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Nigeria blames Cameroon for failure to defeat Boko Haram
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When Russia moved 40,000 troops up to the border with Ukraine, it was widely believed that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent. The invasion never happened, but there followed a series of game-playing (intentional lying) episodes by Russia's president Vladimir Putin, announcing that the troops were being pulled back, when in fact there was no intention to pull them back.
But now, finally, Nato is confirming that about 2/3rds of the troops have been pulled back, though thousands of Russian troops still remain.
Even without an explicit invasion, the pullback does not indicate an end to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine. Reports continue of trucks laden with Russian and Chechen fighters and weapons traveling across the border to support and supply the pro-Russian separatist militias. Russia's "stealth invasion" indicates that further warfare is to come. Washington Post and Australian Broadcasting
Speaking in Singapore on Friday at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue on Asian security issues, Japan's president Shinzo Abe said that Japan will continue to be a pacifist state that makes great contributions to global peace, and he expressed the intention for Japan to take a more active part in guaranteeing peace and security throughout Asia.
However, the indicated that the way he's going to do that is to ally with Vietnam and the Philippines to force international arbitration over the territory that China plans to annex -- and indeed has already annexed by military force in some cases.
"What the world eagerly awaits is for our seas and our skies to be places governed by rules, laws and established dispute resolution procedures. The least desirable state of affairs is having to fear that coercion and threats will take the place of rules and laws, and that unexpected situations will arise at arbitrary times and places."
This was a direct criticism of China, which is refusing to follow international rules and established dispute resolution procedures. China does not want to submit the disputes to a court, because China would win some battles and would lose some battles. China is the greedy tyrant that wants everything. That's why China was furious and began taking revenge against the Philippines for appealing their disputes to the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal. China has refused to cooperate with the Tribunal.
At Friday's conference, Abe said that Japan has provided ten patrol boats to the Philippine Coast Guard, and that Japan is planning to do the same for Vietnam as well.
A Chinese analyst says that Abe is playing with international law to advance nationalistic goals:
"Abe is going against the spirit of peace that is fundamental to international law by using it as an excuse to move in the opposite direction."
Japan Times and Xinhua
China's state-run news agency provides a very interesting analysis of why they believe other countries see them as "evil or dangerous." Here are some excerpts:
"A tragic hostility is unfolding in Asia while Vietnam and Japan, who share similar culture heritage with China, see their neighbor much more like a thorn in their sides. After a Vietnamese fishing boat deliberately entered Chinese waters and collided in a kamikaze-style attack on a vessel protecting an oil rig in China’s Xisha Islands on Monday, Hanoi blamed it on China and quickly sought foreign aid to beef up its marine patrol. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe found this a good chance for finger-pointing and eagerly dressed up Japan as a counterweight to the growing influence of China. This is ironic. Since his Liberal Democratic Party-led government took power at the end of 2012, Abe has been upsetting Asia with his attempts to reverting to militarism.A good question is why has the term “China threat” been coined rather than “Japan threat”? Here are three key reasons. Firstly, China keeps emphasizing its special characteristics or differentia from the other states, which creates mystery and makes it easily depicted as an imaginary enemy. Still today, many Chinese sadly find their national totem of the dragon and the red flag of the country’s governing party, both majestic in the Chinese culture, seen as evil or dangerous symbols in the West. Secondly, within a few decades, China effectively eliminated poverty, and quickly rose into the world’s second-largest economy. More disturbing is the fact that all its economic achievements have been made under a political system whose founders had aimed to eliminate capitalism.
Over the past few centuries, the world has been following the Law of the Jungle: the strong get stronger while the weak get weaker. Can China be so different from the previous powers in not seeking hegemony? It is a question upsetting many people across the world. Many of those who advocate containing China involuntarily make an empirical judgment. It was too bad that Japan was not stopped in the 1930s. So it is time to stop China now, they say. But believe it or it, empiricism could be wrong. China will never be a second Japan.
With a history of 5,000 years and incorporating diverse culture that they have either created or had imposed on them, the Chinese people have developed a unique perspective on the relationship between man and nature as well as between state and state. Those familiar with Chinese history know China was the world’s most powerful state for a long period of time but it never colonized or invaded any country. “However large a country is, bellicosity will cause it to perish,” goes an old Chinese adage that still resonates nowadays."
The 200+ schoolgirls abducted on April 16 by the terror group Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria have still not been recovered, and there is no indication that they'll ever be recovered. Furthermore, since the girls' abductions, over 500 civilians have been killed in multiple terror attacks by Boko Haram. Nigeria has struck a deal with Niger to allow its troops to cross the border in pursuit of Boko Haram, and is discussing a similar deal with Chad. But Cameroon is refusing to make such a deal, and Nigerian officials are accusing Cameroon of providing a safe haven for Boko Haram terrorists:
"Niger has been proactive and aggressive, Chad has shown zero tolerance for Boko Haram. Cameroon, we've engaged them to be more pro-active. They haven't really. Not yet."
However, Cameroon officials deny the allegations:
"Cameroon has never been the weakest link in the chain. As the deployment of troops and equipment in the past few days prove, we have put up an iron curtain with enough firepower, which Boko Haram cannot break."
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-May-14 World View -- Japan's Shinzo Abe asserts Asian leadership against China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-May-2014)
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Hamas and Fatah move to unified Palestinian government, as Israel objects
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On Wednesday, pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine launched a ground to air missile, and downed a Ukraine army helicopter, killing 12 government soldiers. This was a devastating blow to Ukraine's government, and it seriously escalates the conflict.
There have been multiple reports that fighters from Russia have been joining the anti-government rebels. According to one report on the BBC, there have been numerous fighters from Chechnya, Abkhazia and South Ossetia crossing the border and fighting on the side of the pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine. There have also been some reports of rebel groups fighting each other for control of their individual regions.
The ground-to-air missile that brought down the helicopter may or may not have been supplied by Russia. Ukraine itself is a manufacturer of many kinds of weapons, so there are multiple possible sources where the rebels could have obtained this weapon.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Ukraine is in a generational Crisis era, which means that a spark could ignite a conflict that spirals into a war. I'm particularly struck by how often I hear the words "fascists" and "Nazis" used, evoking memories of the bloody battles of World War II. The people who are using those words have little or no memory of the horrors of the torture, rape and mutilation that occurred in those battles. All they know is that their side were the heroes, and the other side were the criminals, and that it's finally time to even the score. BBC and Kyiv Post
With last month's collapse of the Mideast "peace talks," the Palestinians made it clear that they're going to go their own way. This means, for example, applying to hundreds of United Nations organizations as the State of Palestine.
On Thursday, the Palestinians announced the next step in their plans. Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority (PA/Fatah) announced that Rami Hamdallah, who is considered to be a relatively non-ideological technocrat, is to be the head of the new unity government, combining Hamas and Fatah.
There were problems almost as soon as the announcements were made. There were also supposed to be announcements of the entire unity government cabinet, but they were postponed because of disagreements. Fatah and Hamas were at war several years ago, and several subsequent attempts at unity have collapsed because of hostility between the two.
If the Palestinians do succeed in forming a unity government, then they'll face other problems. The U.S. and the EU identify Hamas as a terrorist organization with a charter that includes the total destruction of Israel. So Israel has said that they won't do business with any government that includes Hamas. And U.S. law prohibits aid to the Palestinians to benefit Hamas, "or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence."
If a unity government is actually successfully formed, then there will be pressure within the EU to recognize the unity government. That would certainly change the geopolitical landscape, but there are many "if's" that will have to be faced before that point is reached. Ma'an News (Bethlehem) and Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-May-14 World View -- Missile attack on Ukraine helicopter portends a bigger conflict thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-May-2014)
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Riot police dismantle migrant camps in Calais France
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Three days after the anti-immigrant Front National party hammered France's ruling Socialist party in elections of members to the European Parliament, French riot police began forcibly evacuating three migrant campsites in the northern city of Calais on Wednesday. Some 500 migrants, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan, were forced to grab whatever belongings they could before bulldozers came and cleared the area. Calais is a port town on the English Channel, and it's France's closest point to Britain. Each year it draws thousands of migrants hoping to travel to Britain, where they would try to get a job and take advantage of Britain's welfare and health benefits. France 24 and Euro News
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1,000 migrants storm Spain's Melilla enclave in Africa
On the same day that French riot police stormed the Calais migrant camp, about 1,000 African migrants in Morocco stormed the border and entered Spain's Melilla enclave. The enclave is considered Spanish territory, and therefore European territory. The border between Morocco and Melilla is separated by two tall metallic fences. If only a few migrants attempt to cross, then the border police can stop them. But on Wednesday, 1,000 migrants stormed the border in a coordinated crossing. Some 400 of the migrants made it across, and headed for the CETI refugee center there. The refugee center is supposed to handle only 500 refugees, but it's now accommodating about 2,000. The migrants will be processed at the center. A few will be offered asylum in mainland Spain, and the rest will be sent back. The Local (Spain)
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Pakistanis are expressing glee at the news of a major split in the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban - TTP).
The TTP is an umbrella organization for a number of terrorist organizations in Pakistan. The TTP was founded in 2007 and led for years by Baitullah Mehsud, from the Mehsud tribe in Waziristan. Baitullah Mehsud was killed by an American drone strike in 2009. He was succeeded by Hakimullah Mehsud, but Hakimullah Mehsud, also from the Mehsud tribe, was later killed by another drone strike, this time in November 2011.
The TTP was taken over by a non-Mehsud leader, Maulana Fazlullah. A number of factions have been unhappy with Fazlullah's leadership, and there have been bloody clashes between different militant organizations, becoming more violent in the last few weeks.
A spokesman for the Mehsud tribe said on Wednesday:
"We announce our defection from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, we have chosen Khalid Mehsud as the new leader for South Waziristan.The present (Fazlullah-led) Taliban regime is carrying out bomb attacks on public places with bogus names and also money is being extorted from madrassas and other institutions which is not acceptable.
[The leadership] within the TTP has gone towards robberies, extortion, unjustified killing [and targeting] Islamic madrassas, and it is taking foreign funding to attack targets in Afghanistan, taking responsibility for attacks under false identities, creating divisions within other jihadi groups, and especially spreading unfounded propaganda against the Afghan Taliban.
The TTP leadership has fallen into the hands of a bunch of conspirators, the umbrella organization is involved in criminal activities like robbery and extortion.
We consider the bombing of public places, extortion and kidnappings un-Islamic, and since the TTP leaders continued with these practices, we decided we should not share the responsibility."
According to the spokesman, the Mehsud group is "unhappy" at the deviation by Mullah Fazlullah from the real struggle of the TTP – the establishment of an Islamic state. BBC and Dawn (Pakistan)
A number of commentators are saying that this marks the end of the TTP altogether, and that may well be true. It's going to be difficult to get a collection of bloody terrorist groups to agree to obey the same leader.
Other commentators are saying that this is good news, because it now means that the "peace process" between the government and the Taliban can go ahead. I can't imagine how anyone could possibly believe this. The whole Pakistan "peace process" concept was always a total fantasy, as I've written many times, but if there ever were going to be some sort of signed peace agreement, it would have to have been with a leadership powerful enough to bring everyone into line. Obviously the Taliban has nothing like that today, if it ever did.
I've written about any number of TTP-linked terrorist groups. There's Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which is dedicated to war with India, and which masterminded the Mumbai's horrific 26/11' three-day terrorist attack. There's Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has publicly and firmly announced as its goal the extermination of all Shia Muslims and Hazaras in Pakistan, and has been methodically setting off bombs in order to achieve that goal, and is connected to Jundullah, a terrorist group that has perpetrated major attacks on Shia mosques and Revolutionary Guard stations in southeastern Iran. And there's Tanzeem-ul-Islami-ul-Furqan (TIF), which we described two days ago, and is methodically attacking schools in southern Balochistan enrolling girl students.
These organizations are not now going to agree to some kind of "peace agreement" because TTP is splintering. In fact, if TTP had any effect at all on these organizations, it would have been to be more moderate, for the common good of all the bloody TTP terrorists. But without the umbrella group, they're now free to act on their own, slaughtering civilians at will, with nothing to inhibit them.
As I've said many times, the Generational Dynamics prediction is that India and Pakistan will re-fight the bloody war between Hindus and Muslims that followed Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan. That war was not directed by presidents or prime ministers or leaders of any kind on either side. It was driven by massive slaughter coming from entire generations of people, entire generations of Hindus versus entire generations of Muslims, in what was one of the bloodiest battles of the century. The splintering of TTP can only bring a new version of that war closer. Tribune (Pakistan) and Al-Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-May-14 World View -- Major faction defects from Pakistan Taliban, splitting it in two thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-May-2014)
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Japan strengthens military alliances with Philippines and Vietnam
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Vietnam says that about 40 Chinese steel-hulled vessels surrounded a group of smaller, wooden Vietnamese fishing ships on Monday afternoon in the South China Sea. One fishing boat was rammed and sank, and the fisherman were picked up by other Vietnamese boats.
China said that the opposite occurred. According to the state-run news agency, the fishing boat capsized after harassing and colliding with a Chinese fishing boat. According to China, Vietnam has sent a number of ships to obstruct the oil drilling in waters claimed by both Vietnam and China.
China has repeatedly said that they are going to annex regions of the South and East China Seas belonging to Japan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, often for centuries. China is enforcing its demands with it's huge and growing military power, and threats of military action against any country that doesn't obey its commands.
According to Vietnam, China has been repeatedly attacking Vietnamese ships. Chinese warships frequently train their high-pressure water hoses on exhaust pipes, antennae, radars and windows of Vietnamese ships, in order to disable to sink them. AP and Xinhua and CNN and Thanh Nien News
With China's bellicosity becoming more strident almost every week, Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe is strengthening Japan's military links with Vietnam and the Philippines, and said that with regard to China's "unilateral drilling activities" in the South China Sea, "We will never tolerate a change to the status quo by force or coercion."
In December 2013, Japan provided 10 patrol vessels to the Philippines Coast Guard, and is now planning to accelerate similar aid to Vietnam. According to Abe:
"Unilateral drilling activities are taking place in areas of the South China Sea where borders are not defined. I am deeply concerned about the heightening of tensions that has resulted. Japan’s position is that we will never tolerate the change of status quo by force or coercion. We are seeking a peaceful resolution based on international law."
It was two years ago that Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt in the only democratic election in Egypt's multi-millennial history. And it was one year ago, that the army, led by general Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government in a coup, jailing him and thousands of supporters, and even arranging for death sentences for Muslim Brotherhood leaders. It's particularly scandalous that several Al-Jazeera reporters have been jailed for reporting the news from Egypt, and those reporters have now been in jail for eight months.
So now, al-Sisi has resigned from the army and returned to civilian life so that he can run for President of Egypt. The Egyptian people had two days to cast their votes, Monday and Tuesday. The problem is that turnout was exceptionally low -- why bother to vote when you know that al-Sisi is going to win? This is being seen as a humiliation for al-Sisi and a problem for Egypt, since an extremely low turnout cuts al-Sisi's credibility and ability to govern. It's also in sharp contrast to the huge crowds that turned out in 2012 to vote for Mohamed Morsi.
So Egypt has announced that the election has been extended to a third day, Wednesday, so that more people can vote. Authorities are even threatening to fine people who don't vote. Al Ahram (Cairo) and CBS News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-May-14 World View -- Vietnam accuses China of ramming and sinking its fishing boat thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-May-2014)
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Jordan bluntly expels Syria's ambassador
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Nigerian government officials are saying that they know the location of the 200+ schoolgirls that were abducted by Boko Haram last month, but they will not be recovered by force, because any gunfire would put the girls' lives in danger.
