*** 11-Sep-15 World View -- Russia, Iran sending troops to Syria as chemical weapons use grows

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russia and Iran send more troops to Syria to back faltering al-Assad
• Putin's plan for Syria: al-Assad regime in anti-ISIS coalition with West
• Assad regime and ISIS are apparently BOTH now using chemical weapons in Syria

****
**** Russia and Iran send more troops to Syria to back faltering al-Assad
****


Preparing for mustard gas in World War One

Russia had been denying reports that Russia is building a new military base in Syria"
, but as usual,
Russia's denials were a total lie. Differing reports now indicate
that Russia has already sent heavy weapons and dozens to hundreds of
troops to Syria, though the buildup appears to be limited for the time
being.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov now confirms that the huge
Russian transport planes landing in an airport near Latakia, a port
city on the Mediterranean, are carrying weapons and Russian
servicemen. According to Lavrov:

<QUOTE>"If it’s necessary, we will act in full conformity
with the Russian legislation, international law and our
obligations, exclusively on the request and consent of the
government of Syria and other countries of the region, if there is
a talk about helping them fight terrorism."<END QUOTE>

Other reports confirm that two Russian Navy tank landing ships are
moored at the Port of Tartus, also on the Mediterranean Sea, where the
Russians have a naval base. According to the reports that the ships
are offloading armored vehicles as well as nearly 50 Russian marines.
The weapons and soldiers are arriving from Russia's Sevastopol port in
the Black Sea, in Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed last year.

Further reports indicate that hundreds of troops from Iran's élite
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have also arrived, and are
deployed northwest of Damascus near the border with Lebanon.

The first reports that Iran was planning to deploy troops in Syria
came several months ago. ( "5-Jun-15 World View -- With Syria's army nearing collapse, Iran plans massive troop deployment"
.) That massive troop
deployment appears to be occurring now. Fox News and Washington Post and Washington Free Beacon

****
**** Putin's plan for Syria: al-Assad regime in anti-ISIS coalition with West
****

According to one analysis, Russia's president Vladimir Putin does not
really want to end up in a quagmire in Syria, but is using the threat
of a massive Russian military deployment to Syria to blackmail the
West into accepting "Putin's plan" for Syria.

Putin's plan would be to form a broad international coalition,
targeting the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
The all-inclusive anti-ISIS coalition would unite Syrian regime forces
with Western forces and Russian forces against ISIS, and would receive
a mandate from the United Nations General Assembly. Putin plans to
address the UN General Assembly in mid-September, and may discuss the
plan then.

The plan would mean that Western forces would join with Russia and
Iran to prop up the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, with
the nominal objective of fighting ISIS. Russia's power and military
base in the Mideast would be firmly established, and the West could
relieve Russia of the job of defeating ISIS and al-Qaeda linked Jabhat
al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), which Putin sat back and watched.

Some European leaders, including Italy's former prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi and France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy, have
expressed interest in the plan because it relieves tensions with
Russia in Ukraine, and they would like to mediate a rapprochement.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, "Putin's plan" is
absolutely fascinating. I've been saying for ten years in the in the
coming Clash of Civilizations world war, Iran, Russia and India would
be allied with the United States and West, while the Sunni Muslim
nations would be allied with China.

Ten years ago, that Generational Dynamics prediction seemed completely
fantastical, but for the last couple of years we've seen in coming
true, step by step. "Putin's plan," if adopted, would be a major step
in bringing that prediction closer to reality.

Whatever else happens, there's absolutely no doubt that the Sunni
nations, starting with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, would be infuriatedly
opposed to any such plan for the West to align with Iran and al-Assad,
who Sunni leaders consider to be existential threats to their
countries. Jamestown

****
**** Assad regime and ISIS are apparently BOTH now using chemical weapons in Syria
****

Chemical weapons experts hired by the BBC have determined that both
chlorine gas and mustard gas have been used in the conflict in Syria.

The chlorine was delivered by helicopters, according to witnesses, and
only the regime of Bashar al-Assad has helicopters in Syria. The
al-Assad regime has been for years using planes and helicopters to
flatten entire villages, including innocent women and children, with
barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas dropped
from helicopters. Al-Assad has also used deadly Sarin gas to hundreds
of innocent civilians.

However, the mustard gas is something new in this latest conflict. It
causes severe burning of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract, and can
be absorbed into the body through inhalation, ingestion or by coming
into contact with the skin or eyes. The agent reacts with water in
skin cells and in the lungs to literally tear apart cellular
structures. It can cause severe eye and lung damage and can also cause
blindness. It was outlawed by international convention after World
War I, but was used by Saddam Hussein in 1988 against the Kurds and
some Iranians, killing over 10,000 people in possibly the worst
chemical weapons disaster in history.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency has collected evidence that it
was ISIS jihadists that used mustard gas in an attack in Iraq. It's
believed that the gas came from Saddam Hussein's old stockpiles of
mustard gas that he used in the 1988 attack, though it's also possible
that ISIS has manufactured the chemical weapon themselves.

On Thursday, the UN Security Council authorized an international
investigative body to investigate the use of chemical weapons in
Syria, and to establish who is responsible. The resolution has been
pending for months, but had been opposed by Russia because Russia did
not want an official finding that the al-Assad regime is responsible.
It's not clear why the Russians changed their minds, but it may be
because the use of mustard gas means that the use of chemical weapons
is increasing. BBC and
AP and International Business Times and AP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Russia, Latakia, Tartus,
Sergei Lavrov, Vladimir Putin, Sevastopol, Crimea, Black Sea,
Iran, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, IRGC,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, France, Nicolas Sarkozy,
Bashar al-Assad, chlorine, Sarin, mustard gas,
UN Security Council

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*** 12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Huge construction crane in Saudi Arabia's Mecca Grand Mosque crashes, killing dozens
• 1979 takeover of Grand Mosque led to al-Qaeda and 9/11

****
**** Huge construction crane in Saudi Arabia's Mecca Grand Mosque crashes, killing dozens
****


Aerial view of thousands of Muslim worshippers in the Grand Mosque in July, surrounded by construction cranes. The rectangular building at the center is the Kabaa, the holiest shrine in Islam. (Telegraph)

Almost 100 pilgrims were killed on Friday night and 238 injured when a
construction crane crashed through the roof of the Grand Mosque in
Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca. Terrorism is not suspected. Heavy
rains and strong winds, following several days of strong sandstorms,
are blamed for the construction accident.

The Grand Mosque was built in the 16th century to enclose the Kabaa,
the rectangular building at the center of the mosque, the holiest
shrine in all of Islam. The Kabaa itself was pre-Islamic, and was a
shrine to Arab polytheists.

When Mohammed returned to Mecca in 630, he ordered the destruction of
the idols that were kept in the shrine, cleansing it of polytheistic
associations. When Muslims face Mecca to pray, they're actually
facing the Kabaa.

This year, the Grand Mosque was going through the latest of its many
enlargements and modifications, to accommodate larger and larger
crowds that attend the annual Hajj ceremony. Three million Muslims
from around the world are expected for the Hajj, which this year runs
between September 21-26. Friday's construction accident is not
expected to affect the Hajj. Arab News and
Telegraph (London) and BBC

****
**** 1979 takeover of Grand Mosque led to al-Qaeda and 9/11
****

It's ironic that Friday's construction accident took place on 9/11,
since a Salafist takeover of Mecca's Grand Mosque in 1979 was the
event that lit the fuse that led to the 9/11 attack.

There were three events in 1979 that shook the Arab / Muslim / Persian
world to its core.

One event, which occurred just as the year was ending, was a Salafist
takeover of the Masjid al-Haram, or the Grand Mosque, led by terrorist
Juhayman al-Oteibi. On November 20, 1979, al-Oteibi led about 500
young jihadists to seize the Grand Mosque. It took two weeks for a
massive Saudi army effort to retake the Mosque. By the end, the
official death toll was 127 soldiers and 117 militants. Unconfirmed
reports indicate that over 1,000 civilians lost their lives.

The young jihadists who took over the Mosque were re-fighting a crisis
war that had occurred in the 1920s between the al-Saud family and a
Salafist group known as the Wahhabis. At that time, the crisis war
was resolved with an agreement that the al-Saud family would rule
Saudi Arabia, but would follow the strict, austere demands of the
Wahhabis.

By 1979, that agreement had broken down, and many of the reforms that
were allowed, such as additional freedoms for women, were considered
abandonment of "true Islam," and the al-Oteibis were demonstrating
against the al-Saud family. The takeover of the Grand Mosque was the
culmination of those protests.

However, the takeover might not have occurred at that time, were it
not for two other major events that took place in 1979, inflaming the
Oteibis.

One was Iran's Great Islamic Revolution, which brought a radical
theocratic Shia government to Iran, threatening to take over the
leadership of the Islamic world from Saudi Arabia.

The other was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which was seen as
invasion of a Muslim country by a mostly Christian outside army.

These three events shook the entire Arab - Persian - Muslim world, and
were destabilizing to the al-Saud government. The Saudi Arabian
government encouraged all Salafists to travel to Afghanistan to fight
the infidel invaders. One of those young Salafists was the extremely
wealthy Osama bin Laden, who used the support and funding from Saudi
Arabia to form al-Qaeda ("the base"), on the border between Pakistan
and Afghanistan.

The Afghan war ended in 1989, and bin Laden and the other Salafists
returned to Saudi Arabia. However, it was another major event that
led the bin Laden and the Salafists to break completely with the Saudi
government. In 1990, for the first time in over a century, one Muslim
country invaded another Muslim country and completely took it over --
that was Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Saudi government then invited
America and the West to come use Saudi Arabia as a base with which to
launch a military action to free Kuwait from Iraq.

Osama bin Laden was never part of the al-Oteibi revolution that took
over the Grand Mosque in 1979, but bin Laden completely adopted
al-Oteibi's repudiations of the al-Saud family, and some of
al-Oteibi's acolytes joined al-Qaeda.

The next event that shook the Muslim world, particularly Saudi Arabia,
occurred on September 11, 2001, when plane hijackers destroyed the
World Trade Center in New York City, and investigations showed that 15
of the 19 hijackers, including the mastermind Osama bin Laden, were
all Saudi Arabian nationals, turning the country Saudi Arabia into an
international pariah. Encyclopedia Britannica and Dawn (Pakistan, 19-Nov-2009) and The Saudi-Wahhabi Pact


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, Mecca, Grand Mosque,
Kabaa, Masjid al-Haram, Juhayman al-Oteibi,
Iran, Great Islamic Revolution, Afghanistan, Soviet invasion,
Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, the base

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*** 13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast
• 'Putin's Plan' for Russia and Syria
• How is Vladimir Putin different from Ronald Reagan?
• Choosing the lesser of two evils

****
**** Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast
****


Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin, probably planning their next massacre (Reuters)

I've written thousands of Generational Dynamics analyses since
2003, and there are certain themes that have been repeated
dozens and dozens of times:

• The Mideast peace process would never succeed because
  Jews and Arabs would re-fight the genocidal 1948 war that followed
  the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of
  Israel, and this war would expand into a secular (Sunni vs Shia)
  and ethnic war that would encompass the entire Mideast.
  
• In the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, Iran and
  the Soviet Union would be our allies, along with India, versus
  the Sunni Arab countries, along with Pakistan and China.
  
• In the past year, I've been emphasizing that there is no
  Muslim vs Christian war going on, but there is a large and
  growing Muslim vs Muslim war, with the entire Mideast descending
  into war.

