The Dummies Guide to the Middle East

 I'm not one of those knowledge off the top of my head type guys.  I'm more of a Captain Google tbh.  Wikipedia the Assad dynasty in Syria and you could easily go into the wee hours.  Get your brandy snifter.  Bashar al-Assad during his earlier life actually graduated medical school and then went to London to train to be an eye doctor but was recalled back to Syria after his older brother died in a car crash and he then became heir-apparent to the regime....military academy...Syrian occupation of Lebanon...Arab Spring...Syrian Civil War...war crimes...human rights violations...chemical weapons...the UN, Obama, Trump.  Turkey's Erdogan later became a kind of foe and worked behind the scenes...LOTS to go through.  Bashar al-Assad has now been ousted as we all know by rebel forces and the head of HTS an al-Qaida offshoot is practically running the new government.  Turkey is heavily involved and the new HTS-led Syrian government is trying to moderate its image.  Putin has granted al-Assad and his family political asylum in Moscow.  He may have brought a bag of gold coins with him.  He always wore nice suits and believed in climate change and even recognized the State of Israel in private.  Otherwise a brutal dictator.

There I've done my homework.  Trying to give this blog some heft.

Trump has a lot on his plate on Day One

 We keep hearing about DAY ONE.  Most incoming presidents might move a painting around and kick the furniture a little but not Trump.  On his to-do list:  Secure the border, deport all the illegals, impose massive tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico and Drill Baby Drill!  He has so much on his plate for Day One he's just trying to get ahead of it all.  Homan is probably fighting a bunch of illegals in the parking lot as we speak.  Trump might address the Nation any day now.  The thought occurred if they had already 25th Amendmented Biden by now Kamala Harris could at least say she was president.   Put that on the resume.

The great MAGA betrayal

 So about Trump's cabinet picks I'm hearing this and I'm hearing that.  Bunch of rabid war hawks being nominated going against all the MAGA principles.  Others not happy about Marco Rubio being tapped as Secretary of State.  I'm hearing that Matt Gaetz is the least likely to get confirmed and it has nothing to do with the edge of seventeen sex allegations.  Everyone on board 110% pro-Israel of course.  Huck even opposes a Palestinian state.  Gabbard is in there.  RFK Jr. ready to run wild.  A FOX News host running Defense?

We have aways to go before the Inauguration.   Normally this is boring and dry stuff for me.  I'm not a political junkie but Trump's cabinet picks are generating quite a bit of discussion.  There is even some talk of MAGA protesting Trump.  Me?  I just live my life and feed the cats.

If Trump wins on Nov. 5

 It would have been better off if he had won the last time around against Joe Biden.  He would have been nearing the end of his full presidency by now and the era of MAGA would be coming to an end.  We could all be talking about other subjects.  The trend lately has been to give most recent presidents two terms.  Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama.  This is why at the time I thought the American people would reelect Trump.  This gives the president the opportunity to finish the work he started  and gives his foreign policy a certain stability.  World leaders are used to dealing with him.  Instead we got Sleepy Joe.  IF Trump wins now there's talk of riots.  Why I don't know.  If he had won against Biden we wouldn't be going through this.  I make no case that the election was bad just that the American voters should have reelected him the last time for practical reasons.  Not voting for him this time because his personality has reached a critical mass for me.  Other conservative bloggers have said this is not the way to go but to each his own.

This was a tentative blogpost of mine since if Kamala Harris wins on Nov. 5 this thread will have little to no value.  However if I'm reading the polls right she just might come out on the losing end.  IF Trump wins but the election is close he clearly has no mandate and will govern a divided country.

The only problem is Woodward isn't a trash writer

 I'd sooner trust him than Tom Selleck trying to sell me a reverse mortgage.  Woodward's new book War - According to the book Trump and Putin had at least seven private calls since Trump left office.  Also Trump allegedly sent Putin Covid-19 test machines during the peak of the pandemic when there was a shortage.  Trump calls Woodward "a storyteller who has lost his marbles",

POT - KETTLE - BLACK

Steven Cheung Trump's communications director said Woodward's book is "the work of a truly demented and deranged man" who suffers from TDS.  Did he make up Watergate too?

