Sunday, April 26, 1925. Hindenburg wins.

Aging German war hero Paul von Hindenburg won the runoff of the German presidential election. 

The Berlin Mosque, designed by architect K. A. Hermann, was opened to German Muslims.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 25, 1925.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, German Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, press

Tuesday, April 21, 1925. The loss of the SS Raifuku Maru. Saudi Arabia wipes out the gravesites of members of the family Muhammad.

The Japanese  sank in a storm with all 38 hands on board. She was transporting wheat from the U.S. to Germany, showing the international nature of trade a century ago (King Donny, are you awake?). 

The ships telegrapher sent out a final message Now very danger! Come quick!". Two British ocean liners, RMS Homeric and SS King Alexander reached the vessel off the coast of Nova Scotia but were unable to get close enough for a rescue because of the heavy seas. 

RMS Homeric sent the message "Observed steamer Rafuku Maru sink in Lat 4143N Long 6139W Regret unable to save any lives..

In Saudi Arabia the mausoleums and domes at Al-Baqi Cemetery at Medina were torn down, along with markers of the family of Muhammed as part of an effort by the Wahhabi Muslim led government to eradicate shrines associated with the Hejaz Muslims.

Hmmm. . . .

Calvin Coolidge became the first U.S. president to talk on film as he delivered a four-minute address on a film that was captured in Phonofilm.

Last edition:

Monday, April 20, 1925. Route shields

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Automobiles, Highways, Interstate Highways, pornography, The relationship between men and women, The Roaring Twenties, Transportation, Women

Sunday, April 13, 1975. Start of the Lebanese Civil War.

Members of the Phalangist Kataeb militia, a Maronite Christian Democratic party, attacked a bus carrying Palestinian Muslims to the  inauguration of a new mosque in the Beirut suburb of Ain El Remmeneh., killing 27 and wounding 18.

This would soon lead to a protracted civil war.

While they modified over time, the Lebanese Phalangist, as the name would indicate, were inspired by the European fascist parties, including those of Italy, Span, and Germany (the Nazi Party).

Chad's president François (Ngarta) Tombalbaye was assassinated in a coup d'état by soldiers led by General Félix Malloum.

The last Canadian airlift of Vietnamese orphans took place.

The U.S. Navy deposited those rescued in Operation Eagle Pull in Thailand.

The 1970s were not great.

Lou Bega was born on this day.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 12, 1975. Eagle Pull.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Battle of Xuân Lộc, Cambodia, Cambodian Civil War, Operation Eagle Pull, Phnom Penh, South Vietnamese Air Force, Thailand, The Troubles, U.S. Navy, Ulster, United States Marine Corps

Saturday, January 11, 1975. Storms. Things can, and do, get worse.

The cover, page 3, and back cover, of Zhwandūn (ژوندون : مجله هفتگى), an Afghani magazine.

As I can't read the captions, I'm not entirely sure, but this appears to be Julie Christie, the actress.

Women's fashions appropriate for January in Afghanistan, but which would now get a person arrested given the Trump surrender to the Taliban.

Oh well, it's not us, right?  And things can't get worse for us, right?

The Great Storm of 1975 was in full swing.

Surface weather analysis of the Great Storm on 11 January 1975.

Last edition:

Ralph Emery Show with Ernest Tubb & Justin Tubb -- January 9, 1975

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Bluegrass, Music

Mocking Christianity.

But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days.  People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious,callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good,traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.

For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.

Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so they also oppose the truth—people of depraved mind, unqualified in the faith.

But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be plain to all, as it was with those two.

2 Timothy, Chapter 3.

A very interesting Canadian agriculturalist whom I follow on Twitter (I don't care with Elon Musk calls it), who is also an Eastern Rite Catholic, noted that he, like me, didn't watch the Olympic opener (as will be noted, I watched the very start of it, grew bored, and wondered off).  So he, like me, was left with the media accounts, of which there are plenty, including video, of a group of drag queens mocking Da Vinci's The Last Supper.  He goes on to make the  point that the sex laden transvestite portrayal was likely calculated to offend, but that The Last Supper is not an icon, which is quite correct.

But, with some exception, the Latin Rite lacks icons.  While not the same, the great Medieval and Renaissance works of art in the West tended to be commissioned by the Church, so they have an association with it.  Put another way, in order to offend to the  degree as denigrating an icon, there'd be little other choice. ¹  Again, it's not an icon, but part of a set of religious works of art commissioned by and associated with Christianity in the West.

It's hard to grasp why this would occur, but the outrage in the Catholic Church, and there is a lot of it, is justified.  So is the embarrassment in some French circles, particularly French conservative ones.  The French far right came with in a gnat's breath of taking over the French government two weeks ago and the ultimate makeup of the upcoming French government is still unknown.  Had this happened before the election, I have a strong feeling that the French far right would be forming a government now.

