Month: October 2016

UN, A Paralyzed Institution

Not many Americans have anything nice to say about the UN……and most of the opinions are based on crap thinking…..I have written about what I see as wrong with the UN and its place in the world.

As an introduction here is my op-ed from a year ago……

Since I can remember conservs have hated the United Nations…….and they will go on and on about this failure or that……got me to thinking why do so many absolutely hate the UN?

I guess most of it is a monetary thing…….Best Answer:  Most Americans hate it, because we pay the majority of its bills, provide the bulk of its military power and yet are almost universally hated by the very people we try to help…….

Source: Why Hate The United Nations (UN)? – In Saner Thought

I have a friend in Russia that is a Middle East analyst like myself and she has written a great piece about the UN’s problems……

Maria Dubovikova, president of the International Middle Eastern Studies Club

A leading Russian political analyst specializing in Middle Eastern affairs has described the United Nations Security Council as a talk shop that has become a battleground where global powers indulge in mutual recriminations.

Speaking to Arab News from Moscow on Sunday, Maria Dubovikova, president of the International Middle Eastern Studies Club (IMESClub), said: “Saturday’s vote at the Security Council has shown that the Council is in total paralysis. It is totally outdated. It has become a playing field for global powers who are interested only in flexing their muscles. It is a place where mutual recriminations are exchanged. It has been reduced to being a place where countries fight only for their national interests.”

Source: Russian-Arab affairs analyst slams UN’s ‘total paralysis’ over Syria – The Muslim Times

She promotes the interests of Saudi Arabia…..a position that is not to my liking….but even though we disagree on this we agree on the UN and the fact that one country can paralyze the institution to the point of being ineffectual.

I have said many times….after 70 years it is time for NO one country with veto power in the Security Council…..you want the UN to work then eliminate that one power…

Ever Read Tolstoy?

Don’t fret this is not some post on Russian lit per se……although it does help me make a point on foreign policy…..you know that subject that the candidates want to avoid speaking on while on meets and greets.

Have you ever read the novel, War and Peace?  How about Anna Karenina?  Both were written by Russian Leo Tolstoy and as usual they are long winded and detailed……I bring this up because these days there seems to be a certain sector of our society that seems hell bent on a confrontation with Russia.

Tolstoy wrote about this…the rush to war….so to speak……

I recently read a piece that makes the comparison….an excellent piece and very thought provoking…..well at least to me……for I spend a lot of time researching conflicts….causes and effects……

Rushing to war – justified by half-truths and propaganda – is a story as old as written history and the topic of great novelists like Leo Tolstoy, whose Anna Karenina offers lessons for today’s stampede toward WWIII,

Russian literature is too important to be left to professors of Comp Lit or to Slavic Departments at our universities, as is so often the case with the novel that I propose to examine here, Leo Tolstoy’s, Anna Karenina. Great literature is great precisely because of its multi-layered construction and the timelessness of the issues and considerations that constitute its substance.

Like War and Peace, Karenina has been the subject of many films going back to 1911, running through the 1930s with two classic versions featuring the legendary Greta Garbo and right up to time present and the widely discussed version released in 2012.

The novel has a core triangle, the relations between the heroine, her unloved and unloving husband who is 20 years her senior, Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, and her lover, Prince Alexei Vronsky, for whom she gives up everything but does not find happiness or inner peace, seeing instead that her only way out is suicide. It is about love and passion, about the basic building block of all societies, the family.

Source: Applying Tolstoy to Today’s Rush to War – Consortiumnews

The books need to be on your bucket list…they are well worth the time it takes to read them….again maybe that is just me.

Compare The Candidates

Are you voting this November?  Of course you are.  Which one of the candidates will you place your trust in?

Less than 3 weeks until the fateful day……time to get serious about who you will trust with this country’s leadership…..

Do you know anything about your candidate beyond the crap you read on Breitbart or FOX or WaPo?

Well, I do visit a lot of political blogs and from what I read the only thing most know about their candidate is what is in the news for that day….or the endless gossip.

People that is NOT the way to pick a president, the leader of the free world.

This is a pretty good comparison piece that should help my reader that is not sure about the policies and the issues of the candidates….the article has comparisons of the VPs as well as the two alternative candidates…..

Foreign policy is central to the 2016 election. CFR’s essential guide offers nonpartisan analysis of the candidates’ positions on a range of issues.

Source: Compare Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Foreign Policy

I hope that you are not so closed minded that you cannot learn something from this comparisons……

Iraq: Battle For Mosul Update

The battle to take back Mosul from ISIS has begun and the story is that it will be the Iraqis in the lead and in the fighting….

