Day: November 19, 2015

Has The Social Contract Run It’s Course?

I have been writing about American politics almost as long as I have been writing on international stuff and all that time I have not seen the level of apathy from the American voter as we are witnessing these days.

Did you know in 2014 that only 36% of the registered voters exercised their right?  That my friends is an abysmal fact.

So is the social contract nearing an end?

But first do you know what is meant by the social contract?

In case you are not clear…..I will give the simplest definition I could think of on the spot……A usually implicit agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each.

This country has lost its national identity….we are nothing than a collection of people that sees ‘enemies’ at every turn…..even to our neighbors who we cherish in the good times and belittle if they run into problems and needs government assistance….then our neighbors are “freeloaders”.

That is NOT what this country is suppose to be……this country has gone from a country of Americans…….. it has become “us against them” attitude….even when it involves our neighbors…..some have the idea that the American Dream is only for people that agree with their convoluted idea of what this country is all about……

If the trend continues we will be lucky to get 30% of the voting population to show up….and then any unity this country has had will be gone.

Americans need to stop worshiping at the heels of morons!  If they cannot find a way to regain the national unity we once had as a country then Ben Franklin’s cartoon becomes more profound than it was in his day……

If we want to retain what little democratic traditions we have left then it is time to put all this infantile bickering behind us….if we cannot then kiss this country GOOD-BYE!

Knee-jerk reactions and comments is helping NO one….especially the psyche of the nation.  We have become a nation of knee-jerk reactions and look how successful we have become at alienating the citizens of our nation.

Think about that while pointing your finger at your neighbor for whatever reason.  Without national unity we got NOTHING!

I hope you people are pleased with yourselves!  This nation is losing the fight with apathy

I think it is a national embarrassment.

PERIOD!

What Happens With Knee-jerk Reactions?

I do love me some drama!

The horrific attacks in Paris last week has the “Red Web” burning up the internet…..calls for the most severe of actions must be instituted right away…..and again like every attack that has been featured on the evening news the talk is for a whole host of knee-jerk reactions……

The “Red Web” is calling Obama ineffective and he may well be so but he is called that with every issue that is featured….I personally agree that he is ineffective but for a whole host of reasons and if you are a follower of IST then you already know where I stand on his foreign policy…….but one of the tactics that is being passed around is a better way to contain ISIS and its effectiveness….but is that the best idea?

When President Obama said, just one day before the Paris terror attacks, that ISIS had been “contained,” he wasn’t wrong. On Vox, Zack Beauchamp lays out a solid case explaining that the terror group’s “march across Syria and Iraq … has in fact been stalled and in many places even turned back.” The problem is, as the Paris attacks devastatingly prove, this isn’t necessarily cause for immediate celebration. “As ISIS weakens as a state by losing territory, it may actually become more dangerous as a terrorist organization,” Beauchamp writes. Until now, ISIS was mainly focused on attacking targets in the Middle East. But some experts think Paris marks the start of the terror group staging more “dramatic attacks outside its territory—perhaps in part to compensate for its territorial losses.”

ISIS recruits a lot of foreigners, including Westerners, and its “narrative of victory” is a big reason why, Beauchamp writes. “It sells itself as the prophesied Islamic caliphate: that its victories are inevitable and divinely inspired. If it’s losing territory, then it needs to sell this narrative through other means. That means claiming ‘victory’ over the West by hitting it with terrorist attacks.” And then, of course, there’s the possibility that ISIS believes that such attacks are a fitting “punishment” for Western attacks against ISIS. All of this is a scary prospect, as the experts to whom Beauchamp spoke make clear, because ISIS has millions of dollars at its disposal. “We’re not talking about al-Qaeda hiding out in Pakistan,” warns one. Click for the full piece.

Okay before you decide that I am some sort of….whatever insult you have in your bag of insults…..keep in mind that this is NOT my opinion….I am just passing it along to my readers as an informational piece…..so please save the attacks for when you think I deserve them…..deal?

After the attacks last week France has instituted a state of emergency…..closed its borders (sort of)…..there is an opinion that that may not be the best of ideas…..

Source: Why States of Emergency and Extreme Security Measures Won’t Stop ISIS | Alternet

Again…….informational…..just presenting an alternative point of view….if you cannot handle that then you are probably in the wrong place.

Paris: Who Knew And When?

