A Story of Human Condition for the Ages

Let's begin this discussion with a metaphor. You look out the window at the street below and see two cars. One is a rickety old jalopy that is held together with wires, masking tape and pieces of previously masticated chewing gum. The other is a brand new car that hit a pothole so hard, it blew a tire. The jalopy is driving whereas the new car isn't going anywhere. Which of the two would you say is doing better?

The utility in having this metaphor is that it helps answer the question: “Who won the Gaza war?” No, this is not my question; it is that of Elliott Abrams. Actually it is the subtitle of an article he wrote under the title: “The Fog of Cease-fire” which he cautions is a quote first uttered by Daniel Polisar. The Abrams article was published in the September 8, 2014 issue of the Weekly Standard.

Abrams tries to answer his own question in a 3,400 words essay, only to end up saying: “ask me in six months and then again in six years.” Meanwhile, he spends a great deal of time and mental energy to show that Gaza and its leaders lost a great deal because they achieved none of their goals, whereas Israel and its leaders appear to have gained a great deal because they achieved most of their goals. It is that Gaza got neither the seaport nor the airport it sought reopening, whereas Israel got the quiet it sought – he says.

Judging by these criteria, the jalopy that is Israel seems to be doing better because it is moving whereas the new car that is Gaza remains inert. It is possible, however, to argue that even under these criteria, Israel did not do as well as it appears because Gaza retains the capability to shatter that quiet at will. Also, it is possible to argue that the matter of the seaport and airport has not been settled as yet because it was put off for when the heavy negotiations begin a few weeks from now.

In fact, we can even declare that all of the above is beside the point because what really matters is what Abrams hinted at in the way that he ended the article. He mentioned that the final judgment will have to be made six months or six years from now. In other words, he admits that what counts is the element of time: Where is this going? not where things stand at this time? Well, nobody can tell the future but what we can do is look into the fuel tanks of the two vehicles, and determine which will go farther … assuming, of course, that the jalopy will not fall apart before getting there, and that the brand new vehicle will get its tire replaced eventually.

What counts when it comes to a country such as Israel; one that was willed into existence by the nations of the world, and what counts for a country in the making such as Palestine; one that will have to be willed into existence by the nations of the world, is how they appear to the eyes of the world. Following the events of the Second World War, the Jews came to be viewed as an ethno-religious group that could do no wrong. This rubbed on Israel, the country they founded at the expense of an existing Palestinian population. But this fact, however horrendous it might have been, was tolerated by a world that lived in a state of guilt more powerful than its ability to reason.

And then, drip by drip, the truth came out to the effect that the Jews were neither an ethnic group nor a religious one, but were either adopted as infants into a fake ethno-religious group, or converted at an older age into an ideology that proved to be as primitive, savage, blood thirsty and beastly as described in the bible they consider to be the compendium of their religious beliefs. It is hellish horror disguised as heavenly bliss, and the world knows it now.

As to the Palestinians, the purity of their innocence grew brighter the more that the worldview of the Jews grew darker. The battle between good and evil remains intact except for the switch of characters. The Jews turned out to be the evil element; the Palestinians turned out to be the embodiment of a stoic goodness that does not say give me liberty or give me death, but lives by the motto and dies by it. Gaza has shown the world how gloriously magnificent the human spirit can be when asked to stand by its principles. There is hope for mankind after all.

Well, no one can tell at this point how exactly all this will play out in the future, but what can be said is that the Jewish jalopy is running on empty while the Palestinian vehicle – besides being in mint condition – has retained all its energies, is ready to hit the road, and ready to take its place among the nations of the world. Welcome home, Palestine. We missed you so much.

McCain and Graham Masters of Hysteria

On August 30, 2014, the New York Times published two articles relating to the Middle Eastern group known as ISIS or ISIL. One article came under the title: “To Defeat Terror, We Need the World's Help” and the subtitle: “The Threat of ISIS Demands a Global Coalition.” It was written by Secretary of State John Kerry. The other article came under the title: “Stop Dithering, Confront ISIS” and the subtitle: “Confront ISIS Now.” It was written by US Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

In his article, John Kerry gave a full account of what the American administration has done so far on the matter, what it is currently doing, and what it plans to do in the future, both unilaterally and in conjunction with other allies and partners.

As to the McCain and Graham article, they begin by admitting: “The president clearly wants to move deliberately and consult with allies and Congress as he considers what to do about ISIS.” What this means is that they should keep their mouths shut, and wait to see what the president will do next, as hinted in the Kerry article. But if they did that, they would have made themselves irrelevant to the discussion. However, given that they have the right to participate, they should be able to do so provided they explain what points of strength they bring to the table that would add value to the discussion. Did they do that?

Well, judge for yourself. Here is their explanation: “But the threat ISIS poses only grows over time. It cannot be contained. It must be confronted. This requires a comprehensive strategy, presidential leadership and a far greater sense of urgency.” How is this different from what Kerry has laid out? They don't answer this question but they do something bizarre – the kind that people do when they are hungry for something but cannot justify asking for it. Look at this piece of acrobatics: “If Mr. Obama changes course and adopts a strategic approach to defeat ISIS, he deserves support.”

What this does is tell the readers that the President does not have a strategic approach, that they have one, and they wish he would change course and come to their side. So you want to know what their strategy is; and they give details: “[it] would require our commander in chief to explain to war-weary Americans why we cannot ignore this threat.” Well then, how do they know about this threat that the administration does not? Simple, they listened to the secretary of homeland security who called Syria “a matter of homeland security.” And they listened to the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense, all of whom “echoed the warnings about ISIS.” But these are the administration which they say doesn't know what the threat is. Oh boy!

This prompts the question: What is it really that these two senators want? They tell what it is, knowing what the counter-argument will be, which is why they respond to the question only after paving the way to it. Here is what they do: “It is a truism to say there is no military solution to ISIS. Any strategy must squeeze ISIS' finances. It requires an inclusive government in Baghdad … an end to the conflict in Syria … a regional approach to mobilize America's partners in the effort.”

So far, there is no deviation from the Kerry plan. Thus, the two go further and add the following: “But ultimately, ISIS is a military force, and it must be confronted militarily.” Is that new? Not really, and they know it: “Mr. Obama has begun to take military actions against ISIS in Iraq, but they have been half-measures. We need a military plan to defeat ISIS. Such a plan would strengthen partners who are already resisting ISIS. [They] are the boots on the ground, and the United States should provide them with arms, intelligence and other military assistance.” How is that different from Obama's half-measures?

They don't answer that question directly, but having taken a bizarre approach up to now, they continue on that streak and add more bizarreness to it. They admit: “A comprehensive strategy would require more troops, assets, resources and time. [This] should involve Congress. We have consistently advocated revising the Authorization for Use of Military Force. Now could be the right time to update it ... Mr. Obama could win Congress's support.”

Hey guys! Yes, you two esteemed senators. Are you suggesting that the President should move from half measures to full measures urgently right now ... and only then come to the good-for-nothing congress after the fait accompli and ask for an update to the authorization retroactively? Well, there is a better suggestion out there: Why don't you do your f**ing work first, let him do his, and then see if you can work with him and do better?

