If not Assad

It is clear that we are moving towards a change in approach to the Syrian civil war.

Putin's Russia has always been clear that he supports the regime of President Assad.  We can sense though, that some European leaders are also moving in that direction.  The problem for the Europeans is that they have been very publicly strident in their condemnation of Assad.  They have repeatedly said, that Assad must go and they wouldn't talk to him.

Finally, however, these leaders are recognising that Assad has to play a part in the process.  This dawning of reality, however odious it might seem (and do listen out for the knee-jerk shrieks of horror from the liberal media), also finally moves the focus very strongly onto how to eliminate Daesh (ISIS).

Russia is calling for coordination of the military effort and, if only to avoid a potential clash between East and West forces, this really has to happen.  France has now commenced air operations against Daesh, in Syria - having earlier said that such actions would be illegal!  Seems like President Hollande is putting socialist rhetoric behind realpolitik in the pecking order.  UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, is expected to bring a motion before parliament, within the coming weeks, seeking parliamentary approval for the UK to join in the bombing of Daesh targets in Syria.  If Germany can pull itself away from the silly Volkswagen matter, then they too might participate.

This coalescing towards a coordinated and focused attack on Daesh can have a number of positive effects.

Firstly, this should allow for the creation of a series of safe zones within Syria, protected by the air power available.

Secondly, this will then provide a reason to halt the flood of migrants that have been leaving Syria.  For this, real assistance, rather than just score settling with Turkish Kurds, will be need to be demanded from Turkey.  Demanded because Turkey has, throughout the whole sorry story, served only its own interests.  Indeed, it is clear that Turkey, led by the strongly Islamic Erdogan, has allowed for a significant destabilisation of its neighbours and the EU.

Thirdly, this will take the fight to Daesh.  It is clear that the Syrians do not have the capability to eliminate them.  It is equally clear that the Iraqi army does not have the stomach for a fight against Daesh.  They have very little to no support amongst Sunni Iraqis.  Their Shia militias are simply lawless and, not too different from Daesh in how they subjugate the areas they occupy.  Their Iranian allies, seem more interested in colonizing the south of Iraq than in taking on Daesh.  The Kurdish Peshmerga can, and do, hold the line against Daesh but they are poorly armed and, due to Turkish, Iraqi and Iranian pressure, the West have produced very feeble support and materiel, so the Peshmerga are being under-used.

The issue of who succeeds Assad needn't concern us, at this point.  He is very weakened and whatever the outcome, cannot survive in the medium term.  This does not mean that Syria, free  of Daesh, will become a democracy post-Assad.  One has to question whether or not, the imposition of Western style democracy is suited for some countries, including Syria.  The Syrian civil war was a direct outcome of the so called Arab Spring.  This 'flowering' of people power has led to absolute chaos in Libya, an effective military dictatorship in Egypt (no realm change there!) and a loosening of control in Tunisia, following the ousting of long-term President Ben Ali, such that Islamic terror can stalk their tourist resorts, killing at will.

So change is coming to the Syria conflict and this will create some strange bed-fellows but the West, if Obama and Kerry's naivete  can be sidelined, has an opportunity to eliminate Daesh and then to eliminate Al Qaeda in Syria (though doing the latter might just create a vacuum for Hezbollah to fill). Now therefore, is the time for Cameron and Hollande to show backbone and stand-up to this lame-duck US President and his court-jester Secretary of State.  Who knows, they might even get some trade-off, from Russia, relative to Ukraine.

America's opportunity

On Friday, many Americans received news that they had long wished for - Speaker John Boehner is to retire his position at the end of October.

This presents the Republicans in the House of Representatives with an opportunity to come outside of the Washington Bubble and elect someone who resonates with Republican voters.  Let's not forget, when considering the candidates, that the Tea Party is Republican.  Indeed, many who follow that group, consider that they are the true keepers of Republican ideals.

