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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Aug-2014
18-Aug-14 World View -- Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS

Web Log - August, 2014

18-Aug-14 World View -- Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS

Attack on Ebola clinic in Liberia raises fears of out of control spread

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Kurds battle ISIS for strategic Mosul Dam in Iraq
Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS
Attack on Ebola clinic in Liberia raises fears of out of control spread

Kurds battle ISIS for strategic Mosul Dam in Iraq

Mosul hydroelectric dam

Mosul hydroelectric dam

Kurdish Peshmerga forces say that they are close to taking control of Iraq's strategic Mosul Dam back from the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS). The Kurds were aided by about two dozen U.S. airstrikes on ISIS forces, mainly targeting American armed vehicles and armored personnel carriers that ISIS had captured from store houses when the Iraq army retreated from Mosul.

In the hands of ISIS, the dam is considered as a "weapon of mass destruction." If the dam had been blown by ISIS, then the city of Mosul would have been flooded with water 20-30 meters deep, and Baghdad would have been flooded with water 5 meters deep three days later. ISIS would not have been motivated to blow the dam, since Mosul is ISIS's headquarters. But the fear was that if ISIS was close to defeat, then they would blow the dam as an act of revenge. And so recapturing the dam has been a major objective. BBC and VOA

Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS

With airstrikes having some success against ISIS in Iraq, people in the U.S. and Britain are calling for similar treatment against ISIS in Syria. There are two variations to these calls: One variation calls for supplying weapons to the "moderate" opposition to president Bashar al-Assad, and the other variation calls for a full-fledged partnership with al-Assad in defeating ISIS.

Partnering with al-Assad against ISIS would certainly be an amazing historical twist, since genocidal monster al-Assad actually created ISIS.

I've been writing about the situation in Syria since the war started three years ago, and I've repeatedly indicated what disaster it is that the Alawite/Shia president, Bashar al-Assad, is conducting genocide against innocent Sunni protesters. And al-Assad was and is being helped by unlimited amounts of heavy weapons provided by Russia, making Vladimir Putin a war criminal, along with al-Assad. Al-Assad has flattened entire Sunni villages with Russia's heavy weapons, he's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and bedrooms, he's killed dozens with sarin gas, and he's killed countless more with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas. In addition, he's used electrocution, eye-gouging, strangulation, starvation, and beating on tens of thousands of prisoners on a massive "industrial strength" scale, and does with complete impunity, and in fact with encouragement and support from Russia and Iran.

I've been writing about all these acts since the war began, and each time I've described how the devastating consequences to the region and world have continued to grow.

In the beginning, in 2011, I was writing that al-Assad was turning peaceful protests into a full-fledged civil war. Syria is in a generational Awakening era, so this civil war would never have developed if al-Assad hadn't forced it. Furthermore, the civil war would have fizzled quickly if either al-Assad had stepped down, or if Russia had stopped supplying him with weapons.

By 2012, I was writing about how al-Qaeda linked jihadists from other countries were coming to Syria to join the fight against al-Assad. By 2013, young men from Sunni Muslim countries from Pakistan to Algeria to Chechnya were coming to Syria to join the anti-Assad groups. Jihadist anti-Assad groups were formed, most notably Jabhat al-Nusra (Islamic Front), which was linked to al-Qaeda and which also linked up with the dormant al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But another group, which became today's ISIS, broke away from al-Qaeda, subsumed al-Qaeda in Iraq, and began fighting both al-Assad and al-Nusra. By 2014, it became increasingly popular with many would-be jihadists around the world, and now there have been thousands of young men from Europe and America that have gone to Syria to develop terrorist skills. These young men are American/European citizens with clean passports, so they represent the greatest Western terrorist threat today.

From the beginning, al-Assad was claiming that he wasn't exterminating innocent Sunni civilians. He claimed that he was fighting al-Qaeda terrorists. If there ever was an example of self-fulfilling prophecy, this is it. When he was just murdering innocent protesters, there were no al-Qaeda terrorists to speak of. Al-Assad created Jabhat al-Nusra and then ISIS by turning Syria into a global "jihadist magnet." The result is ISIS is an enormous danger to the region and to the entire world.

It's not exactly without historical precedent for America to partner with a genocidal monster. Josef Stalin was a genocidal monster who starved, executed and slaughter tens of millions of Russian people, but we partnered with him anyway in World War II, because he was the lesser of two evils -- Adolf Hitler was a WORSE genocidal monster.

It's far from clear that ISIS can be defeated. Hitler was defeated in the climax of a generational crisis war during a generational crisis era. But Syria is in a generational Awakening era. This means that some level of violence will continue, even if ISIS is defeated, and so al-Assad and Putin will continue with their program of genocide. The only things that could have prevented this situation would have been if al-Assad has been forced to step down during the beginning, or if Putin had stopped supplying weapons. As things stand now, there's no hope. Asharq Al Awsat (Riyadh) and USA Today and Russia Today and Al Jazeera

Attack on Ebola clinic in Liberia raises fears of out of control spread

Concern that the spread of the Ebola virus in Liberia is out of control increased on Sunday, after looters attacked an Ebola clinic, stealing supplies, as well as blood-stained mattresses and sheets. The attack took place in the West Point district of Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. West Point is an extremely crowded slum area, so the blood-stained bedding presents a real threat of causing Ebola to spread around the city. 17 Ebola patients left the clinic after the attack, though authorities have found them and moved them to a central Monrovia hospital.

In discussing the possibility of an out of control pandemic, authorities are beginning to make distinctions between West Africa, especially Liberia, and Western countries. In the United States and Europe, for example, there are plenty of isolation units and the public understands the kinds of medical precautions that have to be taken. And Ebola is not airborne, but is contracted by touching the fluids of an infected person.

But none of that is true in Liberia. Ignorance about the virus is extremely high, and people are reluctant to cooperate with health workers. Many in the public are suspicious of foreign health workers and believe that it's the health workers that are bringing Ebola to their villages. Many villages follow ancient burial rituals, without understanding that an Ebola corpse is extremely contagious. Clinics and hospitals are crammed full of patients. There's a shortage of even the most basic supplies, such as rubber gloves. Western health and aid workers are fleeing the country, for fear of becoming infected and dying, so there's a massive shortage of doctors and other health workers.

So it's feared that in Liberia, and possibly in Sierra Leone and Guinea as well, Ebola really is out of control, and will not be stopped for many months, until it's completely run its course. That would mean that sooner or later, everyone in Liberia would be exposed to the virus. About 50-60% will die, and the rest will live, and will be immune after that. BBC and Russia Today and Foreign Policy and Times of India/NYT

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Aug-14 World View -- Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (18-Aug-2014) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Aug-2014 18-Aug-14 World View -- Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS

Kurds battle ISIS for strategic Mosul Dam in Iraq

Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS

Attack on Ebola clinic in Liberia raises fears of out of control spread

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Aug-2014
18-Aug-14 World View -- Activists call for U.S. and Britain to partner with al-Assad against ISIS