Many of these predictions are well over ten years old, based on
generational analyses available at the time. Just to take one
example, one way (of several) that I knew ten years ago that Iran
would become our ally is that in the early 2000s, Iranian college
students were having large pro-American demonstrations. Today, those
college students are 30-40 years old, moving into positions of power,
and changing Iran's politics, waiting for the survivors of the 1979
Great Islamic Revolution to die off.

In the last few days it's become clear that Russia is in the midst of
a massive, aggressive military injection of weapons and ground troops
into Syria, and that Russia's forces will fight alongside those of the
regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, fighting (and
exterminating) Sunni populations, whether the populations are linked
to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), or
linked to Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), or whether they're simply
ordinary, innocent men, women and children.

It's hard to overestimate the significance of this development, and
how it will move the above list of war scenarios forward by quite a
bit.

Here are some examples:

• Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries already consider
  Iran to be an existential threat, especially now that Iran has signed
  a nuclear deal with the West and stands to receive something like $100
  bill per year in new revenue from the lifting of sanctions. Bashar
  al-Assad is also a hated enemy, because of his genocidal campaign
  against Sunni Muslims. A powerful military alliance of Russia,
  al-Assad and Iran, right next door to Saudi Arab, is going to inflame
  sectarian tensions enormously.
  
• As I wrote yesterday in "12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11"
  , the 9/11 fuse
  was lit by events that occurred in 1979, particularly the Soviet
  invasion of Afghanistan, which was viewed by the Salafists in Saudi
  Arabia as a an invasion by a mostly Christian army into a Muslim
  country. The Saudi Salafists will now portray Russia's action as a
  new mostly Christian invasion of the Mideast, which will further
  inflame jihadists. So far, the wars in the Mideast have been Muslim
  versus Muslim, but now there will be a big Muslim versus Christian
  component.
  
• Turkey is already involved in two wars -- one against ISIS in
  northern Syria, and one against the the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
  in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq. Turkey has invoked Nato article 4,
  with its
  'territorial integrity and security' threatened, and the West is bound
  by treaty to support Turkey, not Russia. And as we described in "26-Jul-15 World View -- Turkey bombs ISIS targets in northern Syria to set up 'safe zone'"
  , Turkey
  has set as a major objective to prevent large Kurdish enclaves in
  northeastern Syria and northwestern Syria by controlling the region
  between them. The Russian army will recapture that region for
  al-Assad, and may allow the Kurdish enclaves to link up.
  
• World War II was not a generational crisis war for either Russia
  or Turkey. For both countries, the last generational crisis wars were
  World War I and the Crimean War, and Russia and Turkey were bitter
  genocidal enemies in both wars. They will be bitter genocidal enemies
  in the next war.

There are powerful generational forces pushing the Mideast in the
directions that I listed at the top of this article. In the last
couple of years, we've seen the Mideast descend step by step into war.
The arrival of Russia's military in Syria continues the trend in a
major way. Al-Jazeera and CBS News and Debka

****
**** 'Putin's Plan' for Russia and Syria
****

As we described two days ago in "11-Sep-15 World View -- Russia, Iran sending troops to Syria as chemical weapons use grows"
, Putin's plan is to form a broad
international coalition to support the al-Bashar regime, but nominally
to fight ISIS. The coalition would unite Syrian forces, Russian
forces, Iranian forces and Western forces, and would receive a mandate
from the United Nations Security Council.

I would like to say that there isn't a snowflake's chance in hell that
the Obama administration would go along with this disastrous plan, but
after what we've seen in the administration's willingness to bend over
backwards to accommodate the demands of Russia and Iran in other
areas, we really can't count on anything.

Russia opened the dialog on Friday with a call for
military-to-military cooperation between the Russians and Americans in
Syria, in order to avoid "unintended incidents." The message seems to
be pretty clear that Russia is planning to take control of Syria's
airspace, and possibly Iraq's as well, and that American and Israeli
warplanes will be forced to stay out.

President Obama issued a hard-hitting warning to Russia on Friday,
saying, "But we are going to be engaging Russia to let them know that
you can't continue to double-down on a strategy that is doomed to
failure."

I like to reference Debka's newsletter because it contains valuable
insights into what's going on, but it's written from Israel's point of
view, and sometimes gets things wrong. This week's subscriber-only
newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber) contains an analysis of the
Russia's objectives in Syria:

• To stabilize Bashar al-Assad's regime. The Syrian army
  has been losing battle after battle, and al-Assad's Damascus
  regime was close to collapse. The arrival of thousands of
  Russian and Iranian troops will turn that around.
  
• Creation of a new mobile Iranian "buffer force," with the
  special task of rushing to any military front in trouble.
  
• Targeting North Caucasian and Chechen extremists in Syria. It's
  estimated that about 1,500 Russian citizens -- from Chechnya,
  Dagestan, and other North Caucasian provinces -- are currently
  fighting with Syrian opposition groups, and are believed to be largest
  contingent of foreigners fighting in the Syrian civil war.
  Since any anti-Assad rebel group may contain fighters from
  Chechnya and the Caucasus, this objective gives Russia soldiers
  blanket license to attack any Syrian citizens, including
  innocent civilians.
  
• Target Syria's northern front, especially Aleppo and Idlib
  province, where al-Assad has suffered major defeats
  recently.

Reuters and Debka

****
**** How is Vladimir Putin different from Ronald Reagan?
****

A web site reader asked the following question:

<QUOTE>"How is Russia's president Vladimir Putin supporting
Syria's Bashar al-Assad different than Ronald Reagan supporting
Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the 1980s? Both of them were extremely
brutal and committed horrific atrocities, with the protection of a
superpower allowing them to get away with anything they
wanted. Saddam could match Assad, perhaps even exceed him in
brutality."<END QUOTE>

It's an interesting question, but I think that there are differences.

****
**** Choosing the lesser of two evils
****

We might as well start with our alliance with Josef Stalin's Russia
in WW II. Stalin had killed millions of people brutally, including
millions of people by starvation in Ukraine.

But we allied with Stalin because he was the lesser of two evils.

In the 1980s, Iran had kidnapped our diplomats, and was practically
declaring war against us and Israel. Prior to Saddam's use of
chemical weapons in 1988, Saddam was considered the lesser of two
evils. (Although Henry Kissinger once said of the Iran-Iraq war that
"It's a pity that both sides can't lose.")

Russia is using the same argument -- that al-Assad is the lesser of
two evils, the other evil being ISIS.

The problem with Russia's argument is that ISIS didn't exist when
Russia began supporting al-Assad.

Let's review what happened: Bashar al-Assad has killed tens of
thousands of innocent Sunni women and children using Russia's heavy
weapons, he's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and
bedrooms. He's used Sarin gas against his own people, and he's killed
countless more with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and
chlorine gas. In addition, he's used electrocution, eye-gouging,
strangulation, starvation, and beating on tens of thousands of
prisoners on a massive "industrial strength" scale, and does so with
complete impunity, and has been doing so for many years. That's good
enough for me to call him a psychopathic genocidal monster and a war
criminal.

Vladimir Putin and Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei are also war criminals
because they're supplying weapons to al-Assad to commit genocide.

The actions of these three war criminals drew jihadists to Syria from
all over the world, resulting in the creation of ISIS, and resulting
in over 11 million Syrian refugees, hundreds of thousands of which are
now flooding into Europe, creating a refugee crisis comparable to WW
II. And the suffering of these millions of Syrian refugees is of no
consequence to Syria, Russia or Iran. In fact, my guess is that
Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Iran's Ayatollah Seyed Ali
Khamenei are all rubbing their hands with glee over the suffering
they've caused, because it distracts the West from their military
actions.

So Russia's argument that it's only supporting the "lesser evil" is
not valid because when Russia began supporting al-Assad, the other
"evil" was peacefully protesting innocent men, women and children.
Putin and al-Assad took steps that created ISIS, the "other evil," and
now they're justifying their actions by saying that they have to fight
the evil that they're responsible for.

It's almost impossible to believe how much damage these three war
criminals have done to the world, with complete impunity. If this
kind of disaster had been predicted five years ago, no one would have
believed it.

At least it makes it easier for us to understand how Hitler got away
with it for so long.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
Israel, Palestine, Iran, Aleppo, Chechnya, Dagestan, Caucasus,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front,
Ronald Reagan, Josef Stalin, Henry Kissinger, Seyed Ali Khamenei

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*** 14-Sep-15 World View -- S. Korea's President Park basks in the afterglow of successful visit to China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China's Xi Jinping assesses the outcome of the WW II victory parade
• Attendance by President Park Geun-hye a coup for China, S. Korea, taunting N. Korea

****
**** China's Xi Jinping assesses the outcome of the WW II victory parade
****


South Korea's president Park (L) holds a place of honor at China's victory parade, next to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping (R) on the reviewing stand (AP)

China's huge World War II victory parade earlier this month is
considered a major diplomatic victory for President Xi Jinping. The
massive conspicuous display projected a message of militarism,
belligerence, and self-confidence, as China prepares for war with the
United States. At the same time Xi himself could say "We love peace,"
and "China will never seek hegemony or expansion," taking the same
path that Hitler took when he promised "Peace in our time." ( "4-Sep-15 World View -- China displays belligerence, militarism in WW II victory parade"
)

The one big humiliation for Xi was that many world leaders refused to
come, but sent lower level representatives instead. This is not
surprising in view of China's military belligerence, and also because
of China's human rights record, which was obvious from the fact that
the parade took place on the site of the 1989 Tiananmen Square
massacre that killed thousands of college students. But even more
humiliating was the fact that no leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia, or
almost all other Asian countries accepted the invitation to come.
Joongang Daily (Seoul) and VOA

****
**** Attendance by President Park Geun-hye a coup for China, S. Korea, taunting N. Korea
****

The on major Asian leader who attended China's World War II victory
parade was South Korea's president Park Geun-hye. Park's attendance
is considered significant for Xi. Park was the only leader of a
liberal democracy in attendance, and since Park is considered to be an
ally of the United States, her attendance at China's parade is a small
symbolic repudiation of that alliance.

For Park herself it was a significant political coup. She was honored
to be placed right next to Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Xi
himself on the reviewing stand. At the same time, North Korea's child
dictator Kim Jong-un chose not to even attend the parade, after being
informed that he would not be on the reviewing stand at all, but
placed to the side. On parade day, North Korea was represented by
Choe Ryong-hae, an obscure North Korean official who was forced to sit
in the furthest corner in the rear.

Park's meeting with Xi almost seemed to taunt North Korea. Park and
Xi have already met six times, three times in Beijing, while Kim
Jong-un has never once met with Xi.

North Korean state media has been extremely critical of Park's meeting
with Xi at the victory parade, especially their talk of
reunification, and the suggestion that if North and South Korea
were to reunify, then that would be the end of North Korean's
nuclear weapons development program.

Of course, nothing like that is even remotely possible, but North
Korean officials were infuriated that Park and Xi even had the
discussion. According to North Korea state media:

<QUOTE>“What need do the Korean people have to pathetically
entrust the question of unification and of inter-Korean relations
to outside forces? One inconsiderate word or one rude action would
be enough to turn the agreement into a useless scrap of paper and
to return inter-Korean relations to the point of
conflict."<END QUOTE>

Despite all that, Park's attendance at the Beijing event was highly
controversial in South Korea, and was a puzzle to many, even her
supporters.