The BBC is reporting that the Nigerian government had made a deal with Boko Haram to exchange 50 of the girls for 100 Boko Haram militants who have been captured and put in jail. However, the government backed out of the deal during a summit meeting earlier this month with Nigerian, African and Western leaders at which they agreed to wage "total war" against Boko Haram. ( "19-May-14 World View -- Boko Haram attacks Chinese camp as summit takes place in Paris") No reason was given for why the deal canceled, but it's surmised that negotiating with terrorists and agreeing to the exchange would encourage a lot more abductions of other schoolgirls. Channels TV (Nigeria)
The Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban - TTP) have mostly focused their terrorist attacks on northwest Pakistan, but now a new splinter group, Tanzeem-ul-Islami-ul-Furqan (TIF - Organization of the creation of Islam) is spreading terror attacks deep into the southwest province of Balochistan, and is particularly targeting schools with girls enrolled. A letter sent to 23 English Language Learning Centers warned that teaching in English is forbidden, and added:
"Private schools should completely stop girls’ education, both co-education and separate education. We urge all van and taxi drivers to refrain from taking girls to schools. Otherwise, they will also be targeted... Any institution or persons defying the warning will be deemed as an enemy of Islam and therefore punished."
The group has been killing school teachers and burning down schools, and have threatened "the worst consequences as prescribed in the Quran" if girls' education is not completely shut down.
All this is happening in the context of separatist activity by a Baloch nationalist group called the Baloch Student Organization (BSO-Azad). Pakistan's government has reacted to this separatist activism by relocating thousands of ethnic Punjabis to Balochistan for large development project. This has led to violence by Balochis against Punjabis, with the result that over 19,000 of Balochi civilians have "disappeared" from abductions by Pakistan's intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with more than 2,000 of them having been "killed and dumped." South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Al-Jazeera
A furious Jordanian foreign ministry declared Syria's ambassador Bahjat Suleiman, a former general and intelligence chief, as persona non grata, and ordered him to leave the country within 24 hours. According to the state-run news agency:
"The government took the decision after the envoy continued his insults and un-friendly statements against Jordan, Jordanian political figures, national institutions and citizens, despite repeated warnings by the government not to indulge in and desist from making such provocative statements, the envoy said."Mr. Suleiman used Jordan as a platform to cast doubt on Jordan's stances and directed baseless accusations on more than one occasion and through such statements," the spokesperson said, noting that he used Jordanian territories to direct insults against Arab and neighboring countries and their leadership, with whom Jordan has strong ties.
These insults, which targeted Jordan and Arab countries, were a flagrant violation of all diplomatic norms and charters, she said, stressing that Jordan totally rejects such acts. The envoy had not observed the simplest diplomatic norms in a country that is hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees."
Jordan is harboring over a million refugees from Syria, as a result of the genocidal war and crimes against humanity by Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Apparently some of the insults that Jordan was complaining about was that Suleiman accused Jordan of harboring terrorists by giving refuge to refugees. This guy really has balls.
The expulsion comes just a few days before the planned June 3 Syrian presidential election, which many people consider to be a farce. Suleiman had announced that Syrian citizens living in Jordan would be able to come to the Syrian embassy in Amman and vote there. Jordan's foreign minister had warned that this could bring security problems to Amman.
In a tit-for-tat retaliation, Syria expelled Jordan's chargé-d'affaires from Damascus. Jordanian officials said the chargé d'affaires was not currently in Syria. Petra (Jordan) and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-May-14 World View -- Nigeria backs out of deal to recover Boko Haram's abducted schoolgirls thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-May-2014)
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Pope Francis to try his hand at a Mideast 'peace process'
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France's president François Hollande referred to Sunday's European Parliament election as a "political earthquake," as mainstream parties across Europe, including Hollande's own Socialist party, suffered calamitous defeat. Although each country is different, the generalization is that the parties that did better than expected favor strong controls on immigration, and advocate leaving the euro currency or the European Union entirely.
A big factor in all the elections was the euro crisis, which had not yet occurred at the time of the last European Parliament elections in 2009. Countries like France and Greece chafe at the austerity measures being forced on them, while countries like Germany dislike having to bail out the other countries.
Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far right Front National party, (the phrase "far right" has different meanings in Europe and America) said that France had "shouted loud and clear" that it wanted to be run "by the French, for the French and with the French" and not by "foreign commissioners" in Brussels. Front National is expected to take 25% of the vote, while the Socialist party will receive its lowest ever vote at 14.5%.
Britain's UK Independence Party (UKIP) scored a stunning victory by coming out ahead of both mainstream parties, Labor and Conservative, and is the first party in more than a century to do so. Immigration is considered by many to be a serious problem in the UK, and there has been talk for some time of the UK leaving the European Union. The UKIP victory may also have repercussions for the referendum to be held in the Fall by Scotland, to determine whether it should secede from the UK.
In Greece, two parties at opposite extremes did well, united by anger at austerity measures. The far left anti-bailout anti-austerity party Syriza got 26.7%, coming in in first place among the parties, but that will not be enough to unseat prime minister Antonis Samaris, whose New Democracy party came in second with 22.8% and can form a coalition with other parties. Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party got 10% of the vote, enough to send three MEPs (Members of Parliament) to Brussels, even though some party leaders are being tried for criminal activities.
Overall, the anti-EU parties did better than expected, but pro-EU parties will still continue to dominate the European Parliament in Brussels. Independent (London) and Washington Post and Kathimerini
Exit polls show that billionaire candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko won a clear victory in Sunday's election for president of Ukraine. He supports strong ties with Europe, but also wants to mend relations with Russia. This was a solid victory by Poroshenko, and may restore confidence that Ukraine will survive intact, though without Crimea. Russia's president Vladimir Putin had said he would honor the results of the election, though in the past his actions have borne little relationship to his promises. If he keeps his promise, then presumably he will stop saying that the government in Kiev is the result of an illegitimate fascist coup.
As expected, voting was light in the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, where pro-Russian activists have declared their independence from Kiev, and are trying to use violence to bring about the annexation of the two provinces by Russia. BBC showed videos of pro-Russian thugs threatening voters and smashing ballot boxes to prevent a vote from taking place. However, turnout was high in the rest of Ukraine. AP and RFERL
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama have all tried to arrange a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, without success, as have a number of European leaders. Now Pope Francis has announced he is joining the crowd. The Pope is on a three day visit to the Mideast. ( "25-May-14 World View -- Pope Francis visits Mideast to reconcile with Jews, Orthodox, and Muslims")
After giving an outdoor mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square on Sunday, he invited Palestinian and Israeli leaders to the Vatican for a "peace initiative." According to the Pope:
"In this, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, I wish to invite you, President Mahmoud Abbas, together with Israeli President Shimon Peres, to join me in heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace.I offer my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer.
Building peace is difficult, but living without peace is a constant torment. The men and women of these lands, and of the entire world, all of them, ask us to bring before God their fervent hopes for peace."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accepted the offer to go to the Vatican, while the office of Israeli President Shimon Peres issued a statement welcoming the invitation.
It's now been 11 years since I wrote my first generational analysis of the Mideast peace process in May 2003, when President George Bush issued his "Mideast Roadmap to Peace." From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, peace in the Mideast is impossible, because the Arabs and the Jews will be re-fighting their genocidal war that began last time in 1947 with the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. The traumatized survivors of that war spent their lives doing everything they could to keep anything so horrible from happening to the children and grandchildren, and they succeeded in that. But now almost all of those survivors are gone, with the major exception being Mahmoud Abbas himself, and the younger generations have no hesitancy in risking steps that could spiral into all out war. When Abbas retires or dies, then the last major obstacle to such a war will be removed. CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-May-14 World View -- Europe has 'political earthquake' as anti-EU parties surge in elections thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-May-2014)
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Pope Francis's visit also commemorates forgiveness of Jews
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Pope Francis visited Jordan on Saturday, where he asked for freedom of religion for everyone. On Sunday, he'll move on to the Palestinian territories, and give the nod to the state of Palestine, and then move on to Jerusalem, where he'll meet with Orthodox and Jewish leaders.
In Jordan, he denounced arms dealers who are bringing misery to the Syrian civil war. He had an emotional meeting with refugees from Syria and Iraq who have fled to Jordan. He prayed to God:
"Convert those who seek war, those who make and sell weapons!We all want peace, but looking at the tragedy of war, looking at the wounded, seeing so many people who left their homeland who were forced to go away, I ask, 'Who sells weapons to these people to make war?'" he asked. "This is the root of evil, the hatred, the love of money."
The Pope particularly took note of violence against Christian communities, forcing many to flee the region. He encouraged those who had decided to remain in the region. AP
While the Protestant Reformation is considered to be a heresy in the Catholic Church, the split between the Roman (Catholic) and Byzantine (Orthodox) churches is generally called a "schism," because there are no serious doctrinal differences separating the churches. From the early days, there were always several branches of the Catholic Church, the two most important being the Western / Roman branch and the Eastern / Greek branch centered in Byzantium (later Constantinople, and even later Istanbul). But, like a married couple living apart, they developed differences that eventually could not be reconciled, and led to estrangement. The Romans couldn't speak Greek, and the Greeks couldn't speak Latin. Each developed rites that were strange to the other. They had joint meetings and councils, but they couldn't agree on policies, and couldn't understand each other anyway. The schism officially began on July 16, 1054, when Rome excommunicated a Greek patriarch, Caerularius.
For the Greek Orthodox, the seminal moment in their relationship with the Catholics came with the Crusades. In 1204, along the way to fighting the Muslims in Jerusalem, the Crusades sacked Constantinople, starving and murdering its citizens, and plundering the Church's treasures accumulated over the centuries. The deed was capped by placing a prostitute on the Emperor's throne at the church of St. Sophia, at that time the most beautiful church in Christendom. This moment is burned into the psyches of Orthodox Christians.
In 1964, Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras met in Jerusalem for the purpose of healing the schism and uniting the Churches. It was the first meeting of the leaders of the split church since 1054. In 2001, Pope John Paul visited Athens and encountered large anti-Catholic protests. He apologized for the sacking of Constantinople, and made a plea for forgiveness.
So now the official purpose of Pope Francis's Mideast trip is to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1964 meeting. Francis will meet Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. He's still the Patriarch of Constantinople, even though the name of the city was changed to Istanbul, after the Moslems conquered it in 1453. They will meet on Sunday at the spot where Jesus is believed to be buried.
By the way, if my mother were alive today, she would be furious at all this. She loved the Catholic Church and often attended services there (because they're considerably shorter than the Greek Orthodox services), but she is quite clear that the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox are, in her words, "completely useless to each other."
The Protestant Reformation began in 1517, when Martin Luther posted his "95 Theses" on the door of Wittenburg Cathedral, in protest at the Catholic doctrine of indulgences. The 500th anniversary of that event occurs in 3 years. New Advent Encyclopedia and NPR
On Saturday, Pope Francis said that "Religious freedom is in fact a fundamental human right," and he hoped that there would be a "climate of serene coexistence" between all religions. During his visit to Jerusalem on Sunday, the Pope will undoubtedly make remark about coexistence with the Jewish religion.
For centuries, the Catholics have blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus, and have justified discrimination against Jews for that reason. The most explicit statement of this was a Papal bull issued by Pope Paul IV on July 14, 1555. It applied mainly to the city of Rome. It established a ghetto with only one entrance and exit, and prescribed severe economic restrictions. It begins with the words, "Cum Nimis Absurdu" ("As it is completely absurd"), and goes on to explain that though they are condemned to eternal servitude through their own fault (killing Jesus), it is absurd that they should be allowed to live freely with Christians.
Here's the beginning:
"As it is completely absurd and improper in the utmost that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal servitude, can under the pretext that pious Christians must accept them and sustain their habitation, are so ungrateful to Christians, as, instead of thanks for gracious treatment, they return contumely, and among themselves, instead of the slavery, which they deserve, they manage to claim superiority: we, who newly learned that these very Jews have insolently invaded our City Rome and a number of the Papal States, territories and domains their impudence increased so much that they dare not only to live amongst the Christian people, but also in the vicinity of the churches without any difference of dressing, and even that they rent houses in the main streets and squares, buy and hold immovable property, engage maids, nurses and other Christian servants, and commit other and numerous misdeeds with shame and contempt of the Christian name. Considering that the Church of Rome tolerates these very Jews is evidence of the true Christian faith and to this end [we declare]: that they, won over by the piety and kindness of the See, should at long last recognize their erroneous ways, and should lose no time in seeing the true light of the catholic faith, and thus to agree that while they persist in their errors, realizing that they are slaves because of their deeds, whereas Christians have been freed through our Lord God Jesus Christ, and that it is iniquitous for it to appear that the sons of free women serve the sons of maids.1. Desiring firstly, as much as we can with God, to beneficially provide, by this. that will forever be in force, we ordain that for the rest of time, in the City as well as in other states, territories and domains of the Church of Rome itself, all Jews are to live in one and if there is not that capacity in two or three or however many quarters may be enough; they should reside entirely side by side in designated streets and be thoroughly separate from the residences of Christians, by our authority in the City and by that of our representatives in other states, lands and domains noted above, and that there must be only one entrance and exit from this quarter."
The paragraph above explicitly describes how the ghetto is to work. The bull goes to list enormous restrictions on Jews, including where they may earn a living.
Even in the 1800s, the Rome ghetto still existed. Here's how it's described in the October 1870 edition of The Atlantic magazine:
"The inquirer visited the Ghetto, in the low ground near the Tiber, and found it "the most horrible and neglected quarter of the town," in which not the humblest of the thousand prelates about Rome would set his foot, any more than as Indian Brahmin would cross the threshold of a Pariah's hovel. "I learned,” says this author, “that the most humble employment in the most humble office would as soon be given to a beast as to a Jew; that for a child of Israel to ask in Rome to be employed as a commissary, would he more absurd than for the giraffe of the Jardin des Plantes to ask for an under-prefectship in Paris.” No Jew can own a foot of land in the papal dominions, nor cultivate one, unless in the name of a Christian; and if a Jew, using this artifice, ventures to cultivate a garden or a farm, his harvest is safe from pillage only so long as the legal device remains a secret. Let but the Christians around learn that the harvest is the property of an Israelite, and “a rage for plunder” seizes them, which leaves the hapless proprietor with desolated fields."
The Papal bull "Cum Nimis Absurdu" has never been withdrawn, and was considered by many to be the teachings of the Church well into the 20th century, well through the time of Hitler and the Holocaust.
It was only fully repudiated finally on April 13, 1986, when Pope John Paul II made a dramatic visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome and gave an address that fully repudiated the terms of "Cum Nimis Absurdu":
"We are all aware that, among the riches of this paragraph no. 4 of Nostra Aetate, three points are especially relevant. I would like to underline them here, before you, in this truly unique circumstance. The first is that the Church of Christ discovers her "bond" with Judaism by "searching into her own mystery" (cf. Nostra Aetate, ibid.) The Jewish religion is not "extrinsic" to us, but in a certain way is "intrinsic" to our own religion. With Judaism therefore we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.The second point noted by the Council is that no ancestral or collective blame can be imputed to the Jews as a people for "what happened in Christ's passion" (cf. Nostra Aetate, ibid.) Not indiscriminately to the Jews of that time, nor to those who came afterwards, nor to those of today. So any alleged theological justification for discriminatory measures or, worse still, for acts of persecution is unfounded. The Lord will judge each one "according to his own works," Jews and Christians alike (cf. Rom 2:6)
The third point that I would like to emphasize in the Council's Declaration is a consequence of the second. Notwithstanding the Church's awareness of her own identity, it is not lawful to say that the Jews are "repudiated or cursed," as it this were taught or could be deduced from the Sacred Scriptures of the Old or the New Testament (cf. Nostra Aetate, ibid.). Indeed, the Council had already said in this same text of Nostra Aetate, but also in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, no. 16, referring to Saint Paul in the Letter to the Romans (11:28-29), that the Jews are beloved of God, who has called them with an irrevocable calling."