The early front-runner, Kevin McCarthy, from California seem to be very much the  'establishment' candidate.  A man who can be relied upon to not rock the boat, to not confront the Obama regime - to be a good ol' boy.  Boehner without the orange perma-tan.

It would be a grave mistake for Karl Rove and Reince Preibus to push and impose 'more of the same' on Republican supporters.  The grassroots, and that doesn't just mean, the Tea Party, need to be brought back into the fold.  The Republican leadership will ignore them at their, and America's peril.

Simply put, America (and, come to that the World) cannot take another 4 years of Democrat mis-management.  There is no time for the dubious luxury of RINOs.

The clear choice should be Rep.Trey Gowdy.  He has stirred the pot by pursuing Hillary Clinton over Benghazi.  He may yet be able to bring her to book for, what was at best a serious dereliction of duty and at worst complicity in the unnecessary death of Americans and then in the reprehensible cover-up  of the background to the events.   Having opposed Boehner's debt limit measures in the past, being fundamentally against Obamacare, which he wants to repeal, wanting to limit the interfering and anti-business regulations that emanate from the Climate Change fools that run the Environmental Protection Agency and strongly in favour of a balanced budget, Gowdy demonstrates all of the characteristics that are wanted by a leader of the Republicans.  He is 'sound', as they say in Britain, on all of the issues that really matter to Republicans and right-thinking Americans.

He does seem to lack the ability to tear-up and bawl at the drop of a hat but my thinking is that this is something America can live without.

The selection of Gowdy should also help to thin out the current crop of those seeking the nomination for Republican candidate for President.  It would send a clear message to America and particularly, the Democrat Party, that the Republicans mean business.  That the Republicans are going to focus on the key issues affecting America:

• The rampant and unaffordable spending of the Obama administration and proposed by the Democrat candidates.
• The swamping of America's cities by illegal aliens.
• The weakening of America's military
• The abandonment of America's traditional allies in favour of nations that seek the very destruction of America.
• The restoration of respect for the rule of law, including the Constitution, and the protection of those that serve and enforce the law.
• Ensuring that veterans, who have loyally served America, receive the medical treatment that they need.
• That terrorism and the evils of Islam are recognised as the truly single greatest threat to the very existence of the United States and not the pseudo-science and doctored-results backed Climate Change. 
• That the education of America's future generations must emphasise the importance of the Judeo-Christian values upon which America was founded.

Of course, Gowdy probably won't be elected.  McCarthy will get the role and will continue the obeisance to Obama and in doing so, will cause continued hardship for millions of Americans and will accelerate the decline of America.  This will also cause many Republicans to move ever further away from the Republican Party and to not vote for it in 2016 - why would any Republican vote for the likes of Bush or Rubio, when a true Republican like Ted Cruz is sidelined by the establishment?


 

Europe - too little, too late

Given the continuing crisis in Europe, I must, once again, return to the subject.

Belatedly, EU politicians are coming to the realisation that the best way to tackle the issue of Syrian refugees, is to do so, at, or close to source.  So they are talking about granting further aid to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.  This will certainly help – indeed, this is the policy that has been advocated by the British government – a policy for which the liberal left and EU elite castigated Cameron’s government.

However, this solution only has the opportunity to address the Syrian element.  Many of the swarm of people now invading Europe’s soft underbelly, come from places other than Syria.  They come from Iraq – even though many areas of Iraq are under government rather than Daesh control.  They come from Eritrea – presumably these are in opposition to the government?  They come from Pakistan and Bangladesh, from Somalia and Ethiopia, Nigeria and Kenya .    These people are getting swept-up in the mass and all are being labelled as ‘refugees’   Plainly that is wrong but the EU solution does nothing to address this. 

Nor does it do anything to address the mass of immigrants that are seeking to illegally enter Europe, from Libya.   So hard luck Italy – Germany finally feels imperilled by the swarm coming in from the south-east and so action must be taken.  France is feeling destabilised by these immigrants and so, to hell with the Italians.