That provides a topic for another thread, which we will address, but we'll note here.  Part of the rise of National Conservatism and Christian Nationalism, and even just far right populism, is due to debauchery such as this.

The Olympics itself was quick to claim that the portrayal wasn't not of The Last Supper, which of course is an Italian, not a French, Renaissance work, noting on Twitter:

The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.

Hmm. . . Dionysus is a Greek mythological figure, not a French one. . . 

Dionysus was the Greek god of  is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre.  His Roman equivalent was Bacchus.  While celebrated in Roman times, the Romans also restricted unofficial celebrations dedicated to Bacchus due to the excess he was associated with it.  

Whatever else Dionysus may stand for or have stood for, it certainly had nothing to do with being against violence between human beings.  He really had a lot more to do with booze, drunkenness, sex and insanity, and its interesting that the ancient Greeks linked all of them together.  Eirene or Irene was the divinity associated with peace, but she didn't engage in drunken excess.

Another Olympic official also reacted with a series of excuses that were fairly lame.  Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, said the display was about "inclusion".

When we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone, questions are raised. Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.

Whatever diversity means, it doesn't mean "being together".  At least to some significant degree, it means being apart, and in the modern era, when this is being self defined in a way contrary to nature, it literally means being a Dionysus until one's self.

Jolly noted:

In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.

Um, okay.

Le Filip, the winner of  Drag Race France season three, probably got it more accurate.

I thought it would be a five-minute drag event with queer representation. I was amazed.  It started with Lady Gaga, then we had drag queens, a huge rave, and a fire in the sky. It felt like a crowning all over again. I am proud to see my friends and queer people on the world stage.² 

Whatever a person thinks of it, Le Filip grasped it better than Jolly did, quite frankly.

For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.o

St. Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 3.

A portion of France, particularly urban France, has waged war with the Church and Christianity since the failed French Revolution.  Like all the revolutions that were conducted by populist mobs, their god was their belly and they turned on the Church. The same is true of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Mexican Revolution. The Church stands for the proposition that there is something greater, much greater, than us, where as populism of the left and right, at the end of the day, doesn't.  Modern "progressivism", heir to the extreme left that arose in 1798 and 1917 has the same ethos, rejecting anything outside of ourselves and rising each person to an individual Bacchus no matter how much a person's own nature may be corrupted in one fashion or another, as individual natures are the only thing that matters.  The portrayal at the Olympic opener celebrated that ethos shamefully mocking Christianity in favor of a world outlook that goes no deeper than a person's gentiles.  Their glory, is their shame.

The storms that are raging around you will turn out to be for God’s glory, your own merit, and the good of many souls. 

St. Padre Pio.

I'll be frank that I quit watching the opening ceremonies of Olympic games some time ago.  I think the last one I actually watched was the Moscow Olympics, which is now quite some time back. They've ceased to make sense to me. The Olympics are ostensibly about sports, not about the glorification of the country where they're held, or drag queens.  Indeed, I've frankly lost interest in the Olympics themselves for some reason.

This really reinforces that view, particularly as to this particular Olympics.

I feel they should just be permanently placed in Greece, for the summer games.

Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.

Galatians, Chapter 6.

I suspect most of the viewing audience will simply regard this attack on Catholicism as part of the show, shrug it off, and move on.  In doing so, they benefit from the liberal culture the Church created in the West and the fact that central to the Christian worldview is turning the other cheek.  In contrast, France has a very large Muslim population that nobody would dare attack in such a fashion, a cartoon depicting Mohammed for instance famously resulting in murder.  There will be no drag queens taking on an Islamic topic.  None.  Islam doesn't turn the other cheek.  Likewise, Hinduism, which of course would be completely foreign to France, can't be attacked in this fashion either without almost immediate retribution.³

Catholics aren't going to do that, nor will the rest of the Christian world.

Which doesn't mean that the offense should be ignored.

Footnotes:

1.  One religious image that has endured this is the tilmahtli associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Back when there was a print Playboy magazine, the company issued a Mexican edition with a Mexican woman featured on the cover replicating the image in a pornographic fashion, which brought a firestorm of criticism.

That, and this, give credence to those who claim a diabolical origin to these events.

2.  Are there no French singers to do an Olympic opening?  Why Stefani Germanotta as the opening act?  That alone is embarrassing for France.

Having said that, the Marseilles was beautifully sung by Axelle Saint-Cirel. They should have just stopped right there.

In case anyone wonders, my watching of the show was basically bookended by those two acts.  I grew tired of the masked boofador running over roofs and wondered off to take a shower and watch something else.