There's other stuff in the book.  Lindsey Graham calls visiting Mar-a-Lago like visiting N. Korea everybody has to clap when Trump enters the room.  Biden's complicated relationship with Netanyahu and his angry tirades over the Israel/Hamas War yada Yada.

I'm no fan of the media by any stretch but it ain't Maury Povich writing.

I'd rather watch an Omega XL commercial or a Steven Seagal movie

DNC kicks off tonight in Chicago.  Biden to deliver keynote address, Obama the orator on second night and Bill Clinton on third.  Kamala Harris big night on the fourth and final night of course.  Out of all the candidates for her VP pick Tim Walz is probably the most socially radical but doesn't look it.  He looks like the friendly uncle who gives you a 5 dollar bill in the alley after your parents yelled at you.  The economy and the working class will be a big theme Biden's attempted but failed vax mandate on companies with over 100 employees already having been memory-holed.  Immigration, crime and safety, health care.  Trump has the edge on some key issues but Dems are better on health care as you'll be paying less for colonoscopy.  I've heard Harris isn't too swift on foreign policy which is half the presidency.  Of course oiling up the abortion machinery will be peppered in whenever possible. 

I'm gonna check the movie listings.

The geriatric presidency

If I were Kamala Harris I'd be boning up on foreign policy right now just on the off chance.  It's like when your father dies and he knew about the plumbing but you don't.  Natural causes is like a 50/50 right now.  Rudy Giuliani is pretty much a national joke.  It's like the old shrink tests - Giuliani/Running hair dye.   Even Rush Limbaugh is getting impatient.

The transition seems well underway now.  It is what it is.

President Trump, following through on Obama's Red Line

Some are no doubt already making the case that Obama's shifting red line encouraged Syria and President Bashar al-Assad to attack a small Syrian village with chemical weapons killing and injuring scores of children. One can use the word "allegedly" but for all intents...President Trump followed this within 24 hours with 59 air strikes with Tomahawk cruise missiles of a Syrian airfield believed to harbor chemical weapons. Now things get complicated with Russia refusing to cooperate with the U.S. over avoiding air conflicts over Syrian airspace. Russian warships have already moved into the region closer to our fleet so you have the seeds of a major world crisis in the making. Trump is getting bipartisan support on this one from Marco Rubio to Charles Schumer usually a critic but the base is mighty unhappy with these developments. There's that Pat Buchanan strict non-interventionist/isolationist wing to deal with. Obama was too much the Hamlet intellectual with this aspect of our foreign policy. Trump of course is taking some flack for not consulting with the UN Security Council and Congress first but if first showings are any indication we may be dealing with a very militaristic and action-oriented president on the world stage. As long as he stays away from the nuclear codes.

The French 9/11 and limited intelligence

First off there should be an investigation of the French intelligence agency to rule out any radical Muslim sympathizers in some top spots. President Obama plans to forge ahead with the G20 Summit in Turkey anyway which will focus on climate change naturally. Yesterday's ISIS-coordinated multiple terrorist attacks in the heart of Paris - NBC News is going with the planners involved probably used social media codes to pull it off to escape the usual cell phone and other surveillance. I agree and thank you Mark Zuckerberg. I've always felt and made the point that a disturbingly high % of users on social media are a bad element and in particular a terorrist element. IMO ISIS terror is coming to the shores of America and that very soon. The Xmas shopping season is just around the bend, it's a definite Christian ritual and ISIS has said this is the first of a storm. Personally although I never did I would not go shopping on Black Friday. Don't participate in the madness. For the near future I am no longer going to the Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack and the Danbury Fair Mall in CT. is a definite soft target. I'll also see Mockingjay not on a crowded weekend showing but on an off-day. The Russian jetliner and now the Paris attacks, these are highly trained professionals who know what they're doing and some of you have made the point you're not concerned with what's happening over there because we have other things to worry about over here like Pat Robertson. Mistake. On another related note it has always been my personal view that the famed vision of the Third Secret of Fatima publicly released on June 26, 2000 pertains to a future terrorist event of enormous magnitude perhaps even involving Pope Francis himself. ISIS itself has a peculiar theological fixation on the city of Rome if you've noticed. The Sodano Interpretation is so much bullshit and it's just as well Benedict XVI who should know better retired when he did (bad conscience?). I've always maintained ISIS deserves our top priority and attention and not things like processed red meat causes cancer and the latest doings of the Kardashians. ISIS has upped their game when our world's intelligence agencies are woefully lagging behind:)

Greek Mythology

...that you can get endless freebies from the government and not have to pay the price in the end.  Now where can I get myself a gyro?