Relations between China and North Korea have been strained since the
death of Kim Jong-il, and the selection of Kim Jong-un as president.
According to one Seoul analyst: "From Xi's point of view, Kim Jong-un
is just a young man. Park is the same age as Xi and they have shared
experiences. So he's probably not the right partner to sit down and
have a heart-to-heart with Kim Jong-un." Hankyoreh News (Seoul) and Sydney Morning Herald and Joongang Daily (Seoul)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Xi Jinping, South Korea, Park Geun-hye,
North Korea, Kim Jong-un

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*** 15-Sep-15 World View -- European Union's Schengen agreement for borderless travel unravels

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hungary slams closed the door to thousands of new migrants
• European Union's Schengen agreement for borderless travel unravels
• Egypt mistakenly kills Mexican tourists, Mexico demands explanation

****
**** Hungary slams closed the door to thousands of new migrants
****


Migrants find a new way to enter Hungary from Serbia, after police sealed the border on Monday (Reuters)

On June 17, Hungary announced that it would build a steel border fence
along the Serbian border to keep migrants from entering Hungary.
Hungarians have been rushing to build the fence, but for the last two
weeks, a small gap in the fence, about 40 m (130 ft) long became the
unofficial entry point for thousands of migrants and refugees heading
north into the European Union. Migrants were rushing to make it
across before the gap was closed -- 4,330 on Saturday, 5,809 on
Sunday.

So on Monday, all of a sudden, with no warning, a line of police
blocked the gap in the fence, while workers threaded barbed wire
across it.

There was confusion among the hundreds of migrants who had been
waiting to cross the border. Then they were told that there was an
open border crossing a mile or two away. They lined up there, as
police were letting people through by ones and twos. By Monday
evening, around 1,000 migrants were lined up, with some expressing
their anger at the slow movement.

Hungary is taking other steps as well to reduce the flow of migrants.
With the closing of the border fence, new laws will permit police to
arrest and even jail any migrant that illegal crosses the fence, which
may be a violation of international law. AFP and AP

****
**** European Union's Schengen agreement for borderless travel unravels
****

A core founding principle of the European Union appeared to be
unraveling on Monday, as one country after another reestablished
border controls, and a contentious meeting in Brussels failed reach
agreement even on the most watered-down proposal for dealing with
migrants.

Hungary's president, Viktor Orbán, has been treated for months as the
"bad boy" on migrant issues in Europe, and the plans to build the
border fence with Serbia have been heavily condemned from the day they
were announced. But the completion of the border fence has been
expected for months, and so Hungary's fence was not the event that
triggered Monday's events.

The major triggering event was Germany's surprise decision to restore
border controls. For weeks, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has
been repeatedly hailed across Europe by human rights activists for her
strong stand on giving refugees from Syria and other countries a warm
welcome when they arrive in Germany.

But reality began to set in on Sunday. Although all of Germany was
supposed to offer the migrants a warm welcome, in practice most of
them arrived in Munich in southern Germany. When 13,000 migrants
arrived in Munich on Saturday alone, a police spokesman announced that
"We have reached the upper limit of our capacity." The authorities
are considering using a sports venue from the 1972 Olympics, the
Olympiahalle, as a temporary shelter.

Germany was has already said that it expects to receive 800,000
migrants this year alone, but some news reports have indicated that
unless the war in Syria ends, there could be millions of migrants in
the next two years.

Germany's vice-chancellor Thomas de Maizière announced that there
would be "temporary" border controls imposed on its border with
Austria. De Maizière said that refugees could "not choose" their host
countries and called on other EU states to do more. He said, "The aim
of these measures is to limit the current inflows to Germany and to
return to orderly procedures when people enter the country."

EU's Schengen Agreement permits free movement and visa-free travel
across borders of all 26 countries that signed the agreement. This
meant that once a migrant reached Hungary, he could freely travel from
there to Austria, and then Germany. But this huge volume of migrants,
the highest since the end of World War II, was not contemplated by the
Schengen Agreement.

Germany's announcement on Monday technically does not violate the
Schengen Agreement because the border controls are only "temporary."
However, most people assume that the border controls will continue as
long as the flood of migrants continues.

Germany's surprise announcement to impose border controls started a
domino effect. Austria and Slovakia said it would impose its own
border controls. The Netherlands announced it would make spot checks
at its borders. Sweden and Poland said they were considering border
controls.

In the meantime, EU interior ministers were meeting in Brussels to
decide how to handle the migrant problem. The issue under discussion
was a process for distributing some of the migrants to different
countries on a voluntary quota basis. However, several east European
countries refused to agree to accept any migrants at all.

The fear is now growing that with all the border closings, hundreds of
thousands of migrants may be stuck in transit at the border crossings,
creating an extremely unstable situation.

This is potentially the greatest threat to Europe since the end of
World War II. In the 1950s, Europe had been devastated by two world
wars. Everybody was fearful that there could be another world war at
any time. Finally, it was agreed by the war survivors that Europe had
to form a union like the United States to prevent another war. That
was the powerful motivation behind the 1957 Treaty of Rome. (See
"Angela Merkel tries to unify a fractured Europe on its 50th birthday"
from 2007.)

The text of the final declaration of the 1957 treaty states: "European
unification shows that we have learnt the painful lessons of a history
marked by bloody conflict."

But the whole point of Generational Dynamics is that the painful
lessons of history must be learned generation by generation. One
generation may learn a lesson, but their children and grandchildren
will ignore those lessons, and even be contemptuous of them. Today,
with the survivors of World War II almost gone, we see the lessons
learned in World War II being forgotten, and we see European
unification unraveling. BBC and Reuters and NY Times

****
**** Egypt mistakenly kills Mexican tourists, Mexico demands explanation
****

Mexico is demanding a full investigation and explanation after
Egyptian warplanes attacked a group of Mexican tourists in Egypt's
Western Desert. Egyptian security forces killed 12 people and injured
10 more.

According to the Egyptians, the tourists were in cars not authorized
for tours, and the group did not have permits for the trip.

According to a representative of the tour guides: "The tour company is
licensed. They had the tourism police notification. The police
representative inspected all car licenses before leaving the hotel in
Cairo in the morning and heading towards the oases."

However, the attack occurred when the group took a 2 km detour off the
authorized paved road, in order to get something to eat. According to
the representative, "There were no warning signs and no instructions
from the checkpoints on the road or the tourism policeman accompanying
them."

Egypt's ambassador to Mexico, Yasser Shaban, said that the Egyptian
government was taking the incident seriously, and working around the
clock to provide support and assistance to the victims and their
families.

Egypt's Western Desert is popular with tourists because of its
spectacular landscapes. But it's adjacent to Libya, and so it's also
popular with insurgents transporting weapons, drugs and militants
between Libya and Egypt. Al Ahram (Cairo) and CNN


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Serbia, European Union,
Schengen Agreement, Germany, Angela Merkel, Thomas de Maizière,
Austria, Slovakia, Netherlands, Treaty of Rome,
Egypt, Western Desert, Mexico, Yasser Shaban, Libya

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*** 16-Sep-15 World View -- Russia's economic slowdown means financial disaster for Central Asia

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russia's Vladimir Putin tightens grip on Tajikistan at CSTO meeting
• The troubled history of the CSTO in Central Asia
• Russia's economic slowdown means financial disaster for Central Asia

****
**** Russia's Vladimir Putin tightens grip on Tajikistan at CSTO meeting
****


Vladimir Putin at CSTO meeting in Dushanbe on Tuesday (Kremlin Press Service)

Recent street violence in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan, is
providing an excuse for Russia's president Vladimir Putin to tighten
his grip on the country.

The violence caused by an alleged coup by armed groups led by a
government official, deputy defense minister and general Abduhalim
Nazarzoda, who attacked police posts and military bases around
Dushanbe on September 4. The shootouts left more than 20 dead,
including eight police officers, and Nazarzoda then fled into the
hills, about 50 km outside the city, where he's still at large.

This occurred in the lead-up to Tuesday's high-level summit meeting,
also in Dushanbe, of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), a mutual defense organization whose members are
from the former Soviet Union -- Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Belarus, Armenia, and the host, Tajikistan.

Russia already maintains three military installations in Tajikistan,
and after the recent violence, Russia's president on Tuesday pledged
to "help and support" Tajikistan. Putin defended Russia's new
military incursion into Syria because of threats from the so-called
Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). He said that the threat
from ISIS is just as serious in Tajikistan because of the withdrawal
of American forces from Afghanistan, and because of the rise of ISIS
in Afghanistan. He suggested that more Russian troops could enter
Tajikistan for the purpose of guarding Tajikistan's border with
Afghanistan from ISIS. According to Putin:

<QUOTE>"Terrorists publicly claim that they set their sights
on attacking Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. They are planning to
expand their activities to Europe, Russia, Central and Southeast
Asia. ...

The real threat of terrorist and extremist groups infiltrating the
countries neighboring Afghanistan is rising. ...

Here in Tajikistan you are confronted with problems, with
encroachments and attempts to rock the situation, and I would like
to say that you can always count on our assistance and
support."<END QUOTE>

However, with an 810 mile border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan,
it's not clear how many Russian troops will be required.

Putin is using a similar strategy in several countries. He justifies
the Russian invasion and continued Russian military intervention in
Ukraine by referring to Ukraine government officials as Nazis. And he
justifies Russia's military incursion into Syria, and now into
Tajikistan, by stoking fears of ISIS.

In the case of Tajikistan, however, this argument may be wearing thin.
The recent violence in Dushanbe had nothing to do with ISIS; it was
generated by armed rebellion within the Tajik government. EurasiaNet and The Diplomat and Reuters

****
**** The troubled history of the CSTO in Central Asia
****

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was formed in 2002
as a mutual defense organization seen as a counterbalance to NATO, but
also claiming to seek closer cooperation with other multilateral
institutions, such as the United Nations, Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), and NATO.

Russia is clearly preeminent in the CSTO, among the other members
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and that's
the difference that makes the CSTO different from an organization like
NATO. NATO is a military alliance of countries that support each
other militarily, and even though the United States is the greatest
power in Nato, the other members states are clearly independent.

But CSTO is much a collection of bilateral relationships between
Russia and each of the member countries. A clear example of CSTO's
problems is the withdrawal of Uzbekistan from the organization in
2012.

Uzbekistan was a member of the CSTO predecessor organization, but
withdrew in 1999. Uzbekistan then joined CSTO in 2006, but never
ratified the guideline documents of the organization.

Uzbekistan has by far the strongest armed forces in Central Asia, and
yet these forces have never participated in CSTO collective exercises,
which are mainly a spectacle arranged to show off the power of the
Russian military.

Uzbekistan has banned all foreign military bases on Uzbek soil, and
it's believed that Uzbekistan's refusal to remain in the CSTO is a
political strategy to get what it wants out of big powers like the
U.S., Russia, and China, without giving up its sovereignty in return.

With its most powerful member (except for Russia) out the
organization, the CSTO seems almost to be irrelevant, and not a
successful counterbalance to Nato. Global Security (March 2014) and EurasiaNet (26-Dec-2012)

****
**** Russia's economic slowdown means financial disaster for Central Asia
****

Russia's economic slowdown has been a financial disaster for Central
Asian countries, especially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Estimates vary, but in 2014 there were between 3-6 million migrant
workers from Uzbekistan in Russia, with over 2/3 in Moscow. Some 2-3
million migrant workers from Tajikistan were in Russia.

In 2014, transfer payments from migrant workers in Russia to
Tajikistan amounted to $3,349,000,000, or about 36.2 percent of that
country’s GDP. The true figure was probably higher, because of
informal remittance channels. Uzbekistan’s migrant workers in Russia
sent home $5.5 billion in 2014.

Because of Russia's economic slowdown, remittances are expected to be
less than half those amounts in 2015. This means that in Tajikistan,
GDP will fall directly by 20%, and perhaps as much as 50% because of
the multiplier effect.