3.  One religion that has endured something like this is the LDS, Mormon, faith.  Target of the satiric comedic The Book Of Mormon, it's basically shrugged it off, probably figuring, correctly, that as a minority religion, it might actually benefit from being mocked, as it at least puts a spotlight on it.  I'd guess, however, that Mormons aren't keen on the portrayal, and while I've never seen it, and I'm not a Mormon, I'm not either.  As noted, nobody would put on a Broadway satiric "The Koran", nor should they.

Muslim enslavement.

A new study suggests that Muslims enslaved 1,000,000 or more European Christians in North Africa between 1530 and 1780. 

This is a larger number than previously estimated.

Men and boys, it is known, were generally sold into backbreaking work.  Young women were sold into sex slavery.

Easter Sunday, April 20, 1924.

The first public Mass at the Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. took.  The Mass was celebrated by Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan.

Shahan is interred in a crypt as the basilica, the only person to have received internment there to date.

The Turkish Constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly.  It established Islam as the official religion and Turkish as the official language.  Ankara was established as the capital.

The Casper Daily Tribune issued an Easter Sunday edition noting the result of the prior day's meeting on a councilman with a liquor charge.

And tourists were being de bugged.

Last prior edition:

Holy Saturday, April 19, 1924.

1920s, 1924, California, Calvin Coolidge, Cartoons, Casper Wyoming, Country & Western Music, Easter, Health, Holy Saturday, Music, Radio, Tourism, Transportation, Wyoming (Casper)

Wednesday, April 2, 1924. Selecting Harlan Stone.

Calvin Coolidge, just one day after saying he had decided a new Attorney General, nominated Harlan Fiske Stone to that position.

Stone, who had been the dean of Columbia Law School, would go on from that position to the United States Supreme Court and ultimately Chief Justice.

The Bulgarian Communist Party was outlawed due to its role in attempting to overthrow the government.

A large demonstration broke out at the funeral of German monarchist Wilhelm Dreyer who had died in a French prison following his dynamiting a train in the French occupied Ruhr.

The Cla McIver rescued passengers of the SS Frangestan which had caught on fire. The 1,200 mostly Muslim passengers were on their way to Mecca.

Bobby Ávila, 1954 American League batting champion and Player of the Year, was born in Veracruz.  He'd later be mayor of the city.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 1, 1924. Sentencing coup plotters.

1920s, 1924, Adolf Hitler, Africa, Beer Hall Putsch, British Empire, cavalry, German Weimar Republic, Internet, Medicine, National Guard, Radio, Royal Canadian Air Force, Wyoming National Guard, Zambia

Hurling invectives.

This may seem like a strange thing to put up for Easter Morning, but maybe it isn't.

One of our major elected office holders in this state is a Catholic.  And yet, in spite of that, he makes vile accusations against entire classes of people constantly.  Other members of the "Freedom Caucus" claim to be Christian, but their speech sure doesn't indicate it.  One, the session before last, who claimed in her native state of Illinois that Muslims worship a different God than Christians (they don't, Allah is simply the Arabic word for "God", and while they may understand God's nature differently than we do, they worship the same God) claimed that "we are not our brother's keeper".  The hard populist right around here frequently cites to religion, even if they are not all the same religion.  

Christ could be angry, as his chasing the money changers out of the Temple indicates.  We have to wonder what will occur to a Presidential candidate, whose connection with Christianity is paper thin, will receive in the next life for hawking Bibles as part of his campaign. But for now, we can wonder how a group of people who claim to be the representatives of the culture can behave so badly.

People who do this routinely are not speaking intelligently, and in fact are attempting to distract from intelligent debate.

You should consider that when listening to public figures.

We live in an age in which intelligent debate has declined to an all-time low.  In its place, we have now what the Nazis and the Communist had, insulters who scream, while saying very little that's intelligent or worth considering. Their goal is to inspire hatred, as if love for an idea won't be forthcoming, hatred of a demonized class will do.

Politicians and figures who routinely insert words like "radical", "leftist", "fascist", "Marxist", and "Communist" into their speech are not arguing points, they're trying to inspire hatred and avoiding thought.   

For days, I've been getting emails from a figure I at least somewhat respected, and have voted for in the past, accusing the current administration of being "radical", sometimes in the most absurd ways.  One such missive asserts the Democrats are intentionally out to make things worse for Americans, which is flat out absurd.  It's constant.  The contest locally, right now, is in the GOP itself, and given that, as I'm still reluctantly registered as a Republican, I'll be struggling in regard to my vote in the primary, with the question being whether I should cast a vote at all.  I likely will, but come the general election, I'm going to weigh this behavior.

A current state office holder who is a co religious cannot speak without speaking of his opponents as "Radical leftists and liberal elites", whipping up ire towards imagined categories that simply really aren't here.  There are no Red bands roaming the prairies around Cheyenne.