In particular, for the first time, the Pope specifically and unambiguously repudiated the claim that the Jews were at fault for the death of Jesus. NY Daily News and Zionism-Israel Information and The Atlantic (Oct 1870) and CCJR (Council of Centers on Jewish Christian Relations)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-May-14 World View -- Pope Francis visits Mideast to reconcile with Jews, Orthodox, and Muslims thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-May-2014)
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Britain's anti-European Union party appears headed for European Parliament
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Leaders in the U.S., Jordan, and Israel are becoming increasingly concerned about the threats to Israel and Jordan from the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (the Islamic Front) group, which is now controlling much of Syria's southern border. According to an Israeli assessment, the insurgents have the upper hand in the Syrian Golan and are close to occupying the key town of Quneitra, which has a border crossing to Israel. Al-Assad’s military has suffered some serious defeats in the Golan Heights in the last couple of months, causing Israel to bolster its military forces in the Golan on the Syrian border to confront the al-Nusra forces. The al-Assad regime is also alarmed, as Quneitra is close to Damascus, and could serve as a launching pad for an al-Nusra attack on Damascus.
Debka's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber) says that the U.S. military may get back into the Mideast. According to Debka, the U.S. administration, is supplying some rebel groups in southern Syria with arms, intelligence and funding. Israeli and Jordanian military intelligence experts are helping the CIA weed out al-Qaeda fighters from the US-backed rebel forces and make sure they do not get hold of the heavy weaponry, such as anti-aircraft missiles that could be turned against Israel and Jordan.
Most observers now believe that the al-Assad regime is fully entrenched, and not going anywhere. According to the Debka report, the Obama administration's objective is to minimize the threat posed to Israel and Jordan by by the Syrian Army and its allies, Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias. Also, the US military would establish a foothold on the Damascus periphery, and would seek to challenge Russia and Iran by establishing ties with high-ranking Syrian general command officers and the field commanders of units deployed in and around Damascus. According to Debka's intelligence sources, this strategy was fiercely opposed by Joint Chiefs chairman Martin E. Dempsey, who opposes new military operations during the Afghanistan withdrawal, and who fears that it would bring the U.S. face to face with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, and even Russian servicemen posted from Moscow. However, the Obama administration was convinced by Jordanian and Israeli officials, who argued that this was Washington's last chance to force the Syrian army and its Iranian allies to stay away from their borders, while at the same time planting a strong US presence in position for determining the future course of events in Damascus. Reuters and Al-Monitor and Debka (Subscription)
UK Independence Party (UKIP) surged in local elections on Thursday, leading many to believe that Sunday will market its biggest electoral triumph to date when the results of elections to the European Parliament are announced. UKIP leader Nigel Farage bragged, "This is a massive leap forward in the battle to break into Westminster constituencies in numbers in the general election next year."
According to the UKIP web site, "UKIP is a patriotic party that believes in putting Britain first. ... The EU controls Immigration, Business and Employment, Financial Services, Fishing, Farming, Energy and Trade. It seeks now to control Law and Order, Foreign Affairs and Tax. Only outside the EU can we start to solve the problems our country faces." The party platform includes:
Farage and the party have been accused of being "racist, sexist and homophobic," but according to Farage this name-calling backfired on election day. France 24 and UKIP Web Site
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-May-14 World View -- Washington seeks to protect Jordan and Israel from Syria militants thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-May-2014)
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China shocked by major terrorist attack in Xinjiang province
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Just two days after declaring martial law and promising not to take over the government, Thailand's army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha did just that -- seizing control of government on Thursday in a non-violent coup. Prayuth announced on Thai television:
"In order for the situation to return to normal quickly and for society to love and be at peace again ... and to reform the political, economic and social structure, the military needs to take control of power."
Prayuth represents a major victory for the "yellow shirt" elite protesters, mostly of Chinese descent, known as Thai-Chinese. They've crippled the capital city Bangkok for months, demanding that the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, step down. Yingluck's main constituency is the much larger "red shirt" population of mostly indigenous ethnic Thais, known as Thai-Thais. Yingluck finally did resign two weeks ago, as a result of a court order, but the yellow shirts were demanding a lot more: Instead of permitting a democratic election, the elites were demanding that the government be run by a "people's council" that they select. The reason is that an election would only bring to power another "red shirt" leader, as Yingluck's Pheu Thai political party has won the last five elections.
It now appears that the elites will have their way. Prayuth is no neutral observer. He has openly favored the yellow shirt cause, and he ordered the Thai army to run tanks through red shirt barricades and assault them with live ammunition when they the ones protesting in 2010. However, he's taken no similar actions against the yellow shirts that have been protesting since December, shutting down businesses and government buildings. Bangkok Post and BBC
Thailand is quite familiar with army coups. There have been 18 previous successful or attempted coups since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. The most recent coup occurred in 2006, when Thaksin Shinawatra, the charismatic brother of Yingluck, was deposed in an army coup.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is building into a familiar and bloody situation. Thailand's last generational crisis war was the 1970s extremely bloody "killing fields" civil war that occurred next door in Cambodia, in which the Thai strongly supported the Khmer Rouge terrorists that slaughtered some 8 million Cambodians. So Thailand today is in a generational Awakening era.
So what we have now in Thailand is two major groups separated by an ethnic fault line. The Thai-Chinese live mostly in central Thailand around Bangkok, and they're a "market-dominant minority," meaning that even though they're a minority, they control most of the money and businesses in the country. The Thai-Thai live in rural areas, mostly in the north. Many are farmers, but many are laborers that do the jobs that the elites don't want to do.
So as I've written several times in the last few years, here's what we can expect: Starting now in this generational Awakening era, there will be periods of violence alternating with periods of peace. What happens in these situations is that these alternating periods go on for decades, with each period of violence worse than the preceding one. Finally, when the country reaches a generational Crisis era 30-40 years later, the violence crosses a line, and the two ethnic groups have a full scale civil war.
Now that Prayuth is running the country, what's he going to do next? He can't call for an election, because the Pheu Thai "red shirts" will win. He appears to be going in the direction of giving the elites everything they want -- an unelected "people's council," selected by the elites, to run the country.
While the yellow shirts have been protesting since December, the red shirts have held back from confronting them, and their leaders have said that they'd continue to do so as long as there wasn't a coup. Well, now there's been a coup. You can be certain that the red shirt protesters are absolutely furious, and they'll become even more furious as this situation continues. They're demanding a new election (because they believe that their side will win), and if the army instead continues to install a "people's council" run almost entirely by yellow shirts, there's going to be violence. We can expect a very violent crackdown on any red shirt protests.
There's one more angle to this. Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand, is highly revered, and it's considered a crime even to criticize him. But he's 86 and frail, and although he's not known to be ill, he may pass before too much longer. There is some speculation that Prayuth will try to assume some role with powers similar to the King's at that time. This is speculation at this point, but if military rule continues for months, then rumors about this possibility can be expected to grow. BBC
In possibly the worst terrorist attack in China in years, 31 people were killed and 94 injured in a sophisticated attack on in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang province, home of the Turkic Muslim ethnic group, the Uighurs or Uyghurs. The attackers drove two cars into crowds of shoppers at a crowded marketplace tossing bombs out the window as they drove. The objective was obviously to cause as much carnage as possible. It's believed that the assailants survived and are in police custody. According to one analyst, "This is the single most lethal terrorist attack that China has suffered."
Xinjiang is a vast region and is home to more than 10 million Uighurs. China has tried to pacify the region in past decades by relocating huge numbers of Han Chinese to Xinjiang, to the extent that Han Chinese now outnumber Uighurs. Uighur activists claim that they suffer a great deal of discrimination, not only getting the most menial jobs, but also being restricted from their own cultural practices such as prohibiting women from wearing traditional headscarves or young men from growing beards. This has not pacified the region, however, but only infuriated them further. The reports don't say, but I'm going to guess that most of the shoppers in that marketplace were Han Chinese. McClatchy and AP and Xinhua
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-May-14 World View -- Thailand's army seizes power in major victory for 'yellow shirt' elites thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-May-2014)
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Russia and China sign 'historic' energy deal
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Russia's president Vladimir Putin and China's president Xi Jinping in Shangai signed an energy deal that specifies that Russia, starting in 2018, will deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to China, meeting a quarter of China's current natural gas demand of 150 billion cubic meters. Over 30 years, the deal, which is being described as "historic," is expected to be worth around $400 billion.
Putin was extremely anxious to get this deal signed. As the Ukraine crisis has unfolded, the Europeans have increasingly discussed being less dependent on Russian energy. Furthermore, the gas to be supplied to China will come from Russia's Far East, where there is no natural buyer except China. On the other hand, China has a number of other potential sources.
The announcement was something of a surprise, and occurred after a number of news reports had said that Putin's visit to China had failed to produce an energy deal. However, details of the deal, particularly the price, were not revealed, and it's believed that China forced a desperate Vladimir Putin to accept a rock bottom price, much lower price than he would have liked. Many analysts believe that 2018 date is extremely optimistic, and that a 2020 date is more realistic. Whether the deal continues to appear "historic" remains to be seen. Forbes and AP
A new survey shows that people living in eastern Ukraine, where separatists are active, shows that only 22% of the people want Ukraine aligned with Russia, while 32% say it should be closer to the European Union. This is happening because the initial "revolutionary" excitement is dying down and reality is setting in. Rotting garbage is piling up in the hallways of the government office building seized by separatists in eastern Ukraine. And the separatists who are supposedly government separatist regions in reality have almost no authority over anything except themselves. According to one analyst, the annexation of Crimea is already causing problems for Russia: "It's already too costly for Russia to swallow Crimea. It will be just impossible to swallow the east of Ukraine, but the public is expecting it. So that's the difficulty." Washington Post and VOA
A day after a double bombing in the central Nigerian city of Jos killed 118 people, a Boko Haram assault on three villages in northern Nigeria on Wednesday killed 48 people. The terrorists attacked villages, forcing people to hide in the bush, from where they could watch as their homes of thatch-roofed mud huts were burned down.
As Boko Haram has abducted over 200 schoolgirls and perpetrated one terrorist bombing after another, Nigeria's government has appeared to be increasingly helpless, and Nigeria's army has been almost completely invisible. National Post
The United States is sending 80 military personnel and at least one unarmed Predator reconnaissance aircraft drone to Chad as part of the international effort to defeat Boko Haram. The unmanned drone will join similar aircraft based in Niger that have already been participating in the search for the kidnapped schoolgirls. The President sent a letter to Congress invoking the War Powers Act:
"Approximately 80 U.S. Armed Forces personnel have deployed to Chad as part of the U.S. efforts to locate and support the safe return of over 200 schoolgirls who are reported to have been kidnapped in Nigeria. These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area. The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required.This action has been directed in furtherance of U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.
I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148). I appreciate the support of the Congress in these actions."
ABC News and White House
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-May-14 World View -- President invokes War Powers Act, sends troops to help Nigeria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-May-2014)
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'Catastrophic' bombing in Jos Nigeria kills 118
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Two car bombs exploded in a busy market in Jos, a city in central Nigeria, on Tuesday. The first explosion went off at 3:28 pm in the center of the market, and the second followed about 14 minutes later. The attack was meant to cause as many casualties as possible. The victims were ordinary people, both Christians and Muslims.
The terrorist group Boko Haram has not yet claimed responsibility, but they are believed to be responsible. Boko Haram appears to have declared total war against Nigeria -- abducting hundreds of schoolgirls, and exploding one car bomb after another in different parts of the country. Nigeria's government and president Goodluck Jonathan appear to be helpless to stop the attacks. PM News Nigeria and CNN
New research indicates that some 11,000 foreign fighters from around the world have traveled to Syria to join al-Qaeda linked Sunni terrorists fighting the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting a war of extermination against his own Sunni Muslim population. About 3000 have come from Western Europe, and on Tuesday the FBI indicated that more than 100 of them are Americans. Furthermore, the problem has been "metastasizing rapidly," as more and more young, disaffected Sunni Muslims go to the "jihadist magnet" for training and experience.
I've been writing about this for well over a year, and it's been a bit of a puzzle about why this very serious problem has been ignored by the mainstream media. Probably the simple answer is that much of the media acts as a mouthpiece for President Obama, who has declared that the war against terrorism is over, and so mentioning Americans going to Syria for jihadism training would make Obama look bad. As far as Europe is concerned, one analyst says,
"[T]hat’s because some on the left in Britain and elsewhere have been busy downplaying the conflict or romanticizing it as something akin to the international brigades during the Spanish Civil War that attracted George Orwell and other idealists. But unlike Orwell in the 1930s, these fighters on their way to Syria are not traveling to fight against fascists. Many are young Western Muslims rushing to join a fascist group that is too extreme even for al-Qaeda: the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Members have been known to behead even fellow fighters. And it’s not much consolation that the more 'moderate' volunteers are joining, Jabhat al-Nusra, which is the official Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria."
American intelligence officials believe that among the dozens of Americans who have gone to Syria to fight, six to 12 or more have already returned to America, and may be planning terrorist attacks here. In addition, European citizens from countries with visa waivers can easily travel to the United States. Daily Beast and ICSR, King's College London and Daily Beast (4/27)
A new militant jihadist group, Jamaat Sabiri, is raising concern in Uzbekistan in Central Asia because it's recruiting central Asians to fight alongside al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria. The group's core is made up of about 100 jihadists from countries in Central Asia, as well as Russians from Chechnya and Dagestan. An Uzbek government official points out that militants seeking to join the Syrian war have been streaming into Syria by different routes, including via Pakistan and Turkey:
"[Transporting militants into Syria] isn't a simple operation, so there are some major players who work out the details and provide funding and protection. ...We've been seeking to find out via our channels what Uzbeks are fighting on the terrorists' side. New reinforcements mostly consist of ethnic Uzbeks born in Osh Oblast, Kyrgyzstan, where recruiters are active and where there's an extensive network of informal and unregistered Islamic groups ostensibly studying the Koran. We actively co-operate with our Kyrgyz colleagues on that issue."
This is a new direction for Uzbek militants, made possible by the war in Syria. In 2009 ( "Islamist Uzbeks lead terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan") I wrote about the growth of al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), centered in the Fergana Value, where Osh is located, and its plan for global jihadism. At that time, the IMU was linked with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
My 2009 article included a brief generational history of Uzbekistan, with a focus on the ancient conflicts along the fault line separating ethnic Uzbeks and ethnic Russians. Now that fault line is flaring again, as jihadist Central Asians and jihadist Russians are joining forces in Syria, in the form of a new jihadist group, Jamaat Sabiri.
And all of these jihadists have a common enemy: ethnic Russians. A prime motivator of Jamaat Sabiri would be the fact that Russia's president Vladimir Putin is providing an unlimited supply of heavy weapons to genocidal monster Bashar al-Assad to be used in his war crimes against Sunni Muslim women and children. They're undoubtedly already planning massive terrorist attacks in Moscow and other large Russian cities.
It's too late for the West to do anything about Syria now, even if it had the will. Syria is already way too far down the road to be helped, or to keep it from triggering the massive sectarian war that will encompass the entire Mideast. I believe that the West could have taken out al-Assad in 2011 and done the world a big favor.
But there's no excuse for the actions of Putin. Putin has single-handedly created what is currently the greatest disaster in the world, and has no desire to stop.
Putin appears to me a man with the worst nihilistic impulses, and at times like this I like to quote Edith Hamilton's book, The Greek Way, and her translation of the speech of Aeschylus's tragic character Prometheus:
"There is no torture and no cunning trick,
There is no force that can compel my speech. ...
So let [Zeus] hurl his blazing thunderbolt,
And with the white wings of snow,
With lightning and with earthquake,
Confound the reeling world.
None of this will bend my will. ...
Seek to persuade the sea wave not to break.
You will persuade me no more easily."