None of these countries has the economic or political capacity to make
up for these shortfalls. Indeed, the reason that so many citizens of
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan went to Russia in the first
place was not just for higher wages, but also due to a lack of any
other jobs at home.

The loss of remittances, plus the return of millions of migrant
workers, may be economically disastrous for Central Asia. Many of the
migrant workers returning from Russia may decide to continue on to
Afghanistan, to join ISIS or the Taliban, and so they may present a
terrorist threat to their home countries. Jamestown (Paul Goble) and EurasiaNet (15-Jan-2015)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
Tajikistan, Syria, Abduhalim Nazarzoda,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Afghanistan, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem,
Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO,
United Nations, Nato, Uzbekistan, China, Kyrgyzstan,
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, SCO, Taliban

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*** 17-Sep-15 World View -- Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China continues rapid military deployment in South China Sea
• Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China

****
**** China continues rapid military deployment in South China Sea
****


Construction of large facilities on China's artificial island in the South China Sea

China's Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai on Sunday at a meeting in London repeated
the unambiguous claim about the entire South China Sea: "The South
China Sea, as the name indicated, is a sea area. It belongs to China."

Japan's Vice Adm. Umio Otsuka, who was also present at the meeting,
responded by mocking and making fun of Yuan's remarks, comparing it to
a wife's romantic dream.

However, for China's military, the annexation of the entire South
China Sea is a repeatedly stated military objective. China is now
building its third artificial island, with the apparent purpose of
turning all of them into military bases, in order to use military
force to annex valuable fishing grounds and oil fields that belong to
other countries. China is following an extremely dangerous policy
that almost always leads to a major war, with the most obvious
historical example being Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia and
Poland. China's actions are going to lead to a world war, and
historians will look back on the Chinese as being worse than the
Nazis. Defense One and The Diplomat

****
**** Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China
****

With China's increasing belligerence in the South China Sea, Japan and
Vietnam announced on Wednesday that Japan will provide two patrol
boats to Vietnam, provide $832 million in infrastructure aid, and take
other measures to help Vietnam's military security versus China.

Although Japan does not have property claims on the South China Sea,
it is still directly affected by China's belligerence. The South
China Sea is the biggest commercial shipping region in the world, and
Chinese control of the South China Sea would severely penalize Japan.
According to one analyst, "Japan wants to give the Southeast Asian
states resources so they are not totally victimized by China. Chinese
assertions of sovereignty in the South China Sea scare Japan more than
any other country. Almost all of its energy comes through there."
The Diplomat and Bloomberg and Al Jazeera


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Vietnam, China, South China Sea,
Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai, Vice Adm. Umio Otsuka

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 17-Sep-15 World View -- Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China continues rapid military deployment in South China Sea
• Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China

****
**** China continues rapid military deployment in South China Sea
****


Construction of large facilities on China's artificial island in the South China Sea

China's Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai on Sunday at a meeting in London repeated
the unambiguous claim about the entire South China Sea: "The South
China Sea, as the name indicated, is a sea area. It belongs to China."

Japan's Vice Adm. Umio Otsuka, who was also present at the meeting,
responded by mocking and making fun of Yuan's remarks, comparing it to
a wife's romantic dream.

However, for China's military, the annexation of the entire South
China Sea is a repeatedly stated military objective. China is now
building its third artificial island, with the apparent purpose of
turning all of them into military bases, in order to use military
force to annex valuable fishing grounds and oil fields that belong to
other countries. China is following an extremely dangerous policy
that almost always leads to a major war, with the most obvious
historical example being Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia and
Poland. China's actions are going to lead to a world war, and
historians will look back on the Chinese as being worse than the
Nazis. Defense One and The Diplomat

****
**** Japan and Vietnam boost military ties to counter China
****

With China's increasing belligerence in the South China Sea, Japan and
Vietnam announced on Wednesday that Japan will provide two patrol
boats to Vietnam, provide $832 million in infrastructure aid, and take
other measures to help Vietnam's military security versus China.

Although Japan does not have property claims on the South China Sea,
it is still directly affected by China's belligerence. The South
China Sea is the biggest commercial shipping region in the world, and
Chinese control of the South China Sea would severely penalize Japan.
According to one analyst, "Japan wants to give the Southeast Asian
states resources so they are not totally victimized by China. Chinese
assertions of sovereignty in the South China Sea scare Japan more than
any other country. Almost all of its energy comes through there."
The Diplomat and Bloomberg and Al Jazeera


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Vietnam, China, South China Sea,
Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai, Vice Adm. Umio Otsuka

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It's quite interesting that the "East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" is once again forming up but this time is is a convergence of equals or near-equals. The Pacific needs something like NATO. And meanwhile our former WW2 ally China is part of the Axis.

*** 18-Sep-15 World View -- Europe's migrant crisis worsens as Hungary defends 'Christian culture'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• With Hungary blocked to migrants, Croatia becomes overwhelmed
• Hungary's Viktor Orbán defends Europe's 'Christian culture'

****
**** With Hungary blocked to migrants, Croatia becomes overwhelmed
****


With the route through Hungary blocked, migrants and refugees have turned west, overwhelming Croatia

The refugee drama in Europe is riveting the world.

On Wednesday, Hungary's police finally closed the remaining gaps in
the fence on the border with Serbia, but not before a violent
confrontation with hundreds of migrants trying to enter Hungary.

The migrants chanted "Open the door! Open the door!" and started
throwing projectiles at the Hungarian police. Some tried to break
through the fence or climb over it. The police responded with tear
gas, water cannon, pepper spray and batons. Some refugees shouted
"F--- you, Hungary!"

Eventually the migrants broke through the fence in one place, and
about 200 migrants crossed through. Abruptly, the Hungarian riot
police charged into the crowd, which included women and children. The
migrants tried to flee, but they couldn't get back through the fence
quickly enough. Many were struck by police batons.

By morning, calm had been restored, and the Serbian police decided to
take control, and told the refugees that the border to Croatia was
open, and that Serbia was providing buses to take them towards to
Croatian border.

According to the Croatian government, 8,000 migrants had poured across
the border into Croatia in one day, on Thursday, after the border
through Hungary had been closed. They hope to travel through Croatia,
then then through Slovenia, then through Austria, and then to Germany.

By the end of the day, Croatia's Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic
announced:

<QUOTE>"Croatia will not be able to receive more people. ...

Don’t come here anymore. Stay in refugee centers in Serbia and
Macedonia and Greece. This is not the road to Europe. Buses can’t
take you there. It’s a lie."<END QUOTE>

Slovenia doubled down on Ostojic's remarks, saying that any migrants
arriving in Slovenia from Croatia would simply be sent back to
Croatia.

The routes through Hungary and Croatia are just a small part of
migrant situation in Europe.

For many migrants who have already passed through Hungary, Germany was
the final destination. Police said the number of refugees arriving in
Germany more than doubled on Wednesday to 7,266.

At the other end of the route, there are hundreds of migrants every
day crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey, arriving in Greece, ready to
make the long trip through Greece, through Macedonia, through Serbia
and then -- and then where? Hungary has closed the border and Croatia
is apparently going to do the same.

The only "good news" is that winter is approaching, and the volume of
migrants will be slowed substantially until the spring. Sydney Morning Herald and Reuters

****
**** Hungary's Viktor Orbán defends Europe's 'Christian culture'
****


Two children sit on the tracks as hundreds of migrants wait for the train in Tovarnik, Croatia, just across the border from Serbia (Getty)

The European Union’s migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos,
declared Thursday that walls and violence are no solution and urged
Hungary to work with the 28-nation bloc to alleviate the continent’s
migration crisis:

<QUOTE>"The majority of people arriving in Europe are
Syrians. They are people in genuine need of our protection. There
is no wall you would not climb, no sea you wouldn’t cross if you
are fleeing violence and terror. I believe we have a moral duty
(to) offer them protection."<END QUOTE>

However, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said:

<QUOTE>"I find it bizarre and shocking that certain esteemed
international figures have stood on the side of people who for
hours were throwing stones and pieces of cement at the Hungarian
police. And I’d also like to make it very clear, no matter what
criticism I receive, that we will never allow such aggressive
people to enter Hungary. Not even for transit
purposes."<END QUOTE>

In an interview, Hungary's president was asked what he thought
the migrants should do, now that the border fence was completed:

<QUOTE>"We do not know. There are two options, Croatia or
Romania. That's why we are expanding the fence now also along a
part of the Romanian border. We will need to extend the fence on
the Croatian border. The route ultimately is determined by the
human smugglers."<END QUOTE>

Orbán insists that his main motivation is to put the human
smugglers out of business:

<QUOTE>"It is big business. From the intelligence reports it
is now clear how it works: In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the
smugglers sent a veritable camps, where you can buy their
services. Prices vary depending on the service you want to buy: by
air, sea or by land. That's why there are so many Pakistanis and
Afghans among migrants."<END QUOTE>

Orbán was asked whether he fears a "clash of civilizations"
in Europe:

<QUOTE>"We all have this moral obligation. Hungary is a
European and Christian country, this is our culture, and we take
our responsibility and our moral duty very seriously. However, the
first obligation must be to stop the influx of migrants - because
10-15% die crossing the sea. ...

I prefer to call it a competition of cultures. It is obvious that
Christians are going to lose this contest, if you leave a lot of
Muslims in Europe. This has demographic grounds and is that
Muslims can flow into unlimited numbers. We have just studied what
happened in Western societies. Despite the best intentions of the
local leadership, parallel societies [Christians and Muslims] have
been established, the Muslim layers have not be integrated. You
live next to each other.

Every country has a right to want something. We do not want
that. It is a question of cultural habits. I'm not talking about
God, and how we are as Christians to or Muslims. I'm talking about
culture. It's about lifestyle, freedom, sexual habits, equality
between men and women, our Christian culture. In this respect the
Muslim community is stronger than ours."<END QUOTE>

AP and International Business Times and Die Welt (Berlin) (Translation)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Serbia, Croatia,
Slovenia, Ranko Ostojic, Dimitris Avramopoulos, Peter Szijjarto

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*** 19-Sep-15 World View -- Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Violence appears to be escalating in Turkey with PKK
• Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism
• Japan's Shinzo Abe follows the wishes of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke
• The question of Obama as a Muslim arises in politics again

****
**** Violence appears to be escalating in Turkey with PKK
****


Residents carry coffins of people who were killed during last week's clashes in Cizre (Reuters)

The violence between Turkey's security forces and terrorists from the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been escalating sharply, ever since
a ceasefire agreement broke down in July, and Turkey's government
declared war on the PKK. ( "9-Sep-15 World View -- Turkey slips into chaos as violence spreads across the country"
)

The number of policemen and soldiers killed since July has now risen
to more than 120. At the same time, Turkish warplanes have been
pounding PKK positions for weeks, in both southeast Turkey and
northern Iraq.

The Kurdish-majority town of Cizre, in southeast Turkey, has seen some
of the worst violence. Buildings are riddled with bulletholes, and
armored police vehicles dot the town. The government says that the
operation there was to flush out the PKK from its hotbed. The
violence was triggered by a suicide bombing, which the Kurds blame on
the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), accusing
the government of colluding with ISIS.

At the same time, the government of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
blaming the US and the West for supporting the "moderate" Kurds, and
claiming that "Turkey's Western allies, particularly the U.S.,
U.K. and Germany, have become partners [indirectly] with a terror
group that commits the most vulgar crimes in Turkey and supplies
weapons to them."

Across Turkey, Turkish nationalism and anger towards Kurds is growing.
Kurds complain that relations between Kurds and Turks are becoming
increasingly tense. On Tuesday of last week, tens of thousands of
people from across Turkey attended a rally in Ankara to condemn
terrorism by the PKK.

