Wednesday, April 12, 2017

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. 

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