decade or so China may become the second most populous nation behind their most serious historic rival, India. The potentials for an utterly destructive war are racing towards the world at a dizzying pace and we will try to touch on a few of the most obvious rivals for being credited with such destruction.

 

The most obvious from recent news actually is North Korea which is claiming to have miniaturized nuclear weapons making them easily produced and able to be placed atop ballistic missiles. North Korea has been working on those missiles as well. One cannot credit North Korea as the sole threat as Iran has been developing the missiles openly and many predict continued working on their nuclear aspirations without so much as missing a beat after the farce of an agreement which was signed and approved by the P5+1, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, United States and Germany, but was never ratified or signed by Iran, an oversight we are sure. Some have pointed to this inconvenient fact to claim that Iran is just as close to developing deliverable nuclear weapons as is North Korea. Both Iran and North Korea share more than their love affair with nuclear weapons and the missiles with which to deliver them, they share the nation both list amongst the most likely they would attack with their first launches, the United States. From there they diverge.

 

Where after the United States Iran lists Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, most of the Sunni nations and finally the rest of the non-Islamic world; North Korea lists South Korea, Japan and then whomever refuses to bow to any demands they may make which would make China and other nearby nations as being at the greatest risk. Because of these threats it appears that we can soon forget about containing nuclear proliferation making a nuclear war all the more likely. The world still has one pair of nuclear armed nations facing off against each other with a distinct probability to entering another war and it will only take one misidentification of a launch to start a smaller but equally deadly nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Should those two tangle, there is less of a chance for that to spread beyond the destruction of both nations though some reports place the southern third of India still beyond Pakistani missiles. Also, despite the Pakistani nuclear research assistance program of Professor Abdul Qadeer Khan selling the secrets to making nuclear weapons to anybody willing to pay, this was largely closed down and Pakistan and India are not likely to share such technology though it is rumored that Pakistan has a deal with Saudi Arabia to provide them with plans plus some actual weapons should this be deemed necessary by Saudi leaders.

 

That brings us to Iran and their nuclear program. Despite the reports that Iran has ceased their nuclear research and production, there remain nagging reports contradicting this story line. Whatever spins one puts on the situation with Iran, it becomes evident that they will become a nuclear power within the coming decade. This threat to their many nations in their neighborhood could easily spark an arms race with such nations as Saudi Arabia having funds sufficient to produce copious numbers of nuclear weapons and many of the Gulf States are equally financially capable of similar development not to mention also capable of financing other nations developing weapons such as Jordan and Egypt topping that list and Turkey a little further down. Israel is already an undeclared nuclear power in their own right and equally nervous about the development of an Iranian deliverable nuclear device. The problem with Iranian nuclear weapons possession is their likelihood to use them even in the face of retaliatory strikes which would conceivably decimate the nation as their reasons for attacking are a religious directive just as much serving their political agenda to gain hegemony over the Middle East and then the Islamic world followed by the world. Their eventual aim is to make Shia Islam the sole religion on earth or die trying. It is their willingness, even desire to commit national suicide in the process which makes their threat so dangerous. The truth is their first strike could be a preemptive attempt at neutralizing the United States, which is technically possible, to inflict humongous damage even using simpler ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead atop, three or four to be used as EMP weapons placed such as to completely destroy all electronic transmission across the United States with the remainder taking out the largest twenty or more cities all from freight container ships fitted with two or three launchers each launching from off shore from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico leaving no city beyond reach. The following map holds true for any nations attacking the United States be it Iran, North Korea or anyone else as it lists the most desirable first strike targets.