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (being a European position, quite naturally, unelected), laid out the new policy last night, after long talks with EU member states.  These talks followed on from the issue of a ‘diktat’ from the European Union that forces most of these ‘sovereign’ nations to accept a quota of immigrants (a few countries, the UK among them, are not affected because they have an opt-out).    There has to be a strong question mark over whether or not any of these nations can really continue to be called ‘sovereign’, especially when they can be forced to accept policies that they very clearly don’t want to.

Consider also, that Spain has been told it must accept 19,219 migrants.  Portugal must take 4,775.  That is the same Spain with unemployment currently standing at more than 22% and youth unemployment at more than 48%.  The same Portugal with unemployment at close to 12% and youth unemployment of more than 31%.  So these already suffering and impoverished countries must accept people who will naturally be an immediate and long term welfare burden.

Tusk and the EU elite have come to the realisation that they must undo the effects of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s at best naïve, and certainly very stupid open invitation to ‘refugees’.  Merkel’s invitation has been likened to those teenagers that post a ‘party at my house, tonight’ notice on FaceBook or Twitter and then wonder why hundreds or thousands of people turn-up.

Tusk advised people that it is time to ‘correct the policy of open doors and windows’   He also warned that the greater part of the tide (is that the Polish word for swarm?) was yet to come!

The EU will also need to strengthen its borders, according to Tusk.  Yes, that’s right, the EU needs to do the very thing that Hungary has been so pilloried for.  Hungary builds a fence – very bad.  EU builds fences in border states, including Hungary – that’s okay!  A fiction writer wouldn’t be believed if he or she wrote such stuff!  I suppose though, that is the price that is paid, when a nation surrenders its sovereignty.

 

Memo to SkyNews and BBCNews – Maybe do some background checks on those Syrian professionals that you interview?  Yes they can appear quite eloquent and well-spoken but maybe ask yourself  how, in what Sky and the BBC insist is an oppressive regime, led by Assad, did they manage to have such a very good, middle class lifestyle?  Were they maybe, until very recently, staunch supporters of the regime, who have ‘read the writing on the wall’ and are getting out, with their wealth, before Assad falls?  Wouldn’t that make them economic migrants rather than refugees

One intriguing prospect of the EU’s crass mishandling of the migrant invasion is that this is seriously strengthening the hand of the Brexit  campaign.  What kind of country would Britain be, if Eurocrats and ministers from other EU countries can simply dictate how many immigrants a company must take?  What kind of a country would Britain be if its borders were to be protected, not by  its own troops and border services but by an EU Border Force (the creation of this supra-national body is the latest idea out the EU Project)   One has to wonder if this is by some kind of design.  Has Brussels and Berlin decided that the British can never be ‘brought to heel’ (history should have been a good guide here!) and so the only way that the Euro-Project can progress, is without the UK.  Have the Germans and EU elite spoken to Obama’s US administration and reached an understanding to isolate the UK?  Will they be ‘bigging up’ Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, so as to create division within the UK?

Watch this space!

See also Europe - A Refugee is for life.

Europe Immigration - A solution

A Swarm

Action required

 

Educating to defeat?

Why do our best and brightest fail when faced with a man like Putin? Or with charismatic fanatics? Or Iranian negotiators? Why do they misread our enemies so consistently, from Hitler and Stalin to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph?

The answer is straightforward:

-  Social insularity: Our leaders know fellow insiders around the world; our enemies know everyone else.

-  The mandarin’s distaste for physicality: We are led through blood-smeared times by those who’ve never suffered a bloody nose.

-  And last but not least, bad educations in our very best schools: Our leadership has been educated in chaste political theory, while our enemies know, firsthand, the stuff of life.  Above all, there is arrogance based upon privilege. For revolving-door leaders in the US and Europe, if you didn’t go to the right prep school and elite university, you couldn’t possibly be capable of comprehending, let alone changing, the world. It’s the old social Not our kind, dahhhling... attitude transferred to government. 

