Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 4-Jun-16 World View -- Hezbollah building tunnels into Israel to prepare for next war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Drinking beer is back in Venezuela's Socialist Paradise
  
• Hezbollah building tunnels into Israel to prepare for next war
  
• 'Tiananmen Mothers' commemorate China's Tiananmen Square massacre
  

****
**** Drinking beer is back in Venezuela's Socialist Paradise
****


Socialist president Nicolás Maduro Moros

Cerveceria Polar breweries, the firm that makes about 80% of the beer
in Venezuela, has announced that it will resume production in July.

As we described last month, Polar was forced to close down its four
domestic breweries, because it was unable to import the ingredients,
especially the malted barley, because Venezuela's bolivar currency has
become almost completely worthless. ( "15-May-16 World View -- Venezuela economy close to collapse as Maduro orders jailing of factory owners"
)

Venezuela's Socialist president Nicolás Maduro Moros has found a
solution. He threatened to take over the factory and jail its owner,
Lorenzo Mendoza, unless it started producing beer again.

Apparently Maduro's threats were successful. Mendoza obtained a $35
million loan from the Spanish bank BBVA, putting up other assets as
collateral. In Maduro's Socialist Paradise, everybody's assets belong
to Maduro. Pan Am Post and Reuters and AFP

****
**** Hezbollah building tunnels into Israel to prepare for next war
****

According to a report in Lebanon's Hezbollah-linked newspaper
As-Safir, Hezbollah is preparing for its next conflict with Israel by
digging attack tunnels and positioning its large arsenal of rockets
along the northern border with Israel. The tunnels include
underground ventilation systems which prevents moisture from damaging
equipment, and include an electricity network and enough food to feed
combatants for weeks.

Ever since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, there have been
regular reports that Hezbollah was building tunnels to infiltrate into
Israel, and so the new report is nothing new. According to the
report, the purpose of the current article is symbolic, to make
Israelis nervous: "Resistance fighters are watching, making
preparations and digging tunnels so enemy soldiers and settlers are
losing sleep."

It's unlikely that Hezbollah will be going to war with Israel any time
time. As we reported last week, Iran has ordered Hezbollah to suspend
operations against Israel and to target Saudi Arabia instead. ( "28-May-16 World View -- Report: Israel and Saudi Arabia are allying against Iran and Hezbollah"
)

There are two major factors that Hezbollah has had to suspend
operations against Israel. The first reason is that Hezbollah is
bogged down in Syria, and has lost half its fighting force in support
of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.

The second reason is the growing hatred and animosity between Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Although the Palestinians hate Israelis, the people of
Saudi Arabia and Iran do not. For that reason, Iran has ordered its
puppet, Hezbollah, to concentrate on operations against Saudi Arabia
rather than Israel. Jerusalem Post and Israel Today

****
**** 'Tiananmen Mothers' commemorate China's Tiananmen Square massacre
****


Iconic photo of 'tank man' - student blocking row of tanks in Tiananmen Square in June, 1989

Saturday is the 27th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square
massacre, where China's army massacred thousands of peacefully
protesting college students.

"Tiananmen Mothers" is a group of activist mothers whose children were
killed in the massacre. They've written a letter accusing the Beijing
government of "white terror" in refusing to account for the deaths of
their children. China's government forbids all mention of the
Tiananmen Square massacre, and uses force to suppress any mention of
it. News.com (Sydney) and Human Rights in China - Tiananmen Mothers


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros,
Cerveceria Polar, Lorenzo Mendoza,
Lebanon, Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia,
Tiananmen Mothers, Tiananmen Square massacre, China

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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

[Cynic Hero '86]

Also JohnX Trump has several decisive trump cards: Men Like trump, Women Like Trump, Blacks Like Trump, Whites Like Trump, Latino Citizens LOVE trump. Only Gays, Illegals, Deviants, Feminists and Social Justice Warriors Like Hillary.

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-03-2016, 09:25 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > Also JohnX Trump has several decisive trump cards: Men Like trump,
> Women Like Trump, Blacks Like Trump, Whites Like Trump, Latino
> Citizens LOVE trump. Only Gays, Illegals, Deviants, Feminists and
> Social Justice Warriors Like Hillary.

Trump said: "My wife has told me to act more presidential. If I did
that, then there would be only ten people in this audience instead of
2000. So I'm not going to become presidential until I have to." When
he said that, he told you that he was making a fool of you by saying
what you wanted to hear, that he doesn't mean anything he says, and
that he'll feel free to change his mind about anything.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 5-Jun-16 World View -- How Iran's Khomeini fooled Jimmy Carter before the Great Islamic Revolution

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• How Iran's Khomeini fooled Jimmy Carter before the Great Islamic Revolution
  
• Khamenei accuses 'evil' Britain of fabricating the BBC report
  

****
**** How Iran's Khomeini fooled Jimmy Carter before the Great Islamic Revolution
****


Ayatollah Khomeini and Jimmy Carter

An analysis by the BBC of a trove of newly declassified US government
documents - diplomatic cables, policy memos, meeting records - shows
that in 1979 Iran's new leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
tricked the administration of president Jimmy Carter into supporting
the Great Islamic Revolution.

That Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, had ruled Iran since
1941, and was a staunch ally of the United States, though he was
heavily criticized by liberals for human rights abuses. A rebellion
against the Shah began in 1978. Since the Shah's army was heavily
dependent on American arms and advice, President Carter could have
done a great deal to keep the Shah in power, and prevent Khomeini from
coming to power. Carter has been accused of refusing to support the
Shah in the rebellion, allowing Khomeini to come to power, because of
the human rights abuses, although he's denied that accusation.

The new declassified documents reveal that Khomeini courted the Carter
administration, sending quiet signals that he wanted a dialogue and
then portraying a potential Islamic Republic as amenable to US
interests. Said Khomeini:

[indent]<QUOTE>"You will see we are not in any particular animosity
with the Americans, [and the new Islamic Republic will be] a
humanitarian one that will benefit the cause of peace and
tranquility for all mankind."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The documents reveal that, in return for Khomeini's assurances, the US
said that they were not opposed in principle to the new government,
and the US provided key intelligence information about Iran's military
leaders. Carter administration officials advised Iran's army generals
to simply let a coup occur.

The Great Islamic Revolution was a generational Crisis war, and as
such was driven by powerful generational forces that would not have
been affected by a bit of intelligence. The rebellion was a major
civil war between the Shah's security forces and a growing population
of revolutionaries supporting radical clerics, led by Khomeini.

At any rate, once Khomeini was in power, he did a 180 degree U-turn,
and immediately became a vitriolic enemy of the United States. In
particular, Khomeini created the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis by
allowing students to storm the American embassy in Tehran and take the
52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.

What the documents reveal has powerful symbolic significance even
today. Khomeini's successor, Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei, is
widely believed to have repeatedly lied to American negotiators to get
agreement last year on the nuclear deal that resulted in the lifting
of Western sanctions. BBC and
NY Post

****
**** Khamenei accuses 'evil' Britain of fabricating the BBC report
****

Whether by coincidence or design, the BBC report was published on the
27th anniversary of the June 3, 1989, of the death of Grand Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini.

In a speech on Friday commemorating Khomeini's death, Supreme Leader
Seyed Ali Khamenei said that Britain was "evil" and the US is "Satan."
He denounced the BBC report as fake "propaganda":

[indent]<QUOTE>"Britain’s malice against the Iranian nation has never
stopped. ... The same enmity continues as the British government’s
propaganda apparatus spreads propaganda against the dear Imam of
the Iranian nation [Khomeini], with the help of the Americans and
forged documents, on the anniversary of the great and holy Imam
[Khomeini’s] death. ...

The enemies are increasing their pressure on Iran because they are
afraid of the Iranian nation’s ‘Revolutionary spirit’ - a legacy
of the late Imam Khomeini. Before Revolution, the United States
and the UK were ruling over us. Our grand Imam changed Iran’s path
and changed the rail-track. Imam Khomeini guided country toward
great objectives that can be summarized in Divine religion and
they are uprooting ignorance and oppression as well as
establishing Islamic values system."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

In the same speech, he called trust in the U.S. a "big mistake" and
asserted that U.S. interests are "180 degrees opposed" to those of
Iran. He said that he had no intention of cooperating on regional
issues with these enemies.

