Coincidence? The 100th anniversary of the US in WWI was April 6th

The former President infamously drew a "red line" that would be crossed should President Assad ever use chemical weapons.  Mr. Assad obliged by crossing that red line like a big dog.  Mr. Obama had no stomach for getting involved further with the civil war in Syria (after his unproductive campaign against ISIS) and now it is coming to light  may have recruited Russia to keep the Assad regime from using more chemical weapons.

Then just over a week ago, Syrian dropped more chemical weapons followed by images of "beautiful babies" who had died as a result of the latest attack.  It was too much for our social media savvy President how sent 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles in to prevent further atrocities by the Syrian government.

However, several hours after the Tomahawks struck the Syrians were able to launch aircraft out of the same facility.  This raised many questions such as; did the Syrians know in time to move their aircraft?...did the Russians somehow or other tip off the Syrians?...why did some reports have the Tomahawks orbiting overhead for nearly an hour before attacking?

Europe and NATO applauded the attack (especially Turkey which has no use for Assad) as well as many of the Democrat hawks (such as Mrs. Pelosi).  But the usual suspects (Russia, China, North Korea and Iran) condemned the attacks against a sovereign nation.

The attacks have cooled US/Russian relations with Mr. Putin now suspecting that the US and Russia may be heading to some type of conflict.  Mr. Trump then decided to lean on China (which holds most of the paper on US debt) to bring North Korea in line (hey wait, weren't we just trying to avenge the deaths of beautiful Syrian children?).  China played the card of "Well, we trade with North Korea but we don't control them."  Of course this set off Kim Jong Un who vowed to attack the US if Mr. Trump doesn't back off on the rhetoric.

China did quietly cut off buying coal from North Korea to give Kim Jung Un a wake up call.  His response was to shoot off a ballistic missile that missed its target.  Mr. Trump, who doesn't seem to be able to just relax sometimes, responded by sending a second carried to the region.

Now people on the west coast of North American, including the Canadians, are getting nervous because US and Canadian anti-submarine aircraft have been seen conducting low orbits.  North Korea has been suspected of trying to send a nuclear weapon on a cargo ship or using mini-subs to attack US warships in harbor. 

Finally Japan had to send some of their fighters to intercept some Russian Tu-95 and Il-38 aircraft that were heading towards Japanese airspace.

All of this has happened within the last few weeks.  I haven't even touched on the attacks in Spain and Sweden.  It's as though everything is being thrown open at once to keep all of the players guessing as to which move is next.  Will Russia attack using cyber (as they stand accused of doing over the elections)?  Will North Korea launch and attack on South Korea?  Will Iran or China back another 9/11 attack somewhere else?  Amidst all of this, two aircraft carrier battle groups are in the region of China and North Korea as the US sends more troops into Syria to battle ISIS.

For now, the diplomatic option seems remote as the State Department has been decimated by the departures of so many mid-level and senior-level diplomats.  The White House itself is in deep turmoil as Mr Trump keep shifting around advisors in and out of roles.  On top of that, it appears Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, is a shadow Secretary of State undercutting his real Secretary of State (Rex Tillerson) authority in the eyes of the world.

Perhaps at no other time in recent history has the stage been set for one misstep or mistake to set off a war.  Ironically, April 6th was the 100th anniversary of the United States entering World War I. 

Our short attention spans and market-driven media (which seeks to tailor web searches to your particular tastes and opinions) insures we only see a small fraction of what is going one.  Even then, we only see events through those media sites that agree with our politics (just compare how Fox News or CNN covers events compared to Al Jazeera or RT). 

The left has been in meltdown since November.  Now the right is going into meltdown since Mr. Trump isn't delivering on things as quickly as he promised.  What a great way to keep the masses in the dark!

Stop calling the other guy names and take a deep breath, we are all being played here. 

The Syrian Question

As I'm writing this, the US Navy has launched 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Syria.  The strikes were conducted in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons (Sarin gas) by the Syrian government against their own people.

The hawks and pro-Trump camps are no doubt busy hi-fiving each other.  The doves and anti-Trump camps are no doubt aghast and wondering how we got here.

Unfortunately in all of this, no one is asking the most important question.  What is the right answer for the people of Syria?  No matter what we as Americans may think of Assad, he is the legally elected leader of Syria.  Deposing him (as the Obama Administration planned) or bombing him (as the Trump Administration is doing) fails the Syrian people.  Should Assad be ousted or killed, then what?

The US has a piss poor record when it comes to "who's next?" after eliminating an unpopular leader.  All you have to do is see how well we managed Iraq after getting rid of Hussein to know the challenges we are facing with Syria.

And what exactly qualifies the US, a nation the loves bragging about its Judeo-Christian roots, to figure out how an Arabic, Muslim nation should be run? 

Meantime, let's not forget the huge exodus of professional diplomats from the State Department means we have even fewer experts to answer that question than normal.

Anarchy?

More bombings, this time in Russia and Spain.  Let's take a moment though before condemning immigrants and Muslims (the usual suspects in the 21st Century) and remember that terrorism first and foremost is about an agenda.  Philosophies and motivations are secondary.

What do I mean?  Back in the Cold War days, any number of terrorist groups operated espousing some Marxist philosophy (European and South American groups) or Maoist philosophy (Asian groups).  Often though most were primarily anarchists. 

Despite their philosophical rhetoric, no one really believed that being a Marxist or Maoist automatically made you a terrorist.  Terrorists of the 20th Century were motivated to commit their acts of violence by those who funded their activities.  In the examples above, this usually meant Soviet Union, Communist China, or Cuba.  The US funded right-wing groups opposed to the left0wing groups and trained many of their leaders through the US Army School of the Americas (now known as The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, WHINSEC).

20th Century terrorists were therefore third party operatives of either the Western or Eastern governments that funded their activities.  Then two terrorist attacks occurred to reshape this thinking.

The first was the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 by Libyan terrorists.  The second was the bombing of the Word Trade Center bombing in 1993.  These attacks targeted the US and were not backed by the Soviet Union but rather but and Muslim nation (Libya) and Muslim terrorists (Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, from Pakistan, planned the attack).  Now with the Soviet Union out of the picture, Islam became the new reason du jour.

Intelligence agencies and the military especially went batshit crazy because it meant you would never have to prove a clear line back the the organizers, the way you would say with the former Soviet Union.  Now you had to merely point out that the suspects were Muslim, better if you could also add "radicalized" into the narrative, and presto!  Instant threat that was easy to explain to the public and media.

But in the post-information age that we also call the 21st Century, we have gotten more complacent and less willing to understand events in a larger contexts.  Sure the the perpetrators of the attacks on 9/11 were dark-skinned (always a plus for the racist tendencies of the West) Muslims but who funded them (Saudi Arabia?) and what was their real motives?  Too many people today are willing to just go down the road that Muslims want to kill Christians and that's why we have terrorists.  No one seems to ask if the 21st Century terrorists aren't the same third party operatives as their 20th Century counterparts, just with different actors from central casting?

If we accept that there may be motivations beyond the obvious theological or political labels of a given terrorist, then we should become much more concerned about what is really going on.  For instance, the average American thinks all Muslims are the same (not realizing how many different factions of Islam exist) and there is some kind of one over-arching organization that controls Islam (no more than there isn't one group that controls all of Judaism or for that matter, Christiantinty).

If no one council exists that holds equal sway over Shiites and Sunnis, then why do we paint all attacks in the 21st Century with the same brush?  The attacks in France, London, Spain and Russia may all turn out to be conducted by "radicalized Muslims" but to what end?  If in fact that are all working towards a common end, say total anarchy in Europe, who then is actually making the calls?