Really?

“No boots on the ground” has evolved into over 6,000 US troops in Iraq, and pledges that they would play no combat role in the war against ISIS has now given way to US ground troops being deployed on the front lines in Iraq’s largest invasion to date, the ongoing attack on the massive city of Mosul.

The troops are special forces who are being used as “forward air controllers,” and are meant primarily to do targeting for US warplanes that are constantly pounding the city from above. Officially, these troops are still being classified as “non-combat.”

Pentagon officials later insisted that “most” of the troops in Iraq, which again is over 6,000 of them, aren’t on the front lines in Mosul. The ones that are, however, seem like they’ll inevitably end up participating in combat, whether they’re classified that way or not.

Now for the update on the Iraqi situation……

Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced the launch of operations to retake Ninewa Province and Mosul from ISIS at dawn on October 17. PM Abadi named Deputy Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Abdul al-Amir Jarallah as commander of the operation. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Peshmerga began offensives on the Khazar-Gwer axis, southeast of Mosul, and moved north from the Qayyarah airbase, retaking several villages. ISIS offered minimal resistance to the joint forces’ advance and may elect to withdraw the bulk of its forces to Mosul to await the city offensive.
Security forces over the past several weeks have moved into position to begin a multi-axis offensive to encircle the city. Units from Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) and Iraqi Army moved to locations in Kurdish-held territory north and northeast of the city, where they have begun to work in parallel with Peshmerga forces around Khazar and Gwer. Units from the Peshmerga affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) also moved into primarily Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) terrain around Khazar. Coordination between the KDP and PUK Peshmerga is rare and was likely the result of a still undisclosed agreement. Shi’a militias, including Iranian-backed groups, have deployed into the vicinity, primarily around Qayyarah and Shirqat, where they will likely shadow militia-friendly ISF units northwards. Turkey also responded to the launch of the Mosul operation, moving military forces along the Iraqi border as Turkish President Recep Erdogan maintained Turkey’s right to intervene in Iraq. Coordination between forces in Iraq remains high, although complications may ensue as these forces near the city itself and prospects for Mosul’s post-ISIS administration become more immediate.
Mosul will be a tough nut to crack, at least that is the feeling among those fighting this battle……
Iraqi and regional actors are preparing to assist with or spoil the Iraqi Security Forces’ (ISF) operation to retake Mosul and its environs from ISIS. Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced the start of operations to retake the city on October 17. The ISF began shelling ISIS-held villages south of Mosul, Iraqi Army armored units and Federal Police advanced towards Mosul near Gwer, southeast of Mosul, and Peshmerga units began advancing towards Mosul from Khazar, east of Mosul. The ISF’s operation against ISIS will require security forces to isolate Mosul before it can begin a block-by-block clearing operation in the city itself. The ISF recaptured Shirqat, the last major ISIS-held city on the Mosul-Baghdad highway, on September 22, thereby setting the operational conditions to launch operations for Mosul. The ISF will need to continue its line of effort up the highway while also encircling the city from the north and northeast. ISIS will seek to conduct attrition warfare against the ISF before it arrives in Mosul, leveraging its remaining lines of communication in Anbar, Ninewa, and Syria to shift people and supplies. ISIS will also use the sparsely populated areas on both the eastern and western sides of the Tigris River to launch attacks against recaptured areas and the ISF.
Will a win in Mosul be all that they want?
The fight to liberate Mosul has begun. In fact, it began with a new round of U.S.-led air strikes before the Iraqi announcement that the various elements of Iraqi ground forces were ready to engage. It will be one of the most critical elements of the U.S. military effort to defeat terrorism and violent Islamist extremism, as well as help determine the success of future U.S. efforts to bring some elements of stability to an increasingly more unstable Middle East.
There are so many outcomes to this that not all will be good for the US and its allies…..

2016: The “Fix” Is In

For at least a couple of months Trump has been ripping society that the election will be rigged against him….