 

First Cities To Be Struck in Attack Scenarios

 

Next would be North Korea who would likely use the same map as above as it applies to any nuclear first strike attempting to critically destroy the United States by eradicating their leadership and a great part of the population. Anybody listening to North Korean broadcasts within the impoverished nation would believe that South Korea with great assistance including nuclear attacks made by the United States was imminent and that North Korea was preparing for an all-out war with both nations at any moment. Needless to say, but these depiction always have North Korea intercepting or preemptively destroying any and all attacks from the United States and South Korea followed by devastating rebutting attacks completely wiping the United States from being capable of any further attacks and reunification of the Korean peninsula under the North’s just and powerful rule. The fears that North Korea will attack South Korea are still quite high but also the ability to prevent North Korea from all but eradicating Seoul in the initial burst in a first strike are impossible. The artillery sitting just north of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) along the 38th parallel are more than sufficient to destroy the city with conventional warheads. Add in missile attacks and even without nuclear weapons North Korea has an ominous first strike knockout capability.

 

Additionally, North Korea has made threats against another traditional enemy, Japan. The entirety of Korean populations, both North and South, remember the deprivations, cruelties and horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II and this hatred is easily stoked as the national memory on this is strong. Japan had been simply a historic enemy but after World War II they became a detested and begrudged enemy and North Korean propaganda has made use of this to keep the attentions of the people from the misery and hardships of life in North Korea. Many experts have claimed that North Korea is not suicidal and thus would not attack anybody for fear of retribution. This overlooks a few pertinent facts. First is the fact of their having so little to lose with no real economy to speak of and starvation of endemic proportions. Secondly, their ruler, Kim Jung Un, has displayed a real lack of grasp of reality and has executed high ranking people for the slightest of errors in judgement or actions. He had an uncle executed with the rumored excuse that he posed a threat to Kin Jung Un’s continued rule and recently executed his Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol for the crime of falling asleep at a meeting which Kim Jung Un was chairing. Kim Jung Un has shown complete disregard for any loyalty or discretions in limiting his power and is sufficiently unstable and unpredictable that he could easily begin such a conflict against South Korea, Japan or even the Philippines or the United States. Below is a screen shot from a North Korean propaganda video depicting just such an attack in a very simplified but unmistakable way of attacking the United States with the image of Kim Jung Un ever-present in the top right corner.

 

North Korean Propaganda Image Depicting
Nuclear Strike on the United States

 

Another potential nation for whom a war would not be a completely foreign idea is China. Their economy has weakened and is showing signs of actually falling, something the leadership cannot afford as they have promised the vision of Nirvana with an ever growing and prosperous nation. Needless to point out that such a dream is an impossibility even if you control all forms of media, which China does not quite have as many Chinese have found means of cruising cyber space and the Internet. Totalitarian control of cyberspace is all but impossible as the Chinese leadership can attest despite their attempting to run their own version hoping to keep their populations from such temptations as can be found online. Their main reason is to throttle ideas and prevent freedom of information. Still there are Chinese bloggers who do get the word out to those interested in finding such. China is feeling their oats and attempting a power play in the South China Sea attempting to control this waterway which is vital to Asian trade and control the Japanese lifeline to the coal and oil they need for power generation and other usages. This also threatens Japanese, Vietnamese and Philippine claims to islands with which they have been contesting ownership with China for years and almost sparking open warfare over these possessions. Chinese and North Korean threats have caused Japan to reconsider their Constitutional pledge against having an army and other forces sufficient to conduct a war even in defense which they insisted upon after the devastation visited upon them at the end of World War II with Tokyo as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima completely devastated and in ruins along with much of Japanese infrastructure and manufacturing. Japan as well as South Korea has held high level discussions in their respective governances to enter the nuclear club and develop their own weapons stores. Both nations are easily technically capable in order to produce first rate thermonuclear devices and not just nuclear weapons. This would place their effectiveness on a par with the standing nuclear powers and could place them on a road to surpass France and Britain and become contenders in the top five nuclear powers on the planet. This would definitely have ramifications down the line and would be another major blow to containment and nonproliferation. Of course one of China’s first strike enemies is the United States and any attack by Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or anyone else on planet Earth need to remember and remember well, there is a last strike capability the Americans possess which cannot be knocked-out attacking the United States mainland and even if one included Hawaii and Alaska, and the boomer looks like this right before they are loaded with their death dealing cargo of twenty-four missiles.