Battle of the Dynasties

Now that Hillary has made it official let's just say it's Jeb Bush finally on the Republican side. Yeah the normal one in a field of Huckabees, Walkers and maybe Trumps Bush coming across by default like the blonde woman on The Munsters and so is dynastic politics ultimately good for the country? Already the GOPers who are officially in the ring are salivating to talk about Hill's character and baggage but the usual Samsonite way when dealing with the Clintons ain't gonna wash imo. Folks who vote straight Democrat always vote straight Democrat and so it'd be much better for Rand and Cruz and co. to put some Ideas on the table, visions, foreign policy conceptions. Yeah yeah I know Hillary is from leafy Chappaqua and not Getty Square in Yonkers and she's gonna make it a cornerstone of her campaign to talk about economic fairness and the average American. Hypocrisy thy name is Clinton but get over that and tell the country where YOU stand. Hillary bores me I can't tell you and she looks like she's doing it because she has to. BTW has Obama tried a Cuban cigar yet?

Winnowing down the Republican field

The ones I would vote for: Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney (not running as of now). The one I would NOT vote for: Jeb Bush as I simply don't like the notion of dynastic politics. Christie seems hopelessly tarnished by Bridgegate even though final reports have come out exonerating him of any knowledge of the scandal. Rand Paul? gosh I gotta think about that one. I suppose push comes to shove and on the other side why it is mandatory and in the stars that Hillary HAS TO be the Democratic nominee positively escapes me. She seems dull and tired even though she's trying to jazz up her image of late by being more peppy or something. Perhaps Bruce Jenner can be in charge of LGBT outreach in a Clinton Administration. Our old friend George Zimmerman has been totally cleared by the DOJ so he can continue going on messing up his life in private. Wondering how a President McCain would have dealt with the problem of ISIS. He'd probably just nuke the whole of Iraq and Syria and start over. "Jihadi John" has finally been positively identified according to all the newswires today, an educated man in his mid-20's from West London with a computer degree who went radical somewhere along the line. I fail to see the attraction of a 7th century-style caliphate and why some bored teen girls wanna join up so this is well over my head. Take it from there......

Return to the Dark Ages in the age of the Twitterverse

Here's my rough and very imperfect knowledge of the history of terror. Not that long ago, in recent memory in fact most terror was politically motivated (the Red Brigades, Carlos the Jackal, the IRA, Munich) and much, sometimes most of it had to do with the eternal and never-ending Israeli/Palestinian conflict. FF to the present with Al-Shabab, Boko Haram and Islamic State and it's pretty much do you read the Quran? no? you have to die infidel! With the latest outrage, the burning in a cage of that Jordanian pilot I don't see how you can't have boots on the ground at this point. Airstrikes alone brings to mind using a can of Raid and you're shooting at the cockroaches scurrying around in your kitchen. Sure you'll get a few, perhaps many but the rest go in the cracks and crevices of your floorboards so basically you have to find a way to get in there, get to the root of the problem. So basically and this is what I don't get unless it has to do with protecting hostages ISIS has this safe and fairly large staging area in some desert somewhere in which they continue to produce a series of highly polished but gruesome videos along the line of Faces of Death. Apparently they feel safe doing this, some kind of drone-free airspace I guess which is only another reason we really need an international coalition of boots on the ground and I don't care if King Abdullah II quotes Clint Eastwood. Lastly many conservatives are blaming Obama himself for the rise of ISIS by not continuing Bush's adventures in Iraq indefinitely when truth be told Bush's original actions led to the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which later metamorphosed into ISIS and it bears repeating while Saddam Hussein was a very bad man he had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Meanwhile Americans are continuing to flock to see that sniper film while Boko Haram just took almost 100 civilian lives in northern Cameroon.

Are you ready for Ebola?

