Day: January 4, 2016

Middle East: How Ugly Is Ugly?

My first day of lectures has ended….may I say I have my work cut out for me….it is amazing what people do not know…..

By now there is no one in this world that does not know of the problems in the Middle East…..with the possible exception of 18-22 year olds……

We have Syria, Iraq as the center of some of the problems….then we have Saudi’s attacks on Yemen…..and we have that darn pesky Israel/Palestine thing that has been on-going for 40+ years…..and all the while there is massive amounts of rhetoric being batted around….about Lebanon, Turkey…just to mention a few……..

Sunni Saudis have been in a battle of words with Shia Iran for centuries it has just gotten louder since the 2003 invasion of Iraq……but all that bad mouthing of each other is about to come to a head because Saudi Arabia in its desire to punish people by beheading them has committed an act that will most likely boil this pot……

Saudi Arabia is severing diplomatic ties with Iran amid spiking tensions over the execution of a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric. Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said late Sunday evening that Iranian diplomatic personnel had 48 hours to leave the country and all Saudi diplomatic personnel in Iran were being recalled home. Demonstrators in Tehran broke into the Saudi Embassy early Sunday morning to protest the execution of Shiekh Nimr al-Nimr, a leader of the country’s Shiite minority. Iranian officials harshly condemned the execution, with Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying that Saudi Arabia would face “divine revenge.”

Earlier, the US State Department called on the Iranian government to protect the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and on both Saudi Arabia and Iran to avoid escalating regional Sunni-Shiite tensions. And Hassan Nasralla, leader of Hezbollah, strongly condemned Saudi Arabia for executing al-Nimr. The ultraconservative Sunni kingdom and Shiite powerhouse Iran have waged a bitter struggle for regional power for years. The two countries each back opposing sides in civil wars in Yemen and in Syria.

Life in the Middle East is about to become more dangerous than before….and you thought that was not possible……

If the Middle East were a game of “Risk” then the Shia seem to be getting the upper hand……as this ‘toon illustrates….

Embedded image permalink

It looks like 2016 is about to get uglier than 2015…..is that possible?

Class One: The Education Begins

Bummer!  What was going to be a 6 week course has been condensed to 4 weeks….so now I have to adjust the lesson plan….talk about a headache……

I thought I would share with my readers the course that I am teaching……with the hopes that a little better understanding can be found.  I will not delude myself that everyone will want to learn…..but I do think that if you would like to offer an opinion then maybe a little knowledge would assist one in their opinion forming process.

 

History Of Modern Middle East

Introduction:

This study is the Middle East from the end of World War One (1917) to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Many events have happened in the region that have influenced everything that you think you know about the region.

Course Outline:

Section One:

Part One:  The Beginning

The WW1 ends…..players line up to get a piece of the crumbling Ottoman Empire…….contributions of the Arabs in the war……

Part Two:  Countries Emerge

The Balfour Declaration…..promises made by the British government to the Zionists (Jews) pertaining to the area known as Palestine.  Dissertation and discussion…….

Sykes-Picot Agreement…..the French and British governments met to divide the Middle East of the dead Ottoman Empire among themselves……..breaking all promises made by Britain to the Arab tribes that fought the Turks.  Dissertation and discussion.

Crane Commission…..American attempt to look relevant after the war by pushing the concept of “self-determination” for the people of the Middle East.  Dissertation and discussion.

People of interest:

T E Lawrence……Gertrude Bell…..Allenby…..Prince Faisal

Round-up of the events that began the problems of the modern Middle East……

Test….review events and situations at the close of hostilities of World War One.

Handouts Include….maps, timeline and suggested reading……

 

Just thought I would let my readers see what fresh Hell any student will face….now I wait to see if students want to learn or just think they know everything there is about the Middle East…..

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho….it is off to school I go…….

Off I go to torture eager young minds with stuff that will make it explode…..wish them luck…..for I have NO time for mindless prattle….

I will report back on how the course goes…….I’m thinking not smoothly…..

 

Trump, The Video Star

Think back to last year….cannot be that hard it was 5 days ago……the last Dem debate of the year and our lady of the web, Clinton, made her now famous or maybe infamous (that will depend on your political persuasion I guess) statement about Mr. Trump…..Hillary Clinton Says Trump Is ‘Becoming ISIS’s Best Recruiter’

And that lead to a firestorm of accusations and rebuttals from the Trump side of this silly little coin……Trump Calls Clinton a ‘Liar’ Over Video Claim

All this drama did was give the fact checkers something to do and the media had their story for the next couple of days…..

Can you remember this or did all that turkey go to your brain instead of your ass?

Anyway the fact checkers pointed out that Clinton’s accusation was a…well I should I put it?  A lie.  Trump is not being used as a recruitment tool…..But then over the holiday break we had a oops moment……

Donald Trump’s call for a “complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the US has made it into a jihadist recruitment video. The video released Friday by Somalian al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab focuses on racial issues in the US and features video of Trump’s speech sandwiched between old clips of militant leader Anwar al-Awlaki warning that the US would turn against its Muslim citizens, reports Reuters. “Yesterday, America was a land of slavery, segregation, lynching, and Ku Klux Klan, and tomorrow, it will be a land of religious discrimination and concentration camps,” says al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen.

The video, which cites recent police shootings in the US, urges African-Americans to convert to Islam and fight either overseas or at home, reports the New York Times, which notes that this appears to be the first time Trump has featured in a militant video, despite what Hillary Clinton claimed during a debate last month. ISIS and al-Qaeda are rivals, but the recruitment video linked to the latter group has been gaining traction among ISIS-linked groups online, CBS reports.

To be fair…..Trump is not the only focus of this video…..

Clinton, while telling a lie has become prophetic….sadly it was only going to be a matter of time before Trump’s words showed up somewhere on the net to incite others…..

I know that many Americans are worried about the future and for our nation…….I personally think that making Americans fear, distrust and yes hate our neighbors is not the way to insure our safety…..

Source: Trump Makes America Hate, Not Great – LA Progressive

All this rhetoric is nothing new…..it was heard about the Italians, Irish, Chinese, Germans, Cubans, Haitians and Vietnamese…..we are better than this division that is occurring….I just hope that we wake up and realize what we are doing before it is too late and the damage is done……..

Open letter to the future ISIL recruit

I begin my “normal” writing schedule for a new year……

I read this letter over the holiday break…..this is NOT a recruitment letter…..let’s get that out of the way before some person who does not read the whole post before jumping into the debate…..

It is a letter written by a journalist to anyone thinking about a life as an ISIS fighter……it is well written and conveys many of the ideas that most Muslims want to say to these people…..

The urge is to become a hero that shakes the world, in fame and glory, which is not necessarily a religious passion.

Source: Open letter to the future ISIL recruit – Al Jazeera English