You (almost) read it here first

Yesterday I read in the news that Jihadi John, the public face (eyes?) of ISIS, the nut case who was their designated beheader, was killed in a US airstrike.  Good riddance!  

Then the news went on to say that our strikes have been responsible for a mid-to-upper level ISIS leader being killed every few days since the summer.  And how anti-ISIS forces in Syria / Iraq have inflicted on them recent battlefield setbacks, and how ISIS recruiting is beginning to fall short of replacing their losses.  Again, no tears from me.

But then a little light bulb went on in my brain that reminded me of the old saying, "Desperate people do desperate things".  The one thing a military cannot do is lose momentum.  Once momentum is lost, supporters stop jumping on their bandwagon.  It seemed logical to me that ISIS would need to do something soon, something game changing, to regain the momentum.

Since the only thing ISIS is good at is killing, I expected to see them commit a major atrocity somewhere.  My thoughts were they could attack the US, but really, there were targets softer and easier to get to elsewhere that could be attacked and help get ISIS back on the offensive.  Logically, that would be somewhere in Europe.

Before I could put my thoughts on the internet, it happened.  As we saw last evening, they chose Paris.  Over a hundred souls are dead, with another 300 injured, many critically.  French President Francois Holland has now said "This is war.  We are going to be ruthless!"  And I just heard a French commentator say "No boots on the ground there (Syria / Iraq) will mean more blood on the streets here."

This is going to be big.  Really BIG!  Where many countries, many different political persuasions, have been holding back, the pressure to get involved in a more substantial way may now be too much for them to resist.  For a western country to agree to contribute a mere handful of aircraft to the anti-ISIS cause will no longer be considered enough.  And after the Rooskies lost a passenger aircraft to ISIS, you know they are going to ramp up their kick-ass-and-take-name offensive.  Strange bedfellows, huh?

Now I'm wondering what is going to happen to / towards the millions of Muslims who live in western nations?  It's hard to not look at them with suspicion, but to do anything overtly discriminatory against them could backfire in a big way.  And it's already started.  I just heard a Republican presidential candidate say "Our president needs to do more to protect the American people instead of trying to protect the image of Muslims."  I get that, but still, it's a slippery slope we're walking.

IMHO, the big winners:  Political hawks (read: Republicans), the pro-gun movement in the US (yes, we tend to over react), and the western world's military / industrial complex.  

Doesn't the fact that we will likely soon be spending more of our human and national treasure fighting ISIS mean that they win, even if they lose?  

Maybe I should stop thinking.

S


 

The Cradle of Civilization or....

....the Death of Civilization?

According to the currently popular fountain of knowledge (Wikipedia), "The cradle of civilization is a term referring to locations where, according to current archaeological data, civilization is understood to have emerged."  There were actually several "cradles", but the first was generally acknowledged to be in Mesopotamia, which roughly corresponds to modern day Iraq and Syria.

It seems to me this area is today more like the world's hell hole.  Is there anything good going on there?  I'm not seeing it.  Will this be where civilization ends?  There is obviously an abundance of oil and gas in the region, but little else that the rest of the world seems to have any use for.  If it wasn't for that, I think the rest of the world would just as soon let 'em fight it out among themselves.  

I believe it was Donald Trump (OK, one point for The Donald) who recently said the world was better off when Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi ruled Iraq and Libya. The people who live there would probably not agree, or maybe they would, I dunno, but at least there was a regional status quo that contained the dysfunction.  Now every little sicko guy with a kufi (beanie) thinks he is some sort of Islamic Grand Poo-Bah.  The sad part is the poor ignorant masses there seem to believe in and are willing to die for them. 

I've been reading a book titled Gideon's Spies by Gordon Thomas..."The Secret History Of The Mossad" (Israel's version of our CIA, only better).  It's a good read, and not terribly biased.  I've been amazed to learn how many plots and other evil deeds the Israelis have been able to foil.  They are brilliant, and yes, cunning, vicious, and devious, too.  They have to be....for them it's "do or die".

Despite Israeli's shortcomings, and I'll admit they are numerous, I still believe they are the closest "friends" we have in the region.  Of course they play us when it suits their needs, just like we play everyone else when it is in our interest.  But still, if anyone can cut the legs out from under Iran and all the rest of the whack jobs there, IMHO it is Israel.  