Khamenei's speech was interesting for another reason -- his call to
maintain the same revolutionary fervor of 1979: "If we act
Revolutionarily, progress is certain; otherwise, as Imam said “Islam
will be slapped in face. ... I will mention five characteristics for
being revolutionary and we have to create and maintain them in
ourselves." These five characteristics are:

• Commitment to the basic values of the (Islamic)
  Revolution;
  
• setting aspirations of the Revolution as targets and striving to
  achieve them;
  
• adherence to the country's all-out independence;
  
• not complying with enemies;
  
• and exercising the Greatest Jihad (combat with the self) and
  adopting religious and political piety.

Khamenei referred to himself as an 'old revolutionary' person, so "now
every modern youth can become even more revolutionary than me."
Perhaps he was joking, or perhaps he was desperate.

This is wishful thinking on Khamenei's part. As I've written many
times, this kind of "revolutionary fervor" will not be maintained,
because Iran is in a generational Awakening era, one generation past
the end of the Great Islamic Revolution and Iran/Iraq war, just like
America in the 1960s-70s, one generation past the end of World War II.
In fact, Iran has been fraught with many anti-government pro-American
and pro-Western demonstrations by college students, just like America
in the 1960s, as I described in "18-Jan-16 World View -- Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran"
.

That explains why Khamenei, in his speeches, keeps returning to these
themes of maintaining an anti-American "revolutionary" spirit, but
he's fighting a losing battle because the "revolutionary" spirit of
the generational Crisis era in 1979 cannot be maintained by the next
generation, as it rebels against the harsh restrictions of the
revolution in an Awakening era. That's why Khamenei's government has
had send out the security forces to massacre, torture and kill
peaceful demonstrators.

(In a recent article, "29-May-16 World View -- Hugo Chávez dismantled Venezuela's businesses on purpose to create Socialist Paradise"
, I described Mao Zedong's Great
Leap Forward, which ended up killing tens of millions of Chinese.
Mao's motivation for the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution that followed was exactly the same as Khamenei's motivation
-- to invigorate the "revolutionary spirit," and end the
anti-government demonstrations by college students.)

The point, as I've said in the past, is that those college students in
pro-American demonstrations of the early 2000s are now in their 30s
and increasingly in positions of power. Just as America's Awakening
era climaxed with the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, Iran's
Awakening era climax will bring about the end of the hardline regime
of the old geezers in Khamenei's generation, and result in a
pro-Western victory for Iran's younger generation. BBC and IRNA (Tehran) and Mehr News (Tehran) and AEI Iran Tracker (3-June)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi,
Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Great Islamic Revolution,
Iranian hostage crisis, Seyed Ali Khamenei,
Mao Zedong, China, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution,
Richard Nixon

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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]

*** 6-Jun-16 World View -- Kazakhstan and Bangladesh in shock after terror attacks on Sunday

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Violent terror attack on Kazakhstan blamed on Islamic militants
  
• Islamist militants in Bangladesh kill police officer's wife in revenge
  

****
**** Violent terror attack on Kazakhstan blamed on Islamic militants
****


Three suspected Islamist gunmen were killed in a shootout with police in Aktobe, Kazakhstan on Sunday (vk.com)

At least ten people were killed on Sunday when suspected Islamist
militants conducted a series of attacks on targets in the city of
Aktobe in northwest Kazakhstan, near the border with Russia. The
armed gang first attacked a hunting supplies shop, then commandeered a
bus and used it to ram the gates of a military base in the city.
Inside the base, they opened fire indiscriminately, killing and
wounding several servicemen.

Many of the details are unknown, because Kazakh authorities have
closed off the area and have shut down all communications, including
the internet.

Kazakhstan is a mostly Muslim country, and jihadist attacks are rare,
although Aktobe was the scene of a suicide bombing in May 2011.
Kazakh authorities are hesitant to admit the Islamist militancy is a
problem in Kazakhstan, although northwest Kazakhstan, where Sunday's
attack occurred, is a hotbed of militant activity.

Authorities have estimated that between 200 and 400 citizens of
Kazakhstan have left the country, along with their wives and children,
to take up arms alongside groups the so-called Islamic State (IS or
ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) in Iraq and Syria. ISIS reportedly has issued
several video messages targeting Kazakhstan.

General economic unrest is increasing in Kazakhstan because of the
collapse in global commodity prices, especially oil, and the ripple
effect caused by Russia's recession. Kazakhstan's currency, the
tenge, has lost 50% of its value against the US dollar, and other
currencies in the region have suffered similarly.

As we reported last month,
there
were protests across the countries in response to announced land
reforms by the government. Protesters feared that the changes would
make it easier for large Chinese agribusinesses to take control of
vast swaths of farmland. According to one protester, "We can't give
land to the Chinese. If they come then they won't leave!" This
atmosphere usually provides fertile ground for the spread of ISIS,
al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups. EurasiaNet and Astana (Kazakhstan) Times and
Reuters

****
**** Islamist militants in Bangladesh kill police officer's wife in revenge
****

Islamist militants on Sunday killed Mahmuda Aktar, the wife of a
decorated police officer, as she was taking her son to school. The
militants arrived on motorcycle, stabbed her nine times, then shot her
in the head before driving off. The child was not hurt.

There have been at least 35 similar attacks carried out in the span of
14 months. Of those, 23 have been claimed by an Islamist terror group.

Sunday's attack occurred in the seaside town of Chittagong, which is
close to Rakhine province of Myanmar (Burma), and is a hotbed of
Islamist terrorism (like northwest Kazakhstan). As I wrote last month
in "24-Apr-16 World View -- Bangladesh in shock after university professor hacked to death"
, a recent string of militant attacks may be related to
continued ethnic tensions between the two sides in Bangladesh's last
generational crisis war, the incredibly bloody and brutal 1971 civil
war that made the former state of East Pakistan into the independent
nation of Bangladesh.

Police officer Babul Aktar, whose wife was killed in Sunday's attack,
had conducted some very effective investigations that led to busting a
hideout of banned outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and
arrest of its military wing chief Md Javed in October last year.

It's believed that Sunday's attack was a revenge attack targeting
Aktar's wife because the militant organizations had been unsuccessful
in attacking Aktar directly. BDNews24 (Dhaka) and CNN

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kazakhstan, Aktobe, China,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Bangladesh, Chittagong, Mahmuda Aktar, Babul Aktar,
Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, JMB

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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

[Cynic Hero '86]

JohnX you forget another reason why Trump will be president and likely Grey Champion: Xers and especially Early and Mid-Millennials are tired of the Human Rights Tyranny.

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-05-2016, 09:51 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > JohnX you forget another reason why Trump will be president and
> likely Grey Champion: Xers and especially Early and
> Mid-Millennials are tired of the Human Rights Tyranny.

Yes, it's truly amazing that a completely blank slate, totally without
any clue about what's going on in the world, has a good chance of
becoming president, supported by two generations of blank slates, also
with no clue about what's going on in the world.

[Cynic Hero '86]

Xers and millennial are tired of boombers view of the world in which the US generally refuses to have formal diplomatic relations with a foreign government if said foreign government is non-democratic. Xers and millennial want the US to have full diplomatic relations with foreign countries regardless of the humanitarian character of said country's regime.

On a side note melania is proving that she would be tough as nails if she is first lady. The selfish press still refuses to give her credit.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/...itic-abuse

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-06-2016, 12:31 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > Xers and millennial are tired of boombers view of the world in
> which the US generally refuses to have formal diplomatic relations
> with a foreign government if said foreign government is
> non-democratic. Xers and millennial want the US to have full
> diplomatic relations with foreign countries regardless of the
> humanitarian character of said country's regime.

> On a side note melania is proving that she would be tough as nails
> if she is first lady. The selfish press still refuses to give her
> credit.

> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/...itic-abuse
>

Sooooooooo, you're pissed off that we don't have formal diplomatic
relations with North Korea?

And you're thrilled by vitriolic antisemitic messages from Trump
supporters?

[Cynic Hero '86]

Yes the supporters messages could be considered anti-Semitic by some, but the fact of the matter is clear that miss ioffe provoked the hate mail.

I can give an entirely unrelated example of boomer tyranny ; the recent persecution, railroading and legal lynching of the entrepreneur Martin Skhreli. He is being persecuted simply because he wanted to make his company more efficient and profitable.

[Ragnarök_62]

Cynic Hero Wrote:Yes the supporters messages could be considered anti-Semitic by some, but the fact of the matter is clear that miss ioffe provoked the hate mail.

I don't know who miss ioffe is.

Quote:

Cynic Hero Wrote:I can give an  entirely unrelated example of boomer tyranny ; the recent persecution, railroading and legal lynching of the entrepreneur Martin Skhreli. He is being persecuted simply because he wanted to make his company more efficient and profitable.