After the horrible attacks in Paris and the subsequent raids by the national police….there seems to be a massive amount of misinformation….so bad that some media sources are making up their own headlines….confusion seems to be the only constant in this whole incident.

But most of this is today’s news…..I would like to drop back to last week before the Paris attacks…..

It appears that France has the same problem that Washington had before 9/11……that being that there was info coming in that something was about to happen and the government decided that it was unreliable and ignored it…..and BAM!

It is being reported that France was told by Arab intel sources that there would be an attack……

As ISIS continues to grow in the Middle East, those nations in the vicinity have been watching close, and gathering large amounts of intelligence on them. Yet when ISIS looks to attack Western nations like France, advance warnings from the Arab nations appear to go unheeded.

Both Iraq and Saudi Arabia reportedly provided France with warnings ahead of the Friday ISIS attacks, and a lot of other Arab nations seem to be awash in intelligence that Western nations treat with automatic suspicion.

Officials also complain that those nations haven’t always been a forthcoming with intelligence as the US and others would’ve hoped in the past, though it seems that’s a poor excuse for spurning their intelligence now that it’s on offer.

I know that hindsight is 20/20…….but maybe we should start putting a little more faith in the intel that is offered…..and maybe we could avoid some of the bloodshed.

As I was about to publish this post news has come out that should make some happy…….

He’s dead: Authorities in Paris today said the man believed to have orchestrated the terror attacks in the City of Lights was killed in Wednesday’s police raid, reports the AP. The fate of Abdel­hamid Abaaoud had been unclear as authorities tried to identify the remains of two people killed during the raid in the suburb of Saint Denis, but the city prosecutor said today that Abaaoud had been identified through skin samples. A woman blew herself up at the start of the raid, and the 28-year-old Abaaoud apparently was killed in that explosion. The woman who died may be Abaaoud’s cousin, who had been wiretapped by security agencies, reports CNN.

The head of a special forces unit, speaking to Le Figaro, explained why the bodies weren’t easy to identify, the AP reports. He says that when officers entered the building, one of the bodies fell from the third floor to the second floor. “The corpse was mutilated, probably from grenades, and he wasn’t recognizable,” he says. “Other people were in the stairwell, two men hiding under blankets and whatever they could find. We arrested them.” Prior to the raid, Abaaoud was believed to have been in Syria, notes Reuters, but intelligence revealed that he had slipped back into France undetected. At a Wednesday press conference, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the terror cell had been preparing to carry out a fresh attack. Five police officers were injured during the operation and a police dog was killed. (Abaaoud’s own family may be celebrating news of his death.)

One down….thousands to go!

Carpetbaggers Return

With the tragic attacks in Paris and the subsequent actions that followed and the refugee crisis have taken any mention of Ukraine and the situation brewing in that country off the front page…..apparently it is not newsworthy at this time….

But since I am a person that likes international situations I watch it for problems brewing…..and I believe there is a issue that could be a major block to any advancement of Ukraine….think “carpetbaggers”.

Who?

Carpetbaggers……. epithet used in the South after the Civil War to describe Northerners who went to the South during Reconstruction to make money. Although regarded as transients because of the carpetbags in which they carried their possessions (hence the name carpetbaggers ), most intended to settle in the South and take advantage of speculative and commercial opportunities there. With the support of the black vote the carpetbaggers played an important role in the Republican state governments. The corrupt activities of some made the term carpetbagger synonymous with any outsider who meddles in an area’s political affairs for his own benefit.

This time it is not say North versus South…..but rather an internal issue that has “crony capitalism” written all over it.

Source: Carpetbagging ‘Crony Capitalism’ in Ukraine | Consortiumnews

Is it too late to solve the mess in the Middle East? – The Washington Post

How much can happen in one region at a time?

We have a downed Russian plane, a civil war, refugees flooding across the area, Turkey, Russia, US, France, UK and God knows how many others…..all this chaos can be traced back a century ago…..the Middle East is a mess and only some diety could possibly answer the question as to what the answer will be.

This is a piece I found in the WaPo…..to be honest I do not trust their reporting on the Middle East but this article answers the question……there is so much happening in the region and so many opinions….if we are to understand what is happening then we need to hear from all sides in this dance…..

I worry that my granddaughter’s children will grow up wondering about the same war that she asks questions about…….kinda sounds like another 100 Years War in the making…..

Source: Is it too late to solve the mess in the Middle East? – The Washington Post