It must have something to do with gay marriage. I'm not a medical authority but I do support a travel ban until it's contained. CDC Director Frieden is way over his head since the most serious thing he had to do as NYC Health Commissioner under Bloomberg was to try to ban big sugary drinks. The Drudge Report lately could be more accurately titled the Ebola Report and on the flipside the other school of thought that's been developing is that the media is talking about this way too much, a journalistic preoccupation or obsession or overkill. Then again I can understand it too since we have a decent chance at a real medieval plague here especially since nobody's on the same page. I myself get instinctively cranky whenever a subject is ground into a fine dust. As Saty once said everyone knows about the tits and I feel the same way about Ebola at least for now or I was but the CDC doesn't inspire me with confidence so I'm beginning to worry. FDNY now can't say "Ebola" over the dispatch for fear some nerd might be listening in on some scanner. OK so BB, Saty and maybe Dave can respond:)

The international coalition of the unwilling

My position which has evolved is that there needs to be an international coalition of boots on the ground in both Iraq and northern Syria to combat the psychopathic evil of ISIS. Also this constant conservative sniping at how Obama is handling this international crisis/tragedy is not part of the solution and usually at such times with such a real foreign threat out there their usual counsel is to get behind the president. Even Canada has gotten involved but whenever a new coalition partner makes an announcement it's usually along the lines of we're willing to do airstrikes in Iraq but not Syria. Well ISIS has adapted to airstrikes since they pretty much knew they were coming and Obama should never have ruled out boots on the ground so categorically when his own generals are saying otherwise. Lastly the FBI says they know the identity of "John the Beatle" or that masked hostage-beheader seen in those infamous ISIS videos but are withholding this information and not making it public for strategic reasons it is to be presumed. I don't know why since not making the name a matter of the international record has not stopped the latest hostage Brit Alan Henning from meeting the same fate. So those are my thoughts and I would say the matter is urgent.

Axis of Isil

I thought President Obama's speech last night detailing his global strategy for dealing with IS was rather brief and subdued. I thought it would be longer and more impassioned but I'm not against it and generally agree with the tenor. Obama has quite obviously chosen to use the label "ISIL" or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant instead of the more popular "ISIS" and there are reasons for this. Using ISIS constantly the way most in the media now do makes it sound like we're in a war with the ancient Egyptian goddess and also using this term all the time has that "Get Smart"/comic book feel to it (remember Don Adams and his nemesis KAOS?). Another reason Obama prefers the term ISIL is it definitely refers to the threat IS poses to the nation of Israel since Israel falls under the definition of the Levant along with other countries like Jordan. I haven't really read the reviews yet in particular those of the always nitpicking right-wingers but the war and it is a war will eventually include airstrikes in northern Syria and it is the pundit's view that just like Bush left the Iraq war with Obama Obama will leave the Syrian mess to the next president. Syria has already bombed certain IS targets in the north and I couldn't help thinking if they could have they would have used chlorine gas again. The Sotloff family spokesperson has alleged the so-called moderate forces fighting Assad, the Free Syrian Army, sold Steven Sotloff for a price to IS but the State Dept. denies this. OK thoughts:)

The rise of the appy savage

Their mentality and overall religious outlook is straight out of the 1400's yet they know how to upload videos to YouTube, cave-dwelling techno-savages who even make trendy and newsy references to events in Ferguson, MO. Next thing you know they'll be blogging. I thought YouTube like all mainstream websites of this nature have a TOS, you know you can't just submit a video say of how much you hate N-words or harass your ex-girlfriend so why is it technically ok for ISIS to upload a video showing the beheading of freelance US reporter James Foley? Various Islamic terror elements also take to Twitter, Twitter feeds, Twitter accounts - they've finally joined the Twitterverse those religious troglodytes! Now libs spend a good part of every waking day concerned about the threat posed by the Religious Right (oooooohhh!) but when was the last time Pat Robertson beheaded an American professor who passionately teaches evolution and then put it on YouTube? ISIS has said the beheading was in retaliation for US airstrikes, they just lost control of the Mosul Dam and the peshmerga are on the move so this is their way of making a Statement. Obama needs to keep pounding away however and I don't see how after such an atrocity you can rule out boots on the ground which should give McCain's heart a flutter or two. So stop worrying about Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer and start worrying about ISIS coming to a mall near you:)