I don't think so.  He belongs in the clink and for a long time. He's pond scum. Come on Cynic, someone who strip mines the economy by doing stuff like jacking up the price of an already existing drug is not good for anything, but the clink, because he's an exploiter, just like banksters. Banksters also belong in jail, right?

Cynic Hero Wrote:Xers and millennial want the US to have full diplomatic relations with foreign countries regardless of the humanitarian character of said country's regime.

Agreed here.  If we have diplomatic relations with a real authoritarian country like Saudi Arabia, then for the sake of fairness all around, sure.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 7-Jun-16 World View -- Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war
  
• Generational history of tribal violence in Kenya
  
• Kenya facing fierce criticism over closing the world's largest refugee camp
  

****
**** Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war
****


Police officers walk past burning tyres in Kisumu, Kenya, on Monday (AFP)

In Kisumu, Kenya's third largest city, police opened fire on
demonstrators on Monday, killing at least two. Another 61 people were
injured in the clashes, 20 of whom were hospitalized with wounds from
bullets or sharp objects. One of the wounded was a five-year-old
child.

Police then used tear gas and water cannon to quell the protests as
news of the deaths spread. Word of the shootings fueled heavy
clashes in the center of Kisumu. There were widespread scenes of
looting and two supermarkets were destroyed.

Protests have been occurring across the country since early April.
Clashes with police have been increasing, but Monday's violence in
Kisumu was the worst so far. Kisumu, a port city in western Kenya on
Lake Victoria, is considered a hotbed of anti-government protests.

The protests are related to the presidential election scheduled for
next year. After the election in December 2007, the entire country
suffered from tribal violence that killed 1200 people, and forced
600,000 from their homes. (Jan 2008: "Post-election massacre in Kenya raises concerns of tribal war"
) The ethnic violence was started, according to many
sources, by youthful activists in the Orange Democratic Movement
(ODM), an anti-government Luo ally supporting Odinga for President.
The worst known atrocity occurred when 30 people died in a church
fire. Dozens of people had gone to the church to escape increasing
violence, when a youthful gang set the church on fire, trapping people
inside. This atrocity drew international attention.

There are many tribes in Kenya, including the Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin,
Kisii of western Kenya, and the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) people
from the Mount Kenya area.

The two most prominent tribes are the market-dominant Kikuyu tribe and
the disadvantaged Luo tribe. In the last three elections, the two
leading candidates were Kikuyu and Luo, respectively, and the Kikuyu
candidate always won. The violence after the 2007 election was
triggered because of widespread accusations that the Kikuyu government
had rigged the election, to score a new victory.

The same issue is propelling the new rounds of protests and violence.
The current president is Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, and his principal
challenger is Raila Odinga, a Luo.

The Kenyatta government has created an Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission (IEBC), whose job it is to define the rules and
procedures for next year's election. The opposition, led by Odinga,
has formed the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD), which is
conducting the nationwide protests that triggered Monday's violence.
CORD is accusing the IEBC of rigging the election so that Kenyatta
will win again next year.

The protests are becoming increasingly violent. The concerns are that
the violence will continue to increase, and there will a new round of
widespread violence, no matter who wins next year's election.
Coast Week (Kenya) and The Star (Kenya) and Al Jazeera and AFP

****
**** Generational history of tribal violence in Kenya
****

What's happening in Kenya is a pattern that I've described many
times when a generational crisis war is an internal civil war.

Among generational crisis wars, an external war is fundamentally
different than an internal civil war between two ethnic groups. If
two ethnic groups have lived together in peace for decades, have
intermarried and worked together, and if then there's a civil war
where one of these ethnic groups tortures, massacres and slaughters
their next-door neighbors in the other ethnic group, then the outcome
will be fundamentally different than if the same torture and slaughter
had been rendered by an external group. In either case, the country
will spend the Recovery Era immediately following the war setting up
rules and institutions designed to prevent any such war from occurring
again. But in one case, the country will be unified in the decades to
follow, while in the other case, the country will be increasingly torn
along the same ethnic fault line.

Kenya's last crisis war was the "Mau-Mau Rebellion." Britain had been
exerting a fairly heavy hand as a colonial power, starting from the
1850s. An independence movement began in earnest in the late 1940s,
leading to the rebellion that began in 1952 and climaxed in 1956. In
the Recovery Era that followed, Kenya finally gained independence in
1964. As population increased over the decades, the Luos, with
traditional lifestyles as fishermen, had land conflicts with the
Kikuyus and were marginalized.

When I wrote about the violence in 2007-8, I wrote that it was
POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY that the violence would spiral into a full-scale
civil war at that time. The reason is that the previous crisis war,
the Mau-Mau Rebellion, had climaxed in 1956, only 52 years earlier.
After 52 years, there would still be many survivors of the Mau-Mau
Rebellion with personal memories of the war. They may have been only
children at the time of the rebellion, but they would have had
experiences that scarred them for life, and they would do everything
possible to prevent anything like that from happening again. So in
2008, there would still have been enough of these survivors in senior
positions to prevent the violence, as bad as it was, from spiraling
into a full-scale civil war. This analysis turned out to be
completely correct in 2008, as the violence fizzled within a few
weeks. (Feb 2008: "Kenya settles into low-level violence on the way to Rwanda"
)

As I explained at that time, historical research and analysis had
shown that a new crisis war starts to become increasingly likely at a
point 58 years past the climax of the preceding crisis war. That
seems to be the time when the survivors of the preceding crisis war
lose their ability to prevent a new one. This is because children
younger than five would not have any personal memory of a crisis war,
and the children five years old and older become 63 year old and older
after 58 years have passed.

Many Kenyans believe that nothing has changed and that any new
violence that breaks out after next year's election won't be any worse
than the 2008 violence. But that's not true, because there have been
major changes since then. Eight more years have passed since the 2008
violence, and it's now 60 years past the climax of the preceding
crisis war. This means that the survivors of the Mau-Mau Rebellion
have almost completely disappeared, and will no longer be able to
exert enough influence to prevent a major new civil war. This means
that a new civil way is not CERTAIN, but it's far more LIKELY than it
was in 2008. The Nation (Nairobi) and Open Democracy

****
**** Kenya facing fierce criticism over closing the world's largest refugee camp
****


Dadaab refugee camp in 2012

Kenya has announced that it will close the Dadaab refugee camp
later this year, and require the residents to return to their
home country, which is almost always Somalia.

Kenya is the world's largest refugee camp, home to 350,000 people. It
was opened in 1991, at a time when people in Somalia were fleeing
civil war, lawlessness and recurrent droughts. (Recall that 1993 was
the year of the famous "Black Hawk Down" incident, where Somali
militia fighters shot down two American helicopters using
rocket-propelled grenades. Mobs then hacked the fallen pilots to death
with machetes and dragged their mutilated bodies through the streets
as trophies.)

At its peak in 2012, the Dadaab refugee camp housed nearly a
half-million people. Many children had been born there and grown to
adulthood without ever leaving the camp. Since then, some Somalis
have left the camp and returned home voluntarily.

Kenya has given two reasons for closing the camp. One reason is the
enormous expense of supporting hundreds of thousands of refugees, with
little or none of the financial support promised by the EU or the US
having actually been provided. And second, it's believed that
Somalia's terror group, al-Shabaab, is using the camp as a base to
launch terror attacks on Kenya. (See "3-Apr-2015 World View -- Al-Shabaab kills 147 mostly Christian students in Kenya school"
and "23-Sep-2013 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears"
)

Human rights organizations are taking action to prevent Kenya from
closing the camp. There's little doubt that forcing 350,000 people to
leave their homes and move somewhere else is the stuff of historical
genocides, and closing the camp will not be smooth in the best of
circumstances. Anadolu (Turkey) and AFP and VOA


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Kisumu, Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin,
Kisii, Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, GEMA, Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga,
Mau-Mau Rebellion, Dadaab refugee camp, Somali, Black Hawk Down,
Mogadishu, al-Shabaab

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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
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[John J. Xenakis]

*** 8-Jun-16 World View -- Kenya protests take an increasingly dangerous turn

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Kenya protests take an increasingly dangerous turn
  
• Malawi's albinos 'face extinction' as they're killed and sold for body parts
  
• Colorado health insurance in crisis as Obamacare continues to collapse
  

****
**** Kenya protests take an increasingly dangerous turn
****


Six-year old Jeremy Otieno, who was hit by a stray bullet during Monday's protests in Kisumu (The Star)

There were two new developments on Tuesday that indicate an
increasingly dangerous situation in Kenya.