Prometheus refuses to listen, and so the universe crashes around him. Central Asia Online
A new report entitled "Jihad Trending: A Comprehensive Analysis of Online Extremism and How to Counter it" describes the role that extremist materials online play in the radicalization process that's used to recruit jihadists. According to the report:
The report recommends developing "counter-extremist" materials and publishing them online to challenge extremist ideologies. Quilliam Foundation
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-May-14 World View -- Jihadists from New York to Uzbekistan flock to Syria to fight thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-May-2014)
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China brags about it's growing military power and influence
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The Dept. of Justice on Monday indicted five specific military officers in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) for computer hacking, economic espionage and other offenses directed at six American victims in the U.S. nuclear power, metals and solar products industries. According to the press release:
"The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired to hack into American entities, to maintain unauthorized access to their computers and to steal information from those entities that would be useful to their competitors in China, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In some cases, it alleges, the conspirators stole trade secrets that would have been particularly beneficial to Chinese companies at the time they were stolen. In other cases, it alleges, the conspirators also stole sensitive, internal communications that would provide a competitor, or an adversary in litigation, with insight into the strategy and vulnerabilities of the American entity."
The indictment is specifically related to economic espionage, which it distinguishes from the other, more common kind of espionage used for "national security."
The extent of the espionage was revealed last year in a report by the American computer security firm Mandiant, which identified a PLA "Unit 61398" in a Shanghai building guarded by PLA soldiers. ( "20-Feb-13 World View -- New report reveals massive cyber war attack by China's army") According to the Mandiant, which refers to this unit as APT1:
"Our evidence indicates that APT1 has been stealing hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006. Remarkably, we have witnessed APT1 target dozens of organizations simultaneously. Once the group establishes access to a victim’s network, they continue to access it periodically over several months or years to steal large volumes of valuable intellectual property, including technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes, test results, business plans, pricing documents, partnership agreements, emails and contact lists from victim organizations’ leadership. We believe that the extensive activity we have directly observed represents only a small fraction of the cyber espionage that APT1 has committed. ... Since 2006 we have seen APT1 relentlessly expand its access to new victims."
Once APT1 gains control of someone's network, it retains control in stealth mode and downloads all the data in the network. In one case, APT1 accessed a network for four years and ten months. In another case, APT1 downloaded 6.5 terabytes of information in ten months.
Monday's indictment is for political purposes only. There is zero probability that any of the people named in the indictment will be tried in court. Dept. of Justice and LA Times
According to Global Times, which is a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, China is rising to become the most powerful nation in the world, and is ready to resort to "non-peaceful" measures as necessary:
"China is at a delicate point in its rising process. On the one hand, China's growing strength empowers it to take initiatives on the global stage, but on the other, the uncertainty oozing from such a rise is discussed and even hyped up by the outside world. The US, as well as China's other neighboring countries have unprecedented ambitions to contain China's use of growing influence.It's a demanding and risky job to let other countries get used to China's rise and treat China as a major power. Vietnam and the Philippines, which haven't updated their knowledge about China, still cherish the illusion that China can simply be forced back by pressure.
China's interests are beyond the South China Sea. It must strike a balance between securing its territorial waters and maintaining a vibrant growth trend.
China faces a dilemma with its growing power. On the one hand, it will be confronted by neighbors like Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan, and other stakeholders like the US if it makes use of its power.
On the other, if China conceals its power, its determination to safeguard territorial integrity will be underestimated, which would further foster the unscrupulousness of countries like Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan.
China also bears pressure from the inside, which simply calls for a rough stand against provocations from Vietnam and the Philippines.
But the Chinese government needs to weigh up different scenarios and look at the big picture.
China has taken the first assertive step in securing its territorial integrity in the South China Sea, and in the meantime faces strong protests from Hanoi and Manila, and obvious bias from the US. China's diplomatic risks are rising, but these are the costs that have to be borne as China becomes more powerful.
The South China Sea disputes should be settled in a peaceful manner, but that doesn't mean China can't resort to non-peaceful measures in the face of provocation from Vietnam and the Philippines. Many people believe that a forced war would convince some countries of China's sincerely peaceful intentions, but it is also highly likely that China's strategy would face more uncertainties."
There are some people who hope that China will seek some compromise with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, to avoid going to war. This essay, like many other essays, shows that China has no intention of even minimal compromise, and will continue to annex other countries' territories. These countries will have a choice of being repeatedly demeaned, debased and humiliated, or striking back. But these are all proud countries with proud populations that are growing increasingly nationalistic by the day. This can only end one way. Global Times (Beijing)
A U.S. Air Force analysis demonstrates that China is the first country in the world with a weapon capable of destroying satellites in geostationary orbit. When combined with their other anti-satellite systems, every U.S. satellite is now vulnerable to destruction in time of war.
This is only one of the ways that China's military is today becoming more technologically superior to the U.S. In numerous areas of military competition, China's military capabilities are rapidly approaching and exceeding those of the United States.
Military analysts have frequently made mistakes in the last decade that systematically underestimate China's military capabilities. One error is to misjudge China's doctrinal and capability innovations, such as ballistic missiles, because they operate differently than America's military capabilities. Today, many analysts substantially overestimate the time and underestimate the ability of the Chinese to train their military to use the new capabilities. In fact, every year in the last decade, U.S. intelligence estimates of what and how much China can do have turned out to be wrong. The National Interest
The devastating flooding of the last few days in Serbia and Bosnia is the worst since record keeping began 120 years ago. Many entire cities and villages have been submerged by the floods, and dozens of people have been killed. Over 50,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes. The region received in two days the amount of rain normally received in two months.
The flooding is also uncovering land mines that were buried during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. The flooding is also causing landslides that shift the locations of the land mines from their original locations in minefields. Signs that had been erected that warned of land mines and marked the locations of mine fields have been washed away, so that it's no longer knowable where the land mines are. CNN
Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the countries evacuating their embassies in Tripoli, the capital city of Libya, and Algeria has closed its border with Libya, as civil war is threatened. Libya is a land of hundreds of militias, all competing with one another for power and money. Before 2011, dictator Muammar Gaddafi had been in power for 30 years, and had succeeded in keeping the militias under control. After he was ousted by the Nato military intervention, Libya has been increasingly lawless, with a central government in Tripoli having difficulties governing.
Over the weekend, General Khalifa Haftar defected from the government and joined a group of anti-government militias, leading to fears of an all out civil war. Haftar says that he's fighting terrorism in Libya by fighting against Islamist militias, some of whom have links to al-Qaeda. Some are comparing him to Egypt's General Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government last year.
There are now two main groups of militias in Libya, the Islamist militias headed by parliament chief Nouri Abu Sahmein versus Haftar's group of those opposed to the Islamists. There has already been fighting in Benghazi and Tripoli, and it's feared that the fighting will spiral out of control.
The U.S. military has doubled the number of aircraft standing by in Italy if needed to evacuate Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. A decision to evacuate will be made "minute by minute, hour by hour," according to defense officials. Daily Star (Beirut) and CNN
Thailand's army has taken a surprise decision without consulting the government to declare martial law in Bangkok on Tuesday morning, after months of chaos that have all but shut the country's economy down. ( "10-May-14 World View -- Ethnic tensions rise in Thailand as PM is forced to resign")
According to the army, it's taken the step "to preserve law and order for people from all sides" and to stop "ill-intentioned groups from using war weapons." The army has conducted coups in the past, including a 2006 coup ousting Thaksin Shinawatra, the brother of Yingluck Shinawatra, who was forced to resign as prime minister last week. However, the army announcement insists that Tuesday's declaration is not a coup. "The public do not need to panic but can still live their lives as normal." BBC
Note: Some days it's hard to find any news stories more relevant than the search for airplane parts in the Indian Ocean. But that was not the case today.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-May-14 World View -- Algeria closes its borders with Libya as fighting mounts in Tripoli thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-May-2014)
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China imposes economic sanctions on Vietnam
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An armed militia assumed to be Boko Hara attacked a Chinese company's camp on Friday night in northern Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria. One Chinese employee had two bullet wounds, and ten others were missing, assumed to have been abducted. The armed attackers forced their way into the camp, and after three hours of gunfire, left the camp with the abductees and all the camp's vehicles.
There had been an elite Cameroonian battalion guarding the Chinese camp, but many soldiers had been transferred to Yaounde, Cameroon's capital, for a military parade marking National Day on May 20.
The attack came as a summit meeting in Paris was convened on Saturday of west African leaders from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Benin, and Western leaders. On Saturday they agreed to wage "total war" on Boko Haram, saying that the Nigerian group, which had abducted hundreds of schoolgirls whose whereabouts are still completely unknown, had gone from being a purely Nigerian threat to a threat to all of west Africa. According to Chad's President Idriss Deby:
"There is determination to tackle this situation head on ... to launch a war, a total war on Boko Haram."
However, no clue was given about how this "total war" was going to be conducted. The Nigerian army is "not organized" in a way to deal with Boko Haram, according to Western officials. However, providing outside military help to Nigeria a sensitive political issue, because Nigerians consider their country able to take care of itself. Nonetheless, France has 6,000 troops in Africa (in Mali and Central African Republic), the U.S. is apparently helping with air searches, and Britain and Israel are providing intelligence, in an attempt to recover the girls.
It's also suspected, but completely unconfirmed, that Nigeria's government is conducting secret talks with Boko Haram represents to pay a fairly substantial ransom to get the girls back. If that turns out to be true, then "total war" will have meant giving the terrorists what they want. Xinhua and Reuters
Late Sunday, a terrorist bomb in Nigeria's northern city of Kano killed 5 people. A car bomb was used on a busy street filled with popular bars and restaurants. Kano is mostly inhabited by Christians. The perpetrators are assumed to be Boko Haram. Reuters
China is sending 5 additional warships to Vietnam to evacuate thousands more citizens, and is beginning to call off some planned "bilateral exchanges" with Vietnam, in response to last week's anti-China riots in Vietnam that killed two Chinese and injured hundreds. According to China's Foreign Ministry:
"The violence has sabotaged the atmosphere and conditions for communication and cooperation between China and Vietnam."
In the past, China has threatened economic sanctions against Japan and the Philippines, with implied additional threats of military attacks, unless these countries are obedient to all of China's demands. China has repeatedly said that they are going to annex regions belonging to Japan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, often for centuries. Last week, China indicated that it will not back off "one inch" from its demands.
At times like this I always like to respond to argument I always hear that such-and-such a country will not go to war with another country because it would be "bad for business." If this were true, there would never be any wars. In fact, the opposite is true. If two countries have good business relationships, then those relationships will be used as an additional weapon of war, leading to additional nationalistic fury on all sides, rather than preventing war. People's Daily (Beijing)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-May-14 World View -- Boko Haram attacks Chinese camp as summit takes place in Paris thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-May-2014)
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Taiwanese businesses bear the brunt of Vietnam's riots
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China has evacuated more than 3,000 Chinese nations from Vietnam as of Saturday afternoon. The evacuations were by chartered plane and ships, according to Chinese media. The evacuations follow a week where thousands of anti-Chinese protesters in Vietnam, furious over China's installation of an oil rig in waters in the South China Sea historically claimed by Vietnam, turned violent and torched a number of factories in a southern Vietnam industrial park, killing two and injuring hundreds. Following that, a mob of a thousand Vietnamese protesters stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Vietnam, hunted down Chinese workers, killing one, and torched the complex.
China is demanding that Vietnam take tougher measures to punish rioters. According to a Chinese official, "We are strongly dissatisfied by the Vietnamese side failure to respond effectively to curb an escalation."
Vietnamese officials normally don't permit anti-Chinese demonstrations, for fear of antagonizing the Chinese. It's believed that last week's demonstrations were approved by the government, to show displeasure at China's actions in the South China Sea. Chinese officials are now saying that "illegal acts" would be stopped, as they could damage national stability. However, anti-Chinese dissident groups have urged new demonstrations on Sunday. Xinhua and BBC
More than 100 Taiwanese companies operating in Vietnam were affected by last week's riots. At least 11 buildings were set on fire. Hundreds of family members of Taiwanese employees have been evacuated, while about 70 Taiwanese staffers remain in Vietnam to oversee the situation.
Many Vietnamese workers in Taiwan are becoming concerned that the anti-China riots in Vietnam are going to affect them. One Vietnamese worker in Taiwan said that she feels sorry for the Taiwanese who have suffered losses in Vietnam. "I feel terrible and very sad because Taiwanese people are all very friendly and nice." There are currently over 489,000 foreign workers in Taiwan, 25.6% of whom are from Vietnam, the second-largest source of migrant workers in Taiwan.
The actions by China to install an oil rig in waters that are in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone is what triggered last week's riots, but the anti-Chinese feelings in Vietnam go far deeper than that. According to one analyst:
"Riots can easily start over minor issues that then get conflated with others. These are factory workers, not political science or history scholars. They have 'Chinese' overseers, they feel that these people are not nice to them and now they - or someone like them - is invading the country."
In other words, the riots may have been triggered by bad working conditions in Chinese businesses as well as bad working conditions in Vietnamese businesses. This would be an embarrassment to the Vietnamese government. Focus Taiwan and Focus Taiwan and BBC
I posted this generational history of Vietnam several years ago, and with Vietnam in the news again, now would be a good time to look at it again.
Vietnam's last generational crisis war was the civil war of the 1960s and 1970s. The war was not fought against the Americans, though the Americans were there, supporting the South Vietnamese. It was fought between the North and the South, and the Americans were irrelevant.
In fact, generational crisis wars between North and South Vietnam have occurred regularly, every 70-90 years, since North and South Vietnam have had different ethnic origins. North Vietnam (Vietnamese Kingdom) was originally populated by ethnic Chinese, while South Vietnam (Champa Kingdom) was populated by Polynesian settlers from Indonesia and Malaysia. These ethnic differences resulted in one crisis war after another over the centuries, whether the Americans were there or not.
Generational crisis wars in 1471 and 1545 finally ended the Champa Kingdom in the south, and also drove out the Chinese Army from the north. However, the country remained partitioned until the Tay-Son rebellion, 1771-1790, the most celebrated military event in Vietnamese history. In its explosive climax in 1789, the Vietnamese troops repelled a much larger Chinese army in a brilliant battle that united the country for the first time.
The generational awakening era that followed the Tay-Son rebellion changed the country enormously. The 1800s were the high point of literary culture in Vietnamese history, and, thanks to the French, Christianity bloomed, with hundreds of thousands of Catholic conversions from Confucianism and Buddhism. That lasted until the next crisis war, the French conquest of Indochina in 1865-1885.
Under the French, the Catholic Church flourished, opening missions, schools and hospitals all over the country.
Vietnam's next Awakening era featured riots and demonstrations directed at the French colonialists, and the rise of Ho Chi Minh. Ho took part in the founding of the French Communist Party in 1920, and formed the Revolutionary Youth League in Vietnam in 1925. Ho led numerous anti-colonial uprisings in the following decades, and during WW II, Ho formed the Viet Minh political / relief organization, for people starving to death thanks to confiscation of goods by the occupying Japanese.
After WW II, Ho Chi Minh led the effort to drive the French from Vietnam, and succeeded with human wave assaults against a large French encampment at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
With the French gone, Vietnam was once again partitioned into North and South. Ho controlled the North, with support from the Soviet Union and China, and over half a million Catholics migrated from the North to the South. America feared that South Vietnam would also fall under Communist control.
This was the time when America had fought two world wars, and was desperately fearful of a third one on the horizon, this time with the Communists. It was considered essential to stop Communism before it could become too threatening, and so America endeavored to stop Communism from spreading from North to South Vietnam. America began providing advisors in the 1950s, growing to full-scale armed intervention in the 1960s. The North-South crisis civil war finally ended in 1974, with Hanoi's victory, followed by Hanoi's reign of terror.
Today, Vietnam is well into one more generational awakening era. When President Bush visited Vietnam in 2006, the young people of Saigon (they don't like to call it Ho Chi Minh city) lined the streets and cheered wildy, expressing admiration for America, and also hostility towards their Hanoi masters.