For that matter, being an "elite" is a good thing.  In this context, "elite" implies highly educated and successful.  If the highly educated and successful think your position is dimwitted, it probably is.

More than one Populist, who are not Conservatives, now run around constantly accusing Governor Gordon of being a Democrat, by which they mean not a Populist. We're teetering on the brink of RINO meaning "not a fascist".  It already darned near means that the speaker is a Southern Populist with ideas that are not native to this state, and which are being spouted in an unthinking manner.

Taking it nationally, the former President, who apparently has so little grasp of political categories that he doesn't understand the difference between communism and fascism (Wharton School of Business. . . why are you respected?) recently stated “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.

A person who links all those categories together is, frankly, is either ignorant or bizarrely deluded.  People who swallow this up, are really ignorant.

Now, let's be honest.  At one time, particularly in the 60s and 70s, the far left did the same thing.  Everyone who opposed them or who wasn't with them was a "fascist".  And in more modern times, the far left progressives have done the same, often with really bizarro accusations that everyone who isn't with them is part of a widespread "white" and "male" conspiracy.  

But that's the point.  To a large degree, nobody really take the far left in the United States seriously, usually, because they are clowns.  Recently they have been successful, however, in a gender bending effort, which is helping to give rise to the Populist far right.

But both sides are anti-natural, anti-scientific, swimming in the toddler section movements.  They're unthinking.

And as we have real problems, we need real thought, now.

And at any rate, running around that your opponent must be a Communist, Marxist, Monarchist, Anarchist, Pedophile, Audiophile, Anglophile, RINO is not dignified. 

And for those who claim to be Christian, well you should reconsider your presentation. 

You might want to reconsider your personal lives also, particularly if you are one of the numerous members of the Christian Nationalist camp whom St. Paul might have a few things to address them about.

Wednesday, March 5, 1924. An attempted caliphate.

Following the Turkish Assemblies abolishment of the caliphate, Hussein bin Ali, King of the Hejaz and Sharif of Mecca, was proclaimed the Caliph of all Muslims by Muslim leaders in Mesopotamia and Transjordania.  Global Muslim reaction was mostly negative and it didn't take.    This date is somewhat disputed, and it could have taken place a couple of days earlier, or later.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 4, 1924. Waltzing Matilda.

Monday, March 3, 1924. End of the Caliphate.

The Turkish National Assembly ended the Ottoman Caliphate.  It had been in existence for 407 years and claimed religious sovereignty over Islam.  The Assembly also ordered that Abdulmejid II and his harem were to be deported by March 15.  The official deposing of Abdulmejid would come at 2:00 a.m. on March 4.

He did not welcome the news and warned that the ending of the caliphate would cause the rise of extremism in Islam, which his role as the religion's leader of Muslims tempered.  He proved to be correct.  He lived the rest of his life in Europe, at first in Switzerland, and then in Paris, where he died in 1944.  His exile was not an easy one at first, and he was disappointed that Muslims did not demand the restoration of his office.

The Teapot Dome investigation continued.

And the local Piggly Wiggly was robbed.  That location is now a tattoo parlor.

Last prior:

Saturday, March 1, 1924. The Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part I. New Year, last year's wars.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Matthew, Chapter 24.

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

George Santayana

January 1, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

This major war is now in its third calendar year.

Hamas Israeli War

The Prime Minister of Israel has stated that this campaign will carry on for many months.

An Israeli airstrike killed 35 in Gaza.

The U.S. Navy sunk three Houthi boats attempting to attack a merchant vessel.

Venezuela v Guyana border dispute.

Venezuela is conducting a joint arms exercise in response to the Royal Navy dispatching a ship to Guyana.

January 2, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

A change in Norwegian law allows Norwegian arms manufacturers to sell arms directly to Ukraine.

How much of a defense industry Norway has, of course, is another matter.

January 3, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

An Israeli airstrike sent Saleh Arouri to the next world, where he will have to make an account for his actions.  An Islamic radical his entire life, he was the founder of Hamas' military wing.  

He went to his end in Beirut.

From ISW:

Israeli forces are transitioning to the third phase of their operations in the northern Gaza Strip, which will very likely enable Hamas to reconstitute itself militarily. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it withdrew five brigades from the northern Gaza Strip on December 31. This reduction in forces is part of what the IDF has described as its third phase in the strip, which also involves ending major combat operations, releasing reservists, transitioning to “targeted raids,” and establishing a security buffer zone within the Gaza Strip.

January 4, 2024

US/Mexico Border Crisis

The Justice Department has sued Texas on over a new law that would allow Texas police to arrest illegal immigrants on the basis of their illegality. 

My prediction is that this suit will likely fail.

Hamas Israeli War

Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that launching a full-scale war on Lebanon Islamist targets would be "very costly," and that the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in Beirut would not go unpunished.