As I wrote about at length yesterday about the upsurge in violence
related to next year's election, raising fears of a repeat of the 2008
tribal violence following the December 2007 election, resulting in
1200 people killed and 600,000 forced from their homes. ( "7-Jun-16 World View -- Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war"
)

The Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD), led by Raila Odinga of
the marginalized Luo tribe is protesting against the government led by
president Uhuru Kenyatta of the market-dominant Kikuyu, and against
the government-created Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission
(IEBC), whose job it is to oversee the 2017 elections. Protesters are
claiming that the IEBC is biased, and will rig the election in favor
of Kenyatta, as has allegedly happened in the last three elections.

The two new developments on Tuesday are as follows:

First, the government issued regulations banning any protests
against the IEBC.

[indent]<QUOTE>"To avert further violence, destruction of property
and loss of life, from today the government prohibits all unlawful
demonstrations in the country. ...

It is extremely dangerous for anybody to challenge the government
decision. The consequences are grave."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

It's hard for me to imagine any government action that's more likely
to infuriate the protesters. They're now threatening to expand their
protests from once per week to twice per week. In view of the anger
and bitterness over the bloody 2008 violence, and the shooting of
protesters in Kisumu on Monday by police, there is absolutely no
chance at all that the ban will be obeyed.

The second development is that the protesters on social media are
uniting behind the hash tag #JusticeForBabyJeremy, referring to Jeremy
Otieno, a six year old boy who was hit by a stray bullet and killed by
police in Kisumu on Monday. The boy was not even participating in the
protests, but was shot in the back outside his home. The hash tag was
retweeted thousands of times on Tuesday, in a sign of growing anger at
the police.

The next election is still many months away, but already positions
have hardened irreparably and violence is increasing. As I wrote
yesterday, things have changed a great deal in Kenya since the 2008
violence. At that time, Kenya was in a generational Unraveling era,
and only 52 years had passed since the climax of Kenya's last
generational crisis war, the Mau-Mau Rebellion. Today, Kenya is well
into a generational Crisis era, and it would not take much to trigger a
full-scale crisis civil war that could kill hundreds of thousands of
people. The Star (Kenya) and Radio France Internationale and Deutsche Welle

****
**** Malawi's albinos 'face extinction' as they're killed and sold for body parts
****

Albinism is a condition where someone lacks the pigment melanin that
gives hair, skin and eyes their color. Malawi has an estimated
8-10,000 people with albinism in a population of 16 million -- a
prevalence of more than 12 times that of North America and Europe.

Although albinos have always faced discrimination because of their
startling appearance, the discrimination in Malawi has taken a macabre
turn since 2014, when Malawi's economy took a deep dive. Since then
there's been a surge in attacks on albinos, fueled by witchcraft and
by promises of large sums of money by idiots who believe that albinos'
bones contain gold or have special powers that bring wealth and
success.

The speculation has driven the price of albino body parts up
astronomically. According to media reports, one 17-year-old albino
boy was worth $66,000 to witch doctors, for use in potions.

According to the World Bank, Malawi is currently the poorest country
in the world, and a severe drought affecting the region has caused
major food shortages. The lure of big money is thought to be
the main reason for the upsurge in abductions and murders of
albinos.

The upsurge in violence is a personal crisis in the life of any of the
10,000 albinos in Malawi. As the number of murders increases, it's
thought that albinos may face total extinction. Nyasa Times (Malawi) and Newsweek and BBC

****
**** Colorado health insurance in crisis as Obamacare continues to collapse
****

Premiums for individual health-insurance policies are rising by as
much as 41% in Colorado next year as four insurer pull out of all or
some markets in the state.

UnitedHealthcare and Humana Insurance already announced that they
would not offer individual plans in Colorado next year. In addition,
Rocky Mountain Health Plans and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
Colorado are severely restricting their offerings.

About 92,000 people with individual plans will need to find other
coverage during the open enrollment period, Nov. 1, 2016–Jan. 31,
2017, representing approximately 20 percent of the 450,000 Coloradans
who get their insurance through the individual market,

According to Colorado Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Companies are still figuring it out — where to sell,
how to sell, how to price — which is why we’re seeing some
companies pull back on individual plans or requesting significant
increases, while still other companies are coming into the
market. Some companies have done a better job of figuring out how
to operate in this new environment and compete for people’s
business, while others must step back and reevaluate their
approach. ...

I’d rather these companies continued in the individual market.
But in the larger picture, what’s taking place is a market
correction; the free market is at work. And it is important to
recognize that this is a market correction taking place on a
national scale, not just in Colorado. While it was good initially
to have so many companies offering so many individual plans, this
could be an indication that there were too many options for the
market to support."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The problem is that it's not a free market at all. It's the most
f--cked up regulated market possible, thanks to the disastrous
Obamacare legislation. And Salazar is correct that the same kind of
disaster is "taking place on a national scale, not just in Colorado."

As long time readers are well aware (because I've repeated it many
times), in July, 2009, when Obamacare was first announced, I wrote
that Obama's health plan is a proposal of economic insanity.
I compared it to President Richard
Nixon's wage-price controls, and I predicted that it would just as
much an economic disaster as Nixon's price controls. I wrote about it
most recently in "26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike"
.

Obamacare should have collapsed by now, but instead Obama has found
ways to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of other money into
Obamacare to prop it up. Meanwhile, the health care industry
continues to be destroyed. Obamacare was supposed to reduce health
costs, but instead health costs have skyrocketed.

This is what I predicted would happen, because that's what happened
with Nixon's price controls. They were supposed to reduce inflation
from 4% to 2%, but they screwed up the economy so much that that
inflation increased to 12%. Obamacare is screwing up the economy
today in exactly the same way.

Obamacare was supposed to eliminate uninsured people, but instead it's
created millions more effectively uninsured people -- people who pay
insurance premiums, but can't find a doctor or who have astronomical
deductions, and so effectively have no insurance whatsoever. As
Jonathan Gruber said, Obamacare passed because of the stupidity of the
American people, and as I like to point out, he wasn't referring to
me, but to Obamacare supporters. Obamacare may well be the stupidest
economic policy in American history. Denver Business Journal and Colorado Division of Insurance


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Kisumu, Jeremy Otieno, #JusticeForBabyJeremy,
Luo, Kikuyu, Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga, Mau-Mau Rebellion,
Coalition for Reform and Democracy, CORD,
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, IEBC,
Malawi, albinos,
Colorado, Obamacare, UnitedHealthcare, Humana Insurance,
Marguerite Salazar, Rocky Mountain Health Plans,
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Colorado

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Phone: 617-864-0010
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Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
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[John J. Xenakis]

*** 9-Jun-16 World View -- Three terror attacks in Turkey and Israel mark start of Ramadan

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Israel's Netanyahu responds cautiously to Tel Aviv terror attack
  
• West Bank Palestinians reject call to end security cooperation with Israel
  
• Turkey endures two days of terror bombing attacks
  
• Terror attacks in Turkey complicate EU-Turkey migrant deal
  

****
**** Israel's Netanyahu responds cautiously to Tel Aviv terror attack
****


Police at scene of Wednesdays attack in Tel Aviv (Haaretz)

Many times in the past, jihadists have scheduled terror attacks for
the beginning of Ramadan, and that may be the reason for the three
Mideast terror attacks in the last two days, one in Tel Aviv and two
in Turkey.

Four people were killed and five injured on Wednesday night when
terrorists dressed as Hasidic Jews opened fire at a popular market
complex in Tel Aviv. Two Palestinian subjects were arrested.

The attack was apparently well-planned. Since the price of firearms
in the Palestinian territories is prohibitively high, both of the
gunmen in Wednesday night's attack apparently used improvised
firearms: an imitation of the Swedish-made Carl Gustav recoilless
rifle, which was used primarily in the 1950s and ’60s, and which is
known on the Palestinian street as the Carlo. This has been the weapon
of choice of Palestinian assailants in the recent spate of terror
attacks.

Correction: Several readers have pointed out that there are two
"Carl Gustav" guns, and the paragraph above identifies the wrong one.
The "recoilless rifle" is actually a large antitank weapon, too large
to carry into a restaurant. The weapon used in the attack was a clone
of the Carl Gustav 9mm submachine gun dating to 1945. [Paragraph
added 9-Jun-2016]

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the
attacks cautiously:

[indent]<QUOTE>"We gathered to discuss a number of steps, both
defensive and offensive, that we will take in order to act against
this very severe phenomenon of shooting attacks. It definitely
poses a challenge to us, but we will respond. ...