All of Turkey's main political leaders have appealed for national
unity and for calm, but concerns are growing that the violence could
spiral into full-scale war. BBC and VOA and Daily Sabah (Istanbul) and Hurriyet (Ankara)

****
**** Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism
****

Following boisterous confrontations in Japan's Upper House (the Diet)
that sometimes spiraled into fisticuffs, finally enacted two security
laws on Saturday morning that mark a significant departure the
pacifism that was embedded in Japan's constitution following World War
II. The new laws are extremely unpopular and highly contentious.

The self-defense clause of the constitution permits military action
only when Japan itself is being attacked. The new laws reinterpret
the self-defense clause to include "collective self-defense," which
would permit military action under some circumstances when an ally
(such as the United States) is attacked. I discussed the meaning of
"collective self-defense" in detail last year in "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan"
.
Japan Times

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe follows the wishes of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke
****

The new laws permitting collective self-defense were adopted through
the tireless effort of Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, who made the
laws a major objective of his prime ministry from the beginning.

A major part of Abe's motivation is that he was following in the path
of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, who served as prime minister of
Japan from 1957-60.

In 1960, Kishi signed a US-Japan security treaty intended to put the
relationship between the two nations on an equal basis and to restore
independent diplomacy for Japan. To implement this policy he initiated
an official study of the constitution's "self-defense" clause, and he
encouraged Japanese self-reliance in national defense.

Kishi used his conservative parliamentary majority to ratify the
treaty, but the process was extremely contentious, and Kishi resigned
in the aftermath. Some analysts are now suggesting that the passage
of the new security laws may result in Abe's resignation. Encyclopedia Britannica: Kishi Nobusuke

****
**** The question of Obama as a Muslim arises in politics again
****

The detractors of President Obama sometimes claim that he is a Muslim,
or even that he's not a citizen. There's no doubt that he was born in
Hawaii, so he's a citizen.

Obama is also undoubtedly a Christian in American eyes, but the
question has some ambiguities in Muslim eyes, according to a May 12,
2008, NY Times article that I quoted when I wrote about Is President Barack Obama a Muslim?
in
2010.

According to the NY Times article, Obama was born a Muslim under
Muslim law, because his father had been Muslim. His father renounced
Islam, and Obama himself converted to Christianity, so he's a
Christian in American eyes. But under Muslim law, according to the NY
Times, he's still a Muslim, and the conversion was an apostasy.

The NY Times concludes in 2008: "But of all the well-meaning desires
projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve
relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic."


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Iraq, Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK,
Cizre, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kurds,
Japan, collective self-defense, Kishi Nobusuke

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*** 20-Sep-15 World View -- European countries in near-chaos take turns dumping migrants

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• European countries in near-chaos take turns dumping migrants
• Russian 'refusenik' soldiers resist deployment in Syria
• Russia's media take note of Carly Fiorina's debate statements

****
**** European countries in near-chaos take turns dumping migrants
****


With the route through Hungary blocked, migrants and refugees have turned west, overwhelming Croatia

Thousands of migrants travel from Turkey to the Greek islands in the
Aegean Sea. Greece ferries them to the Port of Piraeus, and then
buses them to the border of Macedonia, and dumps them there.

Macedonia transports them to the border of Serbia, and dumps them
there.

Formerly, Serbia transported all of them to the border with Hungary,
and dumped them there.

However, Hungary has built a long fence, in order to block
migrants from crossing from Serbia into Hungary.

So now, Serbia's buses have been diverted, and now they're dumping the
migrants on Croatia's border.

Croatia started busing them to the border with Slovenia, and
dumping them there.

Slovenia is saying that it can't handle all the migrants, and is
closing its border to Croatia. Slovenian police used pepper spray to
ward off hundreds of migrants.

But it's Croatia's turn to be completely overwhelmed. Some 30,000
migrants are now in Croatia, and about 40,000 more are in Macedonia en
route to Croatia.

Croatia is sending as many as it can to Slovenia, and is also
diverting many of them east into Hungary, infuriating Hungary's
government, which sent armored vehicles to its border with Croatia to
block the migrants.

Croatia’s prime minister, Zoran Milanovic, called Hungary’s actions
“incomprehensible”, given that no refugee wanted to stay in Hungary,
and said the situation was “the ugliest thing I have seen in Croatia
since the [Balkans] war”. In response, Hungary’s foreign minister,
Péter Szijjártó, said Croatia had “lied in the face” of Hungary.

Thousands of migrants are trapped at one border or another, or
in a refugee camp in one of the countries.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, I've written many
times in the last decade about the expected lineups in the
approaching Clash of Civilizations world war -- China plus
Pakistan plus the Sunni Muslim countries plus others versus
the West plus India plus Russia plus Iran. As I've mentioned
many times recently, this lineup seemed fantastical when I
first described it a decade ago, but in the last couple of years
it's been the trend.

However, the generational analysis methodology has never given me a
clear trend for how the different European countries will fit into
this lineup. One possibility is that Germany and France will lead
opposing factions, as they have so often in past centuries, along the
Protestant versus Catholic fault line. During the worst of Greece's
financial crisis, I was watching to see if a substantial north versus
south fault line would develop, although that seems to have subsided
for the time being. This new refugee crisis, the worst since World
War II, seems to be trending into an east versus west fault line. As
winter approaches, and the stream of migrants slows down, the
important thing to watch will be whether the refugee crisis subsides,
or turns into something worse by spring. Perhaps it wouldn't be too
far off to say that Europe's fate in the next year depends on Syria.
Budapest Times and Guardian (London)

****
**** Russian 'refusenik' soldiers resist deployment in Syria
****

Evidence is mounting that Russia it's most capable combat forces and
most advanced weapons systems to Syria. Some reports indicate that
Russian troops are already engaged in combat.

Russia's evident purpose is to link up with Iranian troops in Syria,
and to shore up Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. New estimates
include that ISIS has 20,000 foreign troops, with 3,400 from Western
Europe, and more than 5,000 from Russia and Central Asia.

As I wrote last week in "13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast,"
Russia's military deployment is going
to trigger nationalistic and belligerent responses from Saudi Arabia
and other Gulf nations, from terrorists in al-Qaeda linked Jabhat
al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) and the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS
or ISIL or Daesh), and from the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government of
Turkey. All of these groups consider al-Assad and Iran to be
existential threats.

However, reports are emerging that soldiers in Russia are being
commanded to go to an unknown destination, without being told that
it's Syria, but that many of them have figured it out and are refusing
to go. According to one soldier interviewed by Gazeta.ru:

<QUOTE>"We had a conversation in the unit to our command. We
were told that in the country of arrival will be hot and what's
important to remember about hygiene and in any case do not step
outside the territory of the military unit, also explained what to
do and how to behave in captivity and interrogation, - told the
soldiers. - We are specifically told that the climate will unusual
for us: snakes, vipers. But where specifically we were being sent,
did not say, citing the secret directive of the General
Staff."<END QUOTE>

The wife of one such soldier was interviewed was expressing outrage:
"Why are people driven there like cattle to the slaughter? We do not
want war."

US Secretary of State John Kerry made a new hard-hitting statement on
the subject: "Clearly, the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat
capacity as well as ... surface-to-air missiles raises serious
questions."

Russian state media is mocking Obama's "fumbling" in the face of
Putin's "consistency": "It is increasingly difficult to watch the most
recent coverage of the Syrian war and not be struck by how utterly
illogical and convoluted it has become. But look through the media
spin and it’s clear: the Russian leader's steady moves in Syria is
perplexing the US." RFERL and Gazeta.ru (Trans) and CNN and Debka and Russia Today

****
**** Russia's media take note of Carly Fiorina's debate statements
****

Although everything that American presidential candidates say
is undoubted of great interest to Russian media, they've been
taking particular notice of a statement by Carly Fiorina
at last week's Republican debate.

Fiorina was asked, "You've met Vladimir Putin, yes?", and
she responded:

<QUOTE>"Having met Vladimir Putin, I wouldn't talk to him at
all. We've talked way too much to him.

What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet,
I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I
would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic
states. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into
Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the
reason it is so critically important that every one of us know
General Suleimani's name is because Russia is in Syria right now,
because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked
Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to
prop up Bashar al-Assad.

Russia is a bad actor, but Vladimir Putin is someone we should not
talk to, because the only way he will stop is to sense strength
and resolve on the other side, and we have all of that within our
control.

We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could
rebuild the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could
also, to Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've
asked for, which is intelligence."<END QUOTE>

The specifics of Fiorina's statement have to be debated, but this may
well be the most coherent statement made by anyone at the debate.
Sputnik News (Moscow) and Washington Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia,
Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Zoran Milanovic, Péter Szijjártó,
Russia, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, refuseniks, John Kerry,
Vladimir Putin, Carly Fiorina

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Thousands of migrants are trapped at one border or another, or
in a refugee camp in one of the countries.

Selfish boomer leaders have created this problem by taking away the peoples rights in Europe, America and the Anglosphere. Supposedly the option of turning away the migrants and leaving them to their fate is never considered. There are proposals by our boomer overlords to bring some of the refugees here, with proposed numbers such as 85,000, 100,000, and even half a million be allowed into the US. Given that The people have never granted the government permission to let the refugees into western countries, why do our governments keep insisting on taking in these people. If this was Putin or Xi's regimes or even just about any pre-1960s European or American government, those refugees would have been mowed down if they tried to come over the borders. Before the boomers came in charge, we had governments that listened to the will of the people. When are the boomers going to stop shoving multiculturalism down the people's throats? Hopefully Donald trump will take care of this mess, and create a new reputation for America, An America that looks out for itself, an America whose people would instinctively sympathize with the strong not with the weak underdog.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> If this was Putin or Xi's regimes or even just about any pre-1960s
> European or American government, those refugees would have been
> mowed down if they tried to come over the borders.

I guess you've never visited the Statue of Liberty.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

-- Emma Lazarus

The point I was making in my last post was that everywhere the political leaders assume that someone has to take in the refugees. Nowhere have the leaders asked if the people want to take in the refugees or not. Very few have discussed the option of turning back the refugees, and those who advocate that option are ostracized by the international community for voicing their opinion.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Selfish boomer leaders have created this problem by taking away the peoples rights in Europe, America and the Anglosphere. Supposedly the option of turning away the migrants and leaving them to their fate is never considered.

Sure. It's called complicity in murder. Decent people avoid complicity in horrible crimes.

There are proposals by our boomer overlords to bring some of the refugees here, with proposed numbers such as 85,000, 100,000, and even half a million be allowed into the US.

...and like Russian émigrés after the Russian Revolution, Displaced Persons after WWII and Vietnamese boat people I would expect their gratitude.

Given that The people have never granted the government permission to let the refugees into western countries, why do our governments keep insisting on taking in these people.

Maybe you could ask Bashir Assad and the leadership of Daesh why these people see a need to leave the 'paradise' that is Syria.

If this was Putin or Xi's regimes or even just about any pre-1960s European or American government, those refugees would have been mowed down if they tried to come over the borders.

Would you like to have the sort of government that exists in either Russia or China?

Before the boomers came in charge, we had governments that listened to the will of the people. When are the boomers going to stop shoving multiculturalism down the people's throats?

When people start rejecting it!

Hopefully Donald trump will take care of this mess, and create a new reputation for America, An America that looks out for itself, an America whose people would instinctively sympathize with the strong not with the weak underdog.