I hope our next President, whoever he/she is, will support Israel.  For if we don't, I see the cancer that is Islamic fundamentalism continuing to spread far and wide.  To think we can negotiate with and trust these radicals is absurd. 

I know this might sound all doom and gloom, but I don't mean for it to.  In fact, I'm optimistic that the good guys, led in the region by Israel, will eventually, somehow, prevail.  I think the Europeans are rapidly coming around to seeing the light, too.  Hey, I'm just calling it like I see it.

OK, skewer me now if you want.

S

And where they'll land, noooooobody knows....

Wait for the $64,000 Question at the end

The mass exodus of desperate refugees from the war torn regions of the Mid East (which is most of it) continues.  Men, women, and little children are running for their lives, carrying with them little more than the clothes on their back.  Over a million are expected to make it to Europe this year, but exactly where they will eventually call home is still up in the air.

Our Western sense of decency and compassion, at least mine, says we must help them.  We can't simply sit idly by when people are exhausted, hungry, homeless, and desperate.  To do nothing would be absolutely heartless.

But now we're told it's almost guaranteed that embedded within these migrants are terrorists.  The jihadists are certainly cruel and brutal, but they are NOT stupid.  I doubt many of the fearful refugees making the trek are carrying official paperwork, so it would be easy for a few hundred....thousand?....ISIS/Al Qaeda-types to sneak through, too, where they could link-up later with cells already in place in Europe or elsewhere.

Let's back up and review for a second.  What is the ultimate root-cause of all this mess?  IMO, it's Islam.  Have you seen a religion, in the modern era at least, that condones killing to this degree in the name of their Supreme Being?  That seems to be one bitter religion.  Shia vs Sunni....Wahhabi....Salafist....they're just out of control!  My understanding is they aren't fighting for economic gain, or territorial gain, but to conquer others in order to please Allah.

Sure, Christianity has had their dark periods, too....think The Crusades, and more recently in Northern Ireland and the Balkans and a few other places as well.  (I don't think you could include the Nazi era, Stalin's reign of terror, the Japanese atrocities in the Orient, or the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, etc, as they were NOT about religion.)  But looking at the big picture of modern world history, the brutality of Islam seems to be in a religious class by itself.

Of course not ALL Muslims are terrorists, far from it.  But the crazies are gaining momentum, and the rest seem to be becoming more marginalized.   Now ordinary, middle class, educated, (mainly young and impressionable) Muslims are drinking the jihadist Kool Aid, too.  The European Union is right now trying to decide how many refugees each member country should take in, and the US is also weighing in on how many should be admitted here as well.

The $64,000 Question

Considering the horrendous death, destruction, and panic that could be inflicted on the general population today by a terrorist attack, is it time to revisit "profiling"?  I know it's wrong to profile kids just because they're wearing hoodies, or because a minority drives through an affluent white suburb after dark, but the consequences of missing a jihadist plot as it's being hatched are quite different.  It's a tough question, and definitely a slippery slope.  How do you balance the rights of the many vs the potential harm that could be caused by the few?

Let's apply this to a scenario closer to home:  You're taking your son to begin his freshman year at college.  Due to a dorm SNAFU he's been assigned to a new room at the last minute.  You get the key and go to room 234 and find his new roommate already there.  

As you enter he and several friends abruptly cease their rather animated conversation, and you notice a scene on a laptop of an explosion or maybe a hooded man holding a huge bloody knife, before it's snapped shut.  The friends leave without making eye contact, and after Mohammad introduces himself, leaves as well.  He has no room decorations, no pictures or posters on the bulletin board, and the textbooks on his shelf suggest he's a chemical or maybe electrical engineering major.

Do you give your son a good luck handshake, slip him a couple hundred dollars extra "fun money" and remind him to behave himself, then mosey back home?  Or do you consider that maybe a semester back at the local junior college might not be such a bad place for little Timmy after all?

What would you do?  

S

We just can't have nice thangs!

Something tells me this isn't going to be a short lived phenomenon.  It started in Iraq, then Syria, and now it's spread from North Africa to Afghanistan.  And of course volunteers are now pouring in, an estimated 17,000+ so far, including more than a few from Europe and America, too. 

Considering the historic attraction of such behavior to copycat actors, does anyone really believe this can be confined to a few malcontents the other side of the world?  I've read that their (ISIS) goal is to pit the "Infidel" world against Islam.  Us vs them.  They would love that. 