We are at the peak of a difficult period. We will act with
resoluteness and with intelligence."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

A couple of months ago, there was a spate of knifing attacks on
Israelis by Palestinians. Those knifing attacks have all but ended,
and Netanyahu's caution may have been from a desire not to further
inflame relations. Wednesday's attack was the first major terror
attack in several weeks. Haaretz (Israel) and Jerusalem Post

****
**** West Bank Palestinians reject call to end security cooperation with Israel
****

I've reported on three or four occasions in the last couple of years
that some Palestinians have called on the West Bank Palestinian
Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to end all
security cooperation with Israel, forcing Israeli security forces to
take responsibility for policing the entire West Bank, rather than
sharing that burden.

On May 4, the PLO Executive Committee announced that it decided "to
immediately begin implementing the Palestinian Central Council's
decisions regarding limiting the political, economic and security
relations with the occupation authorities [i.e., Israel]," and this
due to "Israel's disregard of signed agreements and its insistence on
destroying the two-state solution." The decision was motivated by
Israel's rejection in April of the French initiative for convening an
international conference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

However, the decision has sparked a great deal of criticism
among Palestinian leaders, and no steps have been taken to
implement it.

Former Nablus mayor and Executive Committee member Ghassan Al-Shak'a
responded as follows:

[indent]<QUOTE>"The decision taken by the Palestinian Central Council
in its latest session [on March 2015], namely that relations with
Israel must be severed, was an emotional decision, since most of
the Central Council members came from abroad, from Chile, Romania,
Australia, America and other countries, and their view of the
Palestinian issue is more emotional than it is practical and
realistic – unlike [the view taken by] us, the members [who live]
inside Palestine...

[I maintain that] we kid ourselves when we say we are able to
boycott Israel or sever our relations with it, especially in the
two domains of security and economy, which are fundamental to the
lives of the Palestinian people and the residents of the occupied
West Bank... [If we sever these relations] how can we bring fuel
and flour [into our territories] and how can we keep the power
running, etc.? Israel controls us on land, in the sea and in the
air. If we decided, hypothetically, to sever our economic
relations with Israel and cancel the Paris Protocol on economic
[relations], could we actually live without them? That is the
question we must put to those who demand day and night to end the
economic and security coordination and to sever the relations with
Israel...

When Israel wants to enter a village, city or refugee camp, it
does not care whether they are in area A, B or C, because we have
no sovereignty over the land, with or without security
coordination. Security coordination serves our interest. If the PA
wants to launch a security campaign to enforce law and order, as
it did in Nablus when it brought in 1,500 security officers [from
all over the West Bank] – would it be able to do this without
security coordination with Israel? Of course not. [Furthermore,]
there are 1,000 individuals wanted [by Israel] who are [held] in
bases of the [Palestinian] security apparatuses throughout the
West Bank. If we suspend the security coordination, Israel will
surely arrest them immediately, and that will be to the detriment
of our young people..."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

MEMRI

****
**** Turkey endures two days of terror bombing attacks
****

There were two major terror attacks in Turkey this week, one on
Tuesday and one on Wednesday. It's thought that the attacks, along
with the attack in Tel Aviv, were scheduled to coincide with the start
of Ramadan.

On Tuesday in Istanbul Turkey, a car bomb was detonated around 8:35 am
just as a police bus was passing near a policy station. The bomb
killed 11 people, six of whom were police officers, while wounding 36
others. Seven people have been arrested, including the four that
rented the car.

Turkey has been hit by a spate of terrorist bombings in recent months.
In some cases, the perpetrators were the the so-called Islamic State
(IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and in other cases the perpetrators
were terrorists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), or
it terrorist offshoot the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK).

Turkish officials say that Tuesday's suicide bomber was a Syrian
refugee that had come to Turkey, and that the refugee had links to
ISIS. Police are investigating other connections to ISIS.

On Wednesday at 11 am, a car bomb attack targeted police headquarters
in Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin, killing five people,
including two police officers, and wounding around 30. In this case,
Turkish officials say that they've identified they've identified the
perpetrators as terrorists from the PKK.

Southeastern Turkey is a stronghold of ethnic Kurds in Turkey, and
terror attacks occur regularly, leading police to take extra
precautions. Authorities say that Wednesday's attack would have had a
much higher death toll, but that was prevented by safety measures and
barricades already in place. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Hurriyet

****
**** Terror attacks in Turkey complicate EU-Turkey migrant deal
****

In a way, the two terror bombings in two days in Turkey strengthens
Turkey's hand in the continuing negotiations over the EU-Turkey
refugee deal. After all, if one of the bombings was perpetrated by an
ISIS-linked Syrian refugee, then Europe will be all the more desperate
to keep out unvetted Syrian refugees.

So far the EU-Turkey deal has been incredibly successful according to
what the EU wanted to accomplish. In 2015, 800,000 refugees crossed
the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece, and there were thousands of
drownings. But 5,000 have crossed the Aegean Sea in the last two
months, and there were no refugee drownings. So Turkey has
been meeting its obligations under the deal.

But if Turkey has been meeting its obligations, the EU has not:

• There are still 55,000 refugees stuck in camps in Greece. The
  EU had promised Greece that EU member countries would send a staff of
  2,300 experts -- police, case officers, judges, and language
  interpreters and translators -- to help process asylum requests, and
  the EU has not supplied that staff.
  
  
• The EU has not resolved the distribution system whereby approved
  asylum seekers would be distributed fairly to the 28 EU
  countries.
  
  
• The EU is obligated to pay Turkey 3 billion euros in aid for
  refugees, followed possibly by 3 billion more. None of that money has
  been paid, and is way overdue.
  
  
• The EU has committed to visa liberalization by the end of June --
  allowing any of Turkey's 74 million citizens must be able to travel
  freely throughout Europe's Schengen zone without a visa. Turkey's
  president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said repeatedly that if visa
  liberalization isn't granted, then he'll cancel the deal and allow the
  full flow of Syrian refugees to Europe to resume.

The EU is also demanding that Turkey liberalize its anti-terrorism
laws, especially those targeting ordinary Kurdish citizens. The two
terror bombings will strengthen Turkey's claims that it's not possible
to liberalize the laws.

We're now well into June, and there's been little public discussion of
the EU-Turkey deal in the past few weeks. My guess is that European
and Turkish officials have tacitly agreed not to discuss this issue
until after Britain's June 23 "Brexit" referendum -- whether Britain
should leave the European Union -- in order not to inflame the
immigration issue further in the Brexit campaigns.

If that's true, then the last week of June is going to be a period of
crisis negotiations between the EU and Turkey, no matter how the
Brexit vote turns out. Daily Sabah (Ankara) and Washington Times and Foreign Policy


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ramadan,
Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, West Bank, Ghassan Al-Shak'a,
Palestinian Authority, PA, Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO,
Turkey, Istanbul, Mardin,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, TAK,
EU-Turkey deal, Greece, Britain, Brexit

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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]

*** 10-Jun-16 World View -- Israel deploys hundreds of troops to West Bank, cancels entry permits

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey bans fertilizer sales after two terror bombings
  
• Israel deploys hundreds of troops to West Bank, cancels entry permits
  
• Israel cracks down on Palestinian workshops producing guns
  

****
**** Turkey bans fertilizer sales after two terror bombings
****


Police headquarters in Mardin after bombing on Wednesday (Reuters)

As we described yesterday,
Turkey
suffered two major terror attacks in two days, a bombing in Istanbul
on Tuesday, and a bombing on police headquarters in the province of
Mardin in southeast Turkey on Wednesday.

Both bombings targeted the police. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
has taken credit for Wednesday's bombing, but no one has taken credit
for Tuesday's bombing in Istanbul.

Both bombings were perpetrated by means of fertilizers containing
ammonium nitrate. Turkey's authorities have seized over 60,000 tons
of fertilizer containing ammonium nitrate, and have temporarily
suspended the sale of fertilizers containing ammonium nitrate after a
series of bomb attacks across the country. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Deutsche Welle

****
**** Israel deploys hundreds of troops to West Bank, cancels entry permits
****

Israeli authorities have identified the perpetrators of the shooting rampage in Tel Aviv on Wednesday
as two cousins, Khaled Mohammad Makhamrah, 22, and his
cousin Mohamad Ahmad Makhamrah, 21, from the West Bank town of Yatta,
near the city of Hebron. One was wounded during the gunfight, and
both have been arrested.

Since the attackers were "lone wolves," not part of Hamas or any other
organized Palestinian group, Israel's response options were limited to
actions which take "collective punishment" on Palestinians in general.

It's thought that the attacks were timed for the start of the Islam's
holy month of Ramadan, and there are concerns that other terror
attacks are planned for Ramadan. Israel's military is deploying
hundreds of additional troops to the West Bank, including soldiers
from infantry and special forces units. Among other actions, the
Israeli troops completed blocked roads leading in and out of Yatta.