That educational insularity is corrosive and potentially catastrophic: Our bestuniversities prepare students to sustain the current system, instilling vague hopes of managing petty reforms. But dramatic, revolutionary change in geopolitics never comes from insiders. It’s the outsiders who change the world. In the 21st century, our government suffers from the sclerosis of insider thinking that constantly reinforces itself and rejects conflicting evidence. 

  

The result is that we are being whipped by savages. 

 Of course, the insiders can’t accept so abhorrent a prospect as their own fallibility. So when new blood does enter ” through those same elite institutions ” it’s channeled into the same old calcium-clogged arteries. And we get generals with Ivy League Ph.D’s writing military doctrine that adheres cringingly to politically correct truisms and leaves out the very factors, such as the power of religion or ethnic hatred, that prove decisive. 

  

Or a usually astute commentator on Eastern European affairs who dismisses Vladimir Putin as a mere chinovnik, a petty bureaucrat, since Putin was only a lieutenant colonel in the KGB when the Soviet Union collapsed and didn’t go to an expensive, exclusive Swiss prep school like our latest strategic thinker, John Kerry. 

That analyst overlooked the fact that Hitler had been a mere lance corporal. Stalin was a failed seminarian. Lenin was a destitute syphilitic. Ho Chi Minh washed dishes in the basement of a Paris Hotel. And when the French Revolution erupted, Napoleon was a junior artillery officer.

And sophisticated Germans assumed they could use Hitler and then dismiss him, while other Europeans mocked him. Stalin’s fellow Bolsheviks underestimated him, until it was too late and their fates were sealed. The French didn’t notice Ho. And Napoleon shocked even his own lethargic family. The man on horsebackis often the man from nowhere, and the members of the club ignore the torches in the streets until the club burns down around them.

Put another way: We are led by men and women educated to believe in the irresistible authority of their own words. When they encounter others who use words solely to deflect and defraud, or, worse, when their opposite numbers ignore words completely and revel in ferocious violence, our best and brightest go into an intellectual stall and keep repeating the same empty phrases (in increasingly tortured tones):

Violence never solves anything. There’s no military solution. War is never the answer. Only a negotiated solution can resolve this crisis. It isn’t about religion.

Or the latest and lamest Harf-isms: We need to have strategic patience (whatever-the-hell that is) and Terrorists need jobs.

Every one of those statements is, demonstrably, nonsense most ” or all ” of the time. But the end result of very expensive educations is a Manchurian Candidate effect that kicks in whenever the core convictions of the old regime are questioned. So we find ourselves with leaders who would rather defend platitudes than defend their country.

And negotiations become the opium of the chattering classes.

Once-great universities have turned into political indoctrination centers worthy of the high Stalinist Era or the age of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Their aims may be more benign, but their unwillingness to consider alternative world views is every bit as rigid. Students in the social sciences at Harvard or Yale today are cadets being groomed to serve a soft-Socialist form of government conceived not in the streets, but in the very same classrooms. It’s a self-licking ice-cream cone. And graduates leave campus brilliantly prepared for everything except reality.

This is not an argument against education. Rather, it is an argument for education and against indoctrination, against the fantasy that the barbarian with the knife bashing in the door poses no danger to the career government official who has published a book on the false construct of race and its deleterious impact upon climate change.

Putin, that petty bureaucrat,has won every significant confrontation with the West, conquering foreign territory and humiliating presidents. Iran’s negotiators have outmaneuvered their Western interlocutors so spectacularly that they really don’t need Obama’s and Kerry’s deal, having gotten most of what they needed: time and partial sanctions relief. And the Islamic State has confounded not only our elite’s prejudices about how the world should work, but demolished their platitudinous nonsense that All men want peace. In fact, some men delight in inflicting grotesque forms of violence and pain on others.