What seems to bother these two guys and the people that stand behind them to nudge is that the American people are war weary. The two want the President to summon his personal skills, mix them with the aura of his office, and convince the American people that 13 years of continuous war is not something that should bother them. They must embrace the idea of a never ending war, learn to live with it and ultimately come to love it.

Well, no one sane will say that the past 13 years have been good for America. So the question to ask is this: Whose purpose a perpetual war will serve? We already know that wars are the oxygen which keeps the Jewish ideology alive. Is there someone else? Yes, there is. As it happens, a day after President Obama gave a news conference in which he explained his thoughtful approach; one that will stay based on facts and not knee-jerk responses, Britain increased by a notch the level of threat from terrorism.

Moments later, the Prime Mister of Britain, David Cameron, gave a speech and a news conference in which he said the sort of things that the likes of McCain and Graham love to hear. Except for one thing. He offered nothing in terms of assistance to the people who are fighting in the war theater where America is involved if not to its eyeballs, to its knees.

Instead of doing that, he did – yet again – what the two ill-famed colonial powers have been doing for a century, which is to defend the dismal record of their colonial history, never admitting that Sykes-Picot or anything they did was bad for the people of the region or the world. This time, he refused to take responsibility for Britain's participation in Iraq 2 with these words: “The terrorist threat was not created by the Iraq war 10 years ago … [or] the perceived grievances over Western foreign policy.”

He went on to blame the ISIS threat on the now replaced Prime Minister of Iraq whose government, he said, has excluded half the population from the decision making process. Cameron said all that without mentioning that the system of governance which allowed for this to happen was imposed on that society by the “Western” allies, including Britain.

Not only did Cameron refuse to take responsibility, he even refrained from promising any level of participation in the effort he says is needed in Iraq and Syria at this time. Why is that? Because he knows that a few sweet to the ear (harsh) words delivered in a British accent will send enough men and women in America into a state of orgasmic ecstasy that will make them clamor to see their country go to war, war, war ... alone if need be.

And this is just fine with David Cameron who loves to see his country move on with its business at the expense of the great American sucker.

The Need for a new word: Hystericalization

A few years ago the word canalization began to circulate in conversations related not to construction projects but to the attempts that were undertaken by lobbyists operating like agent provocateurs. Their task was to make people angry about the things they would normally be prone to get angry about, and then “canalize” this anger towards the things they would normally not be angry about.

For example, there was a time when acts of terrorism that were carried out against Egypt were not restricted to the Sinai Peninsula but were taking place on the mainland as well. The aim of the terrorists was to hurt the economy by scaring the tourists. These acts alerted the Jewish and Israeli agents to the fact that Egypt lived with vulnerability, and so they decided to exploit it by adding to the efforts of the terrorists. They did so by taking advantage of an event that was unfolding in North America and Europe at the time.

It is that the great debate on the two continents at the time pertained to the equality between men and women. This was the fertile soil upon which the Jewish and Israeli agents planted their diabolic plan, and nurtured it to fruition. The historical fact being that the ancients did not have the machinery we have today, they recycled the material at hand when and where they could rather than fabricate new material. One area where the practice prevailed abundantly was in the construction of temples dedicated to the pharaoh of the day.

The way this happened was that a new pharaoh would destroy the temple of the dead pharaoh that built it, and use the material to build a new temple. Alternatively, he would keep the temple standing, efface the markings of the dead pharaoh, and chisel his own markings on it. Well, this is what happened to the temple of Queen Hatshepsut by a successor that happened to be a male. And this is where the Jewish and Israeli agents saw an opportunity to canalize the hatred of potential tourists that might be inclined to visit to Egypt.

To that end, they spun stories and circulate them to the effect that the Egyptians have been “male chauvinist pigs” since ancient times which is why they effaced the queen's markings and replaced them with those of a male. The Jews and the Israelis managed by this method to canalize an existing hatred directed at contemporary chauvinists, and had it diverted toward ancient and contemporary Egyptians, an act that hurt the economy.

That was then and this is now where the same agents are playing a similar kind of game, but playing it with a deadlier intent. Unlike the word canalization which is in the dictionary, the word that applies to the new game does not yet exist. It is hystericalization, a word that can be defined as the effort to render hysterical a group of people or an entire society. You sense this effort when you follow the North American media that have dedicated themselves to making society respond – as if mentally unstable – to stimuli supplied audio-visually or in print form by those media.

The intent is to have ordinary and otherwise sane people jump to their feet on cue, and race to contact the policing authorities, a legislator or the “mainstream” media, and report that they saw an Arab or a Muslim who looked suspicious to them. In fact, Canada being the soft underbelly of America, the Jews and the Israelis tested their demonic game in this country a few years ago. It happened when one of the local networks was in Jewish hands before it was transferred to someone else.

What the network did was to find something, almost on a daily basis that should have made people jump as if in a panic. One day, it was a suspicious package they said was found by a subway station. Another day it was rumors they said they heard to the effect that a terrorist act was going to be pulled off in a public place ... and so on and so forth. To their chagrin, nobody panicked, but what made the network people stop playing the game was the fact that they made a big ignorant mistake that backfired the game on them.

That was the time when the West Nile virus had affected a number of people in the Canadian Province of Ontario. The television network put out scary stories about it, and always connected them to the notion that the Nile was the Nile of Egypt. The plan was to make people go hysterical upon hearing the word Egypt. This journalistic madness went on till someone discovered that the virus was brought to the State of New York by Jews who had gone to Uganda looking for ways to create discord among the nations of the Nile Basin so as to hurt Egypt and Sudan in the process. And from New York, the virus came to Canada.

Thus backfired, the network stopped the game. Now, a decade later, the Jewish and Israeli agents of malfeasance have revived the game in America to hystericalize the public there about the Arabs and the Muslims at will and on cue.

The wise Owl and the brainless Rats

First, the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer said it, and then Winston Churchill copycatted it. That was the smart quote: “I reserve the right to be smarter today than I was yesterday.” In both cases, the utterer of the sentence was responding to criticism that he had changed his mind.

In fact, people change their mind all the time, even great leaders do. And they admit it because there is nothing wrong in doing so unless you're brainless and a big mouth, working for the Fox television network, being paid to spend your time looking for the instances when President Obama changed his mind. When you find it, you make a big deal about it and call that “Breaking News.”

But membership in the fraternity and the sorority of the brainless and the big mouths is not restricted to the people at Fox, its doors being open to everyone who feels brainless and mouthy simultaneously. And they come from all over the places because you can see their work in all these places. One of the members is Jeff Jacoby who writes a column for the Boston Globe. He wrote one under the title: “Your strategy was wrong, Mr. President” and had it published on August 27, 2014 in the Globe.

