Donald Trump’s Kurd decision

kurds 1

A Seminal Event: (Defined as an event that will strongly influence what comes after), It revealed: The Need for a New American Formula

The time has come for serious introspection in America. The Nation is locked in a race between self-discovery and self-destruction. It is losing that race. It needs to recognize that the present equation does not equate. It is off-balance. America needs to reformulate a new equation. More wars based on the old equation will not do. Unfettered release of the human psyche as we now see in the current political scene will not do.

The recent American withdrawal from northern Syria and then Kurdish retreat there is exposing a deep seated American formulaic weakness that raises many troubling questions. An analysis of American involvement in the Middle East from 1948 onward can give us a clue as to underlying elements. Following is this analysis beginning with post-World War II.

First we have Truman’s Israel decision followed by the UN decision to grant Israel statehood. It is difficult to pass judgement on this. Secretary of State General George Marshall strongly opposed it for two reasons; oil and Arab hostility. Had the decision gone Marshall’s way, there is the question: Would Muslim attitude toward the West in the area be different than it is today? The answer is most likely not. The reason: There is no evidence to suggest that the genesis of The Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaida or of ISIS/Daesh was the result of Israel statehood. Yes Muslims believe all of their land is Holy and once occupied, it can never be returned. But that belief has both a strong and weak foundation; also it is specifically geographic. So it can be concluded that Israel statehood has not been positive for the West, but is not at the core of the problem. What is at the core is the conflict between Western Civilization and Islam. The following recorded statement from Osama bin-Laden to the American people after 9/11 says it all:

Indeed, I’m a trustworthy adviser to you. I invite you to the happiness of this world and the hereafter and to escape your dry, miserable, materialistic life that is without soul. I invite you to Islam, that calls to follow of the path of Allah alone who has no partners, the path which calls for justice and forbids oppression and crimes.”

There were significant events with ongoing repercussions to this day well before 9/11. The focus here will be on recent history.  Here is a summary:

Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers in August of 1953 deposed Prime Minister Mossadegh the elected Prime Minister of Iran and installed Mohammad Reza Shah under the pretext of “containment” of the Soviet Union. They did not understand that Mossadegh was no Soviet stooge. He was about to bring a form of Scandinavian Social Democracy to the country and also nationalize the exploitive British oil interests. The Shah then brutalized the Iranian people with his SAVAK police forces. That brutality empowered a revolution, (January 1978 – February 1979) and the deposing of the Shah who with his family fled the country. It led to the return from exile of Ayatollah Khomeini, a reversion in Iran to Shia fundamentalism and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard as protector. ’

As an aside to this Middle Eastern failure we have Kennedy’s failed Cuba invasion along with Johnson’s Vietnam escalation. Over 58,000 American soldiers; more than 200,000 South Vietnamese and more than one million North Vietnamese and Vietcong fighters died.

Then during Reagan’s 8 years in power the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid through Pakistani to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan.The Wahhabi Saudi’s assisted by building Wahhabi madrasas in Pakistan. These madrasas as the Americans and Europeans later found in their own countries when the Saudis built them there became factories cranking out jihadi conscripts who became the backbone of violence throughout the world.

Reagan also armed Saddam Hussein to fight Iran in an eight year war and gave him satellite imagery to improve his use of WMD’s and employ poison sarin gas, a lethal nerve agent. It has been estimated one million Iranians died in that war.

It gets worse. Evangelical Christian W. Bush defeats Al Gore in the contested 2000 election. (Without the exiled Miami Cuban vote Bush would have lost the election) Then we have 9/11. In response Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney retaliate with the disastrous Iraq invasion. After the adventure, Bush has the newly appointed American Ambassador to Iraq Paul Bremer disenfranchise all the military and other government Baathists (The elite) in the country with his de-Baathification law based on a foolish analogy to post World War II Nazi party elimination in Germany. Some Baathists are sent to Abu Ghraib Prison (many brutally tortured) which becomes the genesis and finishing school of the ISIS/Daesh that followed. It gives an opening for ISIS/Daesh in Iraq and Syria where none  had before existed.

Then it continues to get worse with the W. Bush/Condoleezza Rice Arab Spring. (she was described as W. Bushes’ “Warrior Princess”) As a first try she chooses Gaza. She and the President reasoned that America could solve all the problems in the Middle East simply by bringing American style Democracy to the region. Much to the regret of the Israelis today, the then Israeli government complied. This spawned Hamas, (an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood) a violent Islamic resistance movement of Palestinian SunniIslamic fundamentalists.

As for Barack Obama, the next US President, American style Democracy in the region still seemed to make sense. He encouraged an “Arab Spring” in Egypt, Syria and Libya. Today we are all witness to those failures. Only Egypt was able to recover.

As Syria began to turn into chaos, Obama then followed through with the myth of a Free Syrian Army ready and able to take down Bashar al-Assad. That “Free Syrian Army” faded away as a total failure.