Conservatives, Vietnam Syndrome and Obama

In a way Bush's foreign policy has become Obama's foreign policy, try as he may Obama cannot fully extricate himself from the situation. We're probably gonna see some big-time action in Baghdad starting with air strikes and as much as Obama distanced himself from Bush and the Bush Doctrine during the campaigning inevitably he's become Bush 2. Now I read a fair amount of conservative commentary, have a few issues of National Review and The Weekly Standard on my tablet and in my view there are many, maybe even most conservatives who when push comes to shove feel we should have stuck it out in Vietnam so the same thinking of course applies to the Middle East. Obama has the perfectly reasonable position that we can't stay there forever but for your average conservative and that's a neo-type no matter how many body bags let's get the job done. Radical Islam, a couple people here don't get it but easily it poses a far greater threat than the Christian Right. I mean c'mon purity balls vs. massacres at shopping malls. In coastal Africa the al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group al-Shabab has been going door to door in villages during the night while people have been tuned into the World Cup and asking the men basic questions about Islam and if they fail to answer correctly they get shot, a kind of terrorist version of Jeopardy (Moustafa: "what was the name of Mohammed's wife?"). Imagine the Jehovahs doing this going door to door with their Watchtowers and if you brush 'em off they open fire. Of course over at the Hannity Forums you can't really talk like this because you're questioning a faith system. Look I'm no fan of Obama but on Iraq the bulk of the blame goes to Bush.

Radical Islam still happens

It's nice to see Hollywood celebrities and liberals in general finally addressing the real war on women. One yearns for a Jack Bauer-type to take on Boko Haram and rescue those 276 Nigerian schoolgirls being held hostage probably in some primeval jungle but what we got instead is Obama's Hamlet tendencies in the foreign policy arena, hashtags, Anne Hathaway and hey can you believe they're STILL talking about Donald Sterling? At this point I DON'T CARE, don't care if he has the N-word tattooed on his ass cheek. I think the latest version of 24 rocks but if there's one thing Chloe constantly looking like Ozzy Osbourne fighting terrorism is massively distracting. 24 too is getting back to having radical Islamist elements in their plotline and all this just might take the spotlight off the far lesser threat if you can call it that of the Christian Right and Gary Bauer (BB & Saty opening). Some Techno Thoughts (Again) The other day at work everyone was walking around looking at their smartphones and the thumb was constantly scrolling. You know one day homo sapiens is gonna evolve to the point where we all have thumbs like the great apes and we'll be walking hunched over into traffic. They say technology has an asocial effect, don't wanna say anti-social but there are times to be perfectly honest when I'd rather be with my tablet than my friend no offense. Downloaded a great app the other day, not just a file manager but a real file explorer so you can actually see what's taking up all that storage space and why. Root capabilities is even on the menu but that's soapie territory and I don't intend to go there. OK so to tie it all together do you think Boko Haram really cares about the First Lady's hashtag?

Mitt Romney had a better grasp of foreign policy

Just sayin'. Most countries these days are responsible for at least one or two positive contributions to the civilization-at-large. Of course everything is Made in China today but Japan has given us superior cars and cameras for example and even South Korea has Samsung headquartered there. Has Russia ever given us a digital camera, a computer chip, a smartphone or a new tablet? Russia is known for two things only - vodka and its military buildup. I remember learning in high school that a large % of the Russian economy, maybe it's even the majority is devoted to its keeping up its military might. Putin is an anachronistic leader and seems to have a very bad case of those cold war blues. Putin doesn't like Pussy Riot, he doesn't like the gays and he's not into going forward. Of course Obama's red lines mean nothing, it'd be like Gilbert Gottfried being a bar bouncer. A former director in the KGB vs. a former Chicago community organizer and I'm thinking my Dad is right Hillary would have been a better president at least on the world stage. So what's gonna happen now if Crimea becomes officially annexed to Russia again? is Obama gonna issue one of them executive orders he likes so much say banning the import of their famous drink? It's like as soon as the Sochi Olympics were over Putin couldn't wait to get back to the action. So has anyone apologized to Mitt Romney yet?