Looks like Donald Trump did not sleep well Friday night: He spent Saturday morning firing off a series of tweets claiming that the election is rigged, which the AP calls an “unprecedented assertion in a country with a history of peaceful democratic transition.” “Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail,” he said in one tweet. “Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election.” In another, he slammed the media for “poisoning the minds” of American voters with what he calls “100% fabricated and made-up charges” of sexual misconduct. A round-up of coverage:

  • The Washington Post reports that Trump physically dismantled one teleprompter and knocked another one down after they stopped working during a speech in Charlotte, NC Friday night. He told the audience he preferred it without teleprompters and went on to hopscotch through dozens of topics in front of an enthusiastic crowd. At an earlier rally in Greensboro, he denounced two of the women who have accused him of sexual misbehavior, saying one of them “would not be my first choice.”
  • Mashable reports that Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times over its story on two of the accusers, and such a suit could be a bonanza for the NYT. Trump would be the subject of a deposition and the paper’s lawyers would be allowed to probe the histories of family members and other Trump associates, opening what “Columbia School of Journalism professor Stuart Karle calls a “rich vein of yuck about Donald Trump.”
  • Clinton’s campaign has also hit out the media, accusing it of failing to treat leaked campaign emails as a national security issue, the Hill reports. On Friday, the campaign also slammed WikiLeaks, the Russian government, and Trump, who they accuse of encouraging the hackers.
  • Reuters reports that Trump rallies have become more emotional than ever, with the crowds “more protective of their hero.” At the Greensboro rally, a man in a “Gays for Trump” shirt punched a protester who was holding an American flag upside down.
  • The Burlington Free Press speaks to ski maker Cyrus Schenck, who has introduced limited edition skis with Trump on the right and Clinton is on the left. The ornate design contains all the references to the “indiscretions, faults, and weaknesses of the candidates” that the artist could squeeze in.
  • The New York Times stopped by Tommy’s Diner in Columbus, Ohio and found that voters in the swing state’s capital are sick of this election and don’t much care for either candidate. Many are considering not voting, which polls say is a statewide trend.

Trump is calling for poll watchers to be sure that all is on the up and up….I do not have a problem with this idea unless these “watchers” start trying to intimidate the voter…then that is unacceptable.

If he truly believes that there will be some sort of cheating then I say bring in a neutral group to watch the polls…those that will not have a pony in the race.

His chest thumping about the “rigged” election has been getting louder and louder with each passing day….to the point that the GOP has become nervous and weighed in on the accusation…..

With Election Day looming, some GOP leaders and officials are speaking out in defense of the election system itself instead of their party’s candidate. Jon Husted, Ohio’s secretary of state, is among those pushing back against Donald Trump’s “irresponsible” claims that the election is rigged, the New York Times reports. “We have made it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Husted says. “We are going to run a good, clean election in Ohio, like we always do.” A GOP election attorney echoes the concerns of civil rights groups, saying Trump’s rigging accusations and calls for supporters to monitor polling places could destabilize the election, “which is very, very dangerous.” A roundup of coverage:

  • Politico reports that “many Democrats and Republicans” fear if Trump loses the election, he will keep on holding rallies and denouncing the election as rigged. “If he never calls to concede, he’ll go down as one of the sorest of sore losers,” says Ari Fleischer, who worked on George W. Bush’s campaign in 2000 and says Al Gore “graciously accepted” defeat. Fleischer says it will be “destructive and corrosive” if Trump ends up fighting the election’s outcome, causing his followers to question the legitimacy of the government.
  • “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” House Speaker Paul Ryan says, per Reuters, while Mike Pence says, “We will absolutely accept the result of the election.”
  • Trump stepped his claims up a notch Sunday, tweeting that the election will be rigged not just by the “dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary,” but at many polling places as well.
  • The Hill looks at how the Trump campaign has narrowed its focus to four states as its path to 270 electoral votes becomes trickier. Voters in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania can expect to see a lot more of Trump in the weeks to come.
  • Hillary Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, is trying to decide whether to spend resources in trying to turn states like Arizona and Georgia into battleground states or securing resounding victories in states like Pennsylvania, according to the Washington Post. Trump campaign reps, meanwhile, insist that the race is more competitive than current polls suggest—and that Clinton could pay a price for overconfidence.
  • Early voting patterns suggest that Clinton is on course for wins in states like North Carolina—but could struggle in Midwestern states Obama won in 2008 and 2012, including Wisconsin and Iowa. “We are in bizarro world,” Michael McDonald of the United States Elections Project tells Politico. “We’ve got non-uniform movement here in the country. Dare I say a realignment?”
  • Jay Caruso at RedState.com calls Trump’s rhetoric a “dangerous game,” saying that to prevent violence, he “has an obligation to recognize an election loss is not the result of some kind of massive plot against him.”
  • The AP rates the states and finds that there are enough in the “Solidly Democratic” or “Leaning Democratic” columns to give Clinton the win if she can hang on to her current leads. Utah has shifted from “Leaning Republican” to “Toss-Up.”

Appears this election will be anything but boring…….

And that’s the name of that tune!

The Disuniting States Of America

There has been lots of talk lately about the problems that the GOP is having……should they stand with Trump or should they try and salvage the party from collapse…..