Basically, what Jacoby is doing in the column is hound the President with the cry: You changed your mind – admit, admit it. You were wrong – admit it, admit it. Well, the reader might think that only dogs can hound but in reality even rats do it. They do it in groups, and they would do it to scare a wise owl because they know that owls love to feast on rats. They swallow them whole, head first.

To make himself look fit and agile, Jacoby uses a trampoline to launch himself up in the air where he lets out his anti-Obama cries. Here is his trampoline: “In a TV interview, John McCain offered President Obama some sound, if difficult, advice.” And here is the McCain advice: “don't be ashamed of re-evaluating your view of the role of the United States in the world.”

Look, my dear reader, this is the same John McCain who spewed a never ending stream of venom because he said that President Obama changed his mind about bombing Syria. And this is the same Jeff Jacoby who spilled a never ending stream of ink writing that Obama should be ashamed because he changed his mind. He made the episode sound as if McCain had the right to be furious about the whole thing. But given that new realities are surfacing, will these two gentlemen change their minds and apologize to Mr. Obama? I bet they will not.

Knowing how forcefully he made his point, Jacoby sums it up like this: “Obama's foreign policy is in a shambles.” He then follows the correct literary procedure which says that when you're this forceful at the start, you must use the rest of the piece to explain your point of view. He does that in fact, but he does it incorrectly. His problem is that he keeps falling back on one trampoline or another as if to say: I don't really know what Obama did wrong, but I know he was wrong because the work he did has failed to realize my fantasies.

He explains this part of his argument in the following way: “It is clear now that America's disengagement from Iraq created a vacuum that the vicious jihadists readily filled.” But the jihadists were created in the first place because there was an American engagement. So how is it that a re-engagement of America will solve the problem, and not reinforce it … maybe even create a second jihadist group that will operate in parallel with the first?

And if the first could not have been predicted, what makes Jacoby and all those like him believe they can predict with certainty that the second will not happen?

Also, how can they, in good conscience, ask America and the rest of the world, to take a chance of this gravity in the hope of realizing a fantasy that does not seem to be in the cards?

No, these guys do not make sense. Therefore, it is more logical to stick with the wise owl that is Obama, than to go with the brainless rats who should be feasted on and swallowed whole by someone – head first.

Bon appetit, Mr. President.

No Mideast Fire without Arsonist America

John Bolton never sounded as panicky as he does in his latest article. It came under the title: “The Mideast's problems are ours” and the subtitle: “Obama's inaction and inattention have helped fuel the current chaos.” It was published on Aug. 27, 2014 in the New York Daily News.

The thrust of his argument is that America cannot pivot to Asia away from the Middle East because the latter is doing badly now, and when it goes past the point of no return – which should happen soon – America will greatly suffer economically. He does not say how so, except that he mentions the vast reserves of oil in the Arabian Peninsula. But this is an odd thing for him to do given that he has been lauding the use of new technologies by which large amounts of oil are extracted from American soil. He always said this will make America self-sufficient, and have enough leftover to supply Europe thus lessen its reliance on Russia.

We must, therefore, dismiss that excuse as the reason why he wants America to remain in the Middle East on a continuous basis, as he put it. That leaves one plausible reason only, which would be the protection of Israel. But there is a problem here; one that is better expressed in the form of a question: If you are a Jew and you want to argue in favor of protecting Israel without being open and honest about it, what do you do?

Well, let me tell you something, my friend. Every time I come across a similar question, I remember a little anecdote I once heard when I was a child. So let me tell it to you first. Some monks take a vow of silence which they can break only to help someone else in distress, never to serve the self. Since they live in a monastery where there is no one else but other monks, the one in distress has to be another monk.

And so it happened one evening that all the monks of the monastery sat around the table to have supper. One of them saw a cockroach in his soup and could not eat. Forbidden from talking to serve the self, he signals the waiter to approach. When he does that, the monk whispers in his ear: “The brother on my right is missing a cockroach like the one I have in my soup.”

This is the kind of talk you should expect to hear from a Jew because he will never admit he is in distress and in need of help. On the contrary, he will describe an exaggerated situation if not a false one to get someone to do the things that will fulfill his needs. And this is what Bolton is doing in his article. Starting with “the Middle East's problems will become our problems,” he dresses a list of problems which he says are plaguing the region. To document the claim, he says: “Libya's fragmentation is merely one example.” He then mentions Iraq and Syria.

Of course, he does not say that the troubles in Libya and Iraq were the work of the United States, and he does not say that there would not have been a Syrian problem were it not for Iraq. He is not saying it because if he did, he would reveal himself as the arsonist that is disguised as a firefighter – one that is going around setting fires while pretending to put them out; a ruse designed to prevent someone else from doing the job.

In fact, other than those three places and Israel where chaos reigns, the rest of the Middle East, which contains something like three dozen Arab and non-Arab nations, looks no worse than it ever did -- in fact, it looks better than it did in times past. But to confuse the perception of the situation, Bolton pulls a dirty trick. He drags into the discussion the sub-Saharan nations of Somalia, Niger, Nigeria and Mali.

This done, he reiterates the false notion that the Middle East and North Africa are burning, which is why he maintains that President Obama should not give in to his two delusions: negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, and a peace deal for the Palestine question. He also wants that “the United States expunge the notion of pivoting anywhere.” Why is that?

The reason is that there is one unshakable truth that is known to everyone in the Middle East: You only get back from the Jews what they stole from you by beating the crap out of them. Hamas just beat the crap out of Netanyahu, and this puts Israel in distress and puts Bolton in a state of panic. They know the meaning of the latest developments in the Middle East – it is that Israel is close to the point of no return, and will be forced to make the concessions it would never have made without feeling the Hamas boot in its rear end.

Exporting the dark Side of American Culture

It may have been random coincidence or it may have been the effect of a phenomenon known as synchronicity that on the same day – August 27, 2014 – the American television networks were showing images of a deadly accident caused by a young girl that was being trained to shoot a gun, and an article appeared online discussing violent events that were unfolding in the Middle East.

Yes, the gun culture in America is such that proud parents – who swear by the Second Amendment of their Bill of Rights which gives them the right to “bear arms,” and who swear by their allegiance to the gun lobby never to let go of that right – do not hesitate to display to the world images of their infant children being taught to handle not a toy gun but a real one. What is special about that day, however, is that it brought something full circle; something that ought to change the perception Americans have of the ongoing struggle in the Middle East.

Long before they were born – those who today consider themselves experts on the Middle East because they can tell how good the Jews are and how bad the Arabs are – many of us who knew otherwise could see that America's gun culture was being transplanted into the once peaceful Middle East, and that the future did not bode well as a consequence … but we could not tell how it will look like.

Well, things have come full circle in that the online article discusses the unfolding events in the Middle East not in the way that it has been discussed for half a century but in a way that suggests some soul searching on the part of a number of people. The article has the title: “The Profile of a Jihadist” and the subtitle: “The degree of his brutality is a function of his misdirected zeal to transcend the human condition.” It was written by Ian Tuttle who quotes a number of other authors, and thus could be construed as a kind of anthology on the subject.