Today, even Hanoi wants to be friends with America, to counter threats from China in the South China Sea.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-May-14 World View -- China evacuates 3,000 citizens from Vietnam, fearing more violence thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-May-2014)
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Terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya, causes mass evacuations
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Kenyan officials were furious on Wednesday, after Britain, the U.S., France and Australia issued warnings about travel to Kenya, based on intelligence about an imminent terrorist attack. Hundreds of tourists responded to the warnings by checking out of hotels, prompting Kenya officials to say that the alerts were "unfriendly," would increase panic, and play into the hands of the terrorists.
That was Wednesday. On Friday, while Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta was giving his nationally televised state of the nation speech, at least 10 people were killed and dozens injured in a twin bombing in a market in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. The bombing occurred at Gikomba Market, one of the biggest second-hand clothes markets in east and central Africa. It's assumed that the perpetrators are the Somalia-based al-Qaeda linked terror group al-Shabaab, which has been responsible for a number of terror attacks, including the horrific 3-day attack on Nairobi's upscale Westlake Mall, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. (See "23-Sep-13 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears")
Britain's Foreign Office is now warning of a continued "high threat" from terrorists. Some tour operators have cancelled all flights to Mombasa until October, and some 400 tourists already there will be flown back. BBC and Daily Mail (London)
A report by the United Nations finds that life is becoming increasingly chaotic in Crimea, which has been annexed by the Russian Federation, and eastern Ukraine, which is under threat from Russian troops. According to the report:
However, Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who is one of east Ukraine's largest employers, is using patrols of steelworkers in his employ to try to restore order in some cities. Akhmetov is joining with other groups to insist that eastern Ukraine remain united with the rest of Ukraine. United Nations and Washington Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-May-14 World View -- Serious human rights problems arise in eastern Ukraine and Crimea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-May-2014)
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Palestinian commemorate founding of Israel as 'Nakba Day'
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On Thursday, a mob of a thousand Vietnamese protesters stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Vietnam, hunted down Chinese workers, killing one, and torched the complex. Taiwanese companies, many of which employ Chinese nationals, have borne the brunt of Vietnam's anti-China protests and violence. The protesters are furious over China's installation of an oil rig in waters in the South China Sea historically claimed by Vietnam.
Also on Thursday, China's top military leader, the head of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Fang Fenghui, was in Washington, meeting at the Pentagon with U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey. At the joint press conference, Fang blamed President Barack Obama's pivot to Asia, saying that Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan had seized on it to cause trouble in the South and East China seas. (This is China's standard message. All of Asia could live in peace and harmony, as long as the U.S. and all the Asian countries are docile and obedient to the commands issued by China.)
As for the oil rig, Fang made it clear that China would make no concessions at all:
"I think it’s quite clear ... who is conducting normal activity and who is disrupting it. ...Territory which has passed down by our ancestors into the hands of our generation – we cannot afford to lose an inch."
He added that China does not seek conflict, but is not afraid of it. War between Vietnam and China has never been closer. AP and Reuters
With tensions growing sharply between Vietnam and China, the U.S. Navy on Thursday to permit the Seventh Fleet to have additional U.S. port calls. Currently, Vietnam limits U.S. port calls for one visit of up to three ships each year, to avoid antagonizing China. But now that Vietnam has reversed policy and is willing to antagonize China by permitting peaceful anti-China protests, it's thought that Vietnam may make a similar change of policy with respect to U.S. naval port calls.
Because of China's increasingly offensive military activity in the South China Sea, Vietnam has felt it's had no choice but to develop closer military relations with the U.S., India and Russia. Reuters
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe officially announced Thursday the intention to reinterpret its pacifist constitution to permit using the armed forces for "collective self-defense." I discussed this issue in detail recently in "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan".
This reinterpretation of the constitution will permit the armed forces to use the military to defend allies, particularly the United States, if the ally is being attack but Japan is not. It will also permit the Japan to rescue Japanese civilians in remote locations. In his announcement, Abe alluded to China when he mentioned as an example a case in which an armed group disguised as fishermen land on the country’s remote islands. Many Japanese oppose the reinterpretation of the constitution, fearing that it's the first step on a slippery slope to war. Japan News
Palestinians on Thursday commemorated the 66th anniversary of the founding of Israel on May 15, 1948, as "the Nakba" or "the catastrophe." Palestinians remember May 15 as the day in which Palestinians were expelled from Palestine, as the region fell into a bloody war between Arabs and Jews. According to one Palestinian official, "There is no backing out from the right of the refugees to return, for the Palestinian revolution was launched in 1965 for the implementation of this right and tens of thousands of martyrs and hundreds of thousands of wounded have fallen for this cause." Daily Star (Beirut)
Palestinians are accusing Lebanon of implementing new regulations on the border with Syria that are indiscriminately harming Palestinians. The new regulations were triggered by the arrest last week of 49 Syrians and Palestinians previously living in Syria on suspicion of possessing forged documents. However, the new regulations are even forcing Palestinian families to split up when they're faced with a medical emergency. Like Israel, Lebanon has been the target of terrorist attacks by jihadists, and is implementing new regulations with the intention of preventing new terrorist attacks. Daily Star (Beirut)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-May-14 World View -- China blames U.S. as anti-China violence grows in Vietnam thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-May-2014)
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In a new escalation, China builds airstrip on Philippines reef
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China appears to be building an airstrip on the Mabini Reef, a region in the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines as part of its exclusive economic zone. This is the next step in China's "salami-slicing strategy" where it's militarily annexing regions in the South China Sea that have historically belonged to Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, often for centuries. China has indicated that it intends to annex the entire South China Sea, and Chinese media indicates that the purpose of the salami-slicing strategy is to annex the other countries' one small piece at a time, so that the U.S. will not be provoked into intervening. The Philippines government has protested the annexation of Philippines territory, but China's foreign minister scoffed at the protest, saying,
"Whatever construction China carries out on the reef is a matter entirely within the scope of China's sovereignty. I don't know what particular intentions the Philippines has in caring so much about this."
GMA News (Philippines) and Interaksyon
Thousands anti-Chinese protesters in Vietnam, furious over China's installation of an oil rig in waters in the South China Sea historically claimed by Vietnam, turned violent and torched a number of factories in a southern Vietnam industrial park. It was Chinese factories that were the nominal targets, but the angry mob also attacked properties owned Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.
The protests followed last week's major naval confrontation between China and Vietnam. Vietnam sent a flotilla of about 30 ships to blockade a mobile rig that China was installing in waters within Vietnam's exclusive economic zone. China responded by sending 60 ships to break the blockade. Vietnam has released video of Chinese ships ramming the Vietnamese ships and spraying them with water cannons. ( "8-May-14 World View -- China rams Vietnamese ships in the South China Sea")
The Vietnamese protests earlier this week were non-violent, but violence was triggered when China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was "requiring" Vietnam to concede its rights:
"The Xisha (Paracel) Islands are China's inherent territory. The Chinese company's normal operations fall within China's sovereignty. China ... has required the Vietnamese side to take all necessary measures to protect the safety and lawful rights of Chinese citizens and institutions in Vietnam."
The Vietnamese government has forbidden anti-Chinese protests in the past, for fear of antagonizing the Chinese. These growing protests are apparently approved by the government, and therefore represent a major policy change by the government. It seems likely that the Vietnamese are preparing for war with China, especially if China keeps annexing Vietnamese territory. Vietnam won a brief war with China in 1979. CNN and Vietnam Net and Xinhua
After last week's naval confrontation between China and Vietnam, some news reports indicated that Vietnamese hackers were conducting DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks on a few Chinese web site. Vietnamese officials warned Vietnamese hackers to stop, because China, who have teams of hackers attacking the United States, would almost certain target Vietnamese sites in revenge. That's exactly what appears to have happened, as 102 Vietnamese web sites, most personal and small businesses, have now been attacked by Chinese hackers. So we'll have to see if this thing spirals into a cyberwar, or if it peters out. Vietnam Net and Thanh Nien News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-May-14 World View -- Thousands of violent Vietnamese protesters torch Chinese businesses thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(15-May-2014)
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Russia bans U.S. from International Space Station
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It's a common Western complaint of Islam that Muslim officials and clerics rarely condemn the acts of Islamist terrorists, or that any such condemnations are rarely as aggressive as a Christian cleric condemnation of a terrorist act by a Christian.
There have been similar criticisms about the Muslim reaction to the Boko Haram abduction of over 200 young school girls. Within Nigeria itself, there is bitter criticism that the politicians and the army did nothing for weeks, and that Goodluck Jonathan, was even seen dancing the day after the attack.
However, as the worldwide public has become aware of this terrorist act, it's caused a fierce debate with the Muslim community -- both among ordinary Muslims and among jihadists.
One Muslim, Sydney Casely-Hayford in Ghana, says that Boko Haram reflects flaws in Islam. He argues that the "continuous silence" of Muslim clerics is an indication that Boko Haram is subtly accepted:
"I have not heard so far one single high ranking, respected Muslim cleric [in Ghana] stand up and say [the activities of Boko Haram] is totally non-Muslim activity; this is not what Islam is all about. ...You [Islamic Leaders] need to hold a big stage and say so clearly so that we all understand that you are against what is going on."
In response, the Coalition of Concerned Muslims says that the accusation of "subtle acceptance" is an absurd and blatant lie, as numerous comments by Muslim Clerics and Muslims in general have been published:
His assertion that the ‘Boko Haram’ projects the weakness of Islam as a religion is devoid of logic. It is sad and strange that he has chosen to use the actions of ‘Boko Haram’ as a yardstick in measuring the strength or otherwise weakness of Islam. It is intellectual dishonesty to judge Islam by way of the behavior of a few deviant followers.A majority of Muslims have conducted themselves well wherever they are located. Under no circumstance should the actions of a few deviant folks be used to describe Islam but rather it is sound and logical to use the actions of the majority of Muslims. Does he not see that the world would be in chaos if Muslims throughout the world were to unite upon violence and aggression? Would it be fair to say the Catholic Church projects the weakness/flaws in Christianity because its priests abuse children? Or the inhumane actions of the Lord’s resistance Army in Uganda show that Christianity has flaws? We Muslims have been thought to be just in our dealings and analysis and so we do not draw such flimsy conclusions as done by Mr. Casely Hayford."
With ordinary Muslims reacting angrily to the Boko Haram abductions, it's perhaps surprising that even jihadists are shocked by the appalling and repulsive nature of the attack. One jihadist was most fearful of revenge attacks, and gave a very interesting historical analysis:
"Today, there are different sentiments, as the peoples of the [Islamic] nation hear from the channels news that we never hoped to hear – namely, the kidnapping of Muslim and non-Muslim girls and your announcement that you intend to sell them as slaves.This matter, if you proceed with it, will become a dangerous precedent and will bring about grave calamities such as the nation of Islam has never heard of for centuries. Your announcement of 'imprisoning' hundreds of girls will not benefit Islam and the Muslims in any manner. On the contrary, it will reflect tragically not only on their image but also on whatever similar reactions the enemies of Islam will carry out. The [Islamic] nation has enough tragedies as it is.
Brothers in [Boko Haram]: if you do this, and sell the girls as prisoners, can you guarantee to your wives, your daughters, your sisters, and your Muslim relatives here and there that the enemies will [not] commit rape against them and will not defile their honor and modesty?
Do not open the gates of evil, have mercy on your Muslim sisters, and protect your religion's reputation.
Know that not everything that is permitted in Islam is proper to do at all times and in any manner without considering its advantages and disadvantages.
Know that imprisonment and enslavement resulting from war between Muslims and infidels are part of reciprocity, and that this was the norm among peoples in ancient times. Today, however, as the act of enslavement between the nations of the world has ceased to exist, and the exchange of prisoners has become the custom, we as Muslims should not initiate this toward our enemy, since it has grave repercussions. Preventing harm takes precedence over making gains, according to famous jurisprudential principle. We do not know what advantage for Islam and the Muslims will be gained if you do this…
We appeal to you: Release the girls and do not continue their imprisonment and enslavement. The Muslims today are suffering from enough oppression; do not bring any harm on their honor [i.e. their women]."
Not all jihadists were convinced, however. One responded: "On the contrary, [we should] imprison [as much as we can]. Ripping out the hearts of the infidels who have no morals in war is a legitimate administration of justice. As a Muslim, I think that the brothers, the mujahideen in Nigeria, did a good thing. I pray to the great Allah to give them victory and power throughout the land." Citi-Fm (Ghana) and Ghana Web and Memri
In retaliation for American sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine situation, Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin announced on Tuesday a series of sanctions against the U.S.:
Moscow Times and Telegraph (London)
When the Syria war began in 2012, the Arab League and the United Nations appointed former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan as a special envoy to bring peace to Syria. Annan formulated a farcical six-point 'peace plan' which said absolutely nothing, and so was not vetoed Russia in the U.N. Security Council.
By August 2012, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has made a fool of Annan enough times that Annan resigned, and he was replaced by 78 year old Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi. I had noticed a difference in tone between the two: whereas Annan sounded pathetic and dishonest, Brahimi sounded realistic and truthful.
Brahimi was congratulated on a couple of occasions, when he got both sides, the al-Assad government and the opposition rebels, to participate in a peace conference in Geneva, once in 2013, and once in February of this year. Syria had previously agreed to discuss a "transitional government body," which meant that either al-Assad would step down or at least that the opposition would have a place in the government. The regime absolutely refused to even put that subject on the meeting agenda. The "peace talks" collapsed once and for all, and Brahimi clearly blamed the Syrian regime, and apologized to the Syrian people. The regime was furious at Brahimi after that, and considered him to be biased.
And why should al-Assad step down? Why should he compromise on anything?
So it's absurd to believe that al-Assad would ever compromise on anything.
Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi have been useful idiots for the Assad regime by providing cover for him to continue his war criminal acts on civilian Sunnis, and cover for the Russians and Iranians to make sanctimonious statements while they support al-Assad's bloody slaughter.
It's worth remembering again, as I wrote in 2011 (see "22-Apr-11 News -- Russia seeks to cripple Nato through Libya United Nations politics"), Russia adopted a policy of using the United Nations Security Council to cripple American and Western foreign policy. Putin has been incredibly successful with this policy, and has crippled American and Western policy almost completely, most recently in Ukraine.
So Lakhdar Brahimi, now 80 years old, stepped down on Tuesday, and apologized to the Syrian people once more:
"It's not very pleasant for me. It's very sad that I leave this position and leave Syria behind in such a bad state."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon promised to appoint a new envoy, but I doubt that there's any hurry. al-Jazeera and BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-May-14 World View -- Muslim world split by Boko Haram abductions thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-May-2014)
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Will Ukraine's 'People's Republic of Donetsk' be absorbed into Russia?
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The events of this weekend in Ukraine were truly amazing.
The ballot question that people in the province of Donetsk were asked to vote on was: "Do you support the Act of State Self-rule of the Donetsk People's Republic?" It was similar in the province of Luhansk.
Both the BBC and Al-Jazeera covered the elections live from various polling stations. A lot of people came out to vote, and there were long lines at the polling stations, but that was mainly because there were something like six polling stations for half a million people in some cities.
Both BBC and al-Jazeera were able to predict right in the polling station that the "Yes" votes were winning almost unanimously. How did they know that? Well, when someone came to vote, he was handed a sheet of paper that came out of a printer that anyone could have easily printed. He would go to a table where he would mark his ballot in plain sight of everyone, then he would drop the sheet of paper into the ballot box -- a tall rectangular container made of CLEAR PLASTIC. So when the camera was pointed at the ballot box, you could see how the person voted, and you could see that everyone was voting "Yes." Then there were interviews with people, typically afraid of being identified by name, who would have liked to vote "No," but were afraid to do so for fear of having the crap beaten out of them.