Sort of in the D'uh category.

Cont:

Islamic State v. Iran

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a bombing attack that killed 84 people in Kerman, Iran.  The attack occured during a memorial procession for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.  The Sunni group regards Shiites, which most Iranians are, with Iran being a Shiite theocracy, as apostates.

January 5, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

Putin signed a decree signed speeding up citizenship for foreigners enlisting in the Russian army.

Somalian Civil War

From ISW: 

Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with the de facto independent Somaliland Republic, a breakaway region of Somalia, to lease a naval port that will give it Red Sea access in exchange for formally recognizing Somaliland.

January 7, 2024

The Korean Conflict

North Korea issued one of its threatening proclamations through Communist princess Kim Yo Jong.

These are moronic, as without China, and North Korea cannot really depend on China, South Korea would be eliminated as an entity in the event of war.

South Korea may soon not be able to fill its conscript levies due to a declining population.

Russo Ukrainian War

Japan's foreign minister visited Ukraine.

Russia seems to have resumed its strategy of attempting localized offensives that degrade its own forces.

The Ukrainians have been conducting a drone offensive against targets in Crimea.

January 9, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

News reports hold that Russia has deployed 35,000 men of the Russian National Guard, some equipped with World War Two vintage rifles, to occupied regions of Ukraine as security forces.

January 10, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

Anthony Blinken has indicated the US rejects the concept of resettling the Gazan Levantines from that area even though, of course, its an untenable ghetto. 

Iran v. The West

Iranian backed Houthis launched 50 drones at shipping today, all of which were shot down by the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy.

Iran is using the current Hamas Israeli War as a pretext to try to advance its interest in the region.

January 11, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

The US and UK hit targets with missiles inside of Yemen, from which Houthi drone strikes have been coming. A Houthi spokesman actually complained about it.

January 12, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

From ISW:

The reported concentration of the Russian military’s entire combat-capable ground force in Ukraine and ongoing Russian force generation efforts appear to allow Russian forces to conduct routine operational level rotations in Ukraine. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated on January 11 that Russian forces have 462,000 personnel in Ukraine and that this represents the entire land component of the Russian military. Skibitskyi stated that most Russian units in Ukraine are manned at between 92 and 95 percent of their intended end strength and that the size of the Russian grouping in Ukraine allows Russian forces to conduct rotations throughout the theater. Skibitskyi stated that Russian forces withdraw units that are at 50 percent or less of their intended end strength to rear areas and return them to the front following recovery and replenishment. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev stated on January 11 that the Russian military has successfully replenished Russian forces in Ukraine through an ongoing crypto-mobilization effort that generated over 500,000 new personnel in 2023.

Mexican Border Crisis.

The State of Texas, using the Texas National Guard, has seized Shelby Park in Eagle Pass in order to prevent Federal authorities from processing migrants.

January 13, 2024

Hamas Israeli War.

The US struck Houthi targets again yesterday.

Turkey v. Kurds

Turkish air raids struck Kurdish militant targets in Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil in northern Iraq. This was in retaliation for a Kurdish attack on a Turkish base in Iraq.

January 16, 2024

Iran v Everyone

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched missile attacks in Syria and in Iraq’s Kurdistan region yesterday.

Korean Conflict

The North Korean Communist Clown state announced it is no longer pursuing reconciliation with South Korea, which actually dovetails nicely with general younger South Korean desires.

There's speculation on why this was announced, but in reality, any reunion between the countries at this point makes the ongoing Communist monarchy in North Korean irrelevant in every fashion so quickly, it isn't funny.

January 17, 2024

Hamas Israeli War/Iran v Everyone

The US is placing the Houthi's back on the terrorist list.

Iran v. Everyone

Iran conducted missile strikes on a Sunni militia site in Pakistan.

January 18, 2024

Hamas Israeli War/Iran v Everyone

The US conducted a fourth round of strikes on the Houthis.

Pakistan v. Baloch militants.

Pakistan conducted strikes inside Iran against Baloch militants.

January 20, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

The Estonian state will not extend the residence permit of the head of the Estonian Orthodox Church (Russian Orthodox Church in Estonia) of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Yevgeniy, whose civil name is Valeri Reshetnikov, because his activities are a security threat to Estonia

Estonian government.

Cont:

The Middle East

Somebody (probably Israel) hit Iranian Revolutionary Guard figures inside of Syria.  In turn, US sites in Iraq were hit.by Iranian backed militia's.

Iran is the common thread here. 

January 21, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a two state solution for Gaza.

This is widely seen as a terrible thing to have done, but frankly, Gaza isn't viable as an isolated political unit and always has depended on economic support from the outside to get by. Geographically, it should be part of Israel or Egypt, and that's a simple economic and topographic fact.  It shouldn't be part of another state.