Tuttle draws the profile of two men, one British and one Australian, undoubtedly steeped in the American culture, who left a comfortable life behind and went to the Middle East looking for a higher meaning in a jihadism that is mounted on behalf of a caliphate. Beginning with the question: “The caliphate's conquest is regional, but its draw is global. Why?” the author tackles the subject of Western liberalism of which Brendan Dougherty of The Week has written: “It demands of most men that they be mere citizens.” He went on to say that barred from “ascending to heavenly heights” the system was “not for everyone.”

Ross Douthat of the New York Times takes it from there and observes that the history of liberal democracy “is also the history of reactions to liberal democracy.” And what would that be? It would be the “yearning for a cause that societies have trouble satisfying.” And this is why, as Daniel Hannan of the Telegraph observes, young Westerners turn to jihadism which “holds out a vision of something pure … precisely what appeals to a certain type of youngster.” Tuttle goes on to discuss the philosophy of Pascal, more analysis by Hannan, and a recent film called Cavalry … in a quest to shed more light on why young Westerners are attracted to jihadism.

Is that what many of us knew long before these writers were born? Or did we know something they still have not put their finger on? To be fair, they may have touched on a few realities concerning the human condition, but what we knew then was a little less abstract and a little more practical.

Life in the English speaking world was not as politically correct as it is today, and those who bore the brunt of discrimination – aside form the “Pakis” and the Blacks – were the Jews. The young among them responded not by going West or North or Down Under; they went East to occupied Palestine where they were allowed to carry guns and to patrol the Arab villages. They could shoot any Palestinian, male or female, Christian or Muslim on the mere suspicion that they may have the intention to throw a stone at them.

To us, living in North America, that was the American Wild West transplanted into the Arab Garden of Eden – carried out not by rednecks but by the “cowardly” Jews we have known them to be here. And we never dreamed that the day will come when other Westerners, steeped in the American culture, would someday go there and fight on the side of one Arab faction or another.

The world we never anticipated has come full circle. It is imply amazing how history unfolds.

Simple cataloging is not creative thinking

A phenomenon that a teacher may encounter at times is a student that works hard and meticulously catalogs what he finds. He is a good student and merits receiving a good grade for his work, but the problem is that he has a limited capacity to think creatively which makes it so that he does not analyze what he catalogs nor does he add much value to it.

Being a teacher who believes that creativity can be developed when properly motivated even if some are born with it, you agonize on how to grade a student like that. What you want to do is motivate him to think creatively and add value to his research thus get a better grade, but without discouraging him by making him feel inadequate despite his hard work. What do you do?

Well, the answer to that question is that every teacher probably has a unique way to deal with such a student. For now, there is an example of a work done by someone displaying a high capacity to do cataloging but a limited ability to analyze what he has discovered, or add value to it. This, in itself, is not a sin but the sin that this candidate commits stems from the fact that he compensates for his inadequacy in a way that is illegitimate.

He is Marc A. Thiessen who wrote an article under the title: “What Obama doesn't get about the Islamic State” and had it published on August 25, 2014 in the Washington Post. Reading the article and trying to relate it to the title, you get the sense that Thiessen wishes to communicate a belief that Obama does not understand the extent of the threat posed to America by a group calling itself the Islamic State.

This prompts him to commit the sin of cataloging all the false accusations that were leveled by other authors against that group. This done, he raises the tone of his presentation with remarks like: “Good grief” and with the use of italics to emphasize that the war between America and the group is on because the group started it and maintains it even if America is not responding in kind.

Thiessen also catalogs all that the President has said about the group. And to him, this is proof enough that the President continues “to play down the threat posed to the United States,” which is what makes him refuse to take the lead and work to defeat the Islamic State. To buttress this point of view, Thiessen catalogs what other people have said about the subject. Among them, Ben Rhodes who is the deputy national security adviser, Gen. Martin Dempsey who is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Chuck Hagel who is Defense Secretary.

So you ask: What did these people say that is so big but that is so “played down” by the President? According to Thiessen, Ben Rhodes admitted that the execution of the American journalist represented a terrorist attack against the United States. As to Dempsey, he says this is an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days vision. Chuck Hagel, for his part, called the Islamic State “an imminent threat” to which Thiessen jumps to his feet blurting this being the case, and asking: “what's the holdup in attacking its command, control and communications in Syria?”

It is obvious that this self-appointed latter-day armchair rear admiral is not satisfied with the work done by a deputy national security adviser, a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Defense Secretary. He wants to tell them what to do but, believing that the holdup may be the President himself, he quotes him as saying: “People like this ultimately fail, because the future is won by those who build and not destroy.” And this is where Thiessen pounces on him – doing the literary equivalent of yelling: People like this don't fail. They have to be stopped. Nazi Germany didn't fail. It was defeated.

Yes, Nazi Germany was defeated but the question remains: how many evildoers failed on their own, and how many were defeated? It is not creative to pick on something notorious and mention it at every occasion to illustrate a point. If you want to argue against what the President said, you need to layout a complete analysis as to why America must get into a war that has the potential to humiliate it and bankrupt it not after a “long slog” but almost immediately given America's current condition.

Now is not the time to let the catalogers drive the agenda. Original and creative thinkers are needed.

The Club of Quacks with a loud Mouth

Ron Prosor is Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. He is a capable man; capable of making bad jokes by what he says and what he fails to say. He did it again in spades, this time writing an article under the title: “Club Med for Terrorists” which he published on August 25, 2014 – where else but the New York Times?

The Club Med he mentions in the title is what he calls the “tiny Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar.” He says it is the most prominent of the nations that still stand by Hamas which he calls “the radical Palestinian Islamist group.” He is not happy with that group because he says the hostilities in Gaza persist between it and Israel. And the way to end the hostilities, in his opinion, is to “disarm and isolate Hamas.”

But why single out Hamas when the fight is between two sides, the other being Israel? Why not disarm them both … which is what always happens in a dispute where there is a call to end it? Ah, here is the answer: The call did not come from a third party; it came from Israel via its ambassador at the United Nations. But this is an unusual way to doing things. You have two parties getting into a fight, and one says disarm the other. Why is that? To finish him off without cost to you? Only a Jew would come up with an idea like this. Junk it.

Prosor goes on to tell about the arsenal and other projects that Hamas brought to bear into the fight. What he does not tell is what Israel brought. Thus, we know that Hamas launched more than 14, 800 rockets at Israel during the three rounds of fighting and the lulls between them since 2005. And there has been the discovery of dozens of tunnels, he says; tunnels that were packed with explosives, tranquilizers and handcuffs.

But was Israel disarmed during that time? Of course not. Israel has a formidable arsenal of American-made warplanes and helicopters equipped with American-made guided missiles and smart bombs. It also has tanks and armored carriers of all sorts, as well as sea crafts capable of hitting targets on land. We know that Israel used all these weapons and more because the United Nation was there, reporting on the deliberate shelling of Palestinian women and children in the schools under its supervision. This is where those innocent civilians had sought shelter, and were murdered in cold blood by the ITF, Israel's Terrorist Force.

