Ebola:

A  Step  In The Right Direction - But The Systemic Problems Remain

Pandemic

When the rest of the media was telling you everything was OK I correctly identified Ebola as a pandemic. (Refer to my earlier blog.)

How did I know this? Am I psychic?

The answer to both questions is 'no'.

It is very obvious to anyone who has had an elementary knowledge of virology that, because of a number of prevailing factors, an outbreak near centers of populations densities, would, in this day and age of mass transportation and communications, have a devastating effect.

I add the word 'communications' and let me explain why:

In tribal African societies as exist in the 21^st century, it is only natural for victims to seek assistance first from related tribal family elders and members then from extended family – even before seeking medical assistance.

Why Is This The Case?

The stigma of symptoms at a time and in, what I call, more primitive cultures than our own , where Witchcraft, superstition, fear of the unknown, coupled with fear of known and very real and topical viruses such as HIV, create absolute hysteria and panic in such communities and within such tribal societies as existing in Africa. They (their uneducated politicians to be precise) then behave in irrational ways and take draconian measures – similar as to how people (and more critically, their politicians) behaved and reacted when 'Witchcraft' was 'identified' to 'exist' in towns and villages not too many centuries ago in Europe and America - and as also happens today in very primitive Saudi Arabia.  All such factors accelerate local hysteria and create the very environment where the exercise of commonsense and reason become less rather than more likely until the 'outbreak' source (those responsible for the Witchcraft) has been identified and 'purged' or expurgated from local communities. Only then, when this ' blood lust' has been 'satisfied' , will the 'hunt' cease.

Let me give you just one related personal example.

I know a very highly educated West African colleague who 100% believes in the power of Witchcraft.  That person has given me many examples from his/her life. I have tried to logically reason this issue in many discussions over dinner and at my home but that individual would have none of it.  
That person will often exasperate my reasoning by telling me that, logically, aeroplanes should not be able to fly (!)   And he/she is not alone.

I have met many (Christian) Africans (West, East and Central Africa) in the course of my life who as much believe in the power of Witchcraft as they - and other Christians  do - in the power of prayer and miracles. The fact that meditation (or prayer) and 'miracles' may have logical explanations is neither here nor there. The fact that one has a belief  that they do produce results, is, in my opinion, the relevant factor.

Welcome To WEST AfriCa - 21^st Century

So this is the environment, 21^st century, into which Hi-Tech American forces are being deployed.

Again, and typical of today's First World hubris, few (if any) will have any training in Anthropology and tribal customs. So they will be entering unknown territory in more senses than one.   In some regards, they might just as well be venturing onto an alien spacecraft – but without the pre-training for interactive communications and contact.  All the technology is in place, but the mindset is not.  Technologically they will be fully equipped and prepared but, as I mentioned in the case of Afghanistan and elsewhere, you simply cannot parachute the 21^st century back into the 8^th, or 9^th  regardless whether two different cultures, worlds apart, are using the same cellphones or eating  at McDonalds and expect everything to just settle down or morph in an instant into global congeniality (!)

If it's a Paul Bremer style Pro Consul U.S. 'administrative' military operation in West Africa (as in Iraq) then God help the unfortunate locals (!)

I have to be cynical and say that the only reason I believe President Obama has now acted is because China, Russia (and even Cuba) are already on the ground lending their skills and assistance to a very confused and frightened population.

America, far from leading, is the last of the superpowers to arrive with physical boots on the ground and logistical assistance in West Africa to help contain this pandemic.

The Iraq Factor – Exclusion Is the Order of the Day

 Again, and sadly I must draw parallels with the defeat of ISIL .

If the majority of politicians were really serious about it's defeat, as former United States Congressman Ron Paul has recently said, they would be prepared to work with those countries who have a real vested interest in it's defeat – Iran, and the government of President Assad in Syria (and whose forces will not cut and run) and not with those who, like the Iraqis, will run away, not stand their ground when ISIL forces appear, and, as with the Saudis and Gulf States, will only be prepared stand and fight to the last drop of (in the main) Christian blood (sic. armed forces from supporting countries of the  Europe, Australia and the United States.)  The exception is of course the Turkish Armed Forces - who are disciplined, determined, combat-ready and will most certainly stand their ground.   But modern Turkey (successor to extinguished the Ottoman Empire of yesterday) is regarded, with private suspicion, by the West, as the new 'Great Game'¹ of geopolitics unfolds in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasuses and any role it is invited to partake will factor in these parameters.

The World, As One Family, Has A Vested interest in Containing Ebola

So the U.S. Armed forces will not be working with China, Russia nor Cuba in West Africa but 'doing their own thing '.

In all fairness, I don't want to be overtly critical but I honestly believe that where global emergencies erupt, there is a duty on all politicians not to try to play politics with the future of the earth.   Sadly (and I have said this for so many other issues) as a species, we just never learn and are fated to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again.   Neither am I saying that Russia and China do not have ulterior motives – but I cannot deny they were there in West Africa with the practical help and assistance with their immense logistical capabilities, first and not last.  Cubans, as a people, have a historical link with the African continent so, despite the enormous sanctions and hardships they themselves are still under, it does not at all surprise me that they have offered to assist with whatever help they can give.  I only hope that the United States does not behave with hubris and demand the West African governments reject their assistance or it will 'penalize' the countries concerned.  Knowing how arrogance operates, this would not at all surprise me and I do not see them working happily nor cooperatively together – but CNN and Fox will not cover this part of the story – you will have to dig deeper to find out if my interpretation of this aspect of human nature continues to prevail.

The Systemic Problems in West Africa Remain Unchanged

No amount of foreign assistance will change the fact that West African politicians will continue to prefer to spend foreign aid on private airplanes and their own aggrandisement rather than on a sanitation, healthcare and education infrastructure for their respective countries and people as a whole.

I am sorry to have to tell you the truth and some of you will be disappointed that I have said this – but it's just a sad fact of African life.  No doubt it will change.
But it has not in my time on this planet.

