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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Jul-2016
16-Jul-16 World View -- Nice France terror attack provokes desperate search for solutions

Web Log - July, 2016

16-Jul-16 World View -- Nice France terror attack provokes desperate search for solutions

Turkey coup; Protests and violence continue across Indian-governed Kashmir

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Implications of the attempted coup in Turkey
Protests and violence continue across Indian-governed Kashmir
Nice France terror attack provokes desperate search for solutions

Implications of the attempted coup in Turkey

Turkish people take to streets during coup attempt (Anadolu)

Turkish people take to streets during coup attempt (Anadolu)

As of this writing on Friday evening ET, it's thought that the coup has been defeated, but it's far from certain.

Several analysts have pointed out that it's United States policy only to deal with democratically elected governments, and not with coup governments. This policy was already severely tested after the 2013 coup in Egypt, where the U.S. continued providing military aid to the coup government. The issue of military aid to Turkey would be raised if this coup is successful.

Even if the coup is defeated, the fact that Turkey's military is split would have implications for the United States. The United States military is operating out of Incirlik air force base for its operations in Syria and Iraq. The US military and 1,500 US troops and personnel, which depend on Turkey's military while in that base, might potentially be in danger.

Another flash point is the Bosporus, the narrow body of water that connects the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Russia's navy has a substantial Black Sea fleet stationed in Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, and if a Russian ship comes under some kind of attack while traveling through the Bosporus, then Russia's military might enter Turkey and intervene.

As I've written many times during the last ten years or so, based on a Generational Dynamics analysis, in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, China, Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim countries would be one side, and India, Iran, the United States and the West would be on the other side. However the coup turns out, this is direction in which Turkey is headed. ( "8-Jul-16 World View -- Hard issues prevent full reconciliation between Turkey and Russia")

As I'm writing this on Friday night ET, it's not entirely clear who is governing Turkey, since president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is holding a news conference in Istanbul while there's still fighting in the capital city Ankara. This coup attempt has exposed a great deal of instability within Turkey, and that instability will continue for weeks and months to come. Anadolu (Ankara) and Hurriyet (Ankara)

Protests and violence continue across Indian-governed Kashmir

Reports indicate that Indian security forces prevented tens of thousands of people from attending mosques for Friday Prayers, resulting in anti-India protests and clashes in dozens of places across India-governed Kashmir.

Violent clashes began a week ago, following the death of Burhan Wani, 22, a commander in the separatist militia Hizbul Mujahideen, as I described in "14-Jul-16 World View -- Police clashes in India-governed Kashmir kill 36 and leaves thousands injured".

India has declared Wani to be a "terrorist," but now Pakistan is referring to Wani as a "martyr of the independence movement." This is an allusion to the desires of some groups to have an independent Kashmir, but most anti-India groups want Kashmir to be part of Pakistan. At any rate, the "martyr" designation is inflaming the violence in Kashmir.

Pakistan and India, including disputed Kashmir and Jammu, are in a generational Crisis era, 69 years past the massive 1947 genocidal war between Hindus and Sikhs versus Muslims that followed Partition, the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Being in a generational Crisis era means that the survivors of the last genocidal crisis war are all gone, and the generations in control today have no personal memory of the horrors of that war. This opens the way for a new genocidal war to begin, and it's possible that the current situation will spiral out of control into that situation. Al Jazeera

Nice France terror attack provokes desperate search for solutions

The number of terror attacks has been growing. In just the past month, there was a deadly July 7 shooting in Dallas, a massive terror attack Dhaka on July 1, the Istanbul airport attack on June 28, and the mass shooting in Orlando on June 12.