(Note on Syria)

A word on the current Syrian situation can give us some insights into Middle Eastern complexity today. The thought of a transitional unified post Bashar al-Assad government in Syria has always been fanciful. Psychotic power hungry Sunni individuals like deceased rebel leader Zahran Alloush once in power would set out to crush every last Alawite. Sunnis consider Alawites illegitimate, oppressive, anti-Islamic, secular, wine drinking, women unveiled “Infidels”. Faction by faction area by area city by city radical power hungry clannist Islamists would then by their very nature turn on each other.

Religiously; al-Assad’s Alawites are Shia/Mystic with a touch of Christianity. Contacts with the Byzantines and Crusaders early on added later Roman Christian elements to their Islamic belief They even have their own Triune God story. They were given control of the country by the French after World War I. Then over the years they solidified that control through key government posts, the military, and access to the limited natural resources. The Sunnis remained agrarian.

Now to the core of the Syrian problem: Over the years the non-Alawite Syrians grew from just a few million to over 24 million today. Then as the semi dry land of their forefathers became unable to support them, many gravitated to the cities. As a result Alawites today at 4.3 million plus are only a fraction of the total population. The non-Alawite Sunnis were all lumped together by the Obama Administration as “opposition fighters.” He called them the “Free Syrian Army.” He did not understand that there is a very complex side to this conflict.

This discussion has so far centered on the failures of US intervention in the Middle East. There is a second part of the equation that must be understood. It is the exponential population growth throughout the Middle East based on the Islamic mandate to multiply. Families with six to eight children are common. The Alan Kurdi story is an example. His grandparents sired 6 who sired 24.

As population in the Middle East continues to expand and oil revenues throughout the region decline, at some point there will be social turmoil among the disenfranchised far beyond what we now see. Islamic terrorism will be on the rise. Millions of Muslims will be forced to flee. Tens of millions will seek asylum in the West. They will be blocked from entering at the borders.

Now to return to the continuing American dysfunction:

In 2016 Republicans in the US congress attempted to kill the Iran Nuclear Agreement. It should be noted that many of them were members of fundamentalist Apocalypse believing Christian Churches who hold firmly to the conviction that the end of times is soon to begin in Jerusalem. They were joined by an assortment of members of the American Jewish community hostile to Iranian influence.

Nuclear physicists, military officials, non-proliferation experts, and more than 100 countries across the globe all voiced their support for the Agreement as the best solution available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

There was no concern by the opponents of the Agreement over the horrific reality that if the Iranians continued with their program, the Sunni Saudis would bring nuclear weapons in from their friendly Sunni Salafi/Wahhabi neighbor Pakistan. Then there would be a Middle Eastern nuclear escalation; Sunni vs Shia vs Israel.

The American problem has in the past and continues to be the government and the public inability to understand the historical/religious complexity of the Middle East and the limitations of American military power and diplomatic influence there. As for the American public: The Wahhabi-Salafi-Takfiri cult; what’s that?  Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahiri; who are they? Salafi Wahhabis, what’s that? Most Americans conclude: Just send over more of our troops to clean the place up. Then bring our heroes home.

And as for those American heroes: There is no comprehension that since 2001 (according to the Department of Veteran Affairs) of at least 2.5 million members of the American armed forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, among returnees, between 11 and 20 percent are estimated in any given year to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. (PTSD)

As all of this is taking place, most Americans are happy just listening to Fox News or CNN Wolf Blitzer; and for some even Rush Limbaugh. Some find their understanding each week in their evangelical Christian church. Some believe that God and his choice of US President Donald Trump will move it all in HIS divine direction.

America has an even greater problem beyond this dysfunction. Money now buys “free speech.” Wasn’t it Joseph Goebbels who said that if you keep repeating a lie, eventually people will believe it? Most of the American media understands this all too well and is intent on making revenues based on the public’s extreme bias and shallow thought.

To understand the challenge facing the American nation, using the analogy of an equation can be helpful. On the one side there is a force; powered by dangerous psychotic internals buried in the Homo sapiens brain and there regardless of race, religion, class. It is all powerful. It can be described with the common words: psychotic, neurotic, self-hatred, self-interest: competitive, aggressive, selfish, deceptive, mean spirited, ego centric, violent, jealous, possessive, power hungry, narcissistic.

On the other side of the equation we have the vision of an idealistic world; a cooperative peaceful state of selflessness innocence. Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14) told his followers: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.” From the time of its founding, America was to be that light and that city on the hill.

Unfortunately this is not the way it all turned out. Today, America has become a city of the psychotic, the neurotic; a city of self-hatred, self-interest, a city of many competitive, aggressive, selfish, deceptive, mean spirited, ego centric, violent, jealous, possessive, power hungry, narcissistic individuals.

The time has come for serious introspection in America. The Nation is locked in a race between self-discovery and self-destruction. It is losing that race. It needs to recognize that the present equation does not equate. It is off-balance. America needs to reformulate a new equation. More wars based on the old equation will not do. Unfettered release of the human psyche as we now see in the current political scene will not do.

David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics. He has written four books. The fourth is about a necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival.

See:   http://www.inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html


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