For that matter, a Palestinian state makes little to no sense.  It would be minute.

Those are the rough, real facts to deal with.  Levantines that live within the borders of what had been pre-1948 Palestine either have to live within Israel, realistically, or be relocated in some instances to an Arab state that could host them, none of which are willing to do it.

Russo Ukrainian War

President Zylenskyy expressed concerns about remarks made by Donald Trump regarding securing peace.

Concern is warranted given Trump's admiration for dictators and his increasingly erratic if not demented behavior.

January 22, 2024

China v. Taiwan

Recent statements by GOP candidate Donald Trump have risen concerns that his commitment to Taiwan, which has been a GOP hallmark, is low.  

FWIW, Trump raised Taiwanese semiconductor production as something the US should have done something about, seemingly failing to grasp that if it falls to China, we're in a world of semiconductor hurt.

On one of the weekend shows, it was recently revealed that Trump has a gigantic exaggerated fear of nuclear war.  He also clearly has a thing for strongmen.

January 23, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

Numerous nations are lining up against Israel and demanding a Palestinian state be part of a peace package, even though such a state, if within the boundaries of the former Palestinian mandate, would not be economically viable.  

Saudi Arabia, with a large landmass and a labor deficit, has stated it will not normalize relations with Israel unless a Palestinian state is created.

British and American forces hit Houthi ones again.

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine conducted successful drone strikes against targets in Leningrad and Tula oblasts.

Boarder Crisis

The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Federal agents to remove razor wire on the Texas/Mexico border, but it is merely a ruling on a temporary injunction, so the actual ruling, in terms of the issues, means next to nothing whatsoever.

January 24, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

Due to political infighting, the US is out of funding for Ukraine and the pipeline is therefore shut.

January 25, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

From ISW:

Israel proposed a two-month pause in fighting in exchange for Hamas releasing over several phases the remaining hostages held in the Gaza Strip. The first phase would have Hamas return women, men over 60 years old, and hostages in critical medical condition. Israeli media reported that the "next phases" would include the release of female IDF soldiers, civilian males under the age of 60, Israeli male soldiers, and the bodies of hostages. An anonymous Israeli official told an Israeli journalist that the proposal includes redeploying the IDF out of main population centers in the Gaza Strip to allow Palestinian civilians to return to these areas. The official added that this proposal does not include the release of all 6,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

This would be a major concession from Israel, but it doesn't seem to have generated much news.

Russo Ukrainian War

A Russian Il-76 military transporting Ukrainian POWs for an exchange crashed in Yablonovo, Belgorod Oblast. The Russians have accused Ukraine of shooting it down.

Patriarch Krill urged the Russian government to extend the draft deferment for fathers, now set at fathers with four children, down to father's with three, out of concern for the declining Russian population.

Slovakia, whose current government is close to Putin, pleadged support for the integrity of Ukraine's internationally recognized borders.

Middle East

Houthi's attempted to attack U.S. Navy escorts with ballistic missiles unsuccessfully.

US/Mexico Border

An attempt in Congress to get a bill passed to address the border is stalled with Donald Trump now entering the picture, opposing it, something that is hard not to be quite skeptical about.

This will messs up aid to Ukraine as well.

January 27, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

US/Mexico Border

January 27, 2024

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson declared that a budget measure that the Senate did pass providing aid to Ukraine and addressing the US/Mexico border may be dead on arrival at the House.

Trump appears to wish to preserve the border issues, and a second of today's GOP opposes aid to Ukraine.  An unresolved weirdness of populist and Putin, acquired from Trump, remains unresolved.

Also:

Governor Gordon Supports Texas’ Right to Secure its Border

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Gordon has issued a statement in support of border security Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas’ constitutional right to defend and protect itself in the face of the crisis at the southern border.

“I remain committed to a secure border, and to supporting states struggling with the ongoing security crisis along our southern border. That’s why Wyoming has offered resources and committed them to this effort, most recently responding to Governor Greg Abbott's  Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) request for law enforcement officers. I recognize the importance of secure borders and the vulnerabilities that a lack of resolve to securing those borders has brought to our country.

Secure borders prevent criminals and deadly drugs like fentanyl from entering our country and making their way to Wyoming. Wyoming stands in solidarity with Governor Abbott and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy to secure the border and protect American citizens. We are all border states now.”

Governor Gordon was also one of 25 Governors who signed a joint statement in support of Texas Governor Abbott and Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense.

Related to this, Denver Colorado reports it has an illegal/refugee populaton of 40,000.

Middle East

The Houthi's hit and set on faire an oil tanker.

China v The West

China’s intelligence agency has warned the Chinese to beware of “exotic beauties” who they fear are opserating as honey traps.