As we reported last week, Russia's president Vladimir Putin was caught in a lie, in the claims that 97% of the voters in the Crimean secession voted for secession. It turns out that these figures are fraudulent, and the actual figure is 50% of a 30% turnout, or 15% of voters. Putin may already be perpetrating a similar fraud in the east Ukraine referendum.
Back in the 80s, the Soviets would always brag about their election results, where the chosen candidate was always elected by 99-100%. These results would always be greeted with a great deal hilarity, because we all assumed that the elections were dishonest. Well, what was interesting this weekend was to see a real "Soviet-style election" in action. Of course Soviet-style elections are still the norm in Russia, which is how Putin got elected. I wonder if they use clear plastic ballot boxes in Moscow?
So anyway, pre-referendum opinion polls in eastern Ukraine showed that most people were really pissed off at the government in Kiev, but that they also didn't want to be absorbed into Russia. So when they voted "Yes" on "Do you support the Act of State Self-rule of the Donetsk People's Republic?", they thought that they were voting to become a self-ruling republic. But that didn't stop the referendum leaders from immediately declaring that the people had spoken, and the people wanted Donetsk to be absorbed into the Russia Federation, just like Crimea.
Putin was quoted on Monday saying that Russia had no intention of annexing Donetsk, but of course he said exactly the same thing about Crimea just before Russia annexed it. BBC and RFERL
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in London on Thursday, to discuss whether or no the U.S. will continue to provide up to $500 million in aid to Palestinians.
This meeting will come several weeks after the total collapse of the Mideast "peace talks" that Kerry set up last year. The "peace talks" were considered to be a joke around the Mideast, as the Israelis and the Palestinians rarely even spoke to each other. By the end of March, the whole thing was reduced to angry finger-pointing. It's believed that the Kerry and the Obama administration blame Israel for the collapse of the "peace talks," because Israel's president Benjamin Netanyahu refused to agree to a plan where Israel would return to its post 1948 borders.
The Palestinians have been making it clear that they're going to go their own way now. They're applying to hundreds of United Nations organizations as the State of Palestine, and they've indicated their intention to go to the International Criminal Court and charge Israel with war crimes.
But from the point of view of the United States, the most significant change is that Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA/Fatah) announced it will form a unity government with Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, and identified as a terrorist organization by the United States, with a charter that includes the total destruction of Israel.
Unfortunately for Abbas, U.S. law prohibits aid to the Palestinians to benefit Hamas, "or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence." Fatah and Hamas were at war several years ago, and several subsequent attempts at unity have collapsed because of hostility between the two. Presumably Kerry is going to tell Abbas on Thursday that if he wants U.S. aid to continue to flow to the Palestinians, then it would be a good idea for this attempt at unity to collapse as well. But according to some news reports, there's a chance that Abbas will tell Kerry to take his money and go home. Reuters
Official results won't be published until Friday, but exit polls indicate that that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, has won a historic victory in India's parliamentary elections. It now looks likely that the BJP will be the first party in 30 years to win an absolute majority in parliament. The government Congress Party has suffered a devastating defeat, in an election with an extremely high turnout.
Much of Modi's popularity comes from his "hope and change" promises to improve the economy and eliminate corruption in New Delhi. But concerns have been raised because of his avowed (Hindutva) Hindu nationalism, he will worsen the relationship between Hindus and Muslims and India. His rhetoric has particularly targeted Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, and he recently threatened that as soon as he took office he would deport Bangladeshi immigrants, saying, "I will send these Bangladeshis beyond the border with their bags and baggages." Times of India and CS Monitor
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-May-14 World View -- Mixed emotions over Narendra Modi's probable win in India thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-May-2014)
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Saudi farmers kiss their camels in defiance of MERS warnings
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Health officials in Saudi Arabia are telling people to drink only pasteurized camel milk, to eat only well-cooked camel meat, and, for those who handle camels, to wear masks and gloves in doing so. Camels have been identified as the "reservoirs" of MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus), which has been continuing to spread, especially in Saudi Arabia. Studies show that it's been common in camels for at least 20 years, without spreading to humans. But apparent mutations in the MERS virus have allowed it to spread to humans, and have allowed some human to human transmission, raising pandemic concerns.
However, some camel farmers in Saudi Arabia have been calling the warnings ridiculous, and have been posting photos and videos of themselves defiantly hugging and kissing their camels. Some farmers are demanding that evidence be produced that their camels have the virus, and others point out that they've lived for decades with camels and have never been infected by them. Gulf News and Reuters and Recombinomics
The Afghan Taliban is announcing its final offensive against Nato, prior to Nato's withdrawal. According to a statement by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan:
"In order to fully complete our religious obligation in attaining the gratitude of Allah (SWT) and in defense of our Islamic homeland, we once again announce our annual spring operations under the name of ‘Khaibar’ with the onset of the new military year against the invaders and their spineless backers!The upcoming ‘Khaibar’ operation shall begin with the cries of Allah u Akbar throughout the country at 5am local time on Monday ... 12th May of 2014.
Like previous years, the main target of the current year’s blessed Jihadi operation shall be the foreign invaders and their backers under various names like spies, military and civilian contractors and everyone working for them like translators, administrators and logistics personnel.
Similarly the blessed ‘Khaibar’ Jihadi spring operations shall target all high ranking government officials, cabinet ministers, members of Parliament, security officials, occupation backing officers in the Interior and Foreign Ministries, attorneys and judges that prosecute Mujahideen as well as agents in the National Directorate that pursue and torture Mujahideen.
Various modern military techniques shall again be utilized in the current annual ‘Khaibar’ operations. Back-breaking martyrdom strikes, infiltrator operations (insider attacks), targeting large and well fortified enemy bases with heavy weapons and missiles as well as carrying out head-on offensive operations against enemy gatherings shall be some of the main techniques used in these spring operations.
The main targets of the annual spring ‘Khaibar’ operations shall be the military gatherings of foreign invading forces, their diplomatic centers and convoys as well as the military bases of their internal mercenary stooges, their convoys and the facilities of foreign, interior, intelligence and Arbaki militia."
The Battle of Khaibar was fought by Mohammed in 629. Islamic State of Afghanistan and Khaama Press (Afghanistan)
Anti-China protests are generally prohibited by the Vietnamese government, but apparently the government approved hundreds of people demonstrating in front of the Chinese Embassy on Saturday to protest China's installation of a mobile oil rig in waters near the Paracel Islands that Vietnam claims are in its exclusive economic zone. They were demanding that China remove the rig from Vietnamese waters.
There was a major naval confrontation last week when Vietnam sent a flotilla of about 30 ships to blockade the rig. China responded by sending 60 ships to break the blockade. Vietnam has released video of Chinese ships ramming the Vietnamese ships and spraying them with water cannons.
There was another confrontation last week, when the Philippine maritime police arrested 11 Chinese fishermen hunting sea turtles were captured in Philippines waters. The Chinese have demanded that the fishermen be released, but Philippines officials are saying that the fishermen will be tried in court on the charges of hunting endangered species.
This week's meeting of ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) was dominated by discussion of these two confrontations with China. Vietnam and the Philippines wanted ASEAN to issue a strong statement criticizing China, but the other members don't wish to risk antagonizing China. China has indicated that it will use its vast military power to take control of the entirety of the South China Sea, and all islands and properties in it, despite that fact that parts have been historically belonged to Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, often for centuries. Chinese media has indicated that it is using a "salami-slicing strategy," where it annexes one region after another, each one too small to expect the U.S. or anyone else to react militarily. Reuters and AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-May-14 World View -- Afghan Taliban launches last spring/summer offensive against Nato thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-May-2014)
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Violence increasing in Ukraine ahead of referendum
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Romania's foreign ministry is demanding an explanation from Russia concerning a threat made by Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, after his plane was refused entry into Romania's airspace, to return with a bomber. Rogozin's plane was refused entry because Rogozin is on the list of Russian officials who are the targets of European and American sanctions that were imposed as a result of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Rogozin was returning from Transnistria (Transdniestria), a small Russian-speaking region within Romanian-speaking Moldova on the far west border of Ukraine. Activists in Transnistria say they would like repeat the events in Crimea, and become part of the Russian Federation after seceding from Moldova. Rogozin visited these activists on Friday as part of the celebration of Victory Day on the 69th anniversary of Nazi surrender on May 9, 1945.
As he left Chisinau Airport in Moldova, Rogozin's plane first entered Ukraine's air space, but the plane was met by Ukrainian warplanes and was forced to return to Chisinau. Next, the plane attempted to circumvent Ukraine by traveling through Romania and Bulgaria, but Romania refused the request because of the EU sanctions.
In response, Rogozin, who is apparently a heavy twitter use, tweeted:
"Romania has closed its air space for my plane, upon the U.S. request, Ukraine doesn't allow me to pass through again. Next time I'll fly on board TU-160."
The Tupolev TU-160 'Blackjack' bomber is a strategic bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear missiles.
Romania's Defense Ministry responded with the following statement:
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken note with surprise that today, May 10th, 2014 the Russian Federation’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin tweeted that “Upon US request, Romania has closed its airspace for my plane. Ukraine doesn't allow me to pass through again. Next time I'll fly on board TU-160.”The Ministry of Foreign Affairs feels that a Russian Deputy Prime Minister threatening to use a strategic bomber is a very serious threat in the current regional context where the Russian Federation has violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and separatist forces are committing grave violations of public order in the neighboring state.
In this context the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requests that the authorities in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry, provide public clarification whether the statements quoted from Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin are the official position of the Russian Federation with regard to Romania as a Member State of the EU and NATO.
At the same time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminds that Romania has unequivocally supported the sanctions regime instated by the European Union with respect to actions that undermine or threaten Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence."
There are still a couple of mysteries surrounding this saga. First, how did Rogozin travel from Moscow to Chisinau on Thursday. VOR says that his plane traveled through Bulgaria and Romania, but didn't explain why he was permitted to do that. Second, how did Rogozin travel back from Chisinau to Moscow? VOR says he's back in Moscow, and speculates that he took an ordinary passenger plane. Voice of Russia and Romania Ministry of Defense
There's apparently more to the above story about the travels of Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin. Rogozin is claiming that when Ukraine's warplanes forced Rogozin's plane to make a U-turn and return to Chisinau airport in Moldova, boxes of signatures collected by secessionist activists were seized. According to a Rogozin tweet on Saturday:
"Moldovan security services are on our plane and seizing boxes with Transdniestrian people’s signatures for reunification with Russia."
It's been reported for several weeks that secessionists have been collecting these signatures, hoping to force a referendum that would permit Transnistria to secede from Moldova and join the Russian Federation, following the example of Crimea. But if Rogozin's tweet is correct, then all of those boxes of signatures have now fallen into the hands of Moldovan security forces. Itar-Tass (Moscow) and New Eastern Europe Journal
Pro-Russian separatists plan to go ahead with secessionist referendums in two cities, Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, despite a call on Wednesday by Russia's president Vladimir Putin to postpone the referendums. It's now believed by many politicians that Putin's call was made to protect himself from further Western sanctions, rather than for any desire to see the referendum called off.
This follows a day of violence in the city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, which resulted in 20 deaths following clashes between government forces and anti-government activists. Putin did his best to fire up pro-Russian nationalist sentiments by coming to Crimean and speaking to the screaming crowds:
"There is a lot of work to be done, but we will overcome all the difficulties because we are together. This means we have become even stronger, and I congratulate you on the great victory."
Putin said he was sure that 2014 would become known in history as the year Crimea's people decided to return to Russia and the memory of their ancestors. CNN and VOA
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-May-14 World View -- Romania demands explanation from Russia for bomber threat thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-May-2014)
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MERS virus spreads more rapidly in Saudi Arabia
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After a series of court rulings this week, Thailand's prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was impeached, and she and much of her cabinet were forced to resign, in what opponents are calling a "judicial coup." The case that was used to force the resignations appears to be a really crazy activist government kind of thing. Yingluck in 2011 began a rice-subsidy scheme that paid rice farmers well above market rate for their crop. This pleased Yingluck's biggest group of supporters, the mostly indigenous Thai rural population, but it cost the government $21 billion, and infuriated the powerful elite opposition in Bangkok, mostly Chinese descendants.
The crisis was brought about by months of protests by the "yellow-shirt" market dominant light-skinned Thai-Chinese elite minority, vastly outnumbered by the "red shirt" dark-skinned Thai-Thai who do most of the menial labor, and who continue to support the Yingluck's Pheu Thai political party. Because of the Thai-Thai majority, the Pheu Thai have won the last five elections and can continue to do so. It's almost comical that the minority elite repeatedly used the courts to throw out a Pheu Thai prime minister.
Now Thailand is in a ridiculous situation. Yingluck offered to resign and call new elections in January, but the yellow shirt elite protesters forced the new election to be called off because they knew that the Pheu Thai candidate would win. Now Thailand has no government at all, and the only constitutional way forward is another election -- which the Pheu Thai would win.
The elites are backed by the King, by the army and by the courts, none of whom like all those rural workers who grow the food and do the jobs no one else wants to do. So they're going to use the army and the courts to prevent another Pheu Thai candidate from becoming PM. They're going to use the army and courts to appoint a "people's council" of their own sycophants to run the country, with no election required. The only problem with that is that the majority of Thailand's population is going to be infuriated.
The rural "red shirts" are planning a march around Bangkok on Saturday. The red shirts have held off, as long as Yingluck remained in office, but now they're expected to become a lot more belligerent, and possibly violent.
When Yingluck took office in 2011, she promises to use 'femininity' to resolve disputes. It looks like it didn't work. Today Online (Singapore) and Time
With China investing so many billions of dollars in transportation and energy projects in Kenya, many young Kenyans see the best hope for their future job opportunities is with China. For that reason, many young Kenyans are learning Mandarin. Al Jazeera
During the last 24-hour period, there were 14 new confirmed cases of MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus) diagnosed, and 5 new deaths from the disease. At the same time, the first MERS patient was diagnosed in Lebanon, a man who had recently returned from visiting a Persian Gulf country. The rising incidence of new MERS cases in Saudi Arabia indicates that human to human MERS transmission is widespread in western Saudi Arabia, which raises serious pandemic concerns.
As happened last year, concerns are growing that a pandemic might begin during the Hajj, when millions of Muslims from around the world arrive in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for their once in a lifetime pilgrimage. The Hajj in 2014 is scheduled for October 2-7. CIDRAP and Recombinomics
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-May-14 World View -- Ethnic tensions rise in Thailand as PM is forced to resign thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-May-2014)
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Ukraine's pro-Russian activists to go ahead with secession referendum
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
Pro-Russian activists in eastern Ukraine have defiantly announced that they have 3 million ballots already printed, and that they're going ahead with Sunday's referendum on separation from Ukraine, despite Wednesday's surprising call from Russia's president Vladimir Putin to postpone it.
I listened to several different analysts and commentators speculate on the reasons why Putin made his flip-flop, and called for postponement of the referendum. Here are some of the speculations:
Interestingly enough, I didn't hear a single commentator say that Putin called off the referendum because "it's the right thing to do."
And on Thursday, the Pentagon repeated that there have been no changes to the Russian forces on the border, despite Putin's obviously dishonest claim that Russian forces had been pulled back. AP and Pew Research and CS Monitor
The United States is leading an international effort along with Britain, France and China, to help Nigeria find the 276 or so missing schoolgirls that were abducted by the terror group Boko Haram on April 16. It's believed that the U.S. will provide some military help using drones, launched from a new drone base in Niger. However, it's believed that the search for the girls will be hampered by the fact that they girls have probably been split up into smaller groups, that they've probably been moved into neighboring countries of Niger, Cameroon and Chad, and that some of them may already have been sold as slave girls.