We face a new age of barbarism. And we’re led by those whose notion of violence is a rugby game at Princeton, who won’t let their children play unattended but deny the murderous impulses haunting humanity. Perhaps it’s time to recognize that the lack of a prep-school background and a Brooks Brothers charge account doesn’t mean that a thug with slovenly manners can’t change the world. 

Europe's refugee crisis

This blog is principally addressed to most politicians and those in the West who have been emotionally moved by the TV pictures of the so called ‘refugees’ now invading Europe. 

I must declare an interest.  I too was moved by the pictures of the dead child, lying in the gently lapping surf.   I did though have a slightly different take on this.  Like many people, I was angry.  Such a waste of a young life and what a way to die!  However, my anger was directed towards the child’s father.  Why would this father take his child from the safety of Turkey and risk himself and his family’s lives by taking them on board a flimsy boat, heading in the direction of Greece?  I fully understand why the father took his family out of Syria, though since he apparently came from Kobane, which is now controlled by Syrian Kurds, one has to wonder a little.  

However, this father and his family were in Turkey.  So why did the father take the risk?  Why are all of those politicians who emote so on TV, wringing tears and their hands on rolling news programmes, not asking what caused this man to act, as he did? 

If he was genuinely at risk in Turkey then why is this not being addressed?  He is a Kurd and Turkey has a long-standing and very active antipathy towards Kurds.  Was that his reasoning?  I can’t think of any other.  If Twitter is to be believed though, this family had remained in Turkey, for some considerable time, between fleeing Kobane and then moving on, which raises other questions about the level of fear and its immanency. 

So why then don’t Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande, David Cameron and others punish Turkey for this climate of fear that causes people to flee from a supposedly safe country?    Where are the politicians that are condemning Turkey?   Leave aside for a moment, Turkey using the guise of attacks against Daesh to launch brutal attacks on PKK Kurds and Iraqi Kurds  who themselves are fighting Daesh.  Where is President Obama taking Turkey to task?  Search the internet and see if you can find speeches railing against Turkey’s actions, from any Western leader.

So I come back to why the father took the known risk of moving his family out of Turkey and, let’s assume he thought it best, given the ‘persecution’ in Turkey.  Why then not head towards Armenia or Georgia, or take an overland route to Greece?  Why not throw themselves on the mercy of Saudi Arabia or the UAE or Qatar – why not invade their embassies in Ankara?  These countries share religion and other cultural ties, which would help the family to better assimilate.  Of course, there are far less ‘bleeding hearts’ in those countries, which may have coloured his judgement, but surely the safety of his family would come first?

Moving on from this particular family and the tragic outcome of this man’s decision, we then come to the farce that is the European Union.  I use the word farce, though in truth, there is nothing remotely funny about what is going on – please excuse my use but I cannot think of another that captures the idiocy and hypocrisy that is now on display.

The unelected President of the European Commission – Jean-Claude Juncker thinks that all EU members should take a share of up to 160,000 refugees, this year.  The quotas would be based on GDP  and other criteria.  Britain, Ireland and Denmark would be exempt from these ‘compulsory’ quotas because they have opt-outs under EU treaties.   It is not clear how this number marries up with Angela Merkel’s seeming acceptance of Germany taking in 800,000 refugees, this year. 

Mrs Merkel ‘s decision has been likened on Twitter, to those naïve teenagers who put a note on social media saying ‘party at my house’ and then are shocked to see that in addition to those they want to attend, they find their parent’s house being overrun by ‘gate crashers’ and being trashed by these people.  What seemed at first like a good idea, shows, in the cold light of morning a harsh reality. 

This though is a reality that has far and deep consequences for the whole of Europe. 

These ‘refugees’ are not some kind of homogenous group, fleeing war in Syria.  As others have said, included under this umbrella are economic migrants.  Also, we can clearly expect that Daesh will use this opportunity to infiltrate murderers into our midst.