Sorry to disabuse you, but Donald Trump is himself a Boomer and shows the vices that Howe and Strauss associate with Boomers -- arrogance, ruthlessness, and selfishness.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Sorry to disabuse you, but Donald Trump is himself a Boomer and shows the vices that Howe and Strauss associate with Boomers -- arrogance, ruthlessness, and selfishness.

Trump seems to be a rogue boomer who rejected the dominant ideologies of the post-awakening left and right. He does not seem to be appealing to a boomer audience though, but to younger working class and aspiring middle class people disenfranchised by the effects of the recession and various government policies.

*** 21-Sep-15 World View -- Ben Carson's statement about Muslim President revives JFK Catholic controversy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Ben Carson's statement about Muslim President revives JFK Catholic controversy
• Syriza wins election in Greece, on eve of drastic new reforms

****
**** Ben Carson's statement about Muslim President revives JFK Catholic controversy
****


John F. Kennedy with Pope Paul VI in 1963

On the Sunday news talk shows, Republican candidate Ben Carson
said that Islam is not consistent with the Constitution, and that
therefore he would not advocate having a Muslim as president.

The following are excerpts from the Meet the Press transcript:

<QUOTE>"CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you the question this way:
Should a President's faith matter? Should your faith matter to
voters?

DR. BEN CARSON: Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If
it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then
of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of
America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.

CHUCK TODD: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the
constitution?

DR. BEN CARSON: No, I don't, I do not. ... I would not advocate
that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would
not agree with that.

CHUCK TODD: And would you ever consider voting for a Muslim for
Congress?

DR. BEN CARSON: Congress is a different story, but it depends on
who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just as it depends
on what anybody else says, you know. And, you know, if there's
somebody who's of any faith, but they say things, and their life
has been consistent with things that will elevate this nation and
make it possible for everybody to succeed, and bring peace and
harmony, then I'm with them."<END QUOTE>

What's interesting about this controversy is that this attitude
towards Muslims is similar to widely held American attitudes towards
Catholics and Jews until just a few decades ago.

As I wrote in 2006 in "President George Bush talks about a 'Third Awakening,' but he has his history wrong", Americans have always felt that their
country was not just a religious nation, but was in fact a Protestant
nation. In particular, Fundamentalist Protestants believed that, as
the millennium approached, God would work through America to redeem
mankind.

Early in the 1900s, many Americans viewed Catholics and Jews,
especially Catholic and Jewish immigrants, as being ignorant, backward
and superstitious. These religious fault lines finally began to
disappear, but not because of any popular soul-searching or
self-discovery. The religious fault lines disappeared because
Protestants, Catholics and Jews began to unite against a common enemy:
the atheistic Communists.

The debate between Protestants and Catholics became especially
bitter when John F. Kennedy ran for President, as some Americans
claimed that a Catholic president would take orders from
the Vatican.

Here's a summary of what happened from the Catholic Culture web
site:

<QUOTE>"Catholics delighted by the possibility of having one
of their own in the White House soon learned that other Americans
were horrified by the prospect. Many feared that a member of an
international, hierarchical church could not fulfill his
presidential duty to preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution. They worried that Kennedy's Catholic faith would
lead him to flout the Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of
religious freedom and prohibition against the establishment of a
state church.

During the campaign, the anti-Catholicism that had lay dormant for
decades re-emerged with a vengeance. Secularists warned of
"fundamental" value differences between Catholics and other
Americans, and suggested that the election of a Catholic President
would open the door to theocracy. As Mark Massa noted in his book,
Catholics and American Culture (Crossroad, 1999), Protestant
fundamentalists harbored similar fears and launched a direct mail
campaign to send more than 300 different anti-Catholic tracts to
some 20 million homes before the election. Kennedy's candidacy was
denounced by the nine-million-member Southern Baptist Convention
and a host of other Protestant churches and associations. Clergy
affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals and other
Protestant groups launched a nationwide campaign of anti-Kennedy
sermons to coincide with "Reformation Sunday" on October 30,
1960. Protestants opposing Kennedy were urged to wear buttons
throughout the campaign season that said, "Stand Up and Be
Counted" over the numbers "1517" — a reminder to follow in the
footsteps of Martin Luther, who launched the Protestant
Reformation that year by nailing his 95 theses to the door of the
Wittenberg Castle Church.

Kennedy knew that he had no chance of ascending to the Presidency
if he did not address the religious issue directly. Militant
anti-Catholics would not be open to persuasion, but he hoped to
answer their attacks in a way that reassured other Americans. His
first widely publicized attempt to do so came in March 1959, when
Look magazine published an interview in which he gave this quote:
"Whatever one's religion in private life may be, for the
office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold
the Constitution and all its parts — including the First Amendment
and the strict separation of church and state." Kennedy then
highlighted his opposition to federal aid for parochial schools
and to an appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican — positions
that he had reversed since his earlier days in Congress, when he
had supported such measures.

Kennedy's comments sparked a backlash in the Catholic press. From
America to Commonweal and to diocesan papers, editors criticized
his views on church and state and his claim that parochial school
aid was unconstitutional. Protestant reaction, meanwhile, ran the
gamut. Some were reassured by Kennedy's statements. Others —
including some mainline Protestants who had initially defended him
— were alarmed. Episcopalian Bishop James Pike said, ". . . far
from posing the threat of ecclesiastical tyranny, [Kennedy's
statement] would seem rather to represent the point of view of a
thoroughgoing secularist, who really believes that a man's
religion and his decision-making can be kept in two watertight
compartments." Presbyterian Robert McAfee Brown surmised that
Kennedy was "a rather irregular Christian." And Lutheran Martin
Marty opined that Kennedy was "spiritually rootless and
politically almost disturbingly secular."<END QUOTE>

The debate was so bitter that Kennedy had to address it in a televised
speech on September 12, 1960:

<QUOTE>"I believe in an America where the separation of
church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would
tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no
Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote —
where no church or church school is granted any public funds or
political preference — and where no man is denied public office
merely because his religion differs from the President who might
appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic,
Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests
or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the
National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source —
where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or
indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its
officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an
act against one church is treated as an act against
all."<END QUOTE>

According to the web site:

<QUOTE>"Kennedy's speech appeased many non-Catholic
critics. Mainline Protestant and Jewish voters warmed to his
candidacy. Secular skeptics applauded his strict separationist
views. And though many evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants
remained suspicious, Kennedy had defused the power of their
anti-Catholic appeals.

Catholics, meanwhile, had mixed reactions. Kennedy already had the
Catholic vote locked up, and he proceeded to win the Presidency in
a squeaker against Richard Nixon with the support of four in every
five Catholic voters. But historians say many Catholic bishops
secretly feared a Kennedy presidency after noticing his
desperation to prove his independence from the Church, as
demonstrated by his Houston remarks and hard-line positions
against Church-endorsed policies."<END QUOTE>

In other words, a Catholic president may have initially excited
Catholics, but in the end it was even more controversial for Catholics
than it was for other people, because of all the compromises.

In 1960, many Americans, including many Catholics, believed that a
Catholic could not be President without violating the Constitution.
Kennedy was able to obtain the approval of Americans by compromising
his religious values with his political values. Catholic politicians
do that all the time with issues like abortion.

Now imagine a Muslim running for President. Ben Carson didn't give a
reason why he felt that a Muslim could not be President without
violating the Constitution. Perhaps he will in the coming days.

But a Muslim running for President would be very similar to John
F. Kennedy running for President, in that he would have to make
compromises between his religious and political values. Perhaps
Muslims would initially be excited at a Muslim presidential candidate,
but those compromises would be even more controversial within Islam
than they would be among most Americans.

Unfortunately, religious prejudice is common in all societies, even in
America. When Barack Obama in 2008 said that bitter people "cling to
guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them," he
was expressing his prejudice against Christian values, and equating
religion with xenophobia. And there was a great deal of anti-Jewish
prejudice expressed by numerous politicians during the recent debate
over the Iran nuclear deal. One can only imagine the uproar at the
prospect of a Jewish presidential candidate. NBC Meet the Press and Catholic Culture

****
**** Syriza wins election in Greece, on eve of drastic new reforms
****

There's a reason why Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece's far left
Syriza party, chose this particular weekend for his call for snap
elections. It's because he hoped to be reelected before Greece's next
major financial crisis begins, which it will very soon.

The rise of Alexis Tsipras this year was amazing, starting with his
initial election victory. ( "26-Jan-15 World View -- Alexis Tsipras' far-left Syriza party wins historic election in Greece"
)

He campaigned on promises that could never be fulfilled. He promised
that he would convince Greece's lending institutions -- the European
Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International
Monetary Fund (IMF), formerly known as the "Troika" -- to write off
most of the 300 billion euro debt, that no more harsh reforms would be
required, that there would be a splurge in government spending, and
that laid off public sector workers' jobs would be restored.

It was all a lie, but it got him elected. After months of government
chaos that was disastrous for an already wrecked economy, Tsipras
suddenly called for a national referendum on the bailout reforms. The
Greek people decisively voted down accepting the austerity reforms
that had been demanded by the lenders.

So then the EU gave Tsipras a "take it or leave it" ultimatum, meaning
that he had to agree to new austerity reforms that were even harsher
than the ones that had been rejected in the referendum, or else Greece
had to leave the eurozone, and return to the drachma currency. This
was a time, in July, when the banks and stock markets were closed, and
the economy was in serious decline.

Tsipras agreed to the harsher austerity measures because European
officials were "holding a knife at my neck." The Europeans agreed to
a new 86 billion euro bailout loan in return for the austerity
measures, which address various economic issues, including Greece's
bloated public sector, curbing tax evasion and corruption, privatizing
public businesses, and adjusting generous pension and minimum wage
policies.

Greece's social security system is being described as "a ticking time
bomb ready to explode," with 4 billion euros of obligations owed to
pensioners. It may have to be changed beyond recognition.

It's amazing that Tsipras got elected on a campaign that rejected
austerity, and then got a referendum passed that rejected austerity,
and then turned around and blew away all the promises he made. Even
so, he's now been elected again. It makes you wonder whether voters
ever have any idea what they're doing.

But there's still a price to be paid. Greek officials have to
implement deep austerity reforms within the next month, or Greece will
not receive the next bailout payment in time to avoid going bankrupt.
Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble apparently is still in
favor of "Grexit," Greece leaving the eurozone for five years.

The lucky Greeks are fortunate to be at the epicenter of two
cataclysmic crises -- the bailout crisis and the migrant crisis. The
next few weeks are going to be one traumatic episode after another.
Kathimerini (Athens) and Reuters and Kathimerini


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ben Carson, John F Kennedy, Pope Paul VI,
Greece, Alexis Tsipras, Syriza, Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 19-Sep-15 World View -- Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Violence appears to be escalating in Turkey with PKK
• Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism
• Japan's Shinzo Abe follows the wishes of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke
• The question of Obama as a Muslim arises in politics again

****
**** Violence appears to be escalating in Turkey with PKK
****


Residents carry coffins of people who were killed during last week's clashes in Cizre (Reuters)

The violence between Turkey's security forces and terrorists from the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been escalating sharply, ever since
a ceasefire agreement broke down in July, and Turkey's government
declared war on the PKK. ( "9-Sep-15 World View -- Turkey slips into chaos as violence spreads across the country"
)

The number of policemen and soldiers killed since July has now risen
to more than 120. At the same time, Turkish warplanes have been
pounding PKK positions for weeks, in both southeast Turkey and
northern Iraq.

The Kurdish-majority town of Cizre, in southeast Turkey, has seen some
of the worst violence. Buildings are riddled with bulletholes, and
armored police vehicles dot the town. The government says that the
operation there was to flush out the PKK from its hotbed. The
violence was triggered by a suicide bombing, which the Kurds blame on
the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), accusing
the government of colluding with ISIS.