The natural reaction by politicians to the situation is to look for ways to increase their own political power or get money, no matter what the effect on others. This is evident in moronic ideological "solutions to terrorism" that are being proposed. Here are some examples:

Gun control. On Friday, the morning after the Nice attack, Smith & Wesson stock went higher, as it always does after a terror attack, because gun owners know that President Obama is going to give another speech making the ridiculous call for gun control. Calls for gun control increase gun sales, as well as development of techniques for home-made guns, including 3D-printed guns. No proposed gun control law would have prevented any of the recent terror attacks. France has strong gun control laws, and yet the terrorist possessed guns and explosives. Also the attack in Nice was with a truck, and I'm waiting for someone to propose truck control.

Ban all Muslims or interrogate all Muslims. This would create an enormous backlash domestically. It would be a farce, since it would entrap only ordinary Muslims, and real jihadists would learn to lie and evade any tests. The perpetrator in Nice was stopped by the police before the attack, and was asked why he was driving his truck in that area. He said that he was delivering ice cream for the celebrations, and the police left him alone. If he could so easily fool the French police, then any jihadist could learn to do the same.

Solve the "core problems." People who make this proposal usually blame the U.S. for Muslim hostility, and claim that if we were nicer to Muslims, the attacks would stop. This farcical proposal is contradicted by almost eight years of President Obama's apology tours to Muslim countries. Another analyst made the equally idiotic claim blaming the terror attacks on the rise of the far-right in Europe. Last year, I explained in detail in "12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11" that the modern rise of al-Qaeda, the 9/11 attacks, and the increasing jihadist attacks since then were traced back to three major events that took place in 1979: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iran's Great Islamic Revolution, and a huge Salafist attack on Mecca's Grand Mosque. The United States had absolutely nothing to do with the rise of jihadism, and it's extreme nationalist arrogance to even believe so. It would be nice if some of these self-styled "experts" who blame the US for everything would learn a little about what's going on in the world.

Bomb Raqqa. I heard one military analyst say that we should "get serious" and wipe out ISIS by bombing and flattening Raqqa, their headquarters, even though hundreds of thousands of civilians would be killed. This is laughable beyond belief. ISIS would move its headquarters out of Raqqa. The huge civilian massacre would create an enormous international backlash. And it wouldn't even do any good. There are thousands of people killed in terrorist attacks every month -- in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in India, in Bangladesh, in Yemen, in Egypt, in Nigeria, and in other countries, and none of that would be even touched by bombing Raqqa. There's a huge war being waged by Muslims against Muslims, with the number of Westerners killed being minuscule by comparison. This war is growing, and so the spillover with terror attacks in the West is going to grow as well, and flattening Raqqa would only make things worse.

Dissolve the EU or civil war in the EU. I heard a couple of analysts say that the Nice attack should encourage other countries to leave the EU, suggesting that this would prevent jihadists from crossing borders. That doesn't make sense. If anything, the Nice attack will unify the EU, since they need each other to fight terrorism. The most that would happen is some additional border closings, or modification of the Schengen zone. But even so, that would not have prevented the Nice attack, where the perpetrators was a permanent resident and a "lone wolf" who didn't cross any borders.

The attack in Nice France makes a mockery of all "solutions." It was perpetrated by a permanent resident of France, who lived in Nice with a job as a delivery driver. He was known to the police as a petty thief, but not as a terrorist. No one has claimed credit for the attack, so it may have been perpetrated entirely locally. He has an ex-wife and three kids, so that the attack might have been a way of getting revenge against his ex-wife. He comes from a well-to-do family in Tunisia, where his father was speaking to the press. He expressed shock that his son had perpetrated this act. He said that his son was mentally unstable, and that when he was off his meds he would become extremely angry and break things. So the Nice France attack might simply have been perpetrated by a madman.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, there is no solution to the terrorism problem. The rise of terrorism is organic, coming from young generations with limited, distorted views of the world. None of the above solutions would reach them. With the worldwide Muslim versus Muslim war growing, there's going to be more and more "spillover" into the West, and so the number of terrorist attacks will continue to increase. All of the "solutions" listed above only make things worse. AFP and CNN

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Jul-16 World View -- Nice France terror attack provokes desperate search for solutions thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (16-Jul-2016) Permanent Link
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