Well now, if mentioning the arsenal of Hamas without mentioning that of Israel was not odd enough, Prosor adds to the oddity by not mentioning the number of casualties on either side. We know why that is, don't we? It is because the dead Palestinian civilians number in the thousands while (at least according to the Israelis) the dead Israeli civilians can be counted on the fingers of one hand … and none of them came about because of the rockets. They died by regular artillery shells, say the Israelis who do not wish to credit the Hamas rockets with any sort of success because Hezbollah in the North has at least ten times the number of rockets that Hamas began with. Let Hezbollah know how effective the rockets were and they will know how useless the so-called Iron Dome has been.

So then, what is Prosor complaining about? Well, talking about the tunnels, he says this: “[They] end up at the doorsteps of Israeli communities.” This means they had the potential of harming Israelis but never did. By contrast, Israel's warplanes did reach UN schools full of refugees and murdered them. Yet, his conclusion is that this should be “enough to convince anyone that Hamas has no interest in residing alongside Israel in peace.”

Oh yeah? If this is true, what can be said about Israel that did reach the Palestinian communities and did manage to send many of them to their graves? Prosor may not be mentally equipped to see that thousands of maimed and dead on one side are worse than no maimed or dead on the other, but enough people on this Planet are mentally equipped to see it. They passed judgment on the situation and on Israel, seeing the latter as the calamity that proved to be the biggest mistake the UN made when it voted to accept Israel as a member.

Unable to find more reasons to unload on Hamas, Prosor unloads on Qatar and suggests that: “Qatar is not a part of the solution but a significant part of the problem.” He goes on to say that the message to Qatar should be: “Stop financing Hamas.”

Whether or not he has a point, what is certain is that Israel – being the only terrorist state on this planet – must cease receiving any form of help from America. This is not only for the sake of the world, but also for the sake of America and its future generations.

To defeat radical Islam, defeat radical Judaism

Don't ever again go around and say that Israel must comply with all United Nations resolutions, and end the occupation of Palestine because it is good for Israel or good for the Jews. Have the manhood or the womanhood to come right out and be so gutsy and so intellectually honest as to say it loudly, publicly and clearly: Israel must end the occupation of Palestine right now because if it does not, everything is on the table. And then start putting the things that truly bite on the table, and keep escalating till Israel has fully complied with the order.

This is the magic wand that will instantly transform the Middle East and the world from the near hellish place that it is now to the heavenly place it has the potential of becoming. Since the beginning of recorded history, Planet Earth has been plagued by one disease and one disease only; that of some people believing and acting as if they had rights that no one else can have because they were chosen and no one else was.

Those who have adopted this credence thousands of years ago, and those who followed in their footsteps throughout the ages, have perennially raised the profile of their diseased philosophy of life, and caused discord and wars everywhere they went. Now calling themselves Jews, they suffered tremendously for their activities, and caused humanity to suffer along with them. Their method is to lay dormant for a while, and resurrect like the phoenix which rises from its ashes to start the cycle all over again – again and again and again.

Today, Israel – which calls itself the Jewish State (JS) – represents the embodiment of this disease, spreading it around the world by the fact that other groups feel compelled to fight fire with fire and challenge the Jewish supremacist message by countering it with their own supremacist message. The inevitable clash between the two rivals takes place, and one way or the other, someone else and more of them get dragged into the fight which then takes on apocalyptic dimensions.

Having planned for the clash of civilizations and having started it between what is basically Muslim and what is basically Christian by latching itself onto the latter like a parasite, and giving the symbiotic combination the name Judeo-Christianity, the Jewish leaders of America and the entity that is Israel have started the latest round of planetary misery. It is one that promises to grow and become as destructive if not more so than anything planet Earth has experienced before.

America is the primary “Judeo-Christian” body to which the Judeo-Israeli parasite has been feeding, and where the magic wand that was mentioned above, should be waved to remove the current disease and eradicate it from the face of the Earth once and for all. Unfortunately, this is not what is happening at this time as you can tell from reading the analysis and the commentaries offered by those who indirectly advise the government in this fading democracy.

One such analysis and commentary was published on August 26, 2014 in The New York Times under the title: “A Necessary Response to ISIS,” written by the editors of the publication. Considering that this is the newspaper where almost nothing that is discussed fails to contain the word Israel or the word Jew at least once, you find that neither of the two words is mentioned even once this time. Why? Because this is supposed to be an editorial about solving a problem – one that is in the Middle East of all the places. And no mention of Israel or Jews?

And so, here is a stark example for the world to see and for history to record as to why things have deteriorated to the extent that they did in that part of the world. What you have is an American suggestion to heal a disease that does not mention the disease or acknowledge its existence. It is intellectually dishonest as only the editors of the New York Times can get.

Until this changes, and America gets to understand that it will be dragged into the next Jewish apocalypse the way that the Nazis were, America will continue to be dragged, and the world will continue to suffer.

Wake up, America; you will not defeat radical Islam unless you defeat radical Judaism with it.

Renewed Sykes-Picot Fantasies

It has always been said that while the Jews have grandiose fantasies regarding what they wish to acquire, they show little imagination when it comes to getting there without tripping themselves. They have been trying for centuries to run the world in a manner they thought will prompt someone to hand it to them on a silver platter, but humanity has repeatedly mauled them for trying.

Yes, human beings have at times let the Jews go a long way towards implementing their goal before stopping them … and this is due to the fact that they are a tolerant lot. But as the Jews have discovered to their bitter chagrin, the humans may be tolerant to a point, but the point does not stretch to infinity. Human beings have limits they sometimes express with lots of warnings, and sometimes explosively without warning.

The truth is that grandiose fantasies develop in the imagination of the Jews like nowhere else because their religion is not only a religion but also their folklore. And that is based on a history, some of which has roots in reality, but most of which is mutilated to a point it cannot be matched with the record of proven facts. And what the Jews say about themselves leads them to believe they have it in their DNA to create a Jewish Empire that will equal the sum total of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Assyria, China, India, Greece, Rome, Britain, France, the Soviet Union and America.

And so, what their leaders do at this time is rummage through those histories to see how things were done then, and try to duplicate them now. Their current preoccupation being Israel, they find that the work of the French and the British a century ago suits their purposes just fine. And that would be the Sykes-Picot Agreement according to which the two colonial powers divided the Middle East and North Africa into the kind of jurisdictions that served their own purposes.

And this is what you see John R. Bolton, a prominent Jewish leader, do in his article: “Destroy the 'Islamic Sate,'” that was published in National Review Online on August 25, 2014, and will appear in the September 8 issue of the National Review magazine. Because Bolton is a lawyer by training, he does not show his hand as he lays out his case. Instead, he looks for false reasons on whose coattails he can hitch a ride from the periphery to the core of his argument. When he finds them, he inches his way to the center where he takes a bow, and then pushes on the table a small package inside of which his grandiose fantasy is described.

The first convenient coattail he finds is this: “The recent military successes of the Islamic State have created a strategic crisis for the United States.” And here is another one: “the air strikes provided the refugees breathing space [but] the Islamic State still has the initiative.” And here is how he comes close to the core of his main argument: “We must now decide on U.S. strategic objectives … This will require some unpleasant choices, as well as the recognition that many policy options are unavailable until Obama leaves office in 2017.”

Despite the fact that Obama still has two and a half years to go before leaving office, Bolton starts to plan for what America must do after he departs. Here is one of the suggestions: “America's basic objective is clear: We must seek to destroy the Islamic State.” Is this a novelty? Of course not. In fact, the people on whose behalf Bolton is writing, had planned the invasion of Iraq and its destruction in the 1990s, fully a decade before the evidence to do so was fabricated, and the actual deed was carried out.

Having decided on the destruction of the Islamic State, Bolton goes on to describe his plan to reconstitute the Middle East a la Sykes-Picot. You may call it Sykes-Picot 2 or Sykes-Picot-Bolton. This done, he comes to the central point of his argument: “Obviously, the central problem is Iran itself, America's main regional adversary.” He wants to see a regime change in there, and no nuclear deal. But how to achieve all that? Here is how: “concentrate on regime change in Iran by overtly and covertly supporting the opposition.” Here we go again.

Supporting the opposition is euphemism to mean fostering the existing ethnic and confessional divisions. This is what brought the Middle East to the point where it is now. It is also the reason why youngsters with Western passports go there to get trained and return to do to the West what it did to their ancestral homelands.

In Bolton's eyes, it's okay that America suffers as long as Israel gains. And if Obama does not understand this simple principle, we wait for him to go, and groom a sucker that will do what we tell him to do.

WSJ Logic contaminated with moral Arsenic

When the spin doctors do routine stuff, spinning the news of the day to make them serve the causes they promote, they may take chances once in a while and say or do something without being too careful. They usually get away with it unless there are gadflies out there waiting for them to make just this kind of mistake. When it happens, they pounce on them and sting them as hard as they can. Well my friend, I ask you to believe what I am saying because I know what I'm talking about, having stung a few of them on this website.

The Wall Street Journal has been one of the publications that kept me busy almost continuously. It did it in two ways. First, it published articles by a large number of crackpots, many of whom are out there waiting for a sucker to pay them for the trash they whip up without thinking. Second, it published pieces written by its own Jewish editors whose approach to the business of thinking logically makes the moves of a raging bull – let loose in a china shop – look like a monk meditating in his study room.

What a gadfly normally does to sting someone who is less than careful, is to search for a weakness in the argument, of the kind that looks like a contradiction. It can be a contradiction with the self, or one with known facts, or one that looks like an affront to logic. Of course, the spin doctors know all that, and when they speak or write with care, they seize on the nuances of the subject matter they are discussing to stretch the points they wish to emphasize, and compress those they wish to hide. This leaves room for disagreeing with the opposite side without being disagreeable … and everyone would have earned his keep. At the end of the day, the work looks professional, and everyone moves on.

Where the gadfly will have a field day attacking a publication, is when the spin doctor makes a mistake of logic that leaves a hole in his argument. The bigger the whole, the more enjoyable the gadfly's field day, and the bigger the embarrassment of the spin doctor. You know what, my friend? Let me tell you a secret. The Jewish writers are the most notorious at making mistakes of logic that leave not just holes in their arguments but massive craters in them.

There is one now like I never saw before. It came in the editorial that was written under the title: “What happens to Palestinian Moderates,” and the subtitle: “Shot in the streets with a pistol to the head after midday prayers.” It was published on August 25, 2014. I would have given the piece a title like: Postmortem Defense in Absentia. But that would have been beside the point, because the essential point here is much bigger than that.

So now you want to know what the big hole in the argument is. Okay, here it is in the form of a comparison. Imagine America at war against an enemy that has already killed 400,000 Americans ... a quarter of them soldiers and three quarters civilians. The war is still raging, and a network of 20 spies or so is caught red handed sending information to the enemy concerning high value targets that did the most damage to America when they were bombed by the enemy.

How serious is that offense? Well, everywhere in the world and in every war that was fought, people like these have been judged summarily and shot without delay. You can argue about the case all you want, and there may be merit in some of what you say but the one thing you cannot do unless you are a Jew that is mentally disturbed to a horrible extent, is to call these people moderates for what they have done. And yet, this is what the Jewish editors of the Wall Street Journal have done. You just cannot be more disturbed than that unless you're someone that hires people of this caliber, or one that keeps them on the job.

In case the readers believe that the editors made an inadvertent mistake but do not really mean what the text sounds like, the editors went out their way to reinforce that point of view. First, they say this: “The public killings show anyone who dissents...” They called them moderates, now they call them dissenters.

And there is more. In fact, what comes next is more revealing than all the previous examples put together. Here it is: “The Palestinians will never have peace as long as they keep murdering anyone who wants it.” What they are saying here is that the peace the Palestinians will ever get from the Jews is the peace of the grave which comes with the betrayal of country.

Now you know what sort of logic these Jews have used to turn the American Congress into a snake pit of criminal traitors betraying their country the way that those Palestinians betrayed theirs.

Who has the Power to drain the Ocean?

The analogy has often been made to the effect that revolutionaries, radicals and what have you, succeed at implementing their agendas when they find themselves acting like fish in an ocean of people who sympathize with their causes. This was shown to be true during the second Iraq war when the Sunni tribal leaders got fed up with the radicals that invaded their territory under the guise of liberating them but turned out to be bullies who pushed everyone around.

And once again, it proved to be true when the Shiite government in Baghdad discriminated against the Sunni tribes that turned out to be those of an earlier time. But this time, their leaders responded by welcoming the troops of the Islamic State (IS) who turned out to be the bullies of that same earlier time. The difference between then and now is that the bullies have become more ferocious than ever before. This did not bother the tribal leaders, however, because they came to view the radicals as a better alternative to the rule of the Shiites; however imperfect they may have been.

And all of that can only serve to demonstrate that when people become fed up with a situation they can no longer tolerate, they turn themselves into the ocean of humanity inside of which the revolutionaries, radicals and what have you come to swim and thrive like fish. Not surprisingly, this is the lesson that is ignored by those who currently advise America. They do not ignore it because they don't know what is going on, they ignore it because they don't care about America. They have an agenda that aims to transform Israel from the Jewish al-Qaeda (Arabic for base) which it is now – into the hegemon of the Middle East; a kind of Jewish State (JS) they foresee will someday rule the world.

And in the same way that the Jewish al-Qaeda became the Middle Eastern hegemon-to-be with an eye on the world, the Islamic al-Qaeda became the Islamic State with an eye on the Middle East and the world beyond it. Israel has financial supporters everywhere, and an ocean of Evangelical Christians in America as an ocean of humanity inside of which to swim. Likewise, the Islamic State has financial supporters everywhere, and a multitude of Muslims, most of whom still reject it, but with the caveat that if pushed too far, they will turn themselves into the ocean inside of which IS may someday swim and thrive.

The supporters of Israel, known as the neocons of America, have been working for a number of decades to spark a religious war between the Muslims and what they call the Judeo-Christians because they believe that the Jewish rule of the world can only happen after an Armageddon of this magnitude. And the Muslims who responded to the Jewish challenge have welcomed this game because they too have come to believe that an Armageddon of this magnitude will serve their cause. Thus, both camps are now seeking the involvement of America if not that of the entire “West” in the wished-for battle they fantasize about.

You can see how the preparation for that day is done in America when you read any of the neocon writings, most of which articulate the reasons why America must ignore every possible fallout, and plunge head-on into a new military adventure that will take on the Islamic State. They foresee that this decision will prompt the Jews and the Christians of the world to turn themselves into the ocean of humanity inside of which JS will swim and thrive. And they foresee that the Muslims and their sympathizers around the world will turn themselves into the ocean of humanity inside of which IS will swim and thrive. The ensuing battle between JS and IS will be the Armageddon that both sides wish for, each side predicting will win it.

You can also see how the preparation is done by the IS troops, having learned from the Taliban of pre-9/11 that if you want to draw the attention of the Western leaders, you must gross them by doing something uncivilized such as blast old statutes carved into the mountainside. This will make their media spring into action and cover your activities. When this happens, the opinion makers will know it is time to start pontificating. In the endless cacophony and the befuddled melee of their cheap talk will rise the Jewish voices seeking as always to milk the situation for all it can yield in fulfillment of the grandiose JS dream.

But there is a problem here. It is that the culture of the West has so evolved under Jewish influence over the past half century, many people have come to enjoy being grossed the same way that drug addicts enjoy being stoned. It is that when they get hooked on a new style of thrill, they clamor for a stronger version of it each time.

This is why you should expect to see IS deliver more and more of the savage images that would churn the stomach of ordinary Americans. At the same time, you should also expect to see JS deliver more and more of the savage activities that churn the stomach of people everyone on the planet, not the least of which being the Muslim world.

Thus, while JS will deliver images of Arab babies and their mothers being blown to pieces by American-made bombs dropped from 5,000 feet in the air by American-made warplanes, IS will deliver images of American and other Western nationals being executed a la French tradition, but not necessarily with a French guillotine.

And the voices of the neocons in America will become more shrill as they ask the administration to go kill the IS. What they will neglect to say, however, is that the more of them you kill, the more will be spawned because the ocean in which they swim is the mother that also breeds them.

Thus, to put an end to IS, you must drain the ocean itself. But who has the power to drain an ocean of a billion and a half Muslims backed by five billion other human beings?

Analogy of the Drug Pusher and the Addict

Think of the neocons and their army of followers as being a drug pusher that regrets losing his main client. Think of war, blood and destruction as being an addictive drug that can become irresistible to an occasional user, let alone a habitual one. And think of the American decision makers as being the ex-addict that kicked the habit but remains fragile, liable to fall back into it – something that can be done with a little persuasion from the old pusher.

What do you think the pusher will do to tempt his old client getting back into the habit, which the pusher says, used to derive so much pleasure from it? Well, let's see what the master pusher is doing now. His name is John Bolton, and he displays his persuasive prowess in an article titled: “U.S. still has time to stake out a position of strength on Ukraine,” published on August 19, 2014 in Los Angeles Times.

Bolton's aim is not to make a hard sell right away but to whet the addictive appetite of the client. The hard sell will come later under different circumstances, perhaps even at the hands of a less formidable pusher. For now, Bolton is satisfied with rattling Obama's cage by mentioning the volatility in the European markets to which he adds: “While Western markets remain attentive, President Obama seems detached not only from Ukraine, but from the chaos across the Middle East.”

Now that he got the attention of the Commander in Chief, he tells him: “The stakes remain high for the United States, Russia and Europe … Putin's position will improve if the West loses its focus, its willpower or both … what's now happening.” But what does Putin want? Bolton tells what that is: “Putin wants Kiev's government to be compliant with Russian interests and demands … he prefers a neutered but whole Ukraine on Russia's western border.” And this must be considered a bad thing, should it not? What do you think?

In any case, everybody wants something. The fact that Putin wants that thing does not mean he'll get it. Right? Wrong, says Bolton because “he [Putin] sees American weakness and retreat.” So then, what can be done to stop Putin? Bolton has a ready answer for that, and he is eager to blurt it: “Washington should supply Kiev with weapons and other assistance [because] a weak America does not lead to a more peaceful world, but to exactly the opposite.” What better way is there to push weapons on someone than to say they contribute to peace?

The master pusher seems to have succeeded in this endeavor because the addict has agreed to take a whiff of what he is selling. And that event is documented in the piece written by the editors of the Wall Street Journal under the title: “A Small Victory in Iraq” which they published on August 19, 2014. But as the subtitle of the piece indicates, they want more. Here is how they put it: “Air strikes are helping the Kurds, but more U.S. forces will be needed.” That's US forces which translates into boots on the ground.

In fact, the editors make that very clear at the end of their piece after building up to it. To do that, they start the editorial by celebrating what they describe as President Obama's celebratory mood when he “emerged from vacation to hail Kurdish forces for retaking the Mosul Dam from jihadist radicals.” But that's not all they do at the start because they plan to end their piece with this: “get on with it, Mr. President.” They could urge him this forcefully at the end because they reminded him at the start: “the Islamic State radicals could have been stopped earlier if Obama hadn't taken so long to re-intervene in Iraq.” First, they chide him for being late, and then urge him to hurry up. Very ingenious, indeed.

So how do they build up to that finale? Here is how: “The U.S. air force strikes are giving confidence to the Kurdish forces, who don't lack for courage but have been outgunned.” But America is doing more than that, In fact: “CIA operatives and U.S. special forces are also in Iraq lending support.” And the editors remind the world that “special forces are combat troops by any definition.” They go on to say this means they are at war, and the enemy considers itself at war with America. The war is on, there is no denying it. Time to celebrate.

Now comes the final push to call for expansion. Without telling who their military sources are, they claim: “our military sources say the U.S. will need to send 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops … so get on with it, Mr. President.” To put that in perspective, mission creep in Vietnam started with a lot less involvement than that.

Finally, what this analogy demonstrates is that the pusher of anything addictive starts by sweet talking the potential victim till the latter gets a foot in the door. When this happens, the pusher says: “You're in it now; it makes no sense to retreat and not go all the way.” If kids can fall for that, so will America's politicians.

The true Face of a deadly Ideology

There is not a surefire rule of thumb by which we can determine what social norms must be declared acceptable and what must not. There are, however, a number of principles to which we must adhere because our survival as a species depends on them. For example, we know that the commandment “Thou shall not kill” must be adhered to because if we did not, we run the risk of killing each other to extinction. And there are many other examples.

Other than that, each of the hundreds of cultures and subcultures that exist today or have existed since the beginning of time, has adopted a set of social norms that did not develop randomly but was dictated by the evolutionary route that the nature of the environment has imposed on the adherents of the culture, and the circumstances that formed as a result. Because the circumstances have a tendency to change, the cultures have allowed the social norms to adapt.

But until this happens, a society which remains isolated for a long time will develop a set of norms that work for its members, and then go into a period of stagnation during which time little or no change will occur. It stays in this condition till visitors from another culture who adhere to different norms come by for a sojourn of some duration. A culture shock may ensue after which each society will acquire norms from the other, and be happy with them. Normally, the transformation will happen peacefully unless the culture shock is so severe, violence is triggered and one of the cultures is physically annihilated or totally assimilated by the other.

Adaptation to the environment and to other conditions is not only a human trait but one that belongs to all organisms. It takes place when the change is gradual enough to give time for adaptation to happen and be passed on from one generation to the next. This is how members of the fauna and flora have flourished to become many species, and this is why it has been possible to domesticate animals of all kinds.

Human beings are no different in many respects, but they enjoy one exception that is a trait unique to them. They are intelligent, which gives them the power to think independently. This is a blessing that can also be a curse if and when it is misused. Thus, the trait must be viewed as a double edged sword that made human progress possible but also caused humanity to almost annihilate itself on a few occasions.

That trait has also allowed human beings to develop a concept called fairness. And most of the conflicts that were generated between individuals, clans, ethnic groups and nations were caused by someone feeling they were not being treated fairly by someone else. The trouble is that with time, the word “fairness” took on definitions that range from the simple notion of apparent equality to the contorted notion that “I deserve more than the next guy because I have special birthrights.”

A careful study of the conflicts that have plagued mankind since the beginning of time can be traced to that contorted notion as well as the reaction to it. The reality is that when someone says “I deserve more because I am superior,” someone else will react by challenging him with the saying “I am more superior than you are … and this makes you inferior to me.” It is this kind of dialogue, however elusively it may be expressed, that is at the root of most contemporary problems.

At some point in the distant past, a group of people elevated that contorted notion to the level of religious belief and turned it into an ideology to live by. They have been the cause of every major conflict that has plagued mankind ever since. They went through several transformations, now calling themselves Jews, Zionists or what have you. Wherever they went throughout time, they entered into conflict with someone, and paid dearly for it.

This has put them at odds with the entire human race but they were never deterred, and they never relented. They are at it again, calling on the superpower of the day, where they have some influence, to pit itself against everyone on the planet to protect their right to do what they want without being accountable for anything. This mentality can be detected in the article written by the notorious Claudia Rosett under the title: “The U.N.'s Grotesque Gaza Inquiry” and the subtitle: “An inquiry into Israel's alleged abuses wins approval from Iran, Syria, and Sudan.” It was published on August 22, 2014 in National review Online.

When reading the article, it is better not to be distracted by the subject matter because it is what it is today, and will be something else tomorrow. Concentrate instead on the mentality behind those words, and this will tell you how dangerously contorted that religious ideology is.

Idle Speculation versus the Certainty of History

Even in the administration of justice where there is more brainpower outside the field of the sciences than anywhere else, you find that every issue is litigated with equal fervor on both sides. And this is because in the law, there is something called the doctrine, and something called the jurisprudence.

The doctrine comprises the philosophical principles through which an issue is viewed. Consider for example the issue of capital punishment. Someone may write a book to say that the practice is a good thing to have in a society, whereas someone else may write a book to say it is a bad thing to have. Well, both books become part of the doctrine on capital punishment.

As to the jurisprudence that is related to an issue, it comprises all previous cases which are similar or close to it. And the reason why the defense lawyers and prosecutors invoke such cases in a trial is because they know that the judge will want to adjudicate with fairness. This means that someone who committed an infraction today should be judged and sentenced the same as someone who committed a similar infraction or something close to it in previous years.

Still, with all these provisions to guide the litigating lawyers and the presiding judges as to how they should think about a case and how they should proceed, you find that opposing jurists, even judges presiding over the same case, will tend to see things from different angles. They will argue the case from opposite points of view, and they will adjudicate it differently.

This being true in a court of law, you have an identical setup in the court of public opinion. There too, you have what amounts to a doctrine and what amounts to a jurisprudence on almost every subject. And we have a published case that illustrates these points perfectly. It was written by Philip Terzian under the title: “When the U.S. Abdicates, Disaster Usually Follows” and the subtitle: “John McCain was mocked in 2008 when he said U.S. troops might stay for years in Iraq. He looks better now.” It was published on August 22, 2014 in the Wall Street Journal.

Terzian began the article by giving his argument a human face. It is that of John McCain who was mocked more than 6 years ago for suggesting that American troops may have to be stationed in Iraq for as long as a hundred years, says Terzian. And he points out that current events in the Middle East are proving that in retrospect, John McCain was correct. To explain all that, Terzian plays the role of lawyer and presents his case using both a doctrine of his choosing and several old precedents.

The doctrine he chose to discuss “was that the American people were war-weary.” And he counters that argument by saying: “The truth is that at any given time the American people were weary (or wary) of war.” He says they were in 1864, in 1942 and in 1949 when situations similar to today's presented themselves. Still, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected long ago, America entered the Second World War more recently, and “American troops were dispatched to Europe, where they remain 65 years later.”

And so he draws the conclusion that: “The duty of political leaders in perilous times is to lead, not follow, public opinion.” To do otherwise, he goes on to say, would be “dereliction of historic duty.” What Terzian does not do is say that under Lyndon Johnson, “the leaders” of America fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and got America involved knee deep in the Vietnam War where it suffered a humiliating defeat. Later, the same sort of leaders fabricated evidence to the effect that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and got America involved knee deep in the Iraq War, a misadventure that spawned the current situation for which Terzian wants to see America get involved yet again.

As to the jurisprudence, Terzian says that “the departure of federal troops from the Reconstruction South paved the way for Jim Crow,” and that the American exit from Europe after 1918 led to World War II. He goes on to say that “It might even be argued that American troops in Haiti, Nicaragua and interwar China did more good than harm.” He then admits “It is impossible to predict Iraq's future and … Syria's.” To end his presentation, he asks the question: “Which is more wearisome: The resolve to sustain our burden of leadership, or the prospect of a world in chaos and uncertainty?”

The trouble with this kind of argument is that it duplicates what fiction writers do when they ask the question: What if history had turned out differently? Opposed to that, there is what historians do which is to tell how history did turn out. Thus, the uncertainty resides in what the fiction writers say; whereas the certainty resides in what the historians say.

The fact remains that nobody can tell what would have happened had American troops remained in Europe after 1918, or withdrawn from Haiti, Nicaragua and interwar China. Opposed to that, the historians do tell what happened in Vietnam and in Iraq 2.

Terzian asked a question to which the answer is that it is less wearisome to go with the certainty of the historian than go with the speculation of the fiction writer.

Thank you Philip Terzian for your entertaining piece; you may send it to Hollywood where they might consider it for a B movie project. But keep America's nose out of world affairs.