Generational Dynamics World View

[Warren Dew]

(09-23-2017, 05:10 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: What will the highly nationalistic and xenophobic people of China
think?  Will they suddenly love the US for taking out the Kim regime
and his nuclear missiles?  Hardly.  They'll be furious about what
happened, and they'll be spreading rumors about how the South Koreans
and the Americans are jointly planning an attack on China.  They'll
demand that their leaders prepare for war with the US.

I would expect them to swallow their government's propaganda that your postulated Chinese invasion of a North Korea in civil disorder constituted a great military victory.  That could still whet their appetite for more victories, I suppose.

Quote:This is the optimistic scenario, and the tensions will be worse than
they are today.  The Americans will refuse to withdraw from South
Korea, and with China in control of North Korea, the South Koreans
will be fearing an attack from China, and so they will not want the
Americans to withdraw.  It's not war yet, but even the optimistic
scenario is solidly on the path to war.

You say this would be a different WW3 than the one we're headed for
now.  Well I guess so, but I'm not sure what the difference would be.
Either way, it will lead to an all-out generational crisis war, with
every nuclear weapon in the world used on someone before the war ends.

The difference is that the danger is more predictable, since there are fewer nuclear players involved.  I suppose you could argue that we'd be better off with more, smaller players, in the hopes that the initial nuclear exchanges don't involve us, or at least don't involve an immediate war with the other Teller Ulam powers.  I suppose by that argument we should be encouraging places like Georgia and Ukraine and Taiwan to get nuclear weapons, with the intent of taking them away again if we're still the global hegemon after the war.

[Warren Dew]

(09-23-2017, 12:12 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So what am I hoping for?  I know what's going to happen to the world,
so I have no hopes for the world.  My only hopes are for myself.  As
events unfold, I'm hoping that I'll be killed quickly and painlessly.

Even crisis wars are survived by more people than they kill.

[John J. Xenakis]

The problem with this reasoning is that it's Unraveling Era reasoning.
In the 1990s we could have the Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield), we
could prosecute the World Trade Center bombers, we could flee from
Mogadishu, we could bomb the Bosnian Serbs (Operation Deliberate
Force), we could bomb Saddam Hussein in Iraq (Operation Desert Fox),
and we could do all of these things without triggering a wider war.
That's what happens in an Unraveling Era.

In a Crisis Era it's different. Any action today like the ones above
could easily trigger a wider war. A good example is the Arab Spring,
that began in 2011, which was triggered very simply by the death of a
Tunisian food vendor. It led to several coups in Egypt, the war in
Libya, the war in Yemen, the war in Syria, the new war in Iraq, the
rise of ISIS, the Saudi-Iran split, the Saudi-Qatar split, the
Russia-Iran-Hezbollah-Turkey-US proxy war in Syria, the flood of ten
million refugees into countries neighboring Syria and Iraq, the flood
of over a million refugees into Europe, increased tensions in the
Caucasus, etc. Did I forget anything?

So if the death of a Tunisian food vendor can trigger all of those
wars, imagine what an American attack on North Korea could trigger.
As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the BBC, with its usual
anti-American anti-Trump "reporting," showing one "expert" after
another blaming Trump's WORDS for bringing the world to the brink of
WW III. Can you even imagine how all these people would be blaming
Trump and America after a military attack?

Or just look at some of the threads in this forum. How many of the
left-wing posters on this forum would be thanking Trump for bombing
North Korea? That's really laughable.

(The BBC is now accusing Trump of causing some kind of racial war in
the US for criticizing NFL players for dishonoring the American flag
and country. The BBC is valuable because it has correspondents around
the world, but their garbage editorial policies are entirely
predictable. How do you think they'd react to "Trump's military
attack" on North Korea?)

One of the major reasons that generational theory works as it does is
because so many people have lived through Awakening and Unraveling
eras when the survivor generations prevent small wars from spreading
into bigger ones, and think that the same thing will happen in a
Crisis era, which, of course, it won't.

[Cynic Hero '86]

(09-24-2017, 07:24 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The problem with this reasoning is that it's Unraveling Era reasoning.
In the 1990s we could have the Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield), we
could prosecute the World Trade Center bombers, we could flee from
Mogadishu, we could bomb the Bosnian Serbs (Operation Deliberate
Force), we could bomb Saddam Hussein in Iraq (Operation Desert Fox),
and we could do all of these things without triggering a wider war.
That's what happens in an Unraveling Era.

In a Crisis Era it's different.  Any action today like the ones above
could easily trigger a wider war.  A good example is the Arab Spring,
that began in 2011, which was triggered very simply by the death of a
Tunisian food vendor.  It led to several coups in Egypt, the war in
Libya, the war in Yemen, the war in Syria, the new war in Iraq, the
rise of ISIS, the Saudi-Iran split, the Saudi-Qatar split, the
Russia-Iran-Hezbollah-Turkey-US proxy war in Syria, the flood of ten
million refugees into countries neighboring Syria and Iraq, the flood
of over a million refugees into Europe, increased tensions in the
Caucasus, etc.  Did I forget anything?

So if the death of a Tunisian food vendor can trigger all of those
wars, imagine what an American attack on North Korea could trigger.
As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the BBC, with its usual
anti-American anti-Trump "reporting," showing one "expert" after
another blaming Trump's WORDS for bringing the world to the brink of
WW III.  Can you even imagine how all these people would be blaming
Trump and America after a military attack?

Or just look at some of the threads in this forum.  How many of the
left-wing posters on this forum would be thanking Trump for bombing
North Korea?  That's really laughable.

(The BBC is now accusing Trump of causing some kind of racial war in
the US for criticizing NFL players for dishonoring the American flag
and country.  The BBC is valuable because it has correspondents around
the world, but their garbage editorial policies are entirely
predictable.  How do you think they'd react to "Trump's military
attack" on North Korea?)

One of the major reasons that generational theory works as it does is
because so many people have lived through Awakening and Unraveling
eras when the survivor generations prevent small wars from spreading
into bigger ones, and think that the same thing will happen in a
Crisis era, which, of course, it won't.

These are just excuses by a boomer to Justify doing nothing. Arab Spring would not have turned into the mess it did if the US and Europe took a firm stand either for or against the movements at the beginning. Instead the boomer leaders of the west chose to sit there and dither. The boomers want to sit there and dither in regards to North Korea, But the North Koreans aren't allowing them to.

[Warren Dew]

(09-24-2017, 07:24 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The problem with this reasoning is that it's Unraveling Era reasoning.
In the 1990s we could have the Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield), we
could prosecute the World Trade Center bombers, we could flee from
Mogadishu, we could bomb the Bosnian Serbs (Operation Deliberate
Force), we could bomb Saddam Hussein in Iraq (Operation Desert Fox),
and we could do all of these things without triggering a wider war.
That's what happens in an Unraveling Era.

In a Crisis Era it's different.  Any action today like the ones above
could easily trigger a wider war.  A good example is the Arab Spring,
that began in 2011, which was triggered very simply by the death of a
Tunisian food vendor.  It led to several coups in Egypt, the war in
Libya, the war in Yemen, the war in Syria, the new war in Iraq, the
rise of ISIS, the Saudi-Iran split, the Saudi-Qatar split, the
Russia-Iran-Hezbollah-Turkey-US proxy war in Syria, the flood of ten
million refugees into countries neighboring Syria and Iraq, the flood
of over a million refugees into Europe, increased tensions in the
Caucasus, etc.  Did I forget anything?

So if the death of a Tunisian food vendor can trigger all of those
wars, imagine what an American attack on North Korea could trigger.
As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the BBC, with its usual
anti-American anti-Trump "reporting," showing one "expert" after
another blaming Trump's WORDS for bringing the world to the brink of
WW III.  Can you even imagine how all these people would be blaming
Trump and America after a military attack?