I recall many years ago (when I was in my 30s) I was being interviewed

for quite an important government first appointment – which could have had great potential for personal advancement.

I was asked by the Interview Panel what I thought about the issue of Global Warming and how we should 'assist' the Third World to 'get it right' rather than their continued destruction of 'our' climate and environment.

I said that I thought Brazil, China and developing Africa were doing no different than Europe and the U.S. did during their periods of industrialization and that their burning of fossil fuels and tree felling for forest (jungle) clearance and agricultural development were perfectly acceptable.  We had done it to get ourselves industrialized so why apply different standards to hold back development in the Third World?    Besides, I added, they will someday 'grow out of it' and 'evolve' just as we did.  You could hear a pin drop as the Panel looked at me in horror.  Needless to say, I did not get the job (!) ; but I left that interview content that I had told them the truth to the question they had asked me, as I saw it.

So to return to West Africa, as I said in an earlier blog, don't have too high hopes on African leaders 'seeing the light' once the emergency has passed.

Containment is the key objective at present.  Changes in behavior (sic. human nature) are much more difficult and longer - term.

I do not see the latter happening until, perhaps, something really tragic wakes both Africa and the world up to respect State - subsidized public sanitation, healthcare, health education and, in my opinion, education for the masses as a right and not as a privilege for the few and for which African countries take responsibility for allocating realistic proportions of their GDPs to pay for such - rather than the existing  practice of reliance on handouts from foreign aid agencies for small-scale projects (much of which in any event never arrives into the respective health and education programs but ends up in pockets and bank accounts of local politicians, sometimes with the knowledge and complicity of their Western sponsors.)

Patrick Emek

Islamic Witch hunts  - Saudi Arabia :

wikiislam.net/wiki/Islamic_Witch_Hunts_-_Saudi_Arabia

and just one more  example from Saudi Arabia of a more primitive society than our own:
http://www.newser.com/story/195995/saudi-fined-for-driving-herself-to-hospital.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=inbox&utm_campaign=newser

 http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game 

http://www.ronpaul.com/ 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/106062813186522446847/about 

What   Will Be The Ultimate Result of

President Obama's Strategy To Defeat ISIL?

The first assumption I am making is that the American Public have not been told the whole truth.

If they have, and if the President in his wisdom, still intends to topple the (Shia, Alawite) Assad regime, what Syrians will inherit is the same chaos we see in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, with ISIL having 'morphed' into perhaps an even deadlier world-wide movement. Unwittingly, perhaps the President's policy will be bringing nearer the day when Salafism and Wahhabism will indeed dominate the Islamic world and, who knows, perhaps even further.   As a child of the 50s and teenager of the 60s I hope I am long dead before such a Talibanized world comes into existence.

None of our politicians are standing up for real personal freedom and democracy and all are cringing under the 'political' pressure of extremists.

Let me give just one example. A frame of thought exists that if only the 60s generation of educated youth in America was more 'docile' the Vietnam War could have been won. That liberalism, free thinking and the New Great Society created in legislation, not by the Kennedy Clan but by President Johnson (Lyndon B.) ruined America - especially corporate America and brought untold evil in it's wake.

That civil rights, extended free healthcare, generous welfare benefits for the poor and needy, and almost free higher University education produced generations of 'Free loaders' and 'Welfare Bums' who didn't know the value of a cent – and how hard it is to have to work for one.

That if only the media, politicians, society in general had been cowered into meek complicity and silence, that corporate America would be running the world right now, instead of having to cope with the likes of China and Russia.

(Indeed 'manufactured' internal conflict would have degraded China, as a potential world rival, decades ago. And left it still with combat and nuclear-ready forces along the Sino-Soviet border.) That all of these economic, political and social woes which have befallen America have been caused by liberalism - the so-called 'free thought' and all the 'rubbish' the Hippie-so-called 'Love Generation' - was peddling on the unsuspecting God-fearing American public as a whole. That even the established Christian Churches themselves started to actually take the sides of the poor, the impoverished and the weak against their traditional 'sponsors' and benefactors from time immemorial.

That the Anti-Communist wars in the Americas were lost as a by-product of this generation and their false portrayal of the military-industrial-economic complex.

That the United Nations was the greatest tool exploited by the Communists against U.S. interests worldwide – especially the newly independent African and American former colonies making the job of the promotion of American values and free enterprise even harder.

Indeed, the argument continues, the liberals even covertly began to discuss how to dismantle corporate America itself, through stealth legislation.

So there has been a 'push-back' against liberalism, civil rights, the rights of the individual, independent thinking and non-conformism to make Americans (and indeed citizens in the Western world) 'docile' and subliminally subservient to a 'higher vision' which they, as a whole, can neither 'see' nor understand. It's no different from the Nomenklatura – the privileged pseudo-Socialists and Communists in Britain, Europe and the Soviet Union during that era who saw the masses as having to be 'led' or legislated or coerced or terrorized into a docility so that they could, eventually, with carrot and stick, like zoo animals, be gradually 'educated' and 'programed' to 'see' a higher 'vision'.

So the thinking, at the heart of the matter, is no different in the U.S. today.

Indeed one could even say it is the successor to the failed Nomenklatura of Communist/Soviet years – but one now determined not to repeat the mistakes of it's failed antithesis.

So, in my humble opinion, it is in this 'Brave New World' environment, that President Obama has set out his strategy to defeat ISIL.  Interestingly, ISIL, again in my opinion, wants to 'control' people and thought in a like-manner. They are time-deficient so are committing unholy barbarism in hours and days rather than in centuries. Let me be quite clear so that you have not misread my thoughts.  The excesses of unbridled Communism and Capitalism inflicted on the world in a hundred years are being compressed – in barbarity, in excesses, with the finest of (human) meat-grinding efficiency and precision into terror-minutes, hours and days as opposed to decades or centuries to achieve their 'perfect' 'vision' which their masses could never 'see' but into which they must be first terrorized to submission and then, for those not fatally mutilated, tortured to death, decapitated, sold into slavery-captivity, murdered outright and raped wholesale, led as docile submissive lambs into the promised Islamic Sharia Caliphate Land, the 'land of milk and honey' – and only ISIL's vision can lead them, sometimes with carrot but mainly with stick (and kick), into this perfect new world.