Normally, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are permitted to
enter Israel during Ramadan to visit relatives, or to pray at the
al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. However, 83,000 permits have been
canceled. Entering or leaving will only be permitted for humanitarian
and medical cases.

The two cousins belong to the large Makhamreh clan. Israel's
government is suspending 204 work permits used by the Makhamreh clan
to enter Israel.

Because Israel's options are so limited, these "collective punishment"
responses have been implemented, but they're likely to further
infuriate Palestinians who will not be able to visit their families or
work during Ramadan. This will inevitably lead to more terror attacks
and more collective punishment.

On the other hand, Israelis have been infuriated by the celebrations
of many Palestinians in the streets of both the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip, and on social media. Hamas published a statement terming the
attack the first good tidings of Ramadan, while promising that more
such tidings would come. YNet News (Israel) and AP and al-Jazeera

****
**** Israel cracks down on Palestinian workshops producing guns
****


Handmade 'Carlo' gun produced in the West Bank (AP)

In yesterday's article,
I quoted a
news source as saying that the attackers "used improvised firearms: an
imitation of the Swedish-made Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, which was
used primarily in the 1950s and ’60s, and which is known on the
Palestinian street as the Carlo."

Several readers wrote to me to point out that that's not possible.
The Carl Gustav recoilless rifle is an 84mm antitank weapon, generally
requiring two men to operate, shooting rocket-boosted warheads.

The actual weapon used by the attackers was a homemade clone of the
9mm Carl Gustav M/45 submachine gun, developed by Swedish state-owned
Carl Gustav Arms company in 1945. It has a relatively simple design,
requiring little more to build than two steel tubes welded together,
along with other spare parts. In the West Bank, it's known by its
street name "Carlo," with hundreds of the guns in circulation.
They've been used several times by Palestinians attacking Israelis.

Israeli security forces are cracking down on metal workshops in the
West Bank suspected of manufacturing the Carlo. The quality of the
workmanship varies from gun to gun, depending on the materials and the
manufacturer. But in the last few months it's emerged as as the
weapon of choice for Palestinian attackers, including the Tel Aviv
attackers on Wednesday. AP and World Guns (Russia) and World Guns


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Mardin, Istanbul,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK,
Israel, Tel Aviv, West Bank, Hebron, Yatta, Ramadan,
Khaled Mohammad Makhamrah, Mohamad Ahmad Makhamrah,
al-Aqsa mosque, Jerusalem, Hamas, Carl Gustav, Carlo

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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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]

*** 11-Jun-16 World View -- In a reversal, Obama allows US troops in Afghanistan in combat roles

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• In a reversal, Obama allows US troops in Afghanistan in combat roles
  
• Change in policy was resisted because of political implications
  

****
**** In a reversal, Obama allows US troops in Afghanistan in combat roles
****


Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (Getty)

In a significant reversal of policy, president Barack Obama's
administration will now all American soldiers to fight alongside
Afghan troops in combat situations, and will allow close air support
in combat. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter confirmed the change in
policy, and said,

[indent]<QUOTE>"This is using the forces we have ... in a better way,
basically, as we go through this fighting season, rather than
being simply reactive. This makes good sense. It's a good use of
the combat power that we have there."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

By "fighting season," Carter is referring to the fact that the Taliban
are most active during the summer months.

The change in policy comes one day after John Sopko, appointed by
Obama as Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
(SIGAR), said that the situation in Afghanistan is continuing to
deteriorate:

[indent]<QUOTE>"The bottom line is too much has been wasted in
Afghanistan. Too much money was spent in too small a country with
too little oversight. And if the security situation continues to
deteriorate, even areas where money was spent wisely and gains
were made, could be jeopardized."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

He said the planned drawdown of U.S. troops could compound the
reconstruction effort's problems and add to the amount that already
has been wasted, which he estimated is in the billions of dollars.

Since the end of 2014, US forces have been in Afghanistan only in an
"advisory" role, and were only authorized to hit Taliban targets for
defensive reasons, or to protect Afghan troops. The change in policy
appears designed to stop the deterioration of the situation in
Afghanistan. Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Our army is capable of fighting, the only thing we
need is air support. We welcome this decision from America and it
will boost the morale of the Afghan army."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The Afghan army may be capable of fighting, but with the US restricted
to an "advisory" role before now, the Afghan army has been
losing to a resurgent Taliban.

According to Obama's original timetable, all US troops should have
left Afghanistan by now. Obama has been forced to reverse himself
several times, and there are currently 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan.
The schedule calls for a reduction to 5,500 troops as the president
leaves office in January, but this reduction is opposed by
many military analysts and by the Afghan government.
The Hill and AFP and AP and Reuters

****
**** Change in policy was resisted because of political implications
****

According to reports, the Obama administration had been debating this
policy for months because it had been requested by military generals,
but vetoed for political reasons for fear of damaging Obama's legacy.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama criticized his predecessor, George
Bush, for being at war, and promised to end the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

But he's botched that commitment in both countries, and the NY Times
has noted that as of May 6 of this year, President Barack Obama
officially became the U.S. president to have been at war the longest —
longer than Lyndon Johnson, longer than Abraham Lincoln and certainly
longer than George W. Bush. Obama is virtually certain to be the only
U.S. president to spend a full eight years at war.

In interviews earlier this year, all three of Obama's former
secretaries of defense confirmed that the Obama administration ignored
military advice, and made military decisions based on inexperience and
ideology. This criticism is not ideological. I've been following
these issues for years, and non-partisan military analysts have always
been overwhelmingly critical of Obama's decisions, rarely if ever
defending them.

Former defense secretary Robert Gates wrote in his book, “Duty:
Memoirs of a Secretary at War," that Obama "doesn’t believe in his own
strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all
about getting out." Instead of getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan,
what Obama is discovering is that basing military decisions purely on
politics and left-wing ideology is a sure way to get in deeper.
Daily Caller and Washington Post (7-Jan) and Daily Caller (7-Apr)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Afghanistan, Ash Carter, Robert Gates,
John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction,
SIGAR, Dawlat Waziri

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[John J. Xenakis]

*** 12-Jun-16 World View -- Bangladesh government arrests 3,192 people to stop terrorist killings

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Bangladesh government arrests 3,192 people to stop terrorist killings
  
• History of Bangladesh's 'BNP-Jamaat clique' goes back to massive 1971 ethnic war
  

****
**** Bangladesh government arrests 3,192 people to stop terrorist killings
****


Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addresses a press conference on Tuesday

Bangladesh's government has launched an anti-terror campaign, and
begun by arresting 3,192 persons, including 37 militants belonging to
outlawed radical jihadist groups.

Most of the militants arrested were members of the outlawed
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the outfit believed to have
carried out a series of attacks on Hindus, Christians, bloggers,
activists, professors and people from different other professions,
leaving them hacked to death in broad daylight. The other militant
groups swept up by the mass attacks are Jagrata Muslim Janata
Bangladesh (JMJB) and the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina said that the police would stamp out this
violence:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Where will they hide in Bangladesh. No one will get
away. Bangladesh is a small country. It's not a tough task to find
them. They will be brought to justice.

Each and every killer will be brought to book as we did after the
2015 mayhem (and) all their sources, financiers and patrons would
be unearthed and brought to justice as well."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

When she referred to "all their sources, financiers and patrons, she
was referring to the "BNP-Jamaat clique," an alliance of opposition
parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally
Jamaat-e-Islami (Jamaat), that she has repeatedly accused of being
behind the violent attacks. In particular, she has repeatedly accused
the BNP-Jamaat clique of supporting Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
(JMB), the jihadist terror group responsible for the killings.

In a speech in May, she said, "BNP-Jamaat clique is now selectively
killing imams of mosques, priests of temples, fathers of churches and
teachers of universities alongside common people to create instability
in the country."

BNP secretary general Fakhrul Islam Alamgir accused the government of
using the massive crackdown to suppress political dissent. He
rejected the allegation that BNP and Jamaat were behind the attacks
and accused the government of arresting "hundreds of opposition
activists in the name of crackdown against Islamist militants."
BDNews (Dhaka) and India Times and Daily Star (Dhaka) and Dhaka Tribune (29-May)

****
**** History of Bangladesh's 'BNP-Jamaat clique' goes back to massive 1971 ethnic war
****

Although the extremely bloody 1947 war between Hindus and Muslims that
followed Partition, the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into
India and Pakistan, was a generational crisis war for western India
and what is now Pakistan, it was a far less brutal non-crisis war for
eastern India (Bihar and West Bengal provinces) and what is now
Bangladesh (East Bengal). Because of its enormous size, east and west
India are on different generational timelines.