After the last election the GOP did an autopsy on the party……and they did not take their own advice from the findings…..and because they were so arrogant the party is suffering badly in this election……

The Federalist’s Ben Domenech says if Trump loses, don’t look for major changes at the top of the GOP.

Excerpts:It’s notable that all the voices calling for a grand post-Trump reunification

Source: The Disuniting States Of America | The American Conservative

Of course some are blaming Trump for all the problems the party is suffering….but to me Mr. Trump is a creation that they made possible because they would not do the things necessary to prolong the life of the GOP……

And yet there are those that are still in denial…..there are those that still scratch their heads and wonder where the party went wrong……

The 2016 election campaign has left the victims of global capitalism behind.

On one side is Hillary Clinton, the quintessential representative of the financial and political elites, who was temporarily forced into adopting a progressive populist message by her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders.  On the other side, there is Donald Trump; a narcissistic con man who was born on third base and insists he hit a home run.  By the dictionary definition, I believe Mr. Trump is a sociopath, having no moral judgment, and no ability to empathize or put events into perspective.  Mr. Trump’s condition is serious, however, I don’t think it is rare.

In fact, Mr. Trump’s life of dubious financial dealings is a metaphor for how our unregulated capitalist system has evolved.  Success is only measured in terms of accumulated wealth.  Executives of large companies are compensated based solely on short-term returns to investors, resulting in cutthroat financial dealings and accounting gamesmanship.  Decisions are made in remote boardrooms with no consideration of their social impact.

Source: The Origin of the Trump Species

The only question to ask is……will a new GOP do what is necessary to save their party?  Or will it just continue down the road to decline?

My guess is with the election results….it could be a huge slap in the face.

A Westphalian Peace for the Middle East

Once again I am about to let fly my now famous historical perspectives….

I think we all can agree that the Middle East as it is today is a mess…….as I student of conflicts I am always looking for a possible way to end all these hostilities and bring some sort of peacefulness to the region.

What sort of peace could there possibly be and then I thought about the Westphalian Peace Treaty……it ended the 30 years war……

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) began when Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II of Bohemia attempted to curtail the religious activities of his subjects, sparking rebellion among Protestants. The war came to involve the major powers of Europe, with Sweden, France, Spain and Austria all waging campaigns primarily on German soil. Known in part for the atrocities committed by mercenary soldiers, the war ended with a series of treaties that made up the Peace of Westphalia. The fallout reshaped the religious and political map of central Europe, setting the stage for the old centralized Roman Catholic empire to give way to a community of sovereign states.

Why the Peace of Westphalia, which helped end a series of bloody wars in seventeenth century Europe, could work for the Middle East today.

Between 1618 and 1648, central Europe, and the Holy Roman Empire in particular, was devastated by a series of conflicts that were caused by competing visions of political order, great power, and dynastic rivalries, and that were exacerbated by religious differences. This soon came to be called the Thirty Years’ War. But the Peace of Westphalia, which successfully ended the German phase of the conflict, has been much misunderstood.

The 1648 settlement is widely thought to have inaugurated a modern system of sovereign independent nation-states in Europe (often referred to as the Westphalian system). And, as the argument goes, when that concept was later applied to the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it actually contributed to much of the region’s current dysfunction. But in reality, the Westphalia settlement did something quite different from what has been commonly thought. It set up a system of limited sovereignty for the numerous states of the Holy Roman Empire (formally known as imperial estates, which were the component territories of the empire, ruled by princes or city councils). It also created legal mechanisms for settling disputes and offered mutual guarantees for upholding the treaty’s terms, which taken altogether, formed a system of collective security.

Source: A Westphalian Peace for the Middle East | Foreign Affairs

Apparently what the world is doing these days will never lead to a peaceful conclusion of the violence and destruction.

Why not take some time and use a previous agreement as a template that could lead to an end to this deadly games?

Iraq: And So It Begins

The war in Iraq has not been in the headlines later even though about a 100 people a day die….the media rather play on an endless loop the gossip coming out of both sides of the election…..mind numbing bullshit!

The breaking news is that after months of promising that the final push for Mosul would take place…..it actually began this morning….

Iraqi Prime Minister Hayder Abadi has announced the beginning of the nation’s invasion of the city of Mosul today, the largest city held by ISIS, which ISIS forces have held for over two years. The invasion had been expected for some time, and Abadi had indicated the announcement was imminent just two days prior.

Iraqi planes have been dropping leaflets on the city over the past few days as well, advising locals the invasion was to begin soon, and telling them to remain in doors. The early offensive appears to be centered around US shelling of the city.