At the same time, the government of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
blaming the US and the West for supporting the "moderate" Kurds, and
claiming that "Turkey's Western allies, particularly the U.S.,
U.K. and Germany, have become partners [indirectly] with a terror
group that commits the most vulgar crimes in Turkey and supplies
weapons to them."

Across Turkey, Turkish nationalism and anger towards Kurds is growing.
Kurds complain that relations between Kurds and Turks are becoming
increasingly tense. On Tuesday of last week, tens of thousands of
people from across Turkey attended a rally in Ankara to condemn
terrorism by the PKK.

All of Turkey's main political leaders have appealed for national
unity and for calm, but concerns are growing that the violence could
spiral into full-scale war. BBC and VOA and Daily Sabah (Istanbul) and Hurriyet (Ankara)

****
**** Japan finally adopts 'collective defense' laws, departing from pacifism
****

Following boisterous confrontations in Japan's Upper House (the Diet)
that sometimes spiraled into fisticuffs, finally enacted two security
laws on Saturday morning that mark a significant departure the
pacifism that was embedded in Japan's constitution following World War
II. The new laws are extremely unpopular and highly contentious.

The self-defense clause of the constitution permits military action
only when Japan itself is being attacked. The new laws reinterpret
the self-defense clause to include "collective self-defense," which
would permit military action under some circumstances when an ally
(such as the United States) is attacked. I discussed the meaning of
"collective self-defense" in detail last year in "5-May-14 World View -- Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan"
.
Japan Times

****
**** Japan's Shinzo Abe follows the wishes of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke
****

The new laws permitting collective self-defense were adopted through
the tireless effort of Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, who made the
laws a major objective of his prime ministry from the beginning.

A major part of Abe's motivation is that he was following in the path
of his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, who served as prime minister of
Japan from 1957-60.

In 1960, Kishi signed a US-Japan security treaty intended to put the
relationship between the two nations on an equal basis and to restore
independent diplomacy for Japan. To implement this policy he initiated
an official study of the constitution's "self-defense" clause, and he
encouraged Japanese self-reliance in national defense.

Kishi used his conservative parliamentary majority to ratify the
treaty, but the process was extremely contentious, and Kishi resigned
in the aftermath. Some analysts are now suggesting that the passage
of the new security laws may result in Abe's resignation. Encyclopedia Britannica: Kishi Nobusuke

****
**** The question of Obama as a Muslim arises in politics again
****

The detractors of President Obama sometimes claim that he is a Muslim,
or even that he's not a citizen. There's no doubt that he was born in
Hawaii, so he's a citizen.

Obama is also undoubtedly a Christian in American eyes, but the
question has some ambiguities in Muslim eyes, according to a May 12,
2008, NY Times article that I quoted when I wrote about Is President Barack Obama a Muslim?
in
2010.

According to the NY Times article, Obama was born a Muslim under
Muslim law, because his father had been Muslim. His father renounced
Islam, and Obama himself converted to Christianity, so he's a
Christian in American eyes. But under Muslim law, according to the NY
Times, he's still a Muslim, and the conversion was an apostasy.

The NY Times concludes in 2008: "But of all the well-meaning desires
projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve
relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic."


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Iraq, Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK,
Cizre, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kurds,
Japan, collective self-defense, Kishi Nobusuke

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Receive daily World View columns by e-mail

Obama's been in the cross hairs of various radicals ever since Jan 20, 2009. Even beyond the whole apostasy issue, in the eyes of the trogloditic backwards ass anti Western fiends, he is a moniker for everything they hate about our pluralistic liberal Western Civilization. Not only do radical Islamists hate us for this, so too do radical Pan (Eastern) Slavists, Pan Sinicists and other Pan movements. We are witnessing in the Pan movements the parameters of world conflict, just as was the case during the early 20th century.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Obama's been in the cross hairs of various radicals ever since Jan 20, 2009. Even beyond the whole apostasy issue, in the eyes of the trogloditic backwards ass anti Western fiends, he is a moniker for everything they hate about our pluralistic liberal Western Civilization. Not only do radical Islamists hate us for this, so too do radical Pan (Eastern) Slavists, Pan Sinicists and other Pan movements. We are witnessing in the Pan movements the parameters of world conflict, just as was the case during the early 20th century.

Barack Obama is everything that any pan-whatever ethnic purist could hate -- the result of miscegenation. We all know about American primitives. Radical Muslims hate him because he does not practice the religion of his father. Yes, he is the definitive expression of pluralism. So what if he is cautious, learned, and compassionate?

*** 22-Sep-15 World View -- Russia pours military weapons and personnel into Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russia and China show interest in the Arctic's oil and gas reserves
• Russia pours military weapons and personnel into Syria

****
**** Russia and China show interest in the Arctic's oil and gas reserves
****


Russian natural gas reservoirs under construction in the Arctic circle (Getty)

Russia's Northern Fleet has just wrapped up large-scale military
exercises in the Arctic, which included launch 12 sea- and
ground-launched cruise missiles, and defending against them with
defense missile systems. Some 50 warships, submarines, and 10
aircraft took part.

Hardly a week passes without some announcement of a new Russian
deployment in the Arctic region. There are 40 icebreakers, and Russia
is building 11 more. There are reportedly 100 new nuclear weapons
deployed in the Arctic, as well as most of Russia's strategic nuclear
missile submarines. More recently, Russian announced the deployment
of short-to-medium-range anti-aircraft battalions, and other air
defense and naval forces. These military deployments are consistent
with Russia's claims for an enormous expanse of the Arctic continental
shelf, including the North Pole.

Russia's enormous claims, combined with its aggressive military
deployments, are raising anxieties in other countries, particularly
China.

The Arctic region has been found to have oil reserves of more than 90
billion barrels, about 13 percent of the global total. There are also
47 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, 30 percent of the
world total.

Although China is not an Arctic state, it has begun defining itself as
a "near-Arctic state," a claim that a suspicious person might note
sounds similar to the kinds of claims that China is making in the
South China Sea.

China raised eyebrows last month when it refused to sign on to a
global Climate Change statement. This suggests that the December 2015
Climate Change conference in Paris will not have the resounding
success that climate change aficionados hope for. At the same time,
China sent five warships to the Bering Strait to demonstrate China’s
interest in the Arctic and its capability to function as a global blue
water navy.

The Arctic and the South China Sea have in common potentially immense
sources of energy for any country that controls them. So far,
tensions in the Arctic are nowhere nearly as high as they are in the
South China Sea, but with so much at stake, that's sure to change.
Sputnik News (Moscow) and Jamestown and The Diplomat and Caixin (Beijing, 5-Feb-2015)

****
**** Russia pours military weapons and personnel into Syria
****

The US administration apparently has been caught by surprise by the
speed of Russia's military deployment into Syria, just a few days
after statements by US officials that they were sure whether Russia
intended to use force in Syria at all.

To date, Russia has over 25 fighter and attack aircraft, 15
helicopters, nine tanks, three surface-to-air missile systems and at
least 500 personnel on the ground in Syria. Russia is already flying
surveillance drones over the country, and appears to be preparing for
air strikes in defense of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Obama administration has issued a one hard-hitting statement after
another in the last few days, and Monday was no exception. Here's
what we heard from Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis:

<QUOTE>"We are keenly aware of what is happening there. We
continue to believe that anything that's done in support of the
Assad regime, particularly militarily, is counter-productive and
risks worsening an already bad situation. ...

This has the Secretary's attention and it has the attention of our
senior leaders, and we're absolutely concerned about the potential
for confliction and the need to de-conflict."<END QUOTE>

Well, with no de-conflicting in sight, and with ongoing confliction,
it's hard to overestimate the significance of these developments, as I
wrote two weeks ago in "13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast."

The message is pretty clear that Russia is planning to take control of
Syria's airspace, and possibly Iraq's as well, and that American
warplanes will be forced to stay out, except with Russia's explicit
permission. With Russia, Iran and Bashar al-Assad's regime in control
of much of Syria and Iraq, nationalistic and belligerent responses
will be triggered from militant groups, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and
other Gulf states.

As I've been writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that
Iran and Russia will be US allies in the approaching Clash of
Civilizations world war. Those predictions are coming true rapidly,
as the Mideast heads for a secular war that will consume the region.
CNN and Daily Beast


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Northern Fleet, Arctic, China,
Climate change, Paris, Bering Strait, South China Sea,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Jeff Davis, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia

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*** 23-Sep-15 World View -- Europe's refugee crisis revives Ottoman Empire fault lines

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• EU votes to distribute 120,000 refugees among countries by quota
• Hungary's Viktor Orbán invokes memories of Ottoman Empire

****
**** EU votes to distribute 120,000 refugees among countries by quota
****


Orhan, Ottoman ruler between 1324-1360 (britannica.com)

European Union interior ministers voted on Tuesday to impose a quota
system on all 28 EU countries to distribute 120,000 refugees seeking
asylum. Before becoming law, the plan will be considered by the EU
country presidents and prime ministers meeting in Brussels on
Wednesday.

Four countries -- Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary --
voted against the proposal. However, implementation of the plan would
obligate those four countries to take in their quota of
asylum-seekers, as well.

Governments of dissenting countries expressed fury at the decision,
some saying that they will refuse to comply. Slovak Prime Minister
Robert Fico says he will not comply, and will not "respect this diktat
of the majority." Czech President Milos Zeman said: "Only the future
will show what a mistake this was." However, a government spokesman
for Hungary said that Hungary will respect Tuesday's decision.

Finland abstained from the vote. Poland, which had originally opposed
the proposal, voted for it, saying that "it's much better to
negotiate."

Europe is expected to receive over one million migrants this year.
Theoretically, the 120,000 refugees envisioned by Tuesday's plan
refers only to migrants from war-torn countries, such as Syria, Iraq
or Afghanistan. However, recent studies show that most of them are
economic migrants from countries like Pakistan or from Africa, and so
would not qualify for asylum status. Theoretically, the hundreds of
thousands of economic migrants are to be deported back to their home
countries.

Putting all these facts and figures together, it seems pretty clear
that the plan adopted on Tuesday could not possibly come close to
solving Europe's migrant problem. But at least it satisfied the need
for the government to appear to be doing something. CNN and
BBC and
AFP

****
**** Hungary's Viktor Orbán invokes memories of Ottoman Empire
****

In the past few months, as thousands of migrants flooded from Turkey,
through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria, to reach
Germany, Hungary became the most aggressive country in blocking
migrants, by building a fence along the entire border between Hungary
and Serbia. Serbia has responded by redirecting the flow of migrants
into Croatia, but an infuriated Croatia is redirecting them back into
Hungary -- once again infuriating Hungary.

The four Central European countries that voted against Tuesday's
plan to distribute migrants to EU countries all had experiences
with Turkey's Ottoman Empire. Hungary's Viktor Orbán
invoked his country's experience with the Ottoman's explicitly:

<QUOTE>"Those arriving have been raised in another religion,
and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not
Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because
Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity.... We
don’t want to criticize France, Belgium, any other country, but we
think all countries have a right to decide whether they want to
have a large number of Muslims in their countries. If they want to
live together with them, they can. We don’t want to and I think we
have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of
Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of
having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other
countries, and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us
to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want
to see....