Boko Haram has followed the abduction with a series of additional terror attacks, including a bombing in the capital city of Abuja, the abduction of 8 additional girls last Sunday, and the murder of hundreds of people in a village on Monday. It used to be that Boko Haram bombed government installations and Christian churches, but now it seems that Boko Haram has almost "freaked out" with mass attacks on civilians that are so gruesome and horrific that even al-Qaeda avoids them, because of the negative publicity.
For a couple of weeks after the abduction occurred, it seemed that nobody particularly cared, not the government of Nigeria, and not the international community. (See "2-May-14 World View -- New car bombing in Nigeria, while 200 kidnapped girls are still missing".) But this week the feminists have come out with a #BringBackOurDaughters twitter campaign. Whether the cries of feminist outrage will encourage Boko Haram to change its way or, to the contrary, will encourage Boko Haram to abduct even more schoolgirls remains to be seen. CS Monitor and CNN and Tribune (Nigeria)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-May-14 World View -- Boko Haram abduction of schoolgirls becomes international issue thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-May-2014)
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Putin 'withdraws' Russian troops, and calls off Sunday's east Ukraine referendum
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Eight Vietnamese boats have been "rammed, hit or sprayed with high-pressure hoses [by Chinese boats] ... damaging Vietnamese vessels and injuring their crew members" since Saturday, according to Vietnamese officials. The Vietnamese ships were attempting a blockade to prevent China from deploying a mobile drilling rig to search for oil and gas in regions that have historically belonged to Vietnam, and which Vietnam claims as part of its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.
China has been adopting a "Lebensraum" policy of claiming all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory, including regions that have historically belonged to Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, often for centuries. According to China, these countries have no rights to anything outside their 12-mile territorial waters, while China has the right to annex everything in sight. China has already used its vast military power to forcibly annex territories belonging to Vietnam and the Philippines, and has militarily threatened islands belonging to Malaysia.
According to Vietnamese officials, "Vietnam has exercised restraint. But if Chinese vessels continue ramming Vietnamese ships, we'll have to act out of self-defense."
In a separate incident on Wednesday, 11 Chinese fishermen hunting sea turtles were captured Wednesday by Philippine maritime police. According to the Chinese, "Several armed men forced themselves onto the boat and fired four or five shots in the air. They then took control of the boat." But the Philippine National Police rebutted this statement, saying that the Chinese fishermen had been caught with 800 sea turtles, which are protected under Philippine law. The incident took place near the Spratly Islands’ Half Moon Shoal, which the Philippines claims is within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
Tensions between China and other nations, particularly Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, in the East and South China Seas, have been growing steadily, along with threats and confrontations. This is a trend that seems to worsen every week, as all of these countries' populations become increasingly nationalistic. Now we have Chinese ships ramming Vietnamese ships, and we have Chinese warplanes and Japanese warplanes both surveying the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Some accident or miscalculation could lead to a larger conflict at any time. LA Times and Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)
Russia's president Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday that Russia's troops have withdrawn from the border with Ukraine. However, the Pentagon says that there's been no evidence of movement in Russia's soldiers, so apparently this was another Putin lie.
However, Putin surprised everybody on Wednesday by calling on Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists to postpone a referendum that was scheduled for this Sunday, May 11. The purpose of this referendum was to duplicate the 97% Russian victory in a similar March 16 referendum held in Crimea that Putin used as an excuse to separate Crimea from Ukraine and annex it to Russia.
This announcement was a surprise to the West, to Ukraine's government, and even to the pro-Russian separatists who were preparing for the referendum. The separatists say that they're going to hold the referendum anyway.
Possibly even more surprising, Putin announced that Ukraine's president elections, scheduled for May 25, should go ahead. Putin had previously opposed these elections because they would legitimize the government in Kiev. VOA
It's likely that the reason that Putin called for postponing or canceling Sunday's separatist referendum is because he decided that the pro-Russian side was likely to lose. In fact, there have been polls that indicate that people of eastern Ukraine dislike the Kiev government, but still don't want to be part of Russia.
But now it's emerged that the published results of the Crimean referendum were fraudulent. Putin had claimed that 97% of the Crimeans had voted to separate and join Russia. It was obvious that the 97% figure was at least an exaggeration, since no honest election ever gets such lopsided results. But now an official Russian agency, the Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights, accidentally posted the real figures on its web site: that only 30% of eligible voters turned out to vote, and only 50% of those voted for annexation. So only 15% of eligible votes (50% of 30%) voted for annexation.
The 97% claim was the lynchpin of Putin's argument that Crimea should be separated from Ukraine and annexed to Russia, and now that entire justification has been invalidated. Even with the 97% figure there never was any legitimacy for one country to annex another country's territory, but now the entire operation is shown to be a sham. Washington Post and Forbes
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-May-14 World View -- China rams Vietnamese ships in the South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-May-2014)
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Another terrorist attack on a railway station in China
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Six people injured in a knife attack at a railway station in the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou late Tuesday night. This is the third high profile attack at a Chinese railway station in a little more than two months. On March 1, several attackers with knives killed 29 civilians and injured another 143 at a railway station in the southwestern city of Junming. And on April 30, three people were killed and 79 injured in a knife attack in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang province in northwestern China, the home of China's mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
As in the previous two cases, the perpetrators in this case are assumed to be terrorists from the Uighur minority. Even though they're using "low-tech" weapons, the Uighur separatists appear to be getting more sophisticated in proving that they can strike at any place and time of their choosing. Some of the most militant separatist Uighurs have been training with jihadist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Nato troops pull out of Afghanistan this year, it's likely that many militants fighting there will return to China. Xinhua and Guardian (London)
Japan's Kyodo news service has obtained documents outlining China's plans in case the North Korea regime collapse. Of special concern is a massive outflow of refugees and military personnel into China. The refugees will be interned in camps, with political or military figures assigned to special camps where they can be watched closely, to prevent them from activities such as directing military activities. However, the document makes no mention of china's military entering North Korea, which would cause a repeat of the 1950s Korean War. Kyodo (Tokyo) and The Diplomat
A couple of weeks ago, Iran announced that it would running military war games that attack mockup of American warships and aircraft carriers, including replica of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. On Monday, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Forces Commander Brig. Gen. Ali Fadavi announced that their tests have been successful:
"Today the Americans and the entire world know that one of our operational goals is destroying US Navy Forces. ... Aircraft carriers provide US airpower in combat; therefore it is natural that we want to sink them. ...Americans are unaware of many matters. Their research centers analyzed the mock aircraft carrier in a common way. We have been building and sinking mock US destroyers, frigates, and cruisers for years. We sank their models within 50 seconds even with various operational [counter] measures. ...
We will execute this regarding the mock aircraft carrier as well because destroying, annihilating, and sinking US boats has and will be in our plans."
Fadavi claimed that IRGC speed boats can travel at a top speed of 40 knots, while US vessels are stuck at 31 knots. He added that Iran planned to increase its boats’ speed to 80 knots, which he said was three times the speed of US destroyers.
However, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain says:
"Firing weapons at a stationary structure floating on pontoons is not a realistic representation of having the capability to target a 100,000-ton warship ... maneuvering at speeds in excess of 30 knots."
AEI Iran Tracker and Military Times/AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-May-14 World View -- Iran's navy chief says he can sink an American aircraft carrier in 50 seconds thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-May-2014)
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Pakistan travel restrictions urged to stop spread of polio
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At least 22 people drowned, including several children, and 10 more are missing when a dangerously overloaded yacht overturned as it was traveling from Turkey to Greece through the Aegean Sea. There were some 65 immigrants on the 30-foot yacht. The survivors were from Syria, Somalia and Eritrea.
As we reported in 2012, Greece has been building fences and posting border guards along the Evros river that separates Turkey from Greece. Since then, the number of immigrants making the dangerous trip across the Aegean sea has increased substantially to about 1,000 immigrants per month. However, by April, the number has surged further to 1,500. Kathimerini and Greek Reporter (4/12)
The evidence is mounting that the administration of Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan and the army have done little or nothing to find and recover the 276 or so schoolgirls, aged 16-18, who were abducted by the terror group Boko Haram on April 16. Reports indicate that nothing was done even when leads to the location of the girls had been provided. This had led to charges of ineptness or incompetence or worse -- accusations that the government supports the terrorist abductors. And on Monday, Boko Haram released a video bragging about the abduction and threatening to sell them, usually for around $10-20 apiece. (This leads me to wonder, why doesn't the government just "buy" them and return them to their parents?).
United States Secretary of State John Kerry pledged that the U.S. will do "everything possible" to help return the captives to their families. However, it's not clear what kind of help is being proposed. Any sort of military help has been excluded, and presumably this would prohibit the use of American drones to search for the girls. CS Monitor
There was a time, several years ago, when the World Health Organization (WHO) thought that polio could be exterminated completely worldwide. This goal took a major turn backward in 2011 when the administration bragged that a polio vaccination program in Pakistan was used as a cover to locate and capture Osama bin Laden. Since then, the Pakistani Taliban have been murdering health care workers in Pakistan involved in polio vaccination, with the result that polio is spreading in Pakistan, and being exported to other countries, particularly China and the Mideast. According to WHO, polio has begun to spread rapidly in 2014, particularly in Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria. WHO is recommending, at the highest priority, that these countries implement immediate polio eradication strategies, and ensure that all travelers leaving the country receive a dose of polio vaccine before leaving. WHO and Dawn (Pakistan)
Jews living in Odessa are considering an emergency evacuation, under the expectation that violence will grow considerably next week. Jews haven't been directly affected by the violence so far, but the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews have prepared a fleet of 70 buses, and are considering renting a holiday camp to house 600 Jews away from Odessa next weekend.
During World War II, the Nazi army and their Romanian allies massacred some 30,000 Odessa Jews and Russians, beginning in October, 1941. Feelings on all sides have been polarized by last week's violence in Odessa, especially because this week marks the defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945. Ukrainian nationalists had collaborated with the Nazis in fighting the Russians. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this kind of polarization is most likely to recur around the time that the survivors of the previous massacre have disappeared (retired or died), which would be about now, and so the Jews are right to be concerned about the possibility of violence in Odessa. Russia Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-May-14 World View -- Violence in Odessa Ukraine revives memories of Nazi massacre of Jews thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-May-2014)
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Reinterpretation would avoid having to amend the constitution
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After the end of World War II, Japan adopted a 'pacifist' constitution, at U.S. insistence, that prohibited any military action except in response to a direct attack on Japan itself. According to Japan's Ministry of Defense:
"After World War II, Japan has resolved to ensure that the horrors of war will never be repeated and has ever since made tenacious efforts to establish itself as a pacific nation. The establishment of eternal peace is a sincere wish shared by the Japanese people. The Constitution of Japan, upholding pacifism, sets forth in Article 9 the renunciation of war, non-possession of war potential and denial of the right of belligerency of the state. Since Japan is an independent state, it is recognized beyond doubt that the provision in the article does not deny the inherent right of self-defense that Japan is entitled to maintain as a sovereign nation.Thus the self-defense right of Japan is not denied, and therefore, the Government of Japan interprets the Constitution as being allowed to possess and maintain the minimum level of armed strength for self-defense necessary to ensure that Japan exercises the right. On the basis of such understanding, the government has adopted an exclusively defense-oriented policy as its basic policy of national defense, has maintained the Self-Defense Forces as an armed organization and has taken steps to improve their capabilities and conduct their operations under the Constitution. ...
The self-defense capability to be possessed and maintained by Japan under the Constitution is limited to the minimum necessary for self-defense. ...
But in any case in Japan, it is unconstitutional to possess what is referred to as offensive weapons that, from their performance, are to be used exclusively for total destruction of other countries, since it immediately exceeds the minimum level necessary for self-defense. For instance, the SDF is not allowed to possess ICBMs, long-range strategic bombers or offensive aircraft carriers. ...
The Three Non-Nuclear Principles are those of not possessing nuclear weapons, not producing them and not allowing them to be brought into Japan. Japan firmly maintains the principles as the fixed line of national policy."
Under international law, if a nation's ally is attacked by another country, then the nation may use its armed forces in defense of its ally. This is known as "collective self-defense," and it particularly can be invoked by either of two countries that have a mutual defense agreement, such as the mutual defense agreement signed by Japan and the United States. However, collective self-defense is prohibited in Japan's constitution:
"Under international law, there is recognition that a state has the right of collective self-defense, that is, the right to use armed strength to stop armed attack on a foreign country with which it has close relations, although the state is not under direct attack. It is beyond doubt that as a sovereign state, Japan has the right of collective self-defense under international law. It is, however, not permissible to use the right, that is, to stop armed attack on another country with armed strength, although Japan is not under direct attack, since it exceeds the limit of use of armed strength as permitted under Article 9 of the Constitution."
Japan Ministry of Defense, Part I and Part II and Part III and Asahi Shimbun
The issue of amending the constitution to allow more kinds of military action has split Japan politically for decades, but it's particularly heating up now for several reasons:
Amending the Japanese constitution would be a difficult and time-consuming process, so Shinzo Abe is supporting a workaround: Reinterpret the meaning of the phrase "collective self-defense" so in many cases, formerly prohibited activities would be interpreted as being permitted as Japan's individual self-defense. For example, an attack on U.S. warships near Japanese waters could be construed as a prelude to an attack on Japan itself.
Abe says that this change is essential for the survival of Japan. Opponents say that approving the exercise of the right to collective self-defensive is a "slippery slope" that will keep expanding to permit additional non-defense military activity.
Japan News and Asahi Shimbun and Japan News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-May-2014)
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People on edge in a generational Crisis era
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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There have been protests and blockades and building takeovers in Slovyansk and other cities in eastern Ukraine, but there was real violence on Friday in Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea in southwestern Ukraine. More than 42 people were killed and dozens were injured in clashes and their aftermath, when pro-Russian activities occupied a building which subsequently caught on fire. Already some people are referring to this as the "Odessa Massacre."
Both the war in Syria and the growing unrest in Ukraine are being fueled by Russia's president Vladimir Putin, but it's well to remember that there's a significant generational difference between Ukraine and Syria. Syria is in a generational Awakening era, with plenty of survivors remaining from the extremely bloody civil that climaxed in the 1982 slaughter of tens of thousands of Syrians in Hama.
What has been driving Syria's civil war has been the actions of the genocidal monster president Bashar al-Assad, being fed unlimited amounts of heavy weapons by Putin for use in his genocide. Syria's civil war would have ended before now if (a) Al-Assad had been forced to step down a couple of years ago; or (b) if Putin hadn't been providing unlimited supplies of heavy weapons; or (c) President Obama had carried out his "red line" threat last year of using cruise missiles to destroy al-Assad's air force. The traumatized survivors of the 1980s civil war have no desire to see another civil war.
But Ukraine, Russia, Europe and America are all in generational Crisis eras, will little memory of the horrors previous crisis wars such as World War II. Typically people are familiar with their country's heroes and the enemy's injustices, and have no fear of the consequences. What appears to be happening in Ukraine is that events are beginning to spiral out of control in a generational Crisis era. I'm not talking about a Russian invasion here, though that remains a possibility. I'm talking about a civil war between the ethnic Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians. Dozens of pro-Russian activists were killed in a burning building in Odessa on Friday. Ukraine's government says it's at war. What are the pro-Russians, with Putin's help, going to do to get even with the pro-Ukrainians? VOA
Ukraine's Interior Ministry is saying that police investigation shows that pro-Russian separatists in Odessa were responsible for setting the fire. According to an Interior Ministry statement, separatists broke into the trade union building and barricaded themselves inside. They then started throwing Molotov cocktails from the roof, and some of the incendiary devices hit the building causing a fire that eventually killed more than 40 people, The Interior Ministry also says that many of the Russian separatists in Odessa are from the breakaway region Transnistria of Moldova.