Worryingly, these ‘refugees’ all seem to seek residency.  That is, they want to become permanent residents.  The assumption must be that were peace to suddenly descend upon Syria, they would not return.  Once they get into Europe, they stay in Europe.  And why wouldn’t they?  It isn’t as if, like with prior migrations, they are obliged to assimilate.  They can maintain, indeed, they are very actively and positively encouraged to maintain, their own separate cultural identity.  So they have many of the ‘benefits’ of their homeland, none of the drawbacks and they enjoy the fruits of a much better economic position.   Why would they ever return? 

Make no mistake, this migration is an invasion.  An alien culture is being foisted upon Europe’s peoples.   And this does affect all of the EU countries.  Once these ‘refugees’ become citizens of Germany, they have completely free movement and can go and work and live in any member state.  They can also claim welfare benefits just as if they were a local national resident.

Europeans, including countries like the UK, should not be relaxed about this.  Just because they are not opening their flood gates to a new wave of immigrants (some would say they are already wide open, anyway!), does not mean they will not be affected.  They will.  Denmark can close it’s rail links with Germany, in an effort to stop the tide but like that old Viking, King Cnut, they are wasting their time. 

Europe’s people need to stop and think.  It is no good depending upon politicians to solve this.  Do that and you get fools like Merkel and Juncker making their statements and other politicians sucking up to the liberal left and luvvies in the media.  People that never have to live with or be exposed to the consequences of their actions, on a day to day basis. 

I have a proposal for any of those media people or fools who say that they will take in a refugee family.  Will you do so, on the basis that you personally accept full economic responsibility for these people and all of their offspring, in perpetuity?   You will continue to house them, feed them, pay for schooling for them, pay for medical care for them and so on and on?  Not just today or tomorrow but for ever?  If not, why should any tax payer accept such responsibility so that you can salve your conscience and feel good at the next meeting of friends.  Can you look your children in the eye and convince them that their economic future will not be threatened by you taking on the economic burden of another family?

Of course, the reality is that caring for these refugees is about more than just passing over last season’s coats or putting a temporary roof over the head of a refugee family.  This is a long term undertaking.  Individual people doing this are grossly irresponsible.  They know that their involvement will always be short term.  They know that the burden, the true burden will be borne by the tax payer and society at large. 

What is there to suggest that these refugees have the economic resources to house and feed  themselves in the host country?  What is there to suggest that these people, many coming from an agricultural background, will find work?  Indeed, in a Europe that has very poor or non-existent economic growth,  where are the jobs to come from?  Juncker’s afore-mentioned plan calls for Spain to take a large part of the 160,000 compulsory quota.  Spain with youth unemployment at almost 50%! What is there to suggest that these people can pay for healthcare for themselves and their family? Or for education?

Consdider Britain (though most other countries would be equally applicable).  Does anyone believe that Britain has spare social housing?  Has, even with a growing economy, many spare jobs (particularly in the agricultural sector).  That the NHS isn’t already stretched and that schools have lots of free places? 

The reality is that any housing for these refugees will come from the private sector and will be funded by the tax payer.  The reality is that these refugees will not be able to find work or, if they do, will displace local nationals and so welfare payments will increase.  The reality is that the NHS will become more and more of a failure because it simply can’t cope.  The reality is that school class sizes will be increased and education outcomes will suffer.  And all of this with a further erosion of cultural traditions.  Trust me, it is not in the British tradition, to execute a serving British soldier on the streets of the country’s capital, by seeking to cut off his head.  Nor is it to mutilate young women or to blow-up fellow citizens (the murderous IRA, notwithstanding).

So I ask my readers, when you see the heart-string tugging pictures on TV or hear people prattling on about ‘we need to do something’ ask them  how much they are prepared to pay and how much they are prepared to give-up – not just money or material goods but also long-held freedoms and traditions. 

There was a very successful campaign against people giving a dog as a Christmas present.  The tag line was ‘A dog is for life not just for Christmas’  The way we now act, the phrase could be changed to ‘A refugee is for life not just for Christmas!’