So what to do?  How do you tell the good guys from the bad guys?  Do we relinquish some of our freedom, especially our right to privacy, for security?  Is even that enough?  Do we take a stand?  Where?  Here?  How?

I would hate to be a quiet little Muslim shopkeeper in the West today.  Like it or not, they're involved.

Wasn't life simple when all we had to do was crawl under our school desks when we saw the big, bright flash?  Oh, and worry about that polio thing.

Ahh....the days.  ;)

S

Ah, the good old days

What happened to the world I grew up in?  We had rules, and we by-and-large obeyed them.  Countries were expected to act in a certain way.  When one crossed the line of decency, they were slapped down.  The good guys banded together to smite the offender.  It was country vs country, tank vs tank, plane vs plane.  You knew who your enemy was.  Now in many parts of the world, particularly the Mid East, boundaries are no more.  Ideologies have no boundaries.

Guerrilla warfare has been around probably forever, but it was in Vietnam that the Bad Guys realized it was the civilized world's Achilles Heel.  Toss a grenade, then run back to tending your fields.  "Who me?  I didn't do it, nobody saw me, you can't prove a thing."  It wouldn't take long for public opinion to force accommodation with the forces of evil.

And of course, there's good old religion.  It's all about peace, and tolerance, and love.  Right?  No?  The Crusades are ancient history, but I sense a stirring for Crusades, The Sequel.  Us vs "them".

I can't figure out Islam.  My heart still wants to honor the concept of Freedom of Religion, but Muslims are making it hard for me.  My head says "Don't trust 'em.  Watch 'em like a hawk.  Don't turn your back on 'em."

Which leads to "profiling".  Bad, right?  You can't single out African Americans, or Hispanics, for example, for special scrutiny.  Except, maybe, it's OK to profile Muslims?  Is that where we're heading?  I'll admit, when I see someone I can identify as Muslim on the street, I stiffen.  I wonder.  

Most are just regular people like me...they work, they have families, they bother no one.  But some, too many, seem to be torn between being loyal Americans (or Brits, or Aussies, or Danes, etc), honoring the civilized rule of law, and the rising sentiment of identifying with the forces of evil gaining strength in the Mid East and being rapidly spread via the internet.  And yes, when you cut off peoples heads, you're EVIL!

So now guerrilla warfare has come to America.  Work in your shop or your office during the day, and make bombs and assemble an arsenal at night.  Is this where we're headed?

What happened to the world I grew up in?

S

At my offensive best....

After reading the "world news" section of the paper this morning (every morning, actually) I once again have to ask myself, what good thing does Islam bring to the world table?  "Militant Islamists attack a mall in Kenya, blow up a church in Pakistan....Iraq, Afghanistan (all the little 'stans' actually), Syria, Libya, Somalia, Mali, kill, kill, kill..."  If they have a dominant Muslim population (with a few possible exceptions such as secular Turkey), they're up to no good.  No?  Show me otherwise.

"Oh, but those are just the militants.  Most aren't like that at all."  Really?  Polls I've seen taken in virtually all Muslim countries show the general population, while not actually taking up arms against the Infidels, expresses overwhelming sympathy for the militants.  Face it.  They simply don't like us.  Round peg, square hole.  Not gonna work.

As I remember from my studies as a child there was a time centuries ago when Muslim countries were leaders in math, science, philosophy, culture, etc.  So what happened?  They don't seem to be leaders in much of anything these days except Jihad.  Why do we have to have relations with them?  For oil?  Sure, I get that.  But we can do business with them without having to otherwise interact with them, can't we?

Seems to me they need our (the civilized world's) cash as much as we need their oil.  "Fill up the tanker, here's your money....see 'ya."  "We want to send our students to your country."  No.  "We want some of your foreign aid to build..."  No.  Any American travels there of his own free will and finds himself threatened with headlessness....too bad.

We constantly hear that isolation is bad.  How so?  If we want to live peacefully and prosperously by ourselves here (in the West), and they choose to live in ignorant squalor there, how is that bad?  Wouldn't we both be getting what we want?

I can see the desirability of globalisation when it comes to interacting with others of similar values.  But it doesn't seem to me we share many values with the Muslim world.  Lets all sacrifice some, put our heads together and find an alternative to their oil stranglehold, and then split the sheets and move forward.  And they can move backwards.  And if a phone rings here from their area code, don't answer it.  