Intersingly, honey traps were a favorite Communist tactic for gathering intelligence.

Hamas Israeli War

Numerous Western countries have suspended contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, after it was learned that twelve of its members particpated in the Hamas attacks on Israel.

January 28, 2024

Picking up where we left off yesterday:

Hamas Israeli War

Numerous Western countries have suspended contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, after it was learned that twelve of its members particpated in the Hamas attacks on Israel.

The agency's head warns that UNRWA is collapsing given that nine countries have withdrawn from it and famine looms.

This is a tragedy, but it also tells us something about the UN and th total lack of viability of the Palestinian Authority's territorial regions, although of course a war is on.

Clearly, something needs to be done. That something, requires new oversight, and some hard decisions that nobody wants to make.

January 29, 2024

The Middle East

Three American troops were killed and more injured by an Iranian backed militia drone strike on a US base in Jordan.  The base is near the border with Jordan.

I was unaware we had any bases in Jordan.

January 31, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

The Russians have launched an offensive in the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast

Last Prior Edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part XII. γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος. πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.

More observations on the Hamas Israeli War. A sort of primer, war aims, and campaign aims. Part I.

War Aims.

A lot of reporting on the Hamas Israeli War, indeed nearly all of it, is devoid of discussion on war aims.  Some of it vaguely discusses Israeli campaign aims.  None of it so far that I've seen has discussed Hamas campaign aims.  Given that, a lot of the reporting is sort of naive.

Hamas, having started the campaign, will be discussed first.

Hamas was formed in 1987 (probably considerably more recently than many suppose.  Hamas controls Gaza, Fatah, the political arm of what had been the Palestinian Liberation Organization, controls the West Bank.  The two entities have actually fought each other.  Hamas started off with the goal of pushing Jews out of the boundaries of what had been the 1948 Palestinian borders, but earlier in the 2000s seemed to lessen its demands.

It seems to have returned to them.  As far as can be told, its war aims are to remove the Jews from Israel, dead or alive, and of any age, and create an Arab Palestinian, and seemingly Islamic (not all Palestinians are Muslims) state in its wake.  That's what's summed up in the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", which like a lot of slogans is catchy but doesn't really convey the full meaning of what it seeks.

Those are the war aims.

Without abandoning them, Hamas cannot back down, and Israel cannot unilaterally realistically convert the current war into a large scale punitive action at this point.  War aims can change, but Hamas shows no desire at all to do so.  A limited raid that was not aimed at civilians could have been undertaken if it has some other goal, but it didn't.

The campaign aims are much more difficult to discern.  Perhaps it was to spark a wider war in the belief that it could be won, or perhaps it was just a gross act of terrorism in furtherance of its remote, unobtainable goal.

Of course, discerning campaign aims, is often tricky in regard to an entity like Hamas, or even large entities.  In spite of long knowledge to the contrary, they may have thought that their raid, if that is what it was intended to be, would scare Israel into submission.  Hitting civilians never does that.  The British didn't surrender after the Blitz, and the air raids on civilian populations in Germany and Japan, perhaps if we exclude the atomic bomb, didn't cause them to surrender either.  Air raids on military targets in North Vietnam which inflicted civilian deaths didn't cause North Vietnam to give up.  9/11 only made Americans mad, it didn't achieve whatever it was that Al Queda thought it would, which seems to have been a hoped for general economic collapse.

Israel's war aims are also simple.  Its goal is to destroy Hamas as it views it, correctly, as irreconcilably opposed to its existence and genocidal in nature.  Its campaign aims seem to be to occupy Gaza, or perhaps the northern portion of the Gaza Strip, trap Hamas, and destroy it and its infrastructure.

Outright destroying an underground organization, however, is very difficult to do. The US basically did it in Afghanistan, however, so it can be done.

Nobody is talking at all about what's going to become of the Palestinians.  Israel isn't addressing it. The Arabs aren't either.  Hamas is simply using their own people as human shields and for propoganda.

A cultural existential difference, or Why can't everyone get along?

Cultures play a part in wars, which people in the West are oddly inclined to forget.  Jimmy Carter famously absent-mindedly quipped that the problems between the Israeli's and Palestinians would go away if they all started acting "like good Christians", but of course neither group is predominantly Christian.

I've taken some criticism on a more stretched observation in this area recently, so I'll explain a bit what I mean.

This question posed above is really a Western one, filtered through our eyes, which are the eyes of heavy Christian influence.  As a South American atheist friend of mine once stated, culturally, "we're all Catholics", even if we often don't behave like it.  That's why we're shocked when people don't behave accordingly.  

Historically and culturally, that's not necessarily the default human norm at all, which doesn't mean that every non-Christian culture (including the two in question) default to bad behavior.   But, as Genghis Khan supposedly noted (often filtered in our culture through Conan the Barbarian in a modified form):

The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.