For east India and the current Bangladesh, the extremely bloody
generational crisis war occurred as an ethnic civil war in 1971
between Biharis and Bengalis. At that time, Pakistan was split into
West Pakistan and East Pakistan (East Bengal), and the outcome of the
1971 war was that East Pakistan became Bangladesh.

Both the Bengalis and the Biharis are mostly Muslim, although the
Biharis also include a small population of Hindus. The Bengalis are
the indigenous majority ethnic group of Bangladesh, and speak the
Bengali language. The Biharis are mostly Urdu-speaking people who
crossed the border from India and settled in East Pakistan during the
1947 Partition war.

Although the Bihari population was much smaller than the population of
indigenous Bengalis, the Biharis became a "market-dominant minority,"
allied with the West Pakistan government, in control of the major
business and government organizations, while the indigenous Bengalis
were most laborers.

The 1971 war between the Biharis, supported by Pakistan's army, and
the Bengalis was extremely bloody and genocidal on all sides.

Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (Jamaat) was formed in 1941, and in 1971 it
was on the side of the Biharis and Pakistan's army in opposing the
anti-government uprising by the Bengalis. In the 1980s, it allied
with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), forming what the prime
minister is calling the "BNP-Jamaat clique."

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of Biharis living in refugee
camps in filthy conditions, with the largest camp just north of Dhaka,
Bangladesh's capital city. These are certainly a large part of the
motivation for Bihari jihadist groups to continue terrorist attacks.
Today they're often referred to as "the stranded Pakistanis," because
in 1971 Pakistan promised to transport them back to Pakistan, but
later reneged on that promise.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is the leader of the Bangladesh Awami
League, which is a Bengali political party originally formed in 1949.
The Awami League led the anti-Pakistan rebellion in the bloody 1971
civil war between Biharis and Bengalis.

Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is a violent jihadist terror
group formed in 1998, reaching a peak of violence in August 2005 when
it detonated 500 bombs at 300 locations throughout Bangladesh.

So when prime minister Hasina accuses the "BNP-Jamaat clique" of
supporting JMB, what she's really doing is accusing the Biharis of
attacking the Bengalis in revenge for losing the 1971 war.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is not
surprising at all.

As I've written many times, most recently with respect to Kenya ( "7-Jun-16 World View -- Increasing violence in Kenya revives fears of tribal war"
) but previously
in articles about Rwanda, Lebanon, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other
countries, countries that experience an internal ethnic civil war
follow the same pattern.

Among generational crisis wars, an external war is fundamentally
different than an internal civil war between two ethnic groups. If
two ethnic groups have lived together in peace for decades, have
intermarried and worked together, and if then there's a civil war
where one of these ethnic groups tortures, massacres and slaughters
their next-door neighbors in the other ethnic group, then the outcome
will be fundamentally different than if the same torture and slaughter
had been rendered by an external group. In either case, the country
will spend the Recovery Era immediately following the war setting up
rules and institutions designed to prevent any such war from occurring
again. But in one case, the country will be unified in the decades to
follow, while in the other case, the country will be increasingly torn
along the same ethnic fault line.

That's what's going on today in Bangladesh. Starting in the 2000s,
which was a generational Awakening era for Bangladesh, the
Bihari-based Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) began conducting
terrorist activities targeting the Bengali-based Awami League, and
Bengalis in general. The Bengali-led government is responding by
cracking down on the Biharis. This pattern of terrorist violence met
with violent government crackdown continues in cycles, with each cycle
worse than the previous one. This is a pattern that occurs in all
countries that go through an ethnic generational crisis civil war, and
it always ends up in new crisis civil war several decades later.
Meri News (India) and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Global Security (Washington)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, Bengalis, Beharis,
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, JMJB,
Ansarullah Bangla Team, ABT, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, BNP,
Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamaat, BNP-Jamaat clique, Fakhrul Islam Alamgir,
India, Partition, West Pakistan, East Pakistan, East Bengal, West Bengal,
Bangladesh Awami League

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John J. Xenakis
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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]

*** 13-Jun-16 World View -- Orlando nightclub terror attack may be result of ISIS and al-Qaeda troubles

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Al-Qaeda leader swears allegiance to Taliban's new leader
  
• ISIS losing ground may have led to Orlando terror attack
  

****
**** Al-Qaeda leader swears allegiance to Taliban's new leader
****


ISIS social media photo

The rise of a major competitive jihadist group, the so-called Islamic
State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), is forcing al-Qaeda and the
Taliban to reassess their strategic directions.

That may be one of the reasons that on Saturday, al-Qaeda leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri, in a 14-minute online audio message, pledged allegiance to
the new head of the Afghan Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada.

Both of the terrorist organization leaders have some major in common:
They both rose to their current positions after their predecessors
were killed by the US military. Al-Zawahiri became the new head of
al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by US Navy Seals
in 2011. Akhundzada became the new leader of the Afghan Taliban after
his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was killed by US drone strike in Pakistan

three weeks ago.

According to Saturday's online audio message, which has not yet been
confirmed, al-Zawahiri said:

[indent]<QUOTE>"As leader of the al Qaeda organization for jihad, I
extend my pledge of allegiance once again, the approach of Osama
to invite the Muslim nation to support the Islamic Emirate [of
Afghanistan]. ...

We pledge allegiance to you on jihad to liberate every inch of the
lands of the Muslims that are invaded and stolen - from Kashgar to
al-Andalus, from the Caucasus to Somalia and Central Africa, from
Kashmir to Jerusalem, from the Philippines to Kabul, and from
Bukhara to Samarkand."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The logic behind this pledge is that al-Zawahiri is a military leader,
an Egyptian doctor-turned-militant, while Akhundzada is an Islamic
legal scholar. The audio message alludes to the fact that when the
Taliban were sheltering Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, bin Laden also
pledged his allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader. However, bin
Laden ended up bringing the Taliban a lot of grief in the form of the
US war in Afghanistan that defeated the Taliban and threw them out of
government after bin Laden set the 9/11/2001 attacks in motion.

Today, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are uniting because they are both
concerned about the rise of ISIS. Although ISIS operates mostly in
the Mideast, some Afghan insurgent commanders have broken away from
the Taliban to pledge support to ISIS, and ISIS has been displacing
the influence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen,
and also of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in northern Africa,
especially in Egypt, Libya and Nigeria.

To make matters worse for al-Qaeda, there has been infighting between
different Taliban warlords and factions in Afghanistan, and this has
helped ISIS. Thus, the pledge of support may be a desperate call for
unity against ISIS.

Another development is that the death of Akhundzada's predecessor,
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, has exposed a relationship between the Taliban and Iran.
This is a
"marriage of convenience" between Sunni terrorists and Shia
terrorists, who concerned about a common enemy: ISIS. Khaama Press (Kabul) and Deutsche Welle and Long War Journal and Reuters

****
**** ISIS losing ground may have led to Orlando terror attack
****

The so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) has been
claiming credit for Sunday's Orlando Florida nightclub terror attack,
but we know that the gunman Omar Mateen was acting as a "lone wolf,"
without any known contact with ISIS. Nonetheless, ISIS may have
indirectly caused the attack by its announcements in the last few
weeks asking "lone wolves" to strike soft targets in Europe and
America during the month of Ramadan, which started last week.

A year or two ago, an exuberant ISIS was making enormous gains,
capturing huge swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq, raping women
and chopping off people's heads to gain international acclaim, and
making money by selling oil from captured facilities. There were
thousands of young jihadists coming from all over the world to Syria
to join ISIS and to fight against the genocidal Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad.

But now losses are mounting in Syria and Iraq. It's losing much of
the territory it had gained, losing finances, and losing prestige.
The number of foreign fighters joining the flailing ISIS is dwindling,
and there are even reports of infighting within ISIS resulting in
executions of junior officers.

Last month there were reports that ISIS was regrouping in Libya,
setting up a base in its stronghold in the coastal city of Sirte, but
now there have been new reports that troops from Libya's unity
Government of National Accord (GNA) have been advancing against Sirte
more quickly than expected.

ISIS is very far from defeated, but these setbacks are forcing the
terror organization to rethink its strategy. A part of that strategy
is to encourage lone wolf attacks and then take credit for them.
They've taken credit for killings in Bangladesh which they nothing to
do with ( "12-Jun-16 World View -- Bangladesh government arrests 3,192 people to stop terrorist killings"
), and now they've done the same with the Orlando
night club shooting. These may well be moves of desperation.