We should already know where all such 'Pol Pot' visions of existence ultimately lead – but our species never has (nor will it ever) learn from it's mistakes – only lost in the fog, illusion and belief that, if only X, Y, Z had never happened, that perfect world could have been within grasp - so again fated to repeat the cycle of devising new philosophies, strategies and technologies of control to achieve the unachievable.

So then, will the President's Plan to defeat ISIL succeed and where will it ultimately lead?  Your guess is as good as mine – but I think you already know where I think it will lead - and it's not Springtime For Liberals.

Patrick Emek

Footnote:

When discussing the Vietnam War, it should also be mentioned that same thinking which ascribes reasons for it's 'loss', was the General Draft.  When middle and upper class families had to send their sons to War - and their chances of returning in body bags were (sometimes) as equal for a Black child in, let us say, Ferguson, Missouri, as a White child, in say, The Hamptons, Long Island, this created the kind of powerful resentment and political 'push-back' against the war,  from an educated economically influential and well-connected elite.  When their sons and daughters got involved in opposition to the War, this in itself morphed into opposition to more general injustices in American society and motivated part of a generation of America to take up what until now had been 'unpopular' social causes for equality, justice an human rights inside the United States.
Outsourcing of wars (and the reluctance to make national declarations of war  against internationally legally recognized 'entities' - countries with internationally recognized borders within the terms of what therefore must, as a consequence, be legally undertaken by agreement and protocol with international bodies, such the United Nations, the International Red Cross and terms of the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war and the Vienna Convention for the conduct of diplomatic relations, with a preference to more broadly classify everything under the title of 'terrorism' or 'humanitarian' genocide or  other disaster prevention assistance intervention) has, since that time, become a feature of the United States.   In part, this is no different from other great empires after their apex, when they outsourced protection of their borders, conflict management and campaigns to mercenary (foreign) armies and to others for whom the opportunity to fight (and indeed change sides!) were entirely motivated by financial considerations (or the likelihood of plunder and sacking of towns and villages) rather than the actual desire to assume any  longer term responsibility for conquered territory - which only came at a later stage when a realization about the real market value of the longer term ability to extract and or process the mineral wealth of a conquered territory would produce more plunder than the actual sacking and immediate departing of the mercenary forces or their masters of war.
From the times of the Pharaohs, Assyrians, The Hittites and the Romans,  the mineral and agricultural resources wealth of conquered territories for the motherland and fatherland were always appreciated.
As we see, when technology advances, new strategies and outsourcing opportunities arise in directions hitherto unrealized.    So this, in itself, is an evolutionary process.
PE

MH17 Black Box Data To Be Released Next Tuesday

MH17- Black Box Findings To Be Released Next Tuesday

Australian media article suggests that the long-awaited Black Box report will be released next Tuesday¹.

Whatever the findings I doubt that they will reassure a sceptical public about air safety over conflict zones and I would think that more and more travelers  will actually take an active interest in which countries the airlines carrying them to their holiday destinations are overflying.

With regard to Malaysia Airlines, it seems to have voluntarily chosen the autopilot for self-destruct².

Probability of Coincidences For MH370 and MH17

I have recently read an article where a noted criminologist, Dr. Jason Kissner, looks at the probability of coincidence for MH370 and MH17 across several factors⁴. It is certainly an interesting analysis but by no means conclusive. In fact, if anything, I would say that it is non-conclusive or inconclusive.

Dr. Professor Kissner is not a forensic aviation criminologist but presents analysis not found elsewhere in the mainstream and while some appears in places to, dare I say, go 'off the radar', it is nonetheless of interest and noteworthy.

Why have I focused on Dr. Kissner's article?    Because the chances of so many similar circumstantial details for unrelated events require the input of individuals at Dr. Professor Kissner's level of knowledge - as an Associate Professor of Criminology at California State University, notwithstanding the aforementioned facts.

It is not that they have answers, but their expertise may shed some new light on where to look for answers in such enigmatic circumstances where two seemingly completely unrelated events happen just over 4 months apart which are totally separate but which appear to have similar 'background noise'.

The likelihood is that the disasters were two completely unrelated events but the victims and their loved ones on those ill-fated flights need the reassurance of other noted criminologists such as Dr. Professor Kissner for closure of this aspect of the case.

Patrick Emek

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was carrying  239 passengers and crew.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was carrying 298 passengers and crew.
The total number of souls lost was 537 in just over 4 months.

1..http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/first-mh17-crash-report-out-next-week/story-fni0xqll-1227048053659?nk=4bcd7bfb84ec5844f515a6144e343f8a

2.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/malaysia-airlines-bucket-list-promotion-mh370-mh17http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/malaysia-airlines-bucket-list-promotion-mh370-mh17

3.http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/flight-mh370/57641/flight-mh370-pilot-practised-landing-on-island-runway

5.http://www.globalresearch.ca/malaysian-airlines-mh370-and-mh17-a-criminologist-questions-what-are-the-probabilities-is-it-a-mere-coincidence/5392265

(Please also note that Dr. Professor Michael (Jason) Kissner are one and the same
person.)


6.You might also be interested in what students have to say about
their mentor, Dr. Professor Kissner, very positive and highly commendable:

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=857813

Why President Vladimir Putin Is A Prime Target For Assassination

It's pretty much accepted that if you are the President of the United States, that you and your family are always targets for assassination.

This is just a sad fact of the world created, for better and for worse.

It has never, however, entered into the psyche of Russians that their leader too could be assassinated – because, excluding Leon Trotsky in Mexico (on the orders of Stalin) such has never happened, at least not in recent history.