Whether or not any of this is true, or whether it will be believed, is not known. But it's a sign of the increasing complexity of the situation in Ukraine. And given the generational crisis era mood in Ukraine, it shows how easy it would be for something to spiral out of control into a wider war. Kyiv Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-May-14 World View -- The 'Odessa Massacre' may portend Ukraine civil war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-May-2014)
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President Obama accuses Vladimir Putin of being a liar
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Violence is spreading in Ukraine. It's mostly confined to a few cities in the east, but there have been casualties in violence on Friday in Odessa in southwest Ukraine. Russia's annexation of Crimea leaves Ukraine with only one major port on the Black Sea, the port in Odessa. If Russia also succeeds in annexing Odessa, then what's left would be a rump nation, completely landlocked.
There's kind of an "honor among thieves and liars" creed that requires liars to defend and support each other. Certainly President Barack Obama has been consistently following that creed in terms of his unending support for the claims of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, whether the subject has been Iran, Syria, or more recently Ukraine.
So possibly the most significant Ukraine news on Friday is that President Obama called Vladimir Putin a liar. It was during a press congress with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, who's visiting Washington.
Obama pointed out that pro-Russian activists shot down helicopters using sophisticated surface-to-air missiles that could only have been obtained from Moscow, and that neutral observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have been abducted, and that Putin is supporting the abductors, with the conclusion that Putin's statements lacked "honesty and credibility." Here's Obama's statement:
"And one of the biggest concerns that we’ve seen is the Russian propaganda that has been blasted out nonstop suggesting somehow that the Ukrainian government is responsible for the problems in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has shown remarkable restraint throughout this process. The notion that this is some spontaneous uprising in eastern Ukraine is belied by all the evidence of well-organized, trained, armed militias with the capacity to shoot down helicopters. Generally, local protestors don’t possess that capacity of surface-to-air missiles or whatever weapons were used to shoot down helicopters, tragically.We’ve seen the attempts of OSCE monitors -- who were approved not just by Europe or the United States, but also by Russia -- being detained. And somehow Russia is suggesting that Kyiv is responsible for that? We’ve heard Mr. Putin say, well, Kyiv has to do a better job of reaching out to Eastern Europe -- or eastern Ukraine. You’ve seen attempts by Kyiv in a very serious way to propose decentralization of power and to provide for local elections, and for them to offer amnesty to those who have already taken over these buildings. None of that has been acknowledged by Mr. Putin or the various Russian mouthpieces that are out there.
You’ve also seen suggestions or implications that somehow Americans are responsible for meddling inside Ukraine. I have to say that our only interest is for Ukraine to be able to make its own decisions. And the last thing we want is disorder and chaos in the center of Europe.
So for the German audience who perhaps is tuning into Russian TV, I would just advise to stay focused on the facts and what’s happened on the ground. A few weeks ago, Mr. Putin was still denying that the Russian military was even involved in Crimea. Then, a few weeks later, he acknowledged, yeah, I guess that was our guys. And so there just has not been the kind of honesty and credibility about the situation there, and a willingness to engage seriously in resolving these diplomatic issues."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this statement is a sign of a worldwide change in attitude toward Putin. As I always point out, it's a basic principle of Generational Dynamics that even in a dictatorship, major policies and events are determined by masses of people, entire generations of people, and not by politicians. Thus, Hitler was not the cause of WW II. What politicians say or do is irrelevant, except insofar as their actions reflect the attitudes of the people that they represent, and so politicians can neither cause nor prevent the great events of history. And what we're seeing here is a widespread change of attitude that will affect the events in Eastern Europe during the next year, and not for the better. White House
The U.S. State Dept. issued its annual "Country Reports on Terrorism," and emphasized the role of Syria:
"Syria continued to be a major battleground for terrorism on both sides of the conflict and remains a key area of longer-term concern. Thousands of foreign fighters traveled to Syria to join the fight against the Assad regime – with some joining violent extremist groups – while Iran, Hezbollah, and other Shia militias provided a broad range of critical support to the regime. The Syrian conflict also empowered ISIL to expand its cross-border operations in Syria, and dramatically increase attacks against Iraqi civilians and government targets in 2013.Terrorist violence in 2013 was increasingly fueled by sectarian motives, marking a worrisome trend, particularly in Syria, but also in Lebanon and Pakistan."
The point I've been making now for over a year is that Syria has become an international magnet for jihadists around the world, from places as far apart as Indonesia, Pakistan, North Africa, France, Germany and Dagestan. The State Dept. report confirms that thousands of these jihadists have flocked to Syria.
What's happening in Syria is perhaps the greatest disaster of our time. Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad has been conducting "industrial strength" torture and extermination on his own civilians, including repeated use of chemical weapons, particularly targeting innocent Sunni women and children, has enraged Sunnis throughout the world.
There are people who write comments to me saying that we should be more worried about the al-Qaeda linked terrorist opposition groups, like ISIL (mentioned above). But those comments don't even make any sense. It's Bashar al-Assad who's CREATING these terrorist opposition groups. As long as al-Assad is around, ISIL will continue to grow and become stronger.
And once again we have to mention Russia's president Vladimir Putin. Putin is a war criminal, because he's providing an unlimited supply of heavy weapons to al-Assad for use in genocide and crimes against humanity. And now Putin is supplying heavy weapons to thugs in Ukraine, and lying about it. Putin is in the running for the person responsible for triggering the greatest and bloodiest world war of all time. U.S. State Dept.
A health care worker flying from Saudi Arabia to London, then to Chicago, and then traveling by bus to Indiana, was the first in the U.S. to be diagnosed with MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus). He was tested for MERS because of his symptoms (shortness of breath, coughing and fever) and because he had traveled from the Mideast. Although the CDC does not believe that he infected other people, since close contact is required, it's theoretically possible that he did, and so the CDC is contacting travelers on the same plane and bus trips. Recently, travelers from the Mideast have resulted in MERS diagnoses in Greece, Malaysia, Jordan, Egypt and UAE.
The main problem is that a person can be infected with MERS, and capable of infecting others, for two weeks before that person develops symptoms. The biggest fear is that a "superspreader" will become infected and spread the virus widely, causing a chain reaction of multiple cases. Chicago Tribune and WebMd
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-May-14 World View -- First case of MERS coronavirus reported in U.S. thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-May-2014)
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Russia resurrects Mayday parade to celebrate Ukraine annexation
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
![At Mayday rally, banners include the flag of the self-declared 'People's Republic of Donetsk [Ukraine]' (Reuters)](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g140501b.jpg "At Mayday rally, banners include the flag of the self-declared 'People's Republic of Donetsk [Ukraine]' (Reuters)") |
With the annexation of Ukraine's territory pushing the poll ratings of Russia's president Vladimir Putin astronomically high into the 80s, on Thursday Moscow staged the first Mayday parade in decades. According to Moscow's mayor, more than 100,000 people marched in the parade. "This is not by chance, because there is a patriotic uplift and a good mood in the country," he said. There were also large pro-Putin Mayday parades in other Russian cities, as in Simferopol, the capital of the annexed Crimea region. The holiday will continue all weekend.
In the two weeks since an agreement on Ukraine was reached in Geneva on April 17 by Russia, Ukraine, and the west, it's become pretty clear that the Russians never had any intention of abiding by their own agreement, and that Putin and Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov were simply lying. The Russians are using dozens or perhaps hundreds of Russian special forces for training and other support of anti-Ukrainian activists, as well as military threats, with the purpose of destabilizing Ukraine as much as possible. The endgame is presumably to create enough instability to give Russia an excuse for a military invasion. It's possible that events are spiraling out of control even for Putin, because of the highly nationalistic and enthusiastic response of the Russian people and the pro-Russian activists in Ukraine, following the annexation of Crimea. Reuters and Jamestown
A lengthy analysis in Kommersant says that Russian officials are very concerned about the long-term effects of the sanctions that are being imposed on Russia as a result of the annexation of Ukraine's territory. Of particular concern are the sanctions against Russia's giant state-owned energy firm Rosneft, and its head Igor Sechin.
"Rosneft is actively working with U.S. companies. Back in 2011 it became a strategic partner of ExxonMobil. ... In exchange for the fields on the shelf of the Russian Arctic and Black Sea, Rosneft received assets in Texas, Gulf of Mexico and Canada. Igor Sechin himself traveled on business to the United States at least three times in two years. In April 2012, he was still in the position of Deputy Prime Minister, and led a delegation ... to New York at the presentation of the Russian oil industry. Then he compared the alliance of "Rosneft" and ExxonMobil with a "flight to the Moon," called for getting rid of "skeletons in the closet" and abandoning historical stereotypes in Russian-American relations. ...[Rosneft] hoped that ExxonMobil would intervene and convince the White House not to impose sanctions against Igor Sechin. "Obviously, this has not happened, which was to some extent unexpected," says [one analyst]. None of them fully understand what may be the real impact of the sanctions."
Russian officials are particularly concerned that the sanctions "may develop slowly as in the Iranian scenario. ... U.S. sanctions against Iran after their period of active development in 1980-1981 the series and slowly tightened until 2004."
The Russians see the sanctions as the result of the weakness of President Barack Obama and the need to "save face," and to gain advantage at the expense of the European Union:
"Inside the country, [the situation] gives President Obama an opportunity to save face and to answer his Republican critics, who accuse him of indecision and constantly losing to President Putin. Moreover, we should not forget that the sanctions against Russia have little negative effect on Washington, in comparison to the EU, according to one expert. "The EU and Russia may suffer from the sanctions, while the United States will benefit from this opportunity to mobilize allies and remind them of American leadership."
Kommersant (Trans) and Jamestown
If over 200 girls had been kidnapped almost anywhere else in the world, it would be a big story, at least as big as that of Malaysian flight 370. And yet, despite reports that the girls, aged 16-18, are being forced into marriage or sold as slave girls for $12 each by their Boko Haram terrorist captors, the desperate parents of the girls are wondering why nobody in the West is coming to the aid of Nigeria in searching for the girls, or is even acknowledging the situation.
This mass abduction occurred only a few days after a major terrorist Boko Haram attack ( "15-Apr-14 World View -- Major terrorist explosion in Nigeria's capital kills over 70"). And now, on Thursday, a new major car bombing occurred, killing 19 people. The new bombing was just two blocks away from the last bombing, on the outskirts of the capital city, Abuja.
It turns out that, according to one Nigerian analyst, even Nigerians themselves are actually gleeful at the abduction of the girls. The reason is that opponents of the president Goodluck Jonathan see this as an opportunity to highlight his ineffectiveness, with the approach of the election scene. This horrific pattern of placing politics above any shred of humanity is hardly unknown in America. According to one Nigerian columnis:
"Indeed, the “weakness” of a President or the security apparatus under his tenure – whether the “weakness” is real or imagined – cannot be a justification for the mass murder committed through the [car bombings]. But the detractors of President Jonathan who blame the “worsening” of the Boko Haram attacks on his “weakness” and the “inadequacy” of his administration’s efforts to combat the insurgency would rather think otherwise. And one of them, in a curios post on social media recently, reacting to the reported threat by the insurgents to kill the abducted girls in their custody if the government’s search for them continues, said all that was happening because “our government has been sleeping”.I listen to such reactions for any strain of condemnation for the kidnap of the schoolgirls – which the Senate President, David Mark, has rightly described as “sacrilegious” – and I hear none; and I am astonished by how politics might have debased the humanity of some of our citizens, men and women who would rather gloat against the government for its “inability” to prevent the murder or kidnap of their fellow citizens and their children, than respond to the humane imperative to condemn such acts, apparently because they serve their political ends."
If Nigerians themselves are so debased that they don't care about the abduction of 200 girls, then it's hardly a surprise that the rest of the world doesn't care either. BBC and Business Day (Nigeria) and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-May-14 World View -- New car bombing in Nigeria, while 200 kidnapped girls are still missing thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(2-May-2014)
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Syria's al-Assad now freely uses chemical weapons with impunity
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Three people were confirmed dead and 79 others were injured, including four seriously injured, in the terrorist attack on Wednesday evening at a railway station in Urumqi, capital of China's northwest province Xinjiang. Knife-wielding mobs slashed people at the exit of the South Railway Station of Urumqi and set off explosives. A similar attack took place on March 1 at a railway station in southwestern China, killing 29 civilians and injuring another 143. Both attacks are assumed to have been perpetrated by Uighur separatists from Xinjiang province.
Turkic-speaking, usually Muslim Uighurs live in northwestern China in Xinjiang province, which has been a source of activist violence and separatist demands. China has responded with violent crackdowns, and flooded the province with Han Chinese transplants, diluting their population, in an unsuccessful attempt to pacify the Uighurs.
The March 1 railway station attack occurred at the opening of the the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, headed by China's new president Xi Jinping. Wednesday's railway station attack came during Xi's first visit to Xinjiang since he became president. After the attack, Xi said:
"The battle to combat violence and terrorism will not allow even a moment of slackness, and decisive actions must be taken to resolutely suppress the terrorists' rampant momentum."
The problem of attack in Xinjiang has been getting worse, according to analysts, who say that the incidents are becoming more professional and aimed at larger targets. Xi Jinping vowed to have a "strike first" approach to security. Xinhua and BBC
It appears Syria's genocidal monster president Bashar al-Assad is now using chemical weapons -- chlorine and ammonia -- on an almost daily basis. His helicopters drop large barrel bombs on the homes of innocent women and children. The barrel bombs contain explosives, screws, nails and other shrapnel, plus canisters of chlorine and ammonia. When chlorine is inhaled, it reacts with the moisture in the lungs, turning into hydrochloric acid that literally burns the target to death from the inside out. On Wednesday, activists report that a helicopter dropped two barrel bombs laden with gas on the town of Al-Tamanah in the early hours of the morning, with several casualties.
This shows what happens when there's no policeman. The criminals take over and run everything. This is what's happening in Chicago and, since President Obama took office, what's happening in the world.
A couple of days ago, Obama was asked what the "Obama doctrine" is in foreign policy. He stumbled around for a while, and then gave a non-answer and blamed it on Fox news. It's pretty clear that he has no doctrine that he wants to talk about. But based on previous statements, we can infer that his doctrine has two elements: (1) Look at what President George W Bush did, and do the opposite. (2) Announce that you will not use military force, and then do not use military force.
As I've said before, this is a complete reversal of the 1947 Truman Doctrine, which justified military police actions because they could prevent a new world war, and because their costs in blood and money are tiny in comparison to massive costs of World War II. This was later reaffirmed by President John Kennedy when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
Let's go back to 2003, and ask what would have happened if President Bush had followed the "Obama Doctrine" with respect to Iraq, which means he would have said the following to Saddam Hussein: "We will never use military action, even if you develop and use weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)." What would have happened then? (By the way, recall that Saddam was already targeted with sanctions, so more sanctions would not have mattered.)
Saddam Hussein would have gone full-speed ahead, with his WMD program. Even if he delayed, Iran would ASSUME that he was going full-speed ahead with his WMD program. Iran has already been victimized by Saddam's WMDs in 1988, and they would not risk it happening again. Iran would have gone full-speed ahead with its own WMD program, and by this time there would have been another major war between Iraq and Iran, this time with full use of WMDs.
That's what happens when the world's policeman tells the crooks and the thugs that they can commit any crimes they want, and there will be no consequences.
Last year, Obama's "red line" threat was that he would use cruise missiles to destroy al-Assad's air force. If he had gone ahead with that threat, then al-Assad would not be using helicopters to deliver barrel bombs laced with chemical weapons to innocent women and children. That's what happens when there's no policeman. Telegraph and Philadelphia Inquirer
Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime was supposed to have surrendered all its chemical weapons by now, but it's still holding on to 8% of its declared stockpile of 1,300 tonnes of chemical weapons. Al-Assad last year agreed to give up his stockpiles of chemical weapons, but obviously he has no reason to comply with his agreement, since there are no consequences for failing to do so. The National (UAE)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-May-14 World View -- Uighur terrorist explosion in Chinese railway station kills three thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(1-May-2014)
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