The battle includes many diverse factions in the fight against ISIS….and that could be a bad thing…..depending on how the battle fairs……

Source: What is the battle for Mosul?Everything you need to know about the fight to liberate Isil’s last bastion of power in Iraq

These diverse groups could quickly create problems in the invasion, as the Shi’ite militias were hugely problematic in previous invasions of Sunni cities, and the Peshmerga has been annexing most of the territory its gained recently, leading Abadi to warn that the Mosul border cannot be changed by this battle.

Also looming over the invasion is the question of Turkish military forces nearby, as the Turkish government has insisted it will play a role in the invasion, but has been warned against involvement by the Iraqi military, who says they aren’t welcome in Iraq to begin with.

Many are predicting that ISIS will be defeated in Mosul and they will fall back to Raqaa in Syria….possibly for their last stand…..

Along those lines I read a post that touches on the possibility…..

Last Friday, while most of the US media was myopically focused on the collapse of Donald “Genitalia-Grabbing” Trump’s campaign, there was, in fact, other news happening. With all the current talk about fights for survival and battleground states, it’s easy to forget that a very genuine war is being fought.

And what happens in the battle for the capital of the Islamic State may have a profound effect on what happens next month in the US elections.

ISIS’ Armageddon in Dabiq

At the end of last week, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters scored a major and perhaps a decisive victory against the terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, otherwise known as ISIL or Daesh: the liberation of the strongholds of Dabiq and Soran. 

Source: Could We Soon Be Witnessing the Fall of ISIL? | Nomadic Politics

I realize that the accusations and gossip flowing from the mouths of idiots is far more important than this bit of news…..but you might want to keep an eye on this situation…..why?  There are so many diverse directions it could go and so many results that it bears attention.  Plus 5000+ US soldiers are in country……how will they fair?

Is There An Anti-Trump Media Conspiracy?

I good friend of IST and a supporter of Trump has been writing for awhile about the possibility of the election may be “stolen” from Trump.  He also has been saying that the Lamestream Media, as he calls it, has a decidedly anti-Trump bias….I can see where he could think that, after all he is a Trump supporter and his candidate has had a couple of really shitty weeks…..beyond that I can see where that sort of thinking can come from……

Right now his problems are all “he said, she said”…..and I have a problem with that no matter which side is uttering it.

I also read The American Conservative (is anyone shocked?)….and a recent article in the magazine has asked this very question……

Mollie Hemingway is no fan of Donald Trump. She says he deserves the public roasting that he’s getting for his lecherous behavior. But she finds it more than a little suspicious that despite Trump’s known reputation as an alpha male sexual aggressor, the news media didn’t manage to turn up any of this stuff until right here in the final weeks of the election.

Source: Is There An Anti-Trump Media Conspiracy? | The American Conservative

Regardless of your opinion of the candidate….do you think that the media has an anti-Trump bias?

The Man Who Could Be President

And NO!  This is not a post about Trump and his outside chance of becoming the president of the United States……something even more creepy.

As the election creeps up there are always some interesting stories that need to be read……

Surprise quiz!

Ever hear of Evan McMullin?

NO?

He is an independent candidate for president from the great state of Utah.

Why is his name coming up?

It may sound nuts, but an analysis at FiveThirtyEight lays out the longshot scenario of how the nation’s next president could be … Evan McMullin. As Benjamin Morris writes, the chances of the independent candidate claiming the White House “are slim, not none.” And it’s all about Utah: A traditional Mormon conservative, McMullin has positioned himself as an alternative to Trump—and that may be a winning strategy in his home state, where Trump has acknowledged a “tremendous problem” rallying support, per the Deseret News. If McMullin snatches Utah’s six electoral votes, he could prevent any candidate from collecting the 270 electoral votes required to win. In that situation, the election would be decided in Congress, opening up the chance for McMullin.

With many House Republicans turning their back on Trump of late, it’s possible they’d choose McMullin over the man atop their party’s ticket. (Morris lays out in detail the convoluted process in the House and Senate that could conceivably put him over the top.) You’d be forgiven for not recognizing the name—only 52% of Utahans know who McMullin is, based on a recent state poll. (The former CIA officer’s bio is here.) Still, McMullin was polling at 22% in the state—ahead of Gary Johnson and trailing the deadlocked Clinton and Trump by just four percentage points. With residents in what one BYU professor describes as a “full-scale revolt” against Trump, there’s a real possibility McMullin can take the state, especially if he secures Mitt Romney’s endorsement. Read the full analysis here.

I know…this is a long shot….but still fun to contemplate…..but win the election?

…….(Smiles and exits stage right)……..