Although many people are taking pleasure in the troubles of al-Qaeda,
the Taliban and ISIS, you should not assume that the defeat of either
of these organizations (something that's probably not even possible)
would bring peace and an end to the terrorist attacks. This is a
generational Crisis era for the Sunnis in the Mideast and south Asia,
and the terror attacks and rising tensions are occurring organically,
not under the control of any politician. No one could have predicted
the rise of ISIS five years ago, and some new, even worse organization
could rise at any time. Just as the Holocaust and WW II would still
have occurred even if Hitler had been killed in 1935, the Mideast is
headed for a major regional war with or without ISIS or al-Qaeda. And
the Orlando nightclub shooting may be just the start. CS Monitor (27-May) and Rudaw (Iraq-Kurds) and
Washington Times and AFP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Afghanistan, Taliban, al-Qaeda, Pakistan,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Haibatullah Akhundzada, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP,
Orlando Florida nightclub shooting, Omar Mateen, Ramadan,
Iraq, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Libya, Government of National Accord, GNA

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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]

*** 14-Jun-16 World View -- Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war
  
• Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea
  

****
**** Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war
****


Eritrean soldiers march during the country's Independence Day (Reuters)

Heavy clashes have broken out along the border between Eritrea and
Ethiopia. Although there have been occasional exchanges of gunfire
ever since a two-year border war ended with a peace deal in 2000,
these are the first involved heavy artillery and masses of troops.

Eritrea's ministry of information blamed Ethiopia, saying on Sunday,
"Ethiopia unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central
Front."

Ethiopia blamed Eritrea, saying, "Eritrean forces started shelling our
positions, including civilian ambulances, and we responded."

It's not known what triggered the new violence. Eritrea is currently
celebrating 25 years since it achieved independence from Ethiopia in
1991, and perhaps those celebrations triggered the violence.

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report
accusing Eritrea of repeated human rights violations, including crimes
against humanity. According to the report:

[indent]<QUOTE>"The commission finds that there are reasonable
grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been
committed in Eritrea since 1991. Eritrean officials have engaged
in a persistent, widespread and systematic attack against the
country’s civilian population since 1991. They have committed, and
continue to commit, the crimes of enslavement, imprisonment,
enforced disappearance, torture, other inhumane acts, persecution,
rape and murder. ...

The commission has heard of no plans to hold national
elections. ...

The commission finds that the gross human rights violations it
documented in its previous report persist, including arbitrary
detention, enforced disappearances, torture, killings, sexual and
gender-based violence, discrimination on the basis of religion and
ethnicity, and reprisals for the alleged conduct of family
members. In addition, many of those subjected to enforced
disappearance in the past remain unaccounted for. ...

Eritreans continue to be subjected to indefinite military/national
service. The Government has recently confirmed that there are no
plans to limit its duration to the statutory 18 months. Conscripts
are drafted for an indefinite duration of service in often abusive
conditions, and used as forced labor."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Some observers are accusing Eritrea of starting the border war with
Ethiopia to distract from the human rights report. International Business Times and AFP and UN Human Rights Council

****
**** Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea
****


Horn of Africa

These two countries have been linked since at least the second century
AD.

Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century, and was a tribal
society ruled by emperors until the 1800s. However, a split between
Ethiopia and Eritrea occurred in the 700s with the rise of Islam and
the Arab trade along the Red Sea, and what is now Eritrea became part
of the Islamic Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire.

Italy colonized the region in the 1860s, in the so-called Scramble for
Africa, so named because after it was discovered in the 1850s that
malaria could be controlled with quinine, England, Belgium, France,
Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany all competed with each other to
colonize different parts of Africa.

In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, connecting the Red Sea with the
Mediterranean Sea, and Italian shipping firms became active. Large
stretches of Eritrea's coastline were acquired from the local sultans
and transferred to Italian control. By the mid-1880s, the Italian
army moved into Eritrea, displacing the Ottomans, and challenging the
Ethiopian empire.

In 1889, Menelik II rose to the position of Emperor of Ethiopia. The
"Italian-Ethiopian War" (1889-1896) was a generational crisis war for
Ethiopia. Menelik inflicted on Italy the most humiliating and bloody
defeat ever experienced by a colonial power in Africa. In the
outcome, Italy retained Eritrea as a Red Sea colony, populating it
with thousands of Italian settlers, developing road and rail
transport, but doing little to improve the lives of Eritreans.

Ethiopia gained independence, and by 1914 and the beginning of WW I,
all of black Africa except Ethiopia and Liberia were European
colonies.

By 1935, Eritrea was a colony of Italy, and Ethiopia had a new
emperor, one who had taken the title Haile Selassie, meaning "Might of
the Trinity," emphasizing the fact that Ethiopia was a largely
Christian country.

In October 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered an invasion
of Ethiopia, partly in revenge for Italy's humiliating defeat in 1896.
Mussolini announced the establishment of a new Italian empire,
including Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, under the name Italian East
Africa. Haile Selassie fled the country.

When Mussolini brought Italy into World War II on Hitler's side, in
June 1940, Haile Selassie won the cooperation of Britain in launching
a counterattack against the Italian forces in Italian East Africa. By
1941, Haile Selassie was once again emperor of Ethiopia. After the
war, the United Nations made Eritrea a part of Ethiopia, an autonomous
federal province with its own constitution and elected government,
something that the Muslims in Eritrea strongly opposed.

From the above description, one can see that although World War II was
a generational crisis war for Italy and Britain, with part of the war
fought on Ethiopian soil, it was not a crisis war for Ethiopia itself.
In fact, with the previous crisis war having climaxed in 1896, this
was a generational Unraveling era for Ethiopia. In such an era (like
America in the 1990s), there is little appetite for war among the
general population, except perhaps for quick police actions. Although
Ethiopia and Eritrea changed hands several times during the WW II time
period, the fighting was mostly between foreign armies, and did not
heavily involve the local population.

In the mid-1950s, the region entered a generational Crisis era, and
the fault line between Muslims and Christians began to inflame. In
1958, Eritrea's Muslim leaders formed the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF), consisting mainly of students, intellectuals, and urban wage
laborers. Low-level warfare continued throughout the 1960s.

In the 1970s, the Eritrean independence movement took another turn
with the formation of a powerful Marxist offshoot of the ELF, the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Haile Selassie was toppled
in 1974, after which factional warfare began to increase.

This might have led to a full-scale generational crisis war, but there
was a major development: In 1977, the USSR allied with the Ethiopian
government, took control of Eritrea's Red Sea ports, and provided
Ethiopia's government with huge supplies of arms, enough to suppress
the EPLF guerrillas. (This is what Russia has been doing in Syria for
several years.)

The guerrilla war fought by Marxist rebels against the well-armed
Ethiopian government climaxed in May 1991 with the collapse of
Ethiopia's government, coincident with the collapse of the USSR.
Eritrea finally declared independence. By that time, there were
500,000 refugees that had fled to refugee camps in Sudan, and they had
to be resettled in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In 1998, a new border war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
This was a non-crisis war, with a quality very similar to World War I,
where trenches were dug, mines were laid, and bodies of dead soldiers
were strewn about. Of the 400,000 men who fought on both sides,
50,000 soldiers died.

A peace deal in 2000 ended the two-year border war, but it was never
fully implemented, and is still in dispute. There have been
occasional border incidents ever since then.

Both countries are now in the midst of a generational Awakening era,
and the rhetoric on both sides is heating up again. Expect political
conflict, riots, demonstrations, low-level violence and police
actions, but a full-scale all-out war, which many international
observers fear, is not going to happen at this time. HistoryWorld - Eritrea and HistoryWorld - Ethiopia and Library of Congress - Ethiopia


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Italy,
Scramble for Africa, Suez Canal, Red Sea, Italian-Ethiopian War,
Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Benito Mussolini, Somalia,
Italian East Africa, Eritrean Liberation Front, ELF,
Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF

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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

[pbrower2a]

It makes sense. The Italo-Abyssinian War was an Awakening-Era war for Italy (the unification of Italy in the late-middle novecento being a Crisis era analogous to the American Revolution, with parts of Italy toppling Austrian rule) and a Crisis-era war for Ethiopia. The Sahelian famine, Eritrean secession, and the overthrow of the Ethiopian monarchy with the rise of Haile Mengistu, who made Benito Mussolini look like a humane and benevolent overlord by contrast, comprise a truly nasty 4T analogous to the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and Stalinist madness. Can a Crisis last 30 years? Sure -- in Russia between 1916 (catastrophic defeats of Tsarist armies and political collapse) and 1945 (end of the Great Patriotic War), and apparently in Ethiopia.

Few countries do wars well in Awakening Eras (think of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the Italian part of the Italo-Abyssinian War).