All the signs are bad for President Putin. None augur well and there is every likelihood that he will be a main target for an assassin – with a vigor rarely present by terrorists in a Russian setting – but one which security services in the United States are, sadly, all too familiar with.

The brazenness with which some fruitcake, speaking from inside the likely cockpit of a battered vehicle or non-functional airplane will, without any attempt to disguise voice nor features say 'Putin, we're coming for you' is, sadly, a sign of the times.

Perhaps we should have been more cognizant that such events were long overdue – for all world leaders.
Imperial Hubris

Let me explain. Superpowers, and their successors, multinational corporations (the next, in my opinion, on the terror 'hit list') and their 'Chief Executives' and 'Senior Officers' have, in the minds of the terrorist and Jihadi fanatics, 'plundered' and wreaked havoc in the world, on it's people, their religion (in this particular case, Islam), culture, customs and natural resources, almost to extinction and with impunity, for centuries.

So much hate and obsession for vengeance and retribution now exists that, for example, 'Jihadi' fighters are prepared to travel from, say El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, from Gaza, from Egypt, Chechnya, from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, the Lebanon and other parts of this small planet, on what are, in essence, revenge and suicide missions - to avenge the deaths (perhaps recently or decades ago) of loved ones at the hands of the 'oppressor' and it's 'allies'.
Other high-profile countries where Islamic fanatic 'volunteers' are likely to originate are Colombia (South America), Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan,  Australia, Nigeria, Somalia and India.
These are all outside the border control supervision of the United States and Europe - which is why I have included them.  I have only included Australia because it is such an unusual origin for fanatics but it  may well be worth examining how it's (Australia's) own internal 'isolation' and racial ethnic provenance, unchanged over centuries (other than for minor regional economic factors) have motivated zeal amongst Jihadi fighters committing around a different flag (one, incidentally, as 'universal' as Christianity) which, in  their interpretation of their version of the Koran, appears a 'promised' and 'prophesized' 'fulfillment' by Allah as an answer for many 'sufferings' of the Muslim 'Ummah'.
The 'Ummah' in Spirit 
I have covered the concept and reality of the 'Ummah' in an earlier blog reference.  This reference shows the concept of the 'Ummah' from a Jihadi perspective as opposed to the worldwide concept of 'Ummah' by the majority of Muslims on the planet as a peaceful kinship and peaceful spiritual cooperative and harmonious worldwide unity.
The 'Mahdi' or 'The Chosen One'
Islam, as with Christianity, has a long history of charismatic Prophets, the 'chosen' Ones.  To the best of my historical knowledge, Muhammad Ahmed 'The Mahdi' (Sudan) was the last One of such prominence.  That ensuing, were, what became known as, The Mahdist Wars.
One of such prominence of the Islamic faith usually 'appears' about every 100-150 years, to be precise.  Since Muhammad Ahmed, whom I would identify as the last prominent Mahdi from the Levant and North Africa, including the Sudan, there have been other 'claimants' to the 'title'.

This has now been given an 'incarnate' form by ISIL and other 'Messianic' movements. In my opinion, it is this incarnation (sic. as 'Satan') which encourages radicalized individuals, particularly those with long held 'blood vengeance' pledges for the deaths of loved ones or innocent Muslims at the hands of 'the Infidel' or 'Kuffar' for example, to rally around a 'flag'.   It could have been a political flag but just happens to be one which ISIL have, unwittingly or calculatedly, tapped into at a particularly convergent time in history.  
The Shattered Mirror
A convergence of local issues originating with the appointment of a U.S. Administrator or 'Proconsul' (Mr Paul Bremer) after the defeat of Saddam Hussein, the complete dismantlement of the social, political, economic, military and ethnic culture and the impoverishment of a very proud, very ancient and very tribal Sunni population in one country - Iraq - all were added ingredients just waiting for a spark. That spark was, ultimately, ISIL.   Experts think 'Oh just give the Sunnis what they want and everything will return to normal.'  I beg to disagree.   Things have gone far, far too far, for the shattered mirror to be now, unbroken.
Historic Conversion Of The 'Heathen' and 'Infidel' To 'The Book' by The Sword - A Shared Christian and Muslim Inheritance

I have had some past contact and experience of individuals in the democratic world who formulate the policies which have input to the creation of the chaos we now see and what has always struck me about them is the arrogance with which they are convinced about their own invincibility – be it their imperial perceptions, beliefs in the ultimate triumph of 'democracy' and 'free range' capitalism, sometimes belief in the fact that, ultimately, they will 'convert' the 'heathen' to the true (Christian) God and destroy tribal and ethnic idolatrous effigies, cultural and social practices, in favor of 'Western values' as promoted through, for example, the United Nations. But, interestingly, their arrogance in frenetic commitment, is now equally matched and mirrored by ISIL – so these doppelgängers become the 'perfect' adversaries for confrontation.

It just happened that in space and time they intersected simultaneously and at a point where both have synchronously and in unison, reached threshold.
Lost In A World of Darkness

It is for these reasons that the arrogance being displayed by ISIL, completely oblivious to the feelings or consequences of the suffering they are inflicting in pursuance of a spiritual ideology, is simply a naturally evolved product of a world already inherited.

This may sound very logical and very simplistic but if you carefully analyze the literature of ISIL and hold it up in a mirror, it is an exact mirror-image of it's antithesis.

My only surprise is that ISIL executioners of prisoners don't (yet) show their faces – as they (too) have lost all sense of what it is (supposed) to mean to be human and humane to all except those (perhaps, and as an act of 'mercy') who completely 'submit' and 'conform' to their 'ideology' and 'vision' for existence in the here and hereafter.

It is for these (and more) reasons that a Russian President has never been more vulnerable.

Because it is so unthinkable for Russian Presidential Security Services, there will be at least some small complacency that this can never dare to happen.

