Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 28-Aug-16 World View -- Increasing anger in Turkey threatens the EU-Turkey migrant deal

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hungary may build a second 'massive' fence to block migrants from Serbia
  
• Greece makes contingency plans for 180,000 more migrants
  
• Increasing anger in Turkey threatens the EU-Turkey migrant deal
  

****
**** Hungary may build a second 'massive' fence to block migrants from Serbia
****


Refugees camped on the Serbian side of the border with Hungary (Balkan Insight)

Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán announced that Hungary may erect
a second fence along the border with Serbia, parallel to the existing
fence. The existing 500 km fence was built hastily last year in
September, in defiance of European Union criticisms. It's a
four-meter-high razor wire fence that has slowed, but not stopped, the
flow of migrants from Serbia. The new "massive" fence, if erected,
will use "the most modern technology."

The new fence will be built if the EU-Turkey migrant deal collapses.
Last year, about 400,000 migrants crossed into Hungary from Serbia.
That's been reduced to 18,000 in 2016, because of the EU-Turkey deal,
but it's expected that the massive flood of migrants would return if
the deal collapsed.

Orbán announced other steps as well. Hungary will increase the number
of border police by 3,000, to 47,000 from 44,000. According to Orbán,
"Then if it does not work with nice words, we will have to stop them
with force, and we will do so."

Hungary has already passed a law imposing a three-year prison sentence
on those who cross its borders illegally.

The EU government in Brussels has announced a plan to allow a limited
number of migrants to enter Europe, and then to resettle them in all
28 countries in the EU, according to a quota system. Orbán has
scheduled a referendum for October 2 on whether to accept migrants for
resettlement. Balkan Insight and Reuters and Russia Today

****
**** Greece makes contingency plans for 180,000 more migrants
****

If the EU-Turkey migrant deal collapses, then Greece can expect an
additional 180,000 migrants and refugees from Turkey to reach Greece
this year. Since Turkey's July 15 attempted coup, the number of
migrants reaching Greece has gone from almost zero to about 100 per
day. ( "18-Aug-16 World View -- Number of migrants reaching Greece surges since Turkey's attempted coup"
)

Greece has been working to upgrade its overcrowded refugee camps,
which have been described as abysmal, where security is lax and
mothers with babies are forced to sleep on the ground in makeshift
tents. Conditions are particularly bad on the Greek islands in the
Aegean Sea -- Lesvos, Chios and Samos -- with new migrants arriving
every day, but unable to travel any further.

Greece has been building new refugee camps to reduce the overcrowding.
It's estimated that there are about 50,000 refugees currently stranded
in Greece. During the June 9 to July 30 period, 27,592 refugees and
migrants went through the pre-registration process, with 57% of them
being men and 43% women, plus thousands of children, both
unaccompanied or with a parent. Greek Reporter

****
**** Increasing anger in Turkey threatens the EU-Turkey migrant deal
****

The issue of Syrian migrants in EU has rarely been in the news
recently, so most people think that the problem is completely solved.
Americans in particular have no clue what's going on in the world
beyond Donald Trump's latest immigration plan or Hillary Clinton's
latest e-mail explanation.

Nonetheless, there is a growing anger in Turkey that could lead to the
collapse of the EU-Turkey migrant deal in September, as further
negotiations proceed between the two parties. This anger was very
evident several days ago, when US vice president Joseph Biden visited
Ankara and was snubbed by obviously furious, stone-faced Turkish
president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Much of Turkey's anger comes from a lack of support following the July
15 attempted coup combined with a series of horrific terror attacks
perpetrated by both the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the
so-called Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS,
ISIL, Daesh). These coup threatened Turkey's entire government, and
the terror attacks are much worse than anything that Europe has
experienced, and yet from Turkey's point of view, EU officials have
done nothing but criticize Turkey's attempts to recover from the coup
attempt and terror attacks. Turkey also points out that the terror
attacks are a threat to all of Europe, as well as Turkey.

With regard to the migrant deal itself, Turkey's view is that they've
fulfilled their commitments, but the EU hasn't. In particular:

• Europe promised 3 billion euros in aid for Syrian refugees in
  Turkey. That money was due months ago, and has not been paid.
  
  
• Under the deal, Europe agreed to take 72,000 of the most
  vulnerable refugees, but has only accepted 1,000 so far.
  
  
• Under the deal, the Europe promised visa-free travel for all
  Turkish citizens in Europe's Schengen Zone by June, and that visa
  liberalization has not yet taken place.

Turkey also points out that it has taken in at least 2.7 million
Syrian refugees and houses 270,000 in 26 provisional refugee camps
with food, health and education services as well as psychological
support, vocational education and social activities, and has spent 7
billion euros meeting their needs.

For Europe, the main issue is human rights in Turkey. Even before the
July 15 coup, Turkey had already shut down the country's main
opposition media group. ( "6-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media"
)

Since the coup, Erdogan has conducted a purge that can only be
described as breathtaking, arresting thousands of soldiers and policy,
and firing thousands more judges, teachers and clerics. In all,
58,000 people have been affected by the purge. ( "22-Jul-16 World View -- Turkey's Erdogan gives himself dictatorial powers, moving Turkey away from the West"
)

EU considers Erdogan's actions to be a major human rights violation,
inconsistent with EU law, requiring remediation before the visa
liberation can occur. However, even that reason doesn't excuse the 3
billion euros in aid that hasn't been paid.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu makes it clear that Turkey
sees the agreement so far as completely one-sided:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"It cannot be that everything that is good for the
> E.U. is implemented by our side, but Turkey gets nothing in