Live and let live, I say.

OK, skewer me.

S

What's wrong with those crazy people?

What is it about Islam that makes their believer's minds short circuit?  Whether North African, Somali, Arab, Persian, Pakistani or even a Muslim American military doctor at Ft. Hood, TX, their minds often just seem to reject logical thought processes.  I've looked at it from every angle I can think of and the only common denominator seems to be their Islamic faith.

They just don't seem happy unless they're fighting each other or their neighbor.  "You covet my camel, you see my wife's big toe....I KILL YOU!"  A daughter somehow learns to read and write....heads roll, literally.  Want a job?  "I have a job.  I make bombs."

Now I'm wondering if being around them for all these years during this Age of Oil hasn't infected / affected our Western thought processes, too?  We somehow think they want American-style freedom and democracy.  We've set them up time and again, and they've squandered it every time.  Why can't we take a hint?

It seems to me our "problem" is we're a compassionate people.  We see pain and suffering and we want to help.  That's a good thing and I'm glad we're that way.  But to help someone they have to WANT to be helped.  I'm sure many Muslims do, but far too many others, perhaps even a majority, seem to want nothing more than to return to the 16th Century.  

Now the civil war in Syria has turned even nastier and we want to go and kick some bad-guy ass.  Look around, Washington....we're up to our eyeballs in Muslim dung now!  Lobbing a few cruise missiles into Syria might make us feel better, make us feel like we're doing something to help, but that's delusional.  

Why don't we just build a bonfire on the Washington Mall and shovel in a few billion dollars worth of greenbacks?  We could close the ceremony with a rousing chorus of Kum Ba Yah, too.  Yeah, that'll show 'em!

We need to face facts:  Nothing we can do is going to civilize them.  We need to treat them like our old, weird uncle we see at the family reunion once a year....say "hi", send them a Christmas card (they'll love that!), and then stay as far from them as possible.  We want to buy their oil, they need the money; that's business.  Otherwise, leave them alone to re-arrange their own rocks.

S

Here's what I don't get

The "religion of peace" has struck again, this time by knife-wielding zealots in London.  I know, I know....you can't condemn an entire religion because of the actions of a few malcontents.*  Very true.  All religions have their nut cases.  Christians have theirs, too....just look at the Westboro Baptist Church.  

They're the homophobes who somehow tie every evil / tragic thing that happens back to homosexuality.  Flood hits NYC, tornadoes hit OK, earthquake hits the west coast....it's God's way of getting back at us.

But when the Westboro Baptist Church announces they are going to protest the funeral of a soldier, for example, thousands of people (Christians?) turn out to protest the WBC protesters.  We denounce people of our own faith (?) who preach hate and violence.  We don't celebrate them.

Here Texas A&M students form a shoulder-to-shoulder human shield to keep Westboro Baptist Church protesters from disrupting the funeral of a soldier KIA.

But when Islamic extremists commit a heinous attack such as the one yesterday in London when several Muslims hacked to death a British soldier outside his barracks, I don't see rank-and-file Muslims lining up to disavow the actions of their fellow Muslims.  Why is that?

"Gaza Arabs celebrate Boston Marathon attack with dance, candies"

You'll see a few individuals holding up little hand-lettered signs that say, "This isn't Islam", but they are totally overshadowed by the throngs jumping up and down in jubilation.  The majority just sit on their hands.

Why don't they cleanse their ranks of those who scheme and plot to do harm to innocents?  Instead, they seem to applaud them.  If you knew someone was building a bomb or building a war arsenal, for example, wouldn't you call the police?  Why do they allow their places of faith to be polluted by haters?  Why don't they police themselves?  Is this just a matter of the press reporting one side but not the other?

Yet after every atrocity committed by Muslim extremists in the name of Allah, the rest of us are cautioned (rightly) to not rush to judgement and take out revenge against all Muslims.  We preach peace and fairness....we "talk the talk" and we "walk the walk".

Mainstream Muslims say they ARE a religion of peace.  OK, fine.  Then I'd like to see them do a little walking, too.

(Move over Salman Rushdie.  I'm probably now on someone's hit list.)

S

*And please don't start your comment with, "Yeah, well, back in the dark ages Christians....".  I'm interested in the here and now.