I have to say that when it comes to living together with Muslim
communities, we are the only ones who have experience because we
had the possibility to go through that experience for 150
years."<END QUOTE>

Orbán is referring to Islam’s conquest and occupation of Hungary from
1541 to 1699. According to an article in conservative
Human Events:

<QUOTE>"Nor was Hungary alone. Much of southeastern Europe
and portions of modern day Russia were conquered, occupied, and
terrorized by the Turks—sometimes in ways that make Islamic State
atrocities seem like child’s play. (Think of the beheadings,
crucifixions, massacres, slave markets, and rapes that have become
IS trademarks—but on a much grander scale, and for
centuries.)"<END QUOTE>

I actually have a great deal of sympathy for this argument. After
all, no one wants to risk another experience like that one. My
problem is that this is only half the argument.

In the research that I do for Generational Dynamics, I have
constant feelings of sadness and revulsion -- at the things that
human beings do to each other as a matter of course, particularly
during generational crisis wars.

So one might reasonably wonder why the author of this article, or
Viktor Orbán himself, had to go back 500 years to find a suitable
example to reference. The Ottoman Empire is gone, but the
consequences of the Ottoman victories and defeats are still felt
today, as if a huge tsunami was launched hundreds of years ago, and is
still washing over us today.

In particular, why not refer to the much more recent Bosnian war?
That makes a similar point about atrocities, but it occurred only 20
years ago, not 500 years ago. Well, those with any knowledge of
history whatsoever (including Orbán) already know the answer to that
question. In the Bosnian war, it was the Christian Serbs who were
committing the atrocities, and it was the Bosnian Muslims and the
Catholic Croats who were the victims.

I wrote about this at length last year in "29-Jun-14 World View -- Sarajevo Serbs unveil monument to Gavrilo Princip, who triggered World War I"
. In that
article, I quoted one historical summary of the Bosnian war as
follows:

<QUOTE>"It was during this initial wave of Bosnian Serb
ethnic cleansing — orchestrated by Radovan Karadzi and his
generals — that the world began to hear tales as horrifying as
anything you can imagine. Militia units would enter a town and
indiscriminately kill anyone they saw — civilian men, women, and
children. Pregnant women mortally wounded by gunfire were left to
die in the street. Fleeing residents crawled on their stomachs for
hours to reach cover, even as their family and friends were shot
and blown up right next to them. Soldiers rounded up families,
then forced parents to watch as they slit the throats of their
children — and then the parents were killed, too. Dozens of people
would be lined up along a bridge to have their throats slit, one
at a time, so that their lifeless bodies would plunge into the
river below. (Villagers downstream would see corpses float past,
and know their time was coming soon.) While in past conflicts
houses of worship had been considered off-limits, now Karadzi's
forces actively targeted mosques and Catholic churches. Perhaps
most despicable was the establishment of so-called “rape camps” —
concentration camps where mostly Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] women
were imprisoned and systematically raped by Serb soldiers. Many
were intentionally impregnated and held captive until they had
come to term (too late for an abortion), when they were released
to bear and raise a child forced upon them by their hated
enemy. These are the stories that turned “Balkans” into a dirty
word.

The Bosnian Serb aggressors were intentionally gruesome and
violent. Leaders roused their foot soldiers with hate-filled
propaganda (claiming, for example, that the Bosniaks were intent
on creating a fundamentalist Islamic state that would do even
worse to its Serb residents), then instructed them to carry out
unthinkable atrocities. For the people who carried out these
attacks, the war represented a cathartic opportunity to exact
vengeance for decades-old perceived injustices. Everyday Serbs —
who, for centuries, have been steeped in messages about how they
have been the victims of their neighbors — saw this as an
opportunity to finally make a stand. But their superiors had even
more dastardly motives. They sought not only to remove people from
“their” land, but to do so in such a heinous way to ensure that
the various groups could never again tolerate living
together."<END QUOTE>

This has nothing to do with religion. During a generational crisis
war, people of any religion can turn into monsters perpetrating crimes
and atrocities that are almost unthinkable. That's one of the things
that make generational crisis wars unique among wars.

So, as I said, I have some sympathy for Orbán's allusion to Ottoman
atrocities -- but not because those atrocities were unique in any way,
but rather because they're so common, and so much a part of the human
DNA -- every human's DNA. Human Events and Guardian (London) and Understanding Yugoslavia


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,
Robert Fico, Milos Zeman, Poland, Viktor Orbán,
Ottoman Empire, Bosnian War

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RE: China's notion of being an Arctic state. China is clearly trying to repeat what Japan did but a new and improved version. That incursion into the Aleutians / Gulf of Alaska was a serious warning sign. They are practicing taking the Aleutians.

RE: post-Ottoman / WW1 bitter harvests ... Thinking about this, is not the current refugee crisis yet another bitter harvest from WW1, the war that keeps on giving?

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

> RE: China's notion of being an Arctic state. China is clearly
> trying to repeat what Japan did but a new and improved
> version. That incursion into the Aleutians / Gulf of Alaska was a
> serious warning sign. They are practicing taking the
> Aleutians.

Wouldn't that be an invasion of the United States?

*** 24-Sep-15 World View -- China's Xi Jinping congratulates himself on stopping stock market crash

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Tempers flare as EU leaders debate the migrant crisis
• Europe looks for ways to reduce the volume of migrants
• China's Xi Jinping congratulates himself on stopping stock market crash

****
**** Tempers flare as EU leaders debate the migrant crisis
****


Migrants walk towards the Austrian border from Hungary on Wednesday. At least 7,000 people crossed from Hungary into Austria on Wednesday alone. (Reuters)

I heard one analyst say that the language being used by the EU leaders
meeting in Brussels on Wednesday was the harshest that's ever been
heard in public since the beginning of the EU. I'm pretty sure that
isn't true. In 2005, I wrote about an acrimonious European Union summit ending in crisis,
as Jean-Claude
Juncker, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac got into a furious shouting war
over agricultural subsidies.

Still, there was harsh disagreement over the plan to relocate 120,000
migrants to EU countries by means of mandatory quotes. As we reported yesterday,
that plan was passed
by a vote of interior ministers on Tuesday. In the past, such a
controversial plan would be passed by unanimous vote, but in this
case, four Central European countries voted against the plan --
Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

It's pretty widely recognized that the plan is pretty useless anyway,
for several reasons:

• There are 6,000-7,000 new migrants arriving in Europe every
  day, 480,000 so far this year. So the 120,000 in the plan only
  addresses a small part of the problem.
  
• If the EU assigns, say, 10,000 migrants to one particular country,
  the assignment is meaningless, since there's nothing to stop the
  migrants from leaving that country and traveling to whatever country
  they want, at least among the 25 countries of the EU Schengen
  Area.
  
• As a matter of principle, the four countries that voted against
  the plan say that might accept migrants voluntarily, but are opposed
  to mandatory quotas, which violate national sovereignty.

With regard to the last point, a web site reader posted the following
comment:

<QUOTE>"I absolutely agree with any country that opposes an
imposed EU quota. It is analogous to the Americans on this website
wanting to secure our OWN border.

Every country deserves to retain its culture. There are thousands
of different cultures on the globe, each with their own carved out
territory. They have their own traditions, foods, religions,
family structure, etc. This is a great thing. If the people of a
country want to retain their culture, and feel strongly enough
about it, then I APPLAUD them for standing up and saying "NO" to
this massive push for multiculturalism. And notice,
multiculturalism is only pushed on mostly white nations (America
and Europe). It's a hard truth to digest, but it can no longer be
ignored."<END QUOTE>

This seems like a perfectly reasonable, logical position to take, but
it really isn't true, and probably has never been true at any place
and time in history. Huge waves of migration have always occurred, at
all times and places, and there's no way to stop them.

The population of the European Union is 503 million, so even a million
migrants would add only 0.2% to the population, so I'm not sure that
the word "migration" even applies. But whatever it is, there's no way
to stop it.

When the World War II survivors signed the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which
led to the formation of the European Union, they knew from the horrors
of two World Wars that migration would always occur, and they decided
that trying to stop it was one way to increase pressures that lead to
war. But the painful lessons of history are never remembered, and
each generation has to relearn them. That's the core principle behind
Generational Dynamics. Irish Times and International Business Times and Bloomberg

****
**** Europe looks for ways to reduce the volume of migrants
****

At Wednesday's meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, European Council
president Donald Tusk said that with "millions of potential refugees
from Syria" that may arrive in Europe, "The most urgent question we
should ask ourselves tonight is how to regain control of our external
borders."

Rather than continuing to argue about mandatory quotas and internal
borders, the meeting turned its attention to the question of how to
reduce the number of migrants trying to enter Europe in the first
place, and that would mean convincing them to remain in the Mideast.

The way to do that, it was thought, would be to spend a lot of money
in support of the migrants, including these proposals:

• Donating at least $1.1 billion to UN aid agencies to help
  Syrian refugees;
  
• Sending more staff to shore up Europe's external borders and in
  the western Balkans, through which many migrants pass;
  
• Giving more support to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and other countries
  neighboring Syria.

With regard to this, there has been one story after another in the
last year that the World Food Program has not been receiving committed
by many countries, with the result that they've had to cut back
sharply on food for Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq
and Egypt. The WFP has had to drop one-third of Syrian refugees from
its food voucher program in Middle Eastern host countries this year,
including 229,000 in Jordan who stopped receiving food aid in
September. According to a spokesman, the agency needed $236 million
to keep the program -- even in its scaled-back version -- funded
through November. No major donors have come forward.

The vote by the EU to provide $1.1 billion to the WPF will certainly
be welcomed, and may prevent a lot of starvation.

But the fact is that the millions of potential migrants headed for
Europe are not just going because they want a bigger plate of food for
dinner. They're going because they have a dream -- steady work, going
to college, sending their children to school, having a happy life --
and none of the proposals that were discussed at Wednesday's meeting
will have any effect on those motivations at all. BBC and Guardian (London)

****
**** China's Xi Jinping congratulates himself on stopping stock market crash
****

China's president Xi Jinping is visiting Seattle Washington, while the
Pope is visiting the other Washington. On Tuesday evening, he gave a
speech in which he highlighted the government's support for a
transparent and open stock market.

<QUOTE>"The duty of government is to ensure a fair, open
market and adjust the market order and avoid panic from
happening. This time, Chinese government took steps to stabilize
the market and contained panic in the stock market. And that
avoided a systematic crisis. Mature markets in various countries
have tried similar steps. The Chinese stock market has reached the
phase of self-recovery and self-adjustment."<END QUOTE>

This has produced a fair amount of laughter among analysts. Xi thinks
that by jailing reporters and bloggers who use words like "selloff" or
"panic," or punishing investors who "meddle" in the stock market by
selling stocks, China's government has managed to take its "fair, open
market" and make it reach the phase of "self-adjustment."

This is probably one of the best examples we've seen of a world leader
who is publicly and clearly in a hopeless state of denial. I often
say that Barack Obama doesn't have a clue what's going on in the
world, or that Vladimir Putin is following a path that will bring
destruction to everyone, including himself. It's tempting to think
that any national leader, with access to as many experts as he wants,
could not possibly be this stupid, but here we see Xi Jinping
exhibiting such stupidity openly and publicly and shamelessly.

People often tell me that China would never start a war because it's
bad for business or because China would lose or because some other
reason. But someone who could believe that jailing reporters can end
a stock market crash can also believe that China will win a war within
24 hours, because the US is too weak to fight or unwilling to fight.
I hope that such people can now see the flaw in their reasoning.
China Radio International (Beijing)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, European Union, European Council, Donald Tusk,
Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, 1957 Treaty of Rome,
Jean-Claude Juncker, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac,
World Food Program, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt,
China, Xi Jinping, Seattle

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So John you think that Putin and/or Xi would start what they think would be a limited war, when in fact they would unknowingly be starting a total war?