Meanwhile, in my feed reader this morning, Peter thinks he's right about the Middle East:
Earlier this month I asked whether an Arab-Israeli rapprochement was on the cards. I pointed out that fundamentalist Islamic terror movements threatened many Arab governments, and as a result they appeared to be beginning to work together to counter the threat. As part of the process, there was a new pragmatic willingness to negotiate with Israel, the ancient enemy, because it, too, was threatened by Islamic fundamentalism in the form of Hamas, and would likely be just as pragmatic in mending old fences to deal with new threats.
And he notes the U.S. may just be out in the cold on this front. So the U.S. starts looking at bombing Syria. Do they keep a foothold in Kurdistan? How complete shall this rapprochement be? In other words, which defense/mercenary industry will get the defensive contracts? American or Israeli? Will those tankers full of Kurdish oil that used to just mysteriously disappear full and then show up empty off the coast of Israel be able to just do whatever it is they were doing without disappearing first?
The Sunni governments are probably mainly afraid of ISIS wandering through random deserts and invading places they deem important for the Caliphate.
Incidentally, I do wish all statements made on ISIS' behalf were preceded by, "I am the Caliph and I approve this message."
Anyway, we will see. These things are not made via a grand conspiracy, but rather the preponderance of agreements that various governments and multinationals make. Some agreements would lead to people trying to keep Iraq one country; other agreements would lead to a free Kurdistan. But it is worthwhile to note that most of these governments (well, politicians) benefit from constant low grade threats that they can ratchet up and down based on how they are doing in the polls.
And mercenaries benefit from heavily defensive contracts and like to avoid all out war.
2 comments:
I think this is an accurate reading between the lines.
Do you bother going to church anywhere? I can see evangelical Christians being really perturbed by you.
I haven't been to Church for a while now. I have been really perturbed by evangelicals; I would certainly like to return the favor. Unfortunately, they tend to be to stupid- even when they establish a goal and demonstrate total failure, they just change the goal. Their highest commandment is really just 'be haaapppy!'
Actually, if the Church is a hospital, then we need the sick people to stop running it. Let the few of us who appear to be immune put things in order and then maybe something can be done.
This is one of the reasons I've come to see the nobility must have been integral to the Church. They are the ones who were routed in the 1800s, regardless of what denomination or whatever. The local ruler would maintain the balance so that we could have more life, and the God of the living could actually be served.
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