We don't think that way, and we don't want others thinking that way.

Back to this war, the fact of the matter is that these two groups of people aren't going to get along.  The Western concept that somehow they can be made to is simply in error at this point.

It might have been true a couple of times.  One was in 1948, just before the first Arab Israeli War broke out, although that's pretty debatable. The second time was when the 1993 and 1995 Palestinian Accords were reached. The big problem is that both times, large numbers of Palestinians simply rejected a future which included Jews within the 1948 Palestinian boundaries.

The 1948 rejection was accompanied by voting with their feet by the Palestinians, a logical choice but one that was taken advantage of by Israel in that it offered the opportunity to truly make the country principally Jewish.  Nobody can fault somebody for fleeing fighting, but the fact that it occured meant that a large Arab population removed itself.  If it had not, demographics alone would have repeated what in fact occured in Lebanon, where a majority Christian population at that time is now 32% of the population.

Instead of taking that route, the Palestinians first relied on Arab hostility to take the country back for them, and then for the PLO, which ultimately compromised on that, to do so.  Now, a certain percentage are relying on Hamas.

Regarding that calculation, relying on it in the 1950s, and even into the 1960s, wasn't irrational.  After that, it really started to be. At some point, the land belongs to those who live there.  It was Zapata who stated; “The land belongs to those who work it with their own hands”, which is how it should be (and how it's increasingly ceasing to be in the United States)  That same analogy pertains to revolutions.  It instinctively makes sense for the people ruled by another people to rebel, but not so much a people that had once lived in a land where the majority of the population isn't yours, and the majority of your population wasn't born in that land.  Indeed, the fact that the initial Jewish war for independence sort of violated that tenant is part of the reason that many nations around the globe were quite hesitant about supporting Israel early on, combined with the fact that it appeared they'd lose.

Beyond that, as an essay in Minding The Campus has related:

(Professor Mordechai) Kedar, a former officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, has spent his academic life studying Islamic and Arab history and society. He explains that the animus of Palestinians, Arabs, and Islamists against the Jewish state is based on the consensus of Islamic religious thought that believes that Jews as a religion, people, or nation are never to be the equals of Muslims, and so their independent state, Israel, must be “struck down.”

While that can be debated, there's at least something to it, or there has come to be.   For the most part, since World War Two, Middle Eastern Islam, which is its cradle, has become increasingly more "conservative", if that is the correct term, and militant over the decades.  That was always there, and indeed Saudi Arabia was founded due to the Saud family's alliance with a group so conservative it was regarded as heretical.  Islam does not have a real coexistence ethos as we'd understand it towards other religions.  It's often noted that it has allowances for "People of the Book", meaning both Jews and Christians, but that tolerance is limited and provides that they are to be second class citizens.

Neither Christianity nor Judaism have something similar towards other religions, which doesn't mean that individual Christian or Jewish societies are de facto tolerant.  People tend to generally be intolerant of any group that's different from themselves.

Interestingly, early Middle Eastern governments didn't have this feature to them, or at least not to the same extent.  Turkey just celebrated its 100th founding as a modern state, and that state was founded as a secular one.  Atatürk suppressed Islam in his country.  Jordan has always been a Muslim state, but the Hashemite family that rules it, and once controlled Mecca, has tended towards moderation consistently.  The Baath movement that controls most of Syria and once controlled Iraq was a fascist movement early on that included Muslim and Christian Arabs and which sought a secular state in the Middle East.  The PLO was a secular organization that leaned heavily on Communist thought.  There was at one time a strong sense amongst Arab nationalist that Islam had to be suppressed or, if not outright suppressed, the state's had to be secular. That really began to fall way with the Iranian revolution, and there's been a good deal of retreat from it since that time.

Which takes us to the current highly conservative (again, if that is the right word) Israeli government.

The current Israeli government is the most conservative, again if that's the word, one ever.  It follows part of the global drift towards far right populism.  Prior to the Hamas attack, it was receiving a good deal of pushback from Western nations and internally, in no small part due to an effort to subordinate the Israeli supreme court to the Knesset.  In the irony that all such conflicts create, that's all been forgotten now.  At any rate, a sharp turn to the right by Israel made it pretty clear that any current Israeli desires to really find a mutual solution to the problems now being fought over just weren't there.

All of which leaves us with this.

Hamas has attacked and made it clear that it thinks it can murder its way towards achieving its goals, a sort of accelerated variant of the 1939-1945 lebensraum at this point.  Israel can't allow that to happen.

There are paths to a lasting peace here, but nobody involved, or even with influence, is going to try to bring them about, so the question is whether the warring parties, or more precisely Israel, can bring it about by force.