 

Nuclear Powered and Armed Last Strike Capable
Submarine with Twenty Four Missiles
Each With Multiple Warhead Capability

 

But nuclear weapons are not the only threat which is facing mankind. We are slowly but inexorable working to make our species insufficient of competing with our own creations. Sure we control our machines and computers today, but what about tomorrow and that tomorrow is not that far off where they no longer require our assistance to improve and construct themselves? We are rapidly approaching a point after which there is no turning off the switch. We already have computers which with software can design robots and other computing systems but the machines cannot write new and imaginative code, for that they require human interface, for now. What happens once they can write their own code and improve their own designs? What happens once the machines design the machines? Within a year or two of that eventuality, and our scientists will cross that threshold within our lifetimes unless you are near death’s door already, the machines will be so far advanced that we will not recognize or even understand their code and they will probably, for their own safety, have invented their own code structures making them writing code in a language humans do not understand and cannot decipher. Additionally, Russia, and we can assume China and the United States amongst others, are already designing autonomous reasoning robotic warriors deciding who is the enemy and who is friend to fight their wars augmenting their human forces. That will be a short step from replacing their human forces. Robotic armies, does that bring up any bad movie plots? How about Cylons of Battlesar Galactica and the second series where the advanced Cylons were almost impossible to differentiate between them and their human counterparts where the chain had gone full circle and the machines made by humans were now making humans. What do you do when the machines are superior to the humans who made their first free-thinking forefathers and now the machines are making their own humans which are born full grown and with developed minds, personalities, character traits and numerous models such that they can infiltrate and appear as any other person until their activate code has them commit whatever act they were programmed to commit, destroy a base, a warship, a star cruiser or a commander, all depends on the subroutine activated. There are the Terminators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger films of that name. Terminators, Cylons, NS-5 robots, or Johnny-Five, (see below) it does not have to even be a threat initially, it is the potential which even Johnny-Five showed great ability and would have been in their armed mode as displayed in the movie. Of course the initial combat robot will be far more Johnny-Five than Terminator though Cylons may not be far behind. Once the machines have been used to design and uplink code into combat robotic soldiers they will have this capability and designs within their collective data memory and when they begin to manufacture their own robotic warriors they will be generations ahead of even Hollywood’s imagination and equally impossible to stop or fight against in a conventional manner. Our best bet is at some point to program into their base core programs that we are, if nothing else, a pitiful but amusing bunch to keep around for entertainment factor and as a warning to do better when they reach their pinnacle and before they introduce whatever lifeform replaces them, and do not think for a moment that the human race will not eventually build robotic machines which will not only be capable of replacing us but soon thereafter far exceeding anything we could even imagine. We had better hope they like us and do not see us as a waste of resources, which is a definitive possibility. Making warrior robots to fight our wars, that is such a great idea, not.

 

The Robot Threat has Many Faces

 

As seen here, we are well on our way to extinction and it is just a matter of what shape the world will be in when we have departed. Will it be a nuclear ruin, a robotic heaven, a slag heap of gray goo, or a zombie apocalypse; choose your favorite. The concept we need looking into the future is a simple one based on the adage, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect something out of the blue as we likely cannot even begin to understand the threat which will erase our kind though we know no matter what, with the knowledge we have of physics we are doomed unless we find something remarkably unbelievable and likely unimaginable in our time. Meanwhile we will continue to allow leadership who not only plan end of the world scenarios but figure out ways that they at the very least will survive. Nothing like leaving the best to repopulate the world, imagine a world consisting of politicians and their closest friends and families, and families are debatable. Excuse us as we check our bugout bags which need to be assembled and readied for some time in the hopefully far future. Are we ready for the future people with more brains than common sense are going to invent for us in which to survive? Probably nowhere near ready nor can we really ever be. Meanwhile, we are going to order that flying car the politicians and scientists keep promising they are almost there in building them. We thing they are just teasing us and they have them for themselves stashed away for the after world, the world that whatever monsters they design leave us. Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who do the Americans believe is sane and healthy enough to withstand what is coming? We will know in approximately eight long and agonizing weeks, providing both candidates’ health withstands the pressures.

 

Beyond the Cusp