Is Paris Burning? Part 2

Before I continue with history, I must comment on the Presidential news conference I just saw. The definition of insanity, someone once said, is to continue doing the same thing and expect different results. Yet, that is Obama's plan. I will return to this lunacy later.

After WW2, Israel was created out of Palestine and the seeds of our current series of disasters were sown. To keep things brief, just know that wars were fought with their neighbors and refugees flooded Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. The Palestinians who did not leave were finally shoved into tiny areas and Israel has been squeezing them tighter and tighter ever since. The Palestinians live in a desperate, near hopeless situation and do what most any of us would do, they fight. There have been countless uprisings, each doomed before it started. This did, however prompt the formation of the PLO, and thus began the rise of terrorist organizations. The PLO has since given way to Hezbollah and the madness continues.

After continuous squabbling, Israel and Egypt reached an understanding and very quickly the 2 leaders who signed the treaty were shot. The Palestinians in Lebanon kept attacking Israel and, while unsuccessful, did manage to form a party, Hamas, which took  over the Lebanese government in reasonably free elections and The US has been upset about that ever since.

We have been upset before. At one time, Iran was led by a monster, the Shah. He was deposed and, again in fair elections, Iran chose a leader,  Mosaddegh. He demanded better pay from England for Iranian oil and when told no, nationalized their oil. This did not sit well with the US or Britain, so we called him a Communist and British intelligence, with the CIA, organized a coup, ousted him and put back the Shah. We didn't count on the stubbornness of the Iranians however and they again ousted the Shah and brought in the Ayatollah Khomeini, threw all Westerners out and have been a mortal enemy ever since.

We did get our way in Iraq, a state created when we broke up the Ottoman state after WW!. After a series of useless monarchs, we got our boy, Sadam Hussein, in power, and he did his job. He went to war with Iran. He didn't win, nor did he lose. The war just sort of petered out, but not before he used the chemical weapons we gave him on the Iranians killing 1000s. Just for good measure, he used them on some of his own people, the troublesome Kurds. By the way, we have admitted we gave these weapons to him, a violation of several International treaties, not to mention all standards of human decency.

As to the rest of the Middle East, things sort of drifted along. Jordan tried to be neutral, Syria's own monster, Assad, played both sides. Saudi Arabia , whose leaders had at least had sense enough to keep control of their own oil, grew rich and fat, and in support of their radically conservative Wahabbist beliefs, poured fortunes into various terrorist groups.

Of course, Libya had as its leader, one of the world's true lunatics, Moammar Gadhafi, who also supported terrorism. Yemen was little known and under the thumb of, yes, another brutal dictator. Qatar was of no importance, neither was Morocco and Algeria ( they seemingly had used all of their energy throwing the French out). The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, grew rich on oil and stayed quiet. Yes, they too have a brutally repressive regime. However, they do build awesome resorts. There has always been a Moslem presence in Africa and, slowly, it gained more and more power.

Further East, we have Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan, since it was created as a place for Moslems to go when India gained independence from India, has spent most of its existence quarreling with the Hindus and oppressing its own people. In this case, that oppression may have been a good idea because their people are very hostile tribesmen who just love fighting, as do their brothers in Afghanistan. This is understandable since there isn't much to do in either country. They are so strictly Islamic that they are forbidden almost anything created after the Stone Age. Those lands are barren stretches of rock, mountains and sand and are worthless, unless you are a goat herder. Well, actually not worthless. Afghanistan, at one time, produced some very fine hashish. I have no idea if they still do that, but they definitely have one other domestic product, opium, and this, we will see in the next installment, is one of the keys to the present problems.

Thus you have a thumbnail sketch of the events leading up to our current environment of terror. Next stop, 9/11 and after.  
 

Is Paris Burning? and is America Next

Is Paris burning is the question Hitler asked after the Nazi invasion of France and the question is now relevant again. For the first time since WW2, the borders of France were closed and the country is all but under military rule. This is perfectly understandable in the wake of the most recent nightmare of terror.

I was going to write about business in America, but that can wait. Americans need to come to grips with the world's reality. To do that we need to understand history.

The world has been a bloody mess since, well, the beginning of the human race. Wars of conquest have been the rule since a few men decided that they should take charge of the tribes they lived in. Why? Power, something far more addictive than heroin.  Why should that be? I am sure Freudians would search personal histories for clues, while Jungians would cite over identification with archetypes. Hindus would say that some people get stuck in a lower chakra and Eric von Danikkan would blame Ancient Aliens. David Ickes and his ilk would say that power mad rulers carry alien blood and are really Reptilian Shape-shifters. Staunch Christians would blame the Prince of Darkness and tell tales of Satanic rites. Personally, I do believe dark spirits are influencing the power mad, but we, for now at least, stay on the Earth and in the four dimensions of space and time.

For this discussion we will stick to the Middle East. Long ago, city states formed and quickly began to fight over territory, eventually evolving into Empires. Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Hittites, all rose and fell. What is seldom mentioned is the continuing quarrelling among the smaller tribes. The large Empires cared little about internal fighting as long as they got their taxes. All of these smaller groups fought frequently, among them the Hebrews, Edomites, Moabites, Canaanites. All of the battles covered in the Bible were simply minor spats among neighboring tribes.

This idiotic fighting was not just restricted to the Levant. All through an area stretching from Mediterranean to Kashmir and north to Southern Russia. Greece, Persia and Rome conquered the whole mess and imposed a very uneasy peace. However, no empire lasts and after the slow fall of Rome, Islam took control. As to be expected, all sides in this never ending tribal conflict jockeyed for position, factions rose and fell, and eventually, as we entered the modern era, the Ottoman Empire took over the region. Yes, I know this is a very simple view of a massively complex history, but I do not intend to spend the rest of my life on this, and to be honest, this sketchy background is enough to set the stage for more modern developments.

Oil has been the king of commodities for well over a century and for some reason, millions of years ago, many dinosaurs very courteously decided to die in the Middle East and leave an ocean of oil under the sand. The British quite kindly offered to start removing it and in the ancient land of Persia, started drilling. A few years later, WW1 broke out and here is where things started getting weird.

Germany was kicking English rear end and England wanted the US to bail them out, however, President Wilson had twice promised to keep us out. The German House of Rothschild Bank contacted a British leader and said, hey, we know a close advisor of Wilson who will change his mind if you English will promise to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Thus was born the Balfour resolution.

After the war, which the US did enter and win, the world descended into the Great Depression and the resolution was put on hold. Germany found out what Rothschild had pulled and, understandably upset, started restricting Jewish financial activity. Jews responded by instigating a world wide boycott of German products, which was very effective and hurt the already crippled German economy. This fed the fire that was being set by one of histories true madmen, Adolf Hitler, who played the German people like a fine violin and WW2 and the Holocaust followed.

Oddly enough, during WW2, a group of Muslims, the Muslim Brotherhood, fell in love with der Fuhrer, and the first of the radical Islamic groups was born.

There you have a basic and overly simple view of what started our current wave of madness, In the next installment, we will look at the rise of extremism and the role the US played in all of this. We are certainly not blameless.