Or just look at some of the threads in this forum.  How many of the
left-wing posters on this forum would be thanking Trump for bombing
North Korea?  That's really laughable.

(The BBC is now accusing Trump of causing some kind of racial war in
the US for criticizing NFL players for dishonoring the American flag
and country.  The BBC is valuable because it has correspondents around
the world, but their garbage editorial policies are entirely
predictable.  How do you think they'd react to "Trump's military
attack" on North Korea?)

One of the major reasons that generational theory works as it does is
because so many people have lived through Awakening and Unraveling
eras when the survivor generations prevent small wars from spreading
into bigger ones, and think that the same thing will happen in a
Crisis era, which, of course, it won't.

Can you clarify which reasoning you're talking about and what you see as the problem?

I don't see potential triggering of the crisis was as necessarily a problem, since we're both agreed that the crisis war is inevitable.  Do you just want to put it off as long as possible?  Or are you worried about the left getting the upper hand politically?

There's now news that Iran is testing missiles and we know that they've had observers at all North Korean nuclear tests; most likely they have arrangements to buy the warheads that their deal with the US doesn't permit them to test.  If we do nothing about North Korea, we can expect rapid proliferation to people who hate the US.  That makes it more likely that the first nuclear strikes will target American population centers.  To me, that's a bad thing, because it gives use less warning and less time to prepare, such as by dispersing to less densely populated areas.  What am I missing?

[John J. Xenakis]

(09-24-2017, 01:01 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Can you clarify which reasoning you're talking about and what you
> see as the problem?

> I don't see potential triggering of the crisis was as necessarily
> a problem, since we're both agreed that the crisis war is
> inevitable. Do you just want to put it off as long as possible?
> Or are you worried about the left getting the upper hand
> politically?

> There's now news that Iran is testing missiles and we know that
> they've had observers at all North Korean nuclear tests; most
> likely they have arrangements to buy the warheads that their deal
> with the US doesn't permit them to test. If we do nothing about
> North Korea, we can expect rapid proliferation to people who hate
> the US. That makes it more likely that the first nuclear strikes
> will target American population centers. To me, that's a bad
> thing, because it gives use less warning and less time to prepare,
> such as by dispersing to less densely populated areas. What am I
> missing?

I'm not sure we disagree about anything. This started when I wrote
"Famous last words," by which I meant that the outcome will be worse
than either of us expects, and it seems we both agree about that, and
that was really the only point I was making.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 25-Sep-17 World View -- Rise of far-right AfD party in Germany raises international alarm bells

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Angela Merkel scores weak win in German national elections
  
• Rise of far-right AfD party in Germany raises international alarm bells
  

****
**** Angela Merkel scores weak win in German national elections
****


Campaign posters: CDU's Angela Merkel: 'Big things start with an ear for the small things.' SDP's Martin Schulz: 'It's time to solve the problems in Europe, instead of exposing them.' (Reuters)

It appears that Angela Merkel has won a fourth term as Chancellor of
Germany, although the relatively weak win will make it difficult for
her to form a governing coalition. Turnout was high, at 75%, compared
to 71% in the 2013 election. But perhaps the biggest news from
Sunday's election is not Merkel's victory, but rather the rise of the
far-right AfD party. (The phrase "far-right" has different meanings
in Europe and America.)

Angela Merkel's center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU/SDU), has won a plurality of the votes in Germany's national
election on Sunday, with 33% of the votes (according to exit polls),
down 8.5 percentage points from 41.5% in the 2013 election. The CDU
has been the governing party for most of the decades since the end of
World War II, having positioned itself at the party of Christian
democracy, while shedding the Nazism of the 1930s, but this is its
weakest post-war showing.

Merkel's CDU has only 33% of the votes, which is not a majority, which
means that if she wants to govern as Chancellor, then she must form a
governing coalition with other parties. In the past, the center-right
CDU has joined in a coalition with the center-left Social Democratic
Party (SDP). The SDP received 20.5% of the votes in this election,
and so the CDU and SDP could, once again, form a majority coalition.
But the SDP leaders said that they will refuse to form a coalition with
the CDU, and the rise of the AfD is one of the reasons.

The far-right party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for
Germany), received 13% of the votes, gaining 8.5 percentage points
since 2013. This is extremely significant in German politics, because
it means that AfD is surging past the 5% minimum required to be
represented in Germany's Bundestag (parliament).

The AfD is considered nationalistic and xenophobic because of its
policies that are anti-European Union, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islam.

The party was formed in 2013 when Germany led the EU in bailing out
Greece. The bailout turned into an extremely vitriolic war of words
between Germany and Greece, and the AfD was formed as an anti-EU
party. They took their name from a phrase Merkel used in 2013, "There
is no alternative," meaning that there was no alternative to bailing
out Greece.

Then, in 2015, when Angela Merkel approved the arrival of over a
million Syrian refugees with the slogan "Wir schaffen es" ("We can do
it"), the AfD became anti-Islam and anti-immigrant, though its leaders
say that it's not opposed to immigration, only to a flood of
immigrants. In the current election, its election posters showed
young women on the beach with the slogan "Burkas? We’re into bikinis,"
and a young pregnant white woman with the phrase "New Germans? Let’s
make them ourselves."

Supporters of the AfD sometimes are quoted as saying, "The AfD is the
new CDU." By this they mean that after WW II, the CDU became the
party of a Christian democracy in Germany, while shedding the Nazi
past. AfD supporters see the CDU as having abandoned the Christian
heritage, and see the AfD as the new guarantor of a Christian Germany,
while ironically ignoring the return to the 1930s style of nationalism
and xenophobia.

So if Merkel's first-place CDU forms a governing coalition with the
second-place SDP, then third-place AfD will become the major
opposition party, which would give them a special status in the
Bundestag. For that reason, apparently, the SDP is rejecting a
coalition with Merkel's CDU, so that the SDP can be the main
opposition party, and prevent AfD from achieving that special status.

So Merkel will have to form a coalition from some of the smaller
parties. The Greens (Die Grüne, at 9%) are advocating strong
environmental regulations. This contrasts strongly with the Free
Democratic Party (FDP, at 10.7%), which is business-friendly. So
Merkel would have to perform some difficult political juggling to form
a three-way coalition with those two parties.

That leaves Die Linke (the Left, 9.1%), which is the current
incarnation of the 1930s Communist Party. Party leaders said on
Sunday that they wanted to stay out of a coalition, so that they would
be free to vote on their issues.

So Sunday's election is over, but the chaos is just beginning. It's
not an absolute certainty that Merkel will come out of all this as the
Chancellor for a fourth term, but analysts consider it to be a very
likely. Deutsche Welle and Guardian (London)

****
**** Rise of far-right AfD party in Germany raises international alarm bells
****

As I've been writing for years from the point of view of Generational
Dynamics, we're deep into a generational Crisis era, and nationalism
and xenophobia have been increasing in most nations around the world.

Whenever I write about this, many people believe that I'm writing
about xenophobia directed at Muslims. While that's true in the case
of Germany's AfD, the target varies widely from country to country,
and the target is usually a target of political convenience.

A good example is the UK, which voted for Brexit largely because of
immigration issues related to the EU rules about "freedom of
movement." In the EU context, "freedom of movement" refers to EU
citizens being able to move freely from EU country to EU country, and
although immigration of Syrian refugees was a part of the Brexit
motivation, the main issue was actually European Union citizens from
eastern European countries like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. So the
UK's xenophobia was directed mostly at Christians from eastern Europe.
In the United States as well, there is xenophobia directed at
Mexicans, who are also Christian.

In Japan, the xenophobia is directed at China. In China, the
xenophobia is directed at Japan and the United States. In India, it's
directed at Muslims in Pakistan. In Pakistan, it's directed at Hindus
in India. So nationalism and xenophobia are not narrow attitudes
directed at just one group, but are an organic part of every
population during a generational Crisis era, and may be directed at
any religious or ethnic group, depending on the country.