Beyond Assassins (حشّاشين‎ Ḥashshāshīn) - A Brave New World

Many years ago, I said in a small gathering, that the poor man's 'nuclear' bomb were viruses. The ability to 'create' lethal viruses have been, unwittingly, present, worldwide, for a long time, a 'by-product' of the developed world. My surprise then (over two decades ago) and now is that, as yet, it still remains beyond the capabilities of all but a few.

I will not go in to why but again this is an area where, in my opinion, border security, as exists worldwide, will, when this challenge arrives, prove as useless as a horse an cart to get from Europe to the United States.

Again, it will be the responsibility of those charged with political policy, to first understand (which most do not as yet) then create the environments where such matters can be managed and countered.

The world, far from being a safer place where freedom, democracy, open source and open electronic frontier societies flourish and prosper, will be quite the opposite, should the fanatics (on both sides) succeed.

Patrick Emek

For layman's quick reference I refer readers to the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mahdi_claimants#Mu.E1.B8.A5ammad_A.E1.B8.A5mad 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Can ISIS/ISIL Be Defeated?

(fact is often stranger than fiction)

I want to approach the answer to this question in a non-standard format.

I would like you to allow me the liberty to use fiction to convey the dilemmas.

What follows is a Fictional CONVERSATION BETWEEN PRESIDENT OBAMA AND THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF :

PRS.O : Give me the bottom line on this, can ISIL be defeated ?

CJCS : Mr President we can guarantee to wipe ISIL/ISIS off the face of the earth if you can provide us with orders where the following are in place :

The armed forces of Turkey, Syria (The Assad Government) , The Lebanese government (including an agreement to utilize the forces of Sheikh Nasrallah – that is to say, Hezbollah), the Israeli Defense forces, an agreement to utilize the services of the armed forces of the Palestinian authority – Islamic Jihad, Hamas , Al-Nusra and Al-Asque martyrs brigade, an agreement to utilize the forces of the Iraqi government and those of Muqtada al-Sadr , the Kurdish armed forces together with an agreement to utilize the forces of the government of iran and those of Saudi Arabia.

There are certain other Gulf States already providing logistical support and this could be extended.

If you can deliver this to us we can deliver ISIL's head to you on a golden platter and guarantee it's complete obliteration from the face of the earth.

PRS.O : You know what you ask is ridiculous and impossible. Now give me the next best option.

CJCS : you asked me an honest question Mr President and I gave an honest answer .

CJCS : temporary containment is the next option .

On your command We can do a, b, c, d,...... x y, z........but as with many issues in the world, this will be a temporary fix . but we can dress it up to look like a victory .

PRS.O : how soon before these so-called ISIL caliphates and emirates become a reality?

CJCS : Mr President any nutcase who creates a revolution in the Muslim world can call their state a Caliphate or Emirate and themselves part of ISIL/ISIS  ,  but ultimately they will have to trade and do business with someone somewhere and when they do , we will be ready and waiting for them . When they run out of resources, that's the end of their ability to fund the Caliphates or Emirates.

Do you remember Mr President when Hitler invaded Russia during World War II ?; it was a priority to capture the Baku oilfields. The same was true in North Africa in terms of oil security.  When Adolf Hitler was starved of oil and pushed back through the Ukraine and Poland , the war was was effectively over .  Russian , U. S. , British and other Allied  boots on the ground finished off the job.

CJCS: Mr President, do you remember why (the political reasons) the Roman Empire tried so desperately to wipe out the spread of Christianity and what the ultimate result was?

If ISIL can be starved of a, b, c, d,....x, y, z then we can achieve victory of sorts but, in my opinion , a total victory is still illusive for the reasons above.

P.E. The above was an illustrative work of fiction (or fictional narrative) to emphasize a number of dilemmas and paradoxes facing any administration attempting to defeat a quasi – religious movement such as ISIS/ISIL.

Patrick Emek

9-Year-Old Accidentally Shoots Her Instructor Dead - With An Uzi -
On The Gun Range

(and The Lessons For Ferguson,  Missouri)

This is a very tragic case for both parties. For the victims my heartfelt sympathy. Training children is often fraught with complications. You are dealing with young persons who often just don't think before doing something. It may be because they are absent-minded or just get too excited to remember your advice.

The training range is one such place where excitement often gets the better of premeditated thought. There is no guidance in such situations. There is no guarantee that such an incident can never happen again. This is one such situation where there are no rules. No devised test can prepare you for a situation where a child does something 'stupid'.

I suppose the one thing that future instructors can do is to always be vigilant, no matter how normal the situation. It's like security.

It is, sadly, impossible to be 100% vigilant 100% of the time in such an environment – but this is the only way to avoid accidents during training on the Gun Range.

I recall an incident many years ago, where, let me put it this way, I was asked to 'accompany', let's call them, a 'tactical' response team, somewhere in the world.

The Officer in question 'forgot' a very important procedure – which, in other circumstances, could have resulted either in his/ her death and the death of a colleague, simply, because, I am convinced, the Officer 'forgot' a basic rule.

I knew immediately what the issue was, but in those split seconds

where the Officer and his/her colleague could have been killed, the rule had been simply forgotten.

If a grown experienced individual, probably having worked a long or difficult shift can (sometimes) forget something so basic, then how in heavens name can one expect a 9-year-old to remember everything all at once?

I want to go back to Ferguson, Missouri and the shooting to death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager by a White Police Officer.

We now know that at least 11 possibly 12 or 13 shots were fired at the victim, Michael Brown. Where the factors of racism, fear, absence of community policing and, in this Officer's case, probably minimal (ever) contact with Black people except in the course of his work as an arresting Officer, come into play, all combine in an explosive combination when confronted with a youngster who simply does something 'stupid' – does not obey the instructions of the Officer. I am just guessing – and we will probably never know the full truth – but all of the factors I mention earlier - racism, harassment of the Black community and their alienation from the 'White' Police Force in Ferguson, Missouri because of the disproportionate make-up of the force – 95-98%% - White in a predominantly Black neighborhood where poverty abounds, crime and or fear of Black people grips the White segregated community in their very own 'White ghetto', and a feeling that each night in Ferguson, for some (perhaps many) White Officers, is more like a bad night in Fallujah than normal Policing (so distant are they from the local people and their problems, their hopes for themselves and their children , their desires, their feelings, as human beings.)  It's a crazy unreal situation - and man-made - caused by conscious racism – being reflected every day and night in the physical presence of the Officers whose task should be 'To Protect and Serve'.

I have no doubt that such is reflected in many parts of the country and in many parts of the world where, either consciously or unconsciously, the same pattern as in Ferguson, Missouri, exists.

Well that's my take on a double tragedy.

Perhaps they both might invite Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris, Woopi Goldberg, James Earl Jones, Michael Moore, Karl Malone and President Jimmy Carter as celebrities with national and international status, and as a 'task force', to sometime offer the benefit of their wide and diverse experiences to what are situations requiring a different mindset – and after significant grass roots reform and overhaul at the local and political levels in Missouri?

Patrick Emek

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/08/25/arizona-girl-accidentally-shoots-shooting-instructor/14594549/

Was President Putin The Real Target ?

     Was President Putin The Real Target ?

You many recall that I referred to the presence of the airplane of the Russian Federation President

within 20 minutes of MH17.

My source gave me two distinct information references which I could not question for further details.

The first was a 20 minute time difference.

The second was the presence of 2 Ukrainian fighter planes in the immediate vicinity.

It has since emerged that President Putin was indeed on board the Presidential Airplane of The Russian Federation, returning from a visit to South America.
According to unofficial reports, the Presidential Airplane did not fly over the Ukraine - certainly not over the war zone.

As the media in general have ignored this matter I would like to look at it again – with the unthinkable in mind:  what if the President's plane was  the intended target  ?

First, if President Putin's plane had been shot down over Ukraine, Russia most certainly would invade the country right up to the Polish border.   The West (NATO) would be effectively at war with The Russian Federation.

Not too long ago a friend from Cambridge (United Kingdom) contacted me to say that he was in no doubt that Russia would also re-occupy Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania as it would no longer be prepared to accept the humiliation of it's ethnic Russian citizens anywhere in the Baltic States.

This was a very real fear being expressed to him by his own contacts in the Baltic States.

The Baltic States are not as strategically important to Russia as is The Ukraine.

From a strategic stranglehold viewpoint, Latvia and Lithuania have less a critical value as Estonia.

In the event of the President of Russia being assassinated under such conditions as, say, the downing of MH17,  it is not easy to predict what would happen in this regard.

Who Would Be Held Responsible?

A number of scenarios  immediately come to mind:

1. Disaffected Separatist Ukrainian Rebels.  Disaffected because President Putin refused to send

combat forces to support their insurgency against the legitimate Ukrainian government.

2. An attempted coup within Russia by generals disaffected with the conduct of the Ukrainian

civil war and President Putin's reluctance to commit ground forces (other than of course the existing presence of 'volunteers' and Russian Special Forces.)

3. A political or intelligence services' organized coup d'etat against President Putin – any new interim leader being seen or portrayed as the plotters choice.

4. An extremist conspiracy plotted in Kiev to provoke NATO intervention possibly leading to a third world war at the most, a new Cold War at the very minimum.

5. Separatist Chechen or Al Qaeda/ISIL rebels present in Eastern Ukraine.

6. A rogue commander.

7. An unfortunate accident.

Whatever the case, unless world leaders can re-assure each other that agreed protocols will continue to be observed (at a time when principles of international law are being flouted by major powers on a frighteningly regular basis) traveling  over airspace not within their own remit is not going to be a very safe affair for any of them and could indeed become a very hazardous experience.

I did say last year that when countries start to 'down' (force to land) presidential airplanes in transit, for whatever given public reason, that this was the start of a very slippery slope – leading to where, nobody can at present predict but what it will imply is a breakdown in international law and protocol which itself is also so reflective of the apparent breakdown in international standards and conduct in so many spheres of diplomacy, humanitarian principles in war, international relations between states and nations and, what I grew up with and was taught, as known and observed codes of international conduct.

I hope history does not show that this was indeed the case.

It would be beyond tragic to even contemplate that innocent travelers  worldwide are now pawns in a very dark and a very dangerous game which has no future in any sane world.

Patrick Emek



Technical Analysis
 Section 1 The Buk M­1 Missile System & Section 2 The Loss of Malaysian Airways Flight MH17 :

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByibNV3SiUoobnpCVDduaHVORHM/edit


MH17 : Boeing's Downing By BUK Missile System Unlikely - Russian Military Expert :

http://rbth.com/news/2014/07/29/boeings_downing_by_buk_missile_system_unlikely_-military_expert_38607.html)


''Unless one of the greatest sick hoaxes of the 21st century has been perpetrated and I too am a recipient,  I stand by my decision to include this next reference below.  I have, as far as I was able, researched the background of Herr Haisenko and have no reason to believe him to be anything but genuine.  Neither do I believe him have a 'grudge', to  be a 'crank'  a 'cookie' or a publicity seeker'' (Patrick Emek, 23rd August, 2014.)

July 30th, 2014, Analysis of photos of  downed MH17 (of any credibility) made available by By Peter Haisenko
German version:
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/schockierende-analyse-zum-abschuss-der-malaysian-mh-017/
English version:
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/ 

This site below  is identified as being openly pro-Russian in it's reference websites, some of which are conspiracist theory-orientated.   Some doubt exists about the authenticity and impartiality of all the photos - which are not all the same as those provided for analysis by Herr Haisenko at the website above, but much more detailed, undocumented and untraceable in provenance:   
http://guardforangels.altervista.org/blog/verita-mh17/

For those of you requiring some elementary schooling in aviation ballistic forensics, you might also consider a more impartial analysis by Mike "Mish" Shedlock:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/calling-all-munitions-and-fighter-plane.html 
Mr Shedlock also makes reference in his blog to a You Tube video of a Militia Soldier (Anti-Kiev Rebel) named 'Elena' from Sloviansk.  This video was published on You Tube on 18th June, 2014.  MH17 was shot down on 17th July, 2014.  I have only recently become aware of this video.  What 'Elena' says, if true, lends further credibility to my statement about a total  (observable) breakdown in the norms of international law (aviation in this case) and suggests that innocent airline passengers and crew could be deliberately used as 'human shields' in zones of conflict.   This, if true, is a relatively new and frightening development.   Yes, there have, historically, been cases of the deliberate targeting of civilian and presidential airplanes in zones of political tension and confrontation to either catalyze or initiate conflict and indeed, the use of spy planes 'tailgating' civilian airliners - with tragic results -  is not unheard of; but this recent tactic, if confirmed, brings what were once far away incidents right into Europe.   There are now, in my opinion, very immediate, very real and very imminent dangers to our own Ministers and  Heads of State as they carry out their normal duties by means of air transportation if agreed international standards are being flouted.
If the lives of ordinary airline passengers and crew are expendable then rogue elements in this and other conflict regions will not think twice before creating an international incident with  more 'spectacular' gestures:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/calling-all-munitions-and-fighter-plane.html 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/support-mh17-truth-osce-monitors-identify-shrapnel-like-holes-indicating-shelling-no-firm-evidence-of-a-missile-attack/5394324?print=1

http://en.ria.ru/world/20140803/191662050/Preliminary-Examination-of-MH17-Black-Boxes-Reveals-Nothing.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10996400/MH17-Black-box-reveals-Malaysia-Airlines-suffered-massive-explosive-decompression.html

Ferguson, Missouri:

The Shooting⁶ to Death of Michael Brown, a Black Teenager, by Officer Darren Wilson, A White Police Officer, and It's Aftermath

To ' Serve & Protect' or Communities Under Police Siege?

The answer to this question will depend on whom you speak with.

For Black, Hispanic and Communities of Color in the United States, unless they are equally represented within the forces doing the policing, they will perceive as occupation and control what others regard as the normal exercise of police tasks.

So the issue of race and representation is a critical factor in how a community perceives it's local police force.

Problem Identification Formula

Anywhere in the world, you can formulate that there is a problem of race, ethnicity or religious bigotry and or intolerance where communities are not being predominantly 'served' by a proportionate number of their like-brethren who are doing the policing within that local community.

Ferguson clearly does have a problem. But is the problem in America any different from, say, Zimbabwe, or Brazil or South Africa or the Sunnis an Shias in Iraq or the Ethnic Russians and  Ukrainians in the Ukraine or minorities within the Russian Federation?

Before you say how ridiculous the comparisons I want you to reflect for a few minutes, very carefully.

How ridiculous you find such comparisons will also, more likely, depend on whether you are a member of a majority or minority within one or other of these communities. I have made my point here so I want to move on to another matter.

Senator George J. Mitchell⁷ (United States) when looking at sectarianism and racial discrimination against the minority Catholic community over hundreds of years in Northern Ireland, recommended the disbanding of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a sectarian police force which the majority of Northern Irish Catholics found abhorrent to join, because it was blatantly racist, anti-Catholic and sectarian.

(Senator George Mitchell's Lebanese Christian origin put him in a unique position to look at discrimination against minorities, having come with historical experience from one such community.)

It was only after the disbanding of the RUC and the creating of a different culture in the recruitment and training of police officers, that Catholics en masse had the confidence both to trust and to join the Royal Irish Constabulary,  to 'Serve and Protect' the community as a whole, Catholics and Protestants, and with pride.

A similar reform of police forces across the U.S. is long overdue, as we see from supporting demonstrations against police brutality and harassment nationwide.

The Second Amendment To The Constitution of The United States – and Why It Must Be Defended by All Communities Regardless of Race, Religion and Color

The next issue is that of the 'militarization' of the police force in Ferguson and why they should be 'demilitarized'. This line of discussion is usually promoted by media networks, politicians and individuals who would, ultimately, prefer to disarm the people to concentrate firepower exclusively in the hands of the State. They would, on the whole, therefore, wish to extend this argument to the issue of gun control - and Ferguson provides an unexpected opportunity first to promote the 'demilitarization' of the local Police, then, as an extension to this, of local citizens, leaving the State (or National Guard and Armed Forces) as the ultimate 'protect and serve' guardians of the people.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of The United States⁵  is the most precious gift of liberty the Founding Fathers have given to all Americans.

Every tyrant from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein to the Taliban in Afghanistan first seek to disarm the people – and in many instances the local police (creating specialist units – such as the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Die Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) who have State authority to bear arms) before they implemented reigns of terror against defenceless communities.

Every tyrannical country in the world you can think of today make the possession of personal firearms illegal or at the very least, subject to local (State Police) control
and monitoring.  They give all sorts of excuses but the real reason is to leave the people powerless against State tyranny.

Not in the United States where citizens rights to bear arms are enshrined in the constitution.

Problems in Ferguson – Is Ferguson Unique or Just Long Due for Overhaul?

There are problems in Ferguson, Missouri, as there are problems in many police forces across the United States as there are problems in police forces across many countries in the world, but such should not turn into a debate about disarming America, as a civil society, including the disarming of the police force.

Most citizens outside the free world envy the right of every American to protect himself herself and family with as much an arsenal of weapons as they can afford to maintain (assuming they agree with the principle of the Second Amendment.)

It's at times such as this that the NRA should be universally supported so that other Fergusons become less likely and the State thinks twice before looking down the sniper sights of it's arsenal against the people exercising their First Amendment⁸  rights. 

If there ever was a reason for communities to organize themselves under the Second Amendment for protection it is Ferguson - and the NRA⁵  can provide the right guidelines to all citizens, regardless of race, religion or color, to ensure that this protection is available within the terms of the U.S. constitution.

The H.R. 1033 Program^1&2  – 
And The Rights Of Citizens Opposed To Police 'Militarization'

Unlike, for example, Russia, America is an open democracy where the rights of all citizens are enshrined in the constitution.

You will never hear of protests against police brutality towards minorities in the Russian Federation because the people are powerless against the State and, of course, it is illegal for citizens to possess weapons to protect themselves and their families against criminals and the totalitarian post Soviet Police State.

If American citizens are unhappy with the 'militarization' of their local police force they can lobby their lawmakers to either scrap or amend the H.R. 1033 program¹ as applicable to their State or Community.

Indeed one Democratic Congressman, Hank Johnson^3&4  is doing just that.

There is no particular reason to have a 'militarized' police force to counteract peaceful protest (even with the presence of troublemakers amongst demonstrators) but to suggest 'demilitarizing' the police and leaving communities defenceless simply because of 'rogue' elements within forces (or indeed introducing gun control because of rogue or mentally unbalanced individuals across the country) is, in my opinion, not a solution to racial profiling, racism nor the culture of discrimination which results in minority communities being 'curfewed' or harassed after darkness by 'rogue' police forces and officers operating unter the guise of 'To Serve and Protect'.

Patrick Emek

^{1. https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1033/text}

^{2. http://www.dispositionservices.dla.mil/leso/pages/1033programfaqs.aspx}

^{3.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/14/1321575/-Rep-Hank-Johnson-to-introduce-bill-to-stop-providing-military- equipment-to-local-police-forces}

^{4.https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/927?tag=081914splash3}

^{5.http://www.nraila.org/second-amendment.aspx}

<sup>6.I say 'shooting to death' so as not to prejudice the on-going FBI forensic and other likely subsequent investigations into the death of this unarmed teenager

7.Senator George Mitchell:
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=m000811</sup>

8.The First Amendment To The Constitution of The United States:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

''That's My Boy!''

(7-Year Old Australian Child Proudly Holds Up Severed Head of A Syrian Soldier-May His God Have Mercy on Him)

                 -and the whole world is horrified-

        Why is the world so horrified?

We teach 7year-olds to shoot live weapons, we teach them about 'good' and 'evil';

why should our definition of 'good' and evil' be the only ones?

You can only ever understand those who differ from you if you have the strength of character to walk some distance in their very own shoes.

Here is a very proud father who has taught his beloved sons that all Christian Infidels, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and those Muslims not sharing the family's interpretation of the Koran are apostates, incarnations of evil, sons and daughters of Satan who only appear in human guise, (like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden) to 'trick' the pure of heart and faithful and to subvert the world into (spiritual) darkness and confusion.

Cutting off a head of that many-headed Serpent is not just a test but also a re-affirmation of Islamic faith as it is a Holy Duty demanded by the one true God, Allah so that, one day, by his Grace, all infidels, the Children of Satan and all other apostates will be (ritually) slaughtered and thus 'banished' from this planet so that Allah's Eternal Kingdom will be inherited by the faithful and the spiritually pure of heart. This is how ISIL and indeed a larger number of followers of Islam, specifically of Wahhabism and Salafism, see the world; more than the majority of Western politicians and the media services in general would like to discuss and would, in any event, be too embarrassed to admit, as both continue to shed crocodile tears of shock and awe and outrage and lame proffered horror.

This is no 'wacky' one-off incident.

The fact that the Western media are now taking some small interest should tell you how it keeps the populace in ignorance about the true nature of Salafism and Wahhabist – both of which originate in Saudi Arabia (of course, where else would all this vile hatred, evil philosophy and twisted interpretations of Islam in the Muslim world be emanating from.)

My surprise and shock is the fact that the media and politicians appear shocked – as if they had no clue whatsoever as to what has been going on for the past 50 years in the Muslim world -especially in Saudi Arabia.

You can draw your own conclusions as to why the Saudis are immune from criticism but what I will say is that if nothing is done to contain such twisted and corrupted interpretations of Islam from taking root in our own societies they will continue to spread like wildfire – and we will not be blissfully immune in our ignorance - until popular opinion in Christendom forces the politicians to act to protect our own communities falling as victims to such hatreds, intolerance, and, to any sane individual, evil practices – more akin to, Cannibalism, Black Witchcraft and to the notional and ancient 'Antichrist' than to rational, tolerant, multifaith plural societies attempting to consign such barbarism and evil to the history books rather than re-invent it in the 21^st Century.

Patrick Emek

http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2014/08/thats-my-boy-australian-jihadist-tweets-photo-of-7-year-old-son-holding-severed-head-2892420.html

      UN Chief, Ban Ki-moon:
      ''This Madness Must Stop''

Both articles at (1) below emphasize the futility of  outsiders trying to bring permanent  peace to so intransigent parties as Israel and Palestine, Arab and Jew,  both  from the same Biblical ancestor,  Abraham.

There are not enough words in the English dictionary nor sentences to be shaped from known vocabulary, not enough similes nor metaphors, onomatopoeia nor imagery, personification nor prose,  quotation nor article, superlatives nor syntax, alliteration nor analysis, rhyme nor reason, rhythm  nor emotion, nomenclature nor graphics, contrast nor comparison, prose nor pun, text nor narrative, style nor stanza,  emphasis nor contrast, viewpoint nor presentational device, extended metaphor nor interpretation, tone nor theme, audience nor readership....to give justice to the victims: the dead, the dying, the bereaved, the grieving, the permanently scarred, the  lives shattered and forever torn apart.... and,  above all,  the lives,  the loves, the hopes and the dreams that were never to be fulfilled.



 ©Patrick Emek   08.05.2015


(1)
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.608659

http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=7904


For interested readers:
Biblical background 
Why Do Jews and Arabs/Muslims Hate Each Other?
http://www.gotquestions.org/Jews-Arabs.html