In the case of Germany, many Jews are concerned that the rise of the
AfD means a possible new Holocaust at some time in the future. There
are some 200,000 Jews living in Germany, and post-war Germany has
gained a reputation as a safe, tolerant place for Jews to live,
although Jews point to official data reporting 681 anti-Semitic crimes
reported to police so far this year.

As the saying goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."
What this means is that in each generational Crisis era, there are
behaviors that are similar in kind to the behaviors of the previous
generational Crisis era, in this case the period leading up to and
including World War II. Like most countries, Germany does seem to be
on a trend line of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, and if this
trend continues, Germany could witness widespread racist hate crimes,
as in the 1930s. However, for what it's worth, we don't yet know
whether this will be directed at Jews, as it was in the 1930s.
However, even if it's directed just at Muslims it would be equally
disastrous, and historians of the 2030s may look back and say that
there were two Holocausts in the preceding century, one targeting the
Jews and one targeting the Muslims. Der Spiegel and Deutsche Welle and Reuters and Jerusalem Post and Foreign Policy (11-Sept)

Related Articles

• Anti-immigrant party in Germany hands Angela Merkel a stinging defeat (05-Sep-2016)
  
  
• Migration crisis signals historic shifts in Europe and Mideast (24-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Germany commemorates the firebombing of Dresden (14-Feb-2015)
  
  
• Germany threatens Britain with EU expulsion over the migrant issue (04-Nov-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Germany, Angela Merkel,
Christian Democratic Union, CDU/SDU, Greece,
AfD, Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany,
Die Grüne, Greens, Free Democratic Party, FDP, Die Linke,
United Kingdom, Brexit, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico,
Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Holocaust

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[Warren Dew]

CDU and SPD are the only globalist parties in Germany, so I imagine they will still form a coalition, no matter what their campaign rhetoric was.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 26-Sep-17 World View -- US adopts strategic response to North Korea's threats to shoot down US warplanes

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• North Korea threatens to shoot down US warplanes
  
• Is there a strategic explanation for Trump's statements and tweets?
  

****
**** North Korea threatens to shoot down US warplanes
****


An anti-US rally on Friday in Pyongyang, North Korea (KCNA/Reuters)

Ri Yong-ho, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, said that
Donald Trump had declared war on North Korea, and that therefore North
Korea had the right to shoot down US warplanes, even over
international airspace. According to Ri:

<QUOTE>"The world, including all member states currently
attending the United Nations General Assembly, must clearly
remember that this time, America declared war on us first. The
U.N. charter acknowledges all member states' independent rights to
self-defense.

Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have
every right to make counter-measures, including the right to shoot
down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside
the airspace border of our country."<END QUOTE>

Ri was probably alluding to the American warplanes that flew over
international airspace just east of North Korea over the weekend.
Pentagon spokesman Dana White described these flights: "This is the
farthest north of the Demilitarized Zone any U.S. fighter or bomber
aircraft have flown off North Korea's coast in the 21st century."

White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to Ri's threats
as follows:

<QUOTE>"We have not declared war on North Korea and, frankly,
the suggestion of that is absurd. ... It's never appropriate for a
country to shoot down another country's aircraft when it's over
international waters.

Our goal is still the same. We continue to seek the peaceful
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That’s our focus, doing
that through both the most maximum economic and diplomatic
pressures as possible at this point."<END QUOTE>

The events of the past three days follow months of increasingly
vitriolic threats and exchanges. Recently, America's UN ambassador
Nikki Haley said that North Korea was "begging for war." Russia's
president Vladimir Putin said that North Korea would "rather eat
grass" than end its nuclear program.

The claim of "declaration of war" is a response to president Donald
Trump's speech last week at the United Nations, where he ridiculed
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un by calling him "Rocket Man," and
saying he was on a "suicide mission":

<QUOTE>"No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this
band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and
missiles. The United States has great strength and patience, but
if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no
choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a
suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States
is ready, willing, and able, but hopefully this will not be
necessary. That's what the United Nations is all about. That's
what the United Nations is for. Let's see how they
do."<END QUOTE>

Kim responded with an equally personal insult directed at Trump:

<QUOTE>"I am now thinking hard about what response he could
have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his
tongue. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged
U.S. dotard with fire."<END QUOTE>

Trump tweeted in response to Ri's threat: "Just heard Foreign Minister
of North Korea speak at UN. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket
Man, they won’t be around much longer!"

Could North Korea actually shoot down a US warplane? Most analysts
believe not. North Korea is believed to have thousands of Soviet-era
surface-to-air missiles, but those are old technologies that US
warplanes could presumably avoid. However, North Korea has produce
its own KN-06 surface-to-air missile, and perhaps Kim believes that it
could be successful in shooting down an American warplane. NPR and Washington Post and Foreign Policy

****
**** Is there a strategic explanation for Trump's statements and tweets?
****

What's going on here between the US and North Korea? Is this just two
countries stumbling into war, or is there some strategy in operation?
There are thousands of attempted explanations on the internet. This
is mine.

America faces a very stark choice. Many people are suggesting that we
do nothing, which would mean appeasement.

If we do nothing, then North Korea will build an arsenal of nuclear
missiles pointed at Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Even
if those missiles are launched, they can be used for blackmail. Kim
would threaten US forces in South Korea, Guam, and elsewhere. Kim
would demand that all of those forces be withdrawn, and he would have
the support of China and Russia. He would also be supported by the
same people who are advising appeasement now.

When the North Koreans make a nuclear threat, it's quite possible that
they would carry it out. In 2010, the North conducted two acts of war
targeting South Korea -- in May, North Korea torpedoed and sank the warship Cheonan,
killing dozens
of South Korean crew members, and in November, North Korea killed
South Korean civilians by shelling Yeonpyeong Island.
In both cases, the South Koreans chose not to
respond, but it's pretty clear that they might have.

So I believe that doing nothing, appeasing North Korea, would lead to
war, and I believe that the Trump administration has the same view.

Many of the analyses in the mainstream media start with the assumption
that Kim Jong-un is correct in calling Trump a "dotard" and a "madman"
with his finger on the nuclear button. These opinions are idiotic,
but they are extremely common.

Donald Trump and the US are facing a stark situation. Doing nothing,
appeasement, leads to war. Therefore, something must be done.
Therefore, we can assume that Trump is following a strategy. I do not
for a second believe the idiotic statements by mainstream reports that
Trump's name-calling is random and uncontrolled. I believe that
Trump's actions, including his tweets, are all part of a strategy.
This is my opinion as to what that strategy is.

Part of the strategy is, of course, using strong sanctions, in the
hope that North Korea will end its nuclear program. I don't think
anyone serious believes that it will since, as Putin said, North Korea
would rather eat grass. However, it's possible that the sanctions and
threats of military action are really directed at the Chinese. It's
apparent that Russia and China have absolutely no objection to North
Korea having an arsenal of nuclear missiles targeting the United
States, since they won't be targeting China or Russia. However,
sanctions and military threats might convince the Chinese to force Kim
to stop his nuclear missile program. So that's part of the strategy.

But in the end, no one seriously believes that any of these diplomatic
strategies will work. If the US wants to prevent North Korea from
having an arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at South Korea, Japan,
and the US, then military action will have to be taken. After
Monday's threat to shoot down an American bomber, the Pentagon said
that it is preparing military options for Trump.

Many analysts have said that no military action is possible without
putting millions of people in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea,
at risk. However, several days ago, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis
was asked whether there were any military options the United States
could take with North Korea that would not put Seoul at grave risk.
Mattis said: “Yes there are. But I will not go into details.” So I
don't know if Mattis was telling the truth, but whether he was or not,
some military action must be taken.

Several weeks ago, China said that if the US attacked North Korea
first, then China would join North Korea in fighting the US. But if
North Korea attacked first, and the US responded, then China would not
defend North Korea.

So my explanation for Trump's strategy is that he's trying to provoke
a military attack by North Korea. In 2010, the North Koreans attacked
South Korea by torpedoing the warship Cheonan and by shelling
Yeonpyeong Island, as described above. My belief is that Trump is
trying to provoke North Korea to do it again, by means of the
name-calling and by flying American warplanes just outside of North
Korea's airspace. If the North even tries to shoot down an American
warplane, then a counter-attack would be justified, and China has
promised not to defend North Korea.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, we're seeing a
typical pattern that historically has preceded any generational Crisis
war, where each side "crosses the line," and the other side responds
by "crossing the line" further, in a tit-for-tat ping pong of
responses and counter-responses, eventually leading to war. As
regular readers know, the world is headed for a Clash of Civilizations
world war, pitting America, India, Russia, Iran and the West against
China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries. Unfortunately, this
is inevitable, no matter what strategy the US pursues in Korea.
Fox News/AP and Reuters

Related Articles

• Trump's North Korea sanctions stop short of military blockade (22-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Will we have to accept a world in which North Korea is a nuclear power? (04-Sep-2017)
  
  
• North Korea and Russia continue to incite a new Korean War (06-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Donald Trump's speech in Warsaw Poland evokes the Clash of Civilizations (07-Jul-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un, Ri Yong-ho,
Dana White, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
China, South Korea, Guam, Japan, Cheonan, Yeonpyeong Island

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 27-Sep-17 World View -- Israel may be the only country recognizing the Iraq Kurdistan referendum

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Iraqi Kurds' independence referendum appears headed for big approval
  
• Israel may be the only country recognizing the Iraq Kurdistan referendum
  

****
**** Iraqi Kurds' independence referendum appears headed for big approval
****


Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani © sits during his meeting with clerics and elders in Erbil last month (Reuters)

Thousands of ethnic Kurds in Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan
Region in Iraq, were dancing in the streets and setting off fireworks
on Tuesday, celebrating what is apparently an overwhelming YES vote on
the non-binding referendum for Kurdistan independence.

Voters were asked to answer either YES or NO on the ballot asking them
just one question in Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and Assyrian: "Do you
want the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan)
Region to become an independent country?"

An estimated 78% of the more than five million eligible voters cast a
ballot. The ballots are still being counted, though some reports
indicate a YES vote around 90%.

The reasons that they were celebrating is that they were hoping,
probably delusionally, that the successful referendum may be the
first step in the creation of an independent nation of Kurdistan,
something that's been a frustrated hope for at least a century.

Although the referendum took place in Iraq, there are large
populations of Kurds in several countries in the Mideast and the South
Caucasus. There are 20 million Kurds living Turkey, Syria, Iraq,
Iran, Armenia, and other countries, making it an anomaly that they're
one of the largest ethnic groups that didn't get their own state after
two world wars in the last century.

The reason that the this particular time was chosen for the referendum
is because the Kurds believe that they have leverage for their role in
fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh),
which began occupying Iraq with the the catastrophic fall of Mosul to ISIS
in June, 2014.

Since then it's been the Kurds that have been the main fighting force
against ISIS. The Kurds protected Iraqi refugees, including Yazidi
refugees, from ISIS, and played an important part in expelling ISIS
from Mosul earlier this year. The Iraqi Kurdish leader, Massoud
Barzani, was emboldened by the Kurds' success in fighting ISIS, and
felt that it was necessary to move quickly before the international
good will dissipated. Reuters and AP and Atlantic (24-Sep)

****
**** Israel may be the only country recognizing the Iraq Kurdistan referendum
****

Iraqi leader Massoud Barzani may have been hoping for some gratitude
from the international community, especially the United States, for
the Kurds doing such a great job fighting ISIS in Iraq, and even for
the great job that the Kurds are doing fighting ISIS in Raqqa in
Syria. Unfortunately, those hopes are not being fulfilled.

Secretary-General António Guterres voiced concern over the referendum
in a statement:

<QUOTE>"The Secretary-General respects the sovereignty,
territorial integrity and unity of Iraq and considers that all
outstanding issues between the federal Government and the
Kurdistan Regional Government should be resolved through
structured dialogue and constructive compromise.

The Secretary-General expects that United Nations-mandated
activities across Iraq, including in the Kurdistan region, will be
allowed to continue unhindered."<END QUOTE>

There are many countries in the world today with ethnic
sub-populations that would like to form an independent region. Many
people in Scotland would like to leave the United Kingdom. The
Catalonia region of Spain would like independence. China has multiple
separatist problems, in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan.

So none of these countries is going to support an independence
referendum in Iraq, since doing so would energize the separatist
forces in their own countries.

Iraq's prime minister Haider al-Abadi will not even negotiate with the
Kurds:

<QUOTE>"We are not ready to discuss or have a dialogue about
the results of the referendum because it is unconstitutional.

Most of the problems of the [Kurdish] region are internal ones,
not with Baghdad, and will be increased with the calls for
separation. The economic and financial problems the region is
suffering from are the result of corruption and
mis-administration."<END QUOTE>

The United States, the European Union, Turkey and Iran all fear that
the referendum could destabilize the region. Turkey, Iraq and Iran
are all sending troops for exercises near the Kurdistan border. Iraq
is threatening to cut off air travel. Turkey is threatening to close
the pipeline that goes through Turkey, and which the Kurds use to sell
oil to international markets. Closing the pipeline would cut
Kurdistan's major source of revenue. In fact, Turkey's president
Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Barzani of "treachery," while Iranian
officials have called the referendum "evil."

So with almost universal rejection of the referendum results, it may
be considered surprising the Israel supports the independent state of
Kurdistan. Several times in the last few years, Israel's prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu has supported independence, saying that
the Kurds are a "brave, pro-Western people who share our values."
Many Israelis feel that they have a lot in common with the Kurds, in
that Jews also had to fight to create the state of Israel.

This has led Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei to
issue a statement calling the independence referendum a "Zionist plot"
meant to fuel violence in the Mideast.

With almost every nation in the world opposing an independent
Kurdistan, with only one major exception, Israel, it seems pretty
certain that there will not be an independent Kurdistan. United Nations and Al Jazeera and BBC and
Jerusalem Post (13-Sep) and Times of Israel

Related Articles

• Concerns grow over chaos in Iraq after ISIS is defeated in Mosul (22-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Confusion and chaos in Iraq mark the operation to free Mosul from ISIS (30-Oct-2016)
  
  
• Iraq in major crisis after catastrophic fall of Mosul to ISIS (11-Jun-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iraq, Kurds, Erbil, Kurdistan Region,
Massoud Barzani, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
António Guterres, Haider al-Abadi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Seyed Ali Khamenei, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[Warren Dew]

Relying on gratitude isn't the most dependable strategy. The Kurds should have held the referendum two years ago, then bargained for recognition in return for participation against the Islamic State.

[David Horn]

(09-27-2017, 01:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Relying on gratitude isn't the most dependable strategy.  The Kurds should have held the referendum two years ago, then bargained for recognition in return for participation against the Islamic State.

Why?  At the moment, they hold the territory.  I don't see the Iraqis making an effort to dislodge them, and no other player in the region would seem to be in a position to do it either.  In fact, the entire region is realigning.  The Kurds have created facts on the ground (much as the Israelis have done in the West Bank), and that may be enough in and of itself.

Remember, the borders in the Middle East and Africa were artificial from the day a bunch of arrogant Europeans drew them on maps.  They never made sense, so some adjustments have to be expected.  This one makes sense.

[John J. Xenakis]

(09-27-2017, 10:00 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 01:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Relying on gratitude isn't the most dependable strategy.  The Kurds should have held the referendum two years ago, then bargained for recognition in return for participation against the Islamic State.

Why?  At the moment, they hold the territory.  I don't see the Iraqis making an effort to dislodge them, and no other player in the region would seem to be in a position to do it either.  In fact, the entire region is realigning.  The Kurds have created facts on the ground (much as the Israelis have done in the West Bank), and that may be enough in and of itself.

Remember, the borders in the Middle East and Africa were artificial from the day a bunch of arrogant Europeans drew them on maps.  They never made sense, so some adjustments have to be expected.  This one makes sense.

The relevant question always is: What have you done for me lately?

[Warren Dew]

(09-27-2017, 10:00 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 01:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Relying on gratitude isn't the most dependable strategy.  The Kurds should have held the referendum two years ago, then bargained for recognition in return for participation against the Islamic State.

Why?  At the moment, they hold the territory.  I don't see the Iraqis making an effort to dislodge them, and no other player in the region would seem to be in a position to do it either.  In fact, the entire region is realigning.  The Kurds have created facts on the ground (much as the Israelis have done in the West Bank), and that may be enough in and of itself.

Remember, the borders in the Middle East and Africa were artificial from the day a bunch of arrogant Europeans drew them on maps.  They never made sense, so some adjustments have to be expected.  This one makes sense.

The facts on the ground in Iraqi Kurdistan, for which the vote was held, haven't changed substantially since the Kurdish no fly zone was set up 26 years ago.

Now, if the vote had included Syrian Kurdistan, that would make sense.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 28-Sep-17 World View -- Uganda lawmakers throw fists and chairs at each other over Museveni's power grab

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Uganda lawmakers throw fists and chairs at each other over Museveni's power grab
  
• Uganda follows a familiar pattern of violence for many African countries
  
• Thailand's Yingluck Shinawatra sentenced in absentia to five years in jail
  

****
**** Uganda lawmakers throw fists and chairs at each other over Museveni's power grab
****


Uganda lawmakers throw fists and chairs at each other in argument over allowing Museveni to illegally remain in power after decades of being in power. (Africa News)

For the last two days, lawmakers in Uganda's parliament in the capital
city Kampala have exchanged kicks and punches, and assaults with
chairs and microphone stands. At least two female lawmakers being
carried out after collapsing.

The disagreements were over changing the constitution remove the age
limit for a presidential candidate. The change would permit Yoweri
Museveni, who has been president for more than three decades, to run
for another term, seen by many as a Museveni power grab. The
constitution has an age limit of 75 years, which would make Museveni
ineligible to run again in the next election, in 2021.

Museveni's government attempted to prevent opposition lawmakers from
even attending Wednesday's session, by sending security forces to
surround their homes to prevent them from leaving.

One MP, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, a musician turned politician,
described his experience this way:

<QUOTE>"The police surrounded my home in order to prevent me
from going to parliament today [Tuesday]. I was too smart for
them, I instead spent the night somewhere in the ghetto.

[When the police found him and tried to arrest him,] I instead
jumped onto a boda boda [motorcycle taxi]; they tried to grab me
off the boda but the riders fought them off. Then police officers
jumped onto a boda boda to chase me but the boda guys refused to
carry the police officers."<END QUOTE>

Several MPs had similar experiences and marched to parliament. Before
the fighting started, opposition lawmakers filibustered and sang the
national anthem repeatedly. One opposition lawmaker accused another
MP of carrying a gun, and that led to the brawl. The speaker ordered
that opposition MPs had to leave, and when they refused, plain-clothes
security operatives stormed parliament and dragged them out.

This was carried live on television and on the internet. The result
was that the government's Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) banned
all live broadcasts as of 8 pm on Wednesday. A statement by the UCC
said:

<QUOTE>"The Commission has noted with concern that both radio
and television broadcasting operators are relaying live broadcasts
which is inciting the public, discriminating, stirring up hatred,
promoting a culture of violence amongst viewers and are likely to
create public insecurity or violence.

The Commission reminds broadcasters that such live broadcasts are
in breach of the minimum broadcasting standards as laid down in
section 31 of UCC Act 2013."<END QUOTE>

Amnesty International issued a statement condemning the ban on live
broadcasts, saying, "Ugandans have a right to know what their elected
representatives are doing, a right the authorities must facilitate
rather than hinder." The Observer (Kampala) and The Independent (Kampala) and New Vision (Kampala) and Amnesty International

****
**** Uganda follows a familiar pattern of violence for many African countries
****

Uganda is following a familiar generational pattern that I've
described in many other countries, both in Africa and outside. When a
country's generational crisis war is a civil war between two ethnic
groups within the country, then in the decades following the end of
the war, especially during the next generational Awakening era, the
ethnic group that won the war and took power begins new violence,
atrocities, rapes, and arbitrary jailings and executions against the
ethnic group that lost the war.

Outside of Africa, we see this for example in Syria, where the
president Bashar al-Assad has for decades been using sociopathic forms
of torture on his enemies, and has used everything from Sarin gas to
barrel bombs containing metal and chlorine on marketplaces and
residential neighborhoods to kill and torture his political enemies.

Uganda's president is from the Hima tribe, which is closely allied
with the Tutsi tribe. For decades, and perhaps centuries, ethnic
Tutsis and ethnic Hutus have been conducting brutal wars with each
other, the most well-known of which is the Rwanda genocide of 1994,
where Hutus killed almost a million Tutsis in a period of three
months.

Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni, 73 years old, allied with the
Tutsis, took part in many of these gruesome atrocities and slaughter.
By any reasonable measure, he's just as much as a sociopathic monster
as Bashar al-Assad.

The same is true of Rwanda and Burundi, the other two countries that
were heavily involved in the 1994 Hutu-Tutsi genocide. The current
president of Rwanda is Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, while the president of
Burundi is Pierre Nkurunziza, a Hutu.

All three leaders are using repressive measures to stay in power long
after their mandate has ended. But Nkurunziza in particular has been using torture,
rape, beatings,
arbitrary jailings and summary executions to suppress the Tutsis,
resulting in over 500,000 refugees in neighboring countries, including
Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

All three countries are in a generational Awakening era, meaning that
there is no chance at this time of anything like the huge 1994
genocide. But there will be continuing government violence, torture
and arbitrary jailings in all three countries, and these patterns will
get worse as time goes on. Guardian (London, 12-Sep)

Related Articles

• UN: Burundi's Hutu government attacks on Tutsis are crimes against humanity (07-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Burundi's Pierre Nkurunziza follows Syria's Bashar al-Assad on path to genocide (13-Oct-2016)
  
  
• Rwanda's president Kagame becomes another leader refusing to leave office (19-Nov-2015)
  
  
• 20,000 refugees flee violence in Burundi, fearing Hutu-Tutsi war (30-Apr-2015)
  

****
**** Thailand's Yingluck Shinawatra sentenced in absentia to five years in jail
****

On Wednesday, a court in Bangkok, Thailand, found Thailand's former
prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of graft in absentia,
and sentenced her to five years in jail.

As we reported last month, Yingluck fled to Dubai rather than face an
all-but-certain guilty verdict and jailing for alleged graft in the
rice stock sales program that she initiated. Yingluck supporters
believe that the charges are purely political.

This is worth mentioning in this article because Thailand is also in a
generational Awakening/Unraveling era, following Thailand's last
generational crisis war, Pol Pot's Cambodian Killing Fields war in the
late 1970s. Yingluck and her brother Thaksin were both extremely
popular as prime ministers, supported by majority dark-skinned
indigenous Thai-Thai "red shirts," but opposed by the minority
market-dominant light-skinned Thai-Chinese "yellow shirts."

Just like the leaders of Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Syria described
above, the élite in Thailand, led by the army, are using violence,
army coups and dubious criminal charges to keep them out of power, and
allow the minority Thai-Chinese élite to continue in power.

Thailand's police chief announced on Wednesday that he is conducting a
manhunt for Yingluck, and is asking Interpol to find her and bring her
to justice in Thailand. Bangkok Post

Related: Thailand's former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra flees to Dubai (26-Aug-2017)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Uganda, Kampala, Yoweri Museveni,
Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, Uganda Communication Commission, UCC,
Amnesty International, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Hima, Tutsi, Hutu, Burundi, Rwanda, Paul Kagame, Pierre Nkurunziza,
Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra,
Thai-Thai, red shirts, Thai-Chinese, yellow shirts, Thaksin Shinawatra,
Pol Pot, Cambodia, Killing fields

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 29-Sep-17 World View -- Burma's (Myanmar's) leaders may be inspired by Pol Pot's Cambodian 'Killing Fields' genocide

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Burma's ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims passes a major milestone
  
• Burma has possible parallels to Pol Pot's Cambodian Killing Fields
  

****
**** Burma's ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims passes a major milestone
****


Rohingyas in Bangladesh receive humanitarian aid (Pakistan Today)

According to the United Nations, the Rohingya crisis in Burma
(Myanmar) passed a major milestone on Thursday, in that the number of
Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh since August 25, when the
latest Burmese army military "clearance operations" began, has now
topped 500,000, making it "the largest mass refugee movement in the
region in decades." UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the
crisis "the world's fastest developing refugee emergency and a
humanitarian and human rights nightmare."

Counting the refugees who had fled earlier, there are now believed to
be "well over 700,000" Rohingyas in Bangladesh. And since the
systemic violence by Burma's army is continuing there could be 250,000
more fleeing into Bangladesh in the next couple of months.

Burma's army has been conducting a scorched earth attack on Rohingya
Muslims, burning down thousands of homes and buildings, and hundreds
of entire villages. The army committed massacres, torture, rapes and
other atrocities that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people,
with hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives, crossing the
border into Bangladesh.

Burma's government, led by the ethnic cleanser-in-chief and Nobel
Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has been denying that any ethnic
cleansing is taking place, and is making the laughable claim that
Rohingyas are burning down their own villages and killing each other.

For years, as these military operations were taking place, Burma
refused to allow any foreign investigators into Rakhine state.
Journalists, NGOs, UN investigators have all be blocked by Burma
from entering the region.

Burma has been internationally pressured to allow investigators in, or
risk losing aid or having sanctions applied. Finally, Burma agreed to
a visit by United Nations officials and other diplomats to take play
yesterday (Thursday). At the last minute Burma canceled the visit,
refusing to give any explanation, but several hours later said that it
was "because of bad weather." Burma claims that the visit will
be rescheduled.

The visit was to have been tightly controlled, allowing the UN
officials to see only the things that Burma's army wanted them to see.
However, that strategy failed disastrously earlier this month, as we
reported at the time.
There was a
tightly controlled visit by BBC reporter Jonathan Head, but then they
happened to see some smoke going up through the trees. Head's minders
lost control as Head and his cameraman ran towards the fires, where
they able to question a Buddhist Burman who admitted to burning down
the buildings.

So after that experience, it's not surprising that the Burmese
government canceled Thursday's UN visit.

This is an extremely serious situation. The Burma Rohingya crisis is
creating a huge refugee crisis and is energizing jihadist groups in
Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia, and the Mideast. After several
years of these atrocities by Burma's army, Rohingya activists have
formed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which conducted
terrorist attacks on August 25 and triggered the current round of
"clearance operations" by Burma's army. This crisis is extremely
destabilizing to the entire region, and is just as likely as the North
Korea nuclear missile crisis to trigger a war that could escalate into
a world war. AP and WHO - Bangladesh situation report and Independent (London)

Related Articles

• Burma's (Myanmar's) ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas leading to humanitarian catastrophe (15-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Burma's (Myanmar's) ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas witnessed by BBC reporter (09-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Devastating UN report on Burma shows scale of ghastly atrocities by Buddhists targeting Muslim Rohingyas (04-Feb-2017)
  
  
• Generational history of Burma (Myanmar) (26-Sep-2007)
  

****
**** Burma has possible parallels to Pol Pot's Cambodian Killing Fields
****

Every time I write one of these articles about Buddhist Burma's ethnic
cleansing and genocide of Rohingya Muslims, some commenters always get
confused and think that I'm writing about Rohingya Muslims raping,
torturing and murdering Buddhist Burmese. But no, let me be clear,
this is about Buddhists murdering, raping, and torturing Muslims, not
the other way around.

The phrase "religion of peace" gets thrown around a lot these days.
Every time there's a terrorist attack by a Muslim jihadist group, some
Muslim leader insists that Islam is a "religion of peace," a claim
that infuriates many people in the West.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Islam is NOT a
religion of peace. In fact, there's no such thing as a religion of
peace. In fact, no religion would exist for long as a "religion of
peace," since its population would soon be exterminated by people of
other religions who do NOT follow "religion of peace" policies.

On the other hand, many people who comment on my articles seem
to believe that Buddhism is a "religion of peace," and claim
that Buddhists are somehow congenitally unable to murder, rape
and torture Muslim Rohingyas or anyone else. A typical comment
is that "Buddhists would never harm anyone, so the Rohingyas
must have done something particularly harmful to deserve what's
happening to them."

And so, many commenters seem to believe that Buddhism is a "religion
of peace." And yet, the Buddhist society of the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia in 1975-79, led by Pol Pot, perpetrated one of the three or
four top mass genocides of the 20th century, comparable to the huge
Christian genocides in Russia and Germany in the two world wars, or
the huge Muslim genocides in the Mideast coming out of the collapse of
the Ottoman empire, or the huge African genocides in the 60s and 70s,
or the huge Chinese genocides in the 40s and 50s. Genocide and sex
are driven by DNA, not by religion, and all religions have the same
DNA.

The Buddhist Cambodian killing fields genocide, 1975-79, killed
something like 1.7 to well over 2 million people, out of a population
of 8 million. So around 20% of Cambodia's population were killed,
making it possibly the worst genocide, on a percentage basis, of the
20th century. By contrast, the Nazi Holocaust killed around 5
million, which was less than 3% of Germany's population. Pol Pot was
trying to imitate Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward in China, which was
a genocide that killed millions of people out of some two billion, Mao
Zedong and Pol Pot may be comparable in their genocides. In all
cases, these millions of people were the subject of almost
unimaginable atrocities, including torture and rape.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Buddhism is a
"religion of war," just like Islam and every other religion. No
"religion of peace" would survive more than a few decades, if it
weren't willing to become a "religion of war."

So now looking more closely at the Buddhist Cambodian Killing Fields
genocide, it may well be that the Buddhists in Burma may be borrowing
some techniques from their Buddhist cousins in the 1970s Khmer rouge.
This would be a historic example of one group of genocidal Buddhists
learning genocide from another group of genocidal Buddhists. This
comparison became even more dramatic on this week, when Burma's
government announced that the government will take over the land that
contained the villages that Burma's army burned down, making the
ethnic cleansing permanent.

Right now, this is speculation, and there is no public evidence of
this connection between the Buddhist cousins. Perhaps someday, when
ethnic cleanser-in-chief and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
writes her memoirs, we'll learn more about whether there is a
connection. UC Santa Barbara and Reuters and Al Arabiya


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Burma, Myanmar, Rohingyas, Rakhine State,
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pol Pot, Killing Fields, Khmer Rouge,
António Guterres, BBC, Jonathan Head, Aung San Suu Kyi,
Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, ARSA, Buddhism, Islam,
China, Mao Zedong, Great Leap Forward

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[Warren Dew]

To be fair, the Khmer Rouge's genocidal religion was Communism, not Buddhism.

I'm still not seeing how the Burma situation triggers a crisis war. Bangladesh invading Burma, triggering an Indian invasion of Bangladesh, in turn involving Pakistan? Maybe, but it would require serious stupidity on the part of Bangladesh.

Or do you think jihadists could become powerful enough to be party to a crisis war? Maybe, but they'd probably have to get nuclear weapons - which, granted, isn't that far fetched.

[John J. Xenakis]

(09-28-2017, 10:22 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > To be fair, the Khmer Rouge's genocidal religion was Communism,
> not Buddhism.

> I'm still not seeing how the Burma situation triggers a crisis
> war. Bangladesh invading Burma, triggering an Indian invasion of
> Bangladesh, in turn involving Pakistan? Maybe, but it would
> require serious stupidity on the part of Bangladesh.

> Or do you think jihadists could become powerful enough to be party
> to a crisis war? Maybe, but they'd probably have to get nuclear
> weapons - which, granted, isn't that far fetched.

Well, the importance of Buddhism as the Khmer Rouge religion is not
that there's something special about Buddhism that leads to the
Cambodian Killing Fields. In fact the Khmer Rouge were apparently
learning from Communist Mao's Great Leap Forward genocide, in the same
way that children might learn carpentry from their parents.

What makes Cambodia's Buddhism important today is that there's a
religious identity group connection between the people of Burma and
the people of Cambodia, and there may even be familial connections.
Today's Burmese Buddhist leaders may be learning from the Khmer
Rouge's Killing Fields genocide from their Cambodian cousins, which
would make Mao's communists the grandparents, the Khmer Rouge the
first generation children, and the Burmese the grandchildren, creating
a kind of family tree of horror.

The way that a war could arise is if some nation takes some military
action to right the situation. There will soon be close to a million
Burmese Rohingyas in Bangladesh, and I could easily imagine Bangladesh
doing something to force these refugees to return to Burma, or at
least to stop the flow.

Another possible way is another Muslim nation taking some action.

Here's an article that describes how Muslims in Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Malaysia and Chechnya are holding
large anti-Burma protests, sometimes demanding that the government
cut diplomatic relations. Imagine, for example, if a jihadist
militia from one of these countries goes to Burma, and they're captured
by the Burmese, and their government demands that they be returned,
and Burma refuses.

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-...story.html

So it's not that the Burma situation could lead overnight to a crisis
war. It's that there may be a typical "regeneracy" scenario, where
one country crosses a red line, and another country (Burma) crosses a
red line in response, creating a ping-pong escalation process that
leads to a war.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 30-Sep-17 World View -- Steve Bannon and Henry Kissinger form project to sound alarm on China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Steve Bannon and Henry Kissinger form project to sound alarm on China
  
• Taiwan's prime minister says that Taiwan is an 'independent sovereign state'
  

****
**** Steve Bannon and Henry Kissinger form project to sound alarm on China
****


Henry Kissinger shares a meal with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, Beijing, 1972

According to an interview in Bloomberg Businessweek, Steve Bannon and
Henry Kissinger have had several meetings, and are preparing a project
to sound the alarm about what Bannon views as the primary economic
threat to America:

<QUOTE>"If we don’t get our situation sorted with China,
we’ll be destroyed economically. The forced technology transfer
of American innovation to China is the single biggest economic and
business issue of our time. Until we sort that out, they will
continue to appropriate our innovation to their own system and
leave us as a colony—our Jamestown to their Great Britain, a
tributary state."<END QUOTE>

This is a bit of hyperbole, referring to England's Jamestown Colony of
Virginia, formed in 1607, but it illustrates the fear that Bannon is
presenting of a reversal of roles between China and America, with
China becoming the dominant world economic power.

Henry Kissinger, 94, was the Secretary of State in the administration
of Richard Nixon whose "secret meeting" with China in 1971 permitted
Nixon to "open China to the West" and invigorate US-China relations.
As an international consultant, Kissinger has visited China more than
80 times since then. He's considered by many to be the most brilliant
geopolitical strategist of our time. Most recently, Bannon met with
Kissinger twice in September at Kissinger's country home in
Connecticut.

Both Bannon and Kissinger are experts on world and military history,
and Bannon is also an expert on Generational Dynamics, so he
understands that a new war between China and the US is approaching.
As regular readers know, I've worked with Steve Bannon off and on for
almost ten years.

Bannon frames the conflict with China in economic terms. He says that
China is harming the U.S. by engaging in unfair trade practices, such
as the forced transfer of U.S. technology to Chinese companies.
According to Bannon, China’s historical disposition toward trading
partners is exploitative and potentially ruinous:

<QUOTE>"There have been 4,000 years of Chinese diplomatic
history, all centered on ‘barbarian management,’ minus the last
150 years. ...

It’s always about making the barbarians a tributary state. Our
tribute to China is our technology -- that’s what it takes to
enter their market, and [they’ve taken] $3.5 trillion worth over
the last 10 years. We have to give them the basic essence of
American capitalism: our innovation."<END QUOTE>

What does Henry Kissinger think of all this? As it happens, Kissinger
spoke at a Columbia University conference earlier this week. Possibly
with his meetings with Bannon in mind, his speech emphasized that
America and China must have been economic relations to avoid World War
III and global destruction:

<QUOTE>"China’s Belt and Road Initiative, in seeking to
connect China to Central Asia and eventually to Europe will have
the practical significance of shifting the world’s center of
gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific and will involve the
cultures of Eurasia, each of whom will have to decide what
relationship to this region they will see, and so will the United
States.

It is said by many scholars that never before has a power grown in
one region as China is doing and that its interaction will lead to
tensions and maybe even war. We do not have this choice. That
would be a road to the disaster and would do to the world what
World War II did to Europe."<END QUOTE>

Bannon and Kissinger share the view that China and America are headed
for a world war, and both are them are (in my view) desperately
looking for a way to avoid it, by means of an economic alliance.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, avoiding this world
war is impossible. In every century for millennia, every continent of
the world has had massive wars that have killed half the population.
In the last century, there were two world wars, plus additional
massive wars in Africa, China, South America and South Asia. That
this will happen in this century is 100% certain. Bloomberg Businessweek and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

Related Articles

• Donald Trump's speech in Warsaw Poland evokes the Clash of Civilizations (07-Jul-2017)
  
  
• Mainstream media frets over Steve Bannon, the Fourth Turning, and Donald Trump (09-Feb-2017)
  
  
• President Trump's inauguration speech links today's America to the 1930s (21-Jan-2017)
  
  
• How a world war with China would unfold (21-Feb-2014)
  

****
**** Taiwan's prime minister says that Taiwan is an 'independent sovereign state'
****

With the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) 19th Party Congress set to
begin in Beijing on October 18, China's president Xi Jinping is facing
a new embarrassment, as Taiwan's prime minister William Lai Ching-te
said on Tuesday to Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (Parliament) that Taiwan
is an "independent sovereign state."

Lai, 57, took office on September 8. His long-held views on Taiwan's
independence from China were certainly well known to Taiwan's
president Tsai Ing-wen when she appointed him, and it's even possible
that the timing was chosen now, just before the Party Congress, to
annoy Xi Jinping.

Lai delivered his first policy report to the legislature on Tuesday,
and said:

<QUOTE>"“I am a political worker who advocates Taiwan
independence, but I am also a pragmatic pro-Taiwan independence
theorist.

We are already an independent sovereign nation called the Republic
of China. We don't need a separate declaration of
independence."<END QUOTE>

There was immediately a great deal of media speculation, in Taiwan and
in China, as to what this means, and whether it indicates a change in
Taiwan policy.

President Tsai Ing-wen issued a statement saying that her
administration has never changed its position that "the Republic of
China is a sovereign independent country," nor has it changed its
dedication to peace in the region and maintaining stability in the
Taiwan Strait.

However, both Lai and Tsai have refused to endorse the "One-China
policy," also called the "1992 Consensus," which states that there is
only one China, and leaves some ambiguity as to what that means.
Furthermore, Tsai has said in the past that "We won't allow our
sovereignty to be challenged or be exchanged for anything." It was
Tsai's implicit support for independence that allowed her
pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to win decisively
in January 2016.

China's government responded on Wednesday:

<QUOTE>"The mainland and Taiwan belong to China, and their
relations are never state-to-state relationships, nor one China,
one Taiwan. As an inseparable part of the Chinese territory,
Taiwan is never a country, and can never become one.

Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, has never been
a country and can never become a country.

The mainland side resolutely opposes any form of ‘Taiwan
independence’ words or action, and will never allow the historical
tragedy of national separation to repeat itself. The consequences
will be reaped for engaging in Taiwan independence
separatism."<END QUOTE>

This threat of "consequences" is based on China's "anti-secession
law." This law, passed by the Chinese Communist Party in 2005,
requires China to invade Taiwan if Taiwan makes any move toward
independence, whether by word or by deed. Arguably, the preconditions
for such an invasion have been met repeatedly since Tsai took office.

As the 19th Party Congress approaches, Xi Jinping has suffered several
recent humiliations and setbacks, including the decision for China's
army to stand down from invading Bhutan's Doklam Plateau, rather than
risk a war with India at this time. Perhaps even more significant,
the belligerent actions by North Korea have forced Xi to take actions
that support the United States over North Korea. This new humiliation
over Taiwan certain cannot be pleasant, and he may feel forced, after
the Party Congress, to take some action over the political need to
score a win. Reuters and Xinhua and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and China Post (Taiwan) and New Bloom (Taiwan)

Related Articles

• Kidnapping and sham trial of Lee Ming-che brings China-Taiwan relations to another low (14-Sep-2017)
  
  
• In a major victory for China, Panama switches allegiance from Taiwan to China (14-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Taiwan's president responds to military threats from China (01-Jan-2017)
  
  
• New Taiwan poll shows overwhelming support for independence from China (02-Jun-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Steve Bannon, Henry Kissinger,
China, Richard Nixon, Chinese Communist Party, CCP,
Xi Jinping, 19th Party Congress, Taiwan,
William Lai Ching-te, Tsai Ing-wen, One China Policy,
India, Bhutan, Doklam Plateau, North Korea

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 1-Oct-17 World View -- Catalonia referendum poised to go ahead despite Spain's harsh repressive measures

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Catalonia referendum poised to go ahead despite Spain's harsh repressive measures
  
• Hundreds of Catalan families occupy school buildings in defiance of police
  

****
**** Catalonia referendum poised to go ahead despite Spain's harsh repressive measures
****


On Friday, hundreds of farmers drove tractors into Barcelona to support the referendum and to protect polling places (Reuters)

Spain's government in Madrid is going to extraordinary measures --
some would say heroic measures, others would say abusive, paranoiac
measures, depending on point of view -- to prevent Catalonia's
independence referendum from taking place on Sunday.

Madrid has sent tens of thousands of national police into Catalonia.
The police have gone from house to house confiscating vote record
forms, ballot boxes, and almost ten million ballot papers, as well as
and campaign leaflets. They've demanded that Google make the
Catalonia voting app unavailable, and Google has complied, although
many are now turning to encrypted communications with WhatsApp. The
police stored Catalonia's parliament and government building, and
arrested high-level Catalonian politicians for the crime of preparing
for the referendum.

All of these measures have infuriated the Catalans, and the anger is
so intense that even if the referendum is stopped, Madrid may lose
control of Catalonia's political situation, and the government of
Mariano Rajoy, who is already weak, may collapse.

If the referendum wins, then there are widespread fears that it will
destabilize Spain and cause chaos in the rest of the European Union
trying to deal with the backlash. A YES vote would probably mean that
Catalonian leaders would declare independence, even if they currently
claim that they won't. Catalan leaders would take steps to enforce
the claim, like not forwarding taxes to Madrid, or not honoring
Spanish courts, or dissolving the local parliament and calling for new
elections. Madrid would be forced into military action. Violence is
a distinct possibility, since Catalonia itself is sharply split, as
many Catalans oppose independence. Ironically, the Catalans who
oppose independence have said that they will boycott the referendum,
making a YES vote all the more likely.

In Madrid on Saturday, thousands of people rallied in a central plaza
to protest the independence referendum, shouting "Long live Spain!"
and "Puigdemont to jail!", referring to Catalan regional President
Carles Puigdemont.

A lot of this has to do with money. Catalonia contributes more in
taxes to Madrid than it takes out in benefits, so of course Madrid
doesn't want to permit independence. If Catalonia were getting more
in benefits than it pays in taxes, then they wouldn't want
independence, and Madrid would be happy to be rid of them. As an
aside, money is also the issue in the Kurds' separatist referendum in
Iraq, since the Kurds pay more to Baghdad than they receive. In the
end, all the supposedly high-minded rhetoric is only about money.
That's the way the world works.

The usual gang of international thieves is promoting independence, not
because they care at all whether the Catalan people are alive or dead,
but because they want to create chaos in the European Union. These
include alleged rapist Julian Assange, hiding out in London's Ecuador
embassy to avoid facing his rape victim accusers, and Edward Snowden,
the American criminal traitor currently hiding out in Russia under the
protection of the Kremlin. The Kremlin is the third member of the
gang, meddling in the referendum election with trolls and massive
amounts of with fake news to discredit Spain's government.

Even if the referendum fails, there may be chaos anyway. On Tuesday,
the radical left separatist party CUP will be joined by some of the
trade unions in a general strike , to protest against the state's
repression and for civil liberties. Euro News and Business Insider and Atlantic and VOA and La Vanguardia (Barcelona) (Trans)

****
**** Hundreds of Catalan families occupy school buildings in defiance of police
****

There are 5.5 million Catalans eligible to vote in Sunday's
referendum. When an independence vote was held in 2014, only 40% of
the eligible voters bothered to vote, effectively making the
referendum irrelevant. This time, Madrid's harsh police tactics,
particularly arresting Catalan politicians, have so energized Catalan
voters, that many more may be inclined to vote. If over 50% voted and
the referendum passed, the separatists would declare a victory.

The Madrid government is aware of this as well, which is why they've
been confiscating ballot papers, shutting down Google apps, and
arresting Catalan leaders.

There is one final battleground before the referendum: Catalonia's
school buildings.

There are 2,315 polling places in Catalonia where people can go to
vote, and most of them are school buildings. Madrid police are
sealing these buildings off, with the objective of keeping people from
voting at all.

Catalan families, including parents and children, have responded by
holding parties in the schools all day Saturday, playing football,
yoga sessions, picnics, board games, and ping pong in schools, and in
to prevent the police from closing the schools. The partying will
continue through the night, with the intention of continuing until the
polls open at 9 am on Sunday.

Police have been told to forcibly evict anyone who refuses to leave,
if the refusal has to do with the referendum vote. So according to
reports, the game is played as follows: The police, who really have no
desire to evict mothers and children, enter the school and ask if the
board games and ping pong are related to the referendum vote. They
are told that the parties are completely unrelated to the referendum,
so the police have done their duty, and they leave.

The charade is supposed to end at 6 am Sunday morning. Police have
delivered an ultimatum to families occupying the schools to leave by
that time. Police have been told to use "minimum force" when evicting
families from the schools. Washington Post and AFP and AP

Related Articles

• The 1930s Spanish Civil War fault lines explode again over Catalonia independence referendum (23-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Catalonia will vote for independence from Spain on Thursday (25-Sep-2012)
  
  
• Scotland's independence referendum is encouraging Catalonia's separatists (11-Sep-2014)
  
  
• Catalonia parliament votes to secede from Spain (10-Nov-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Spain, Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, Mariano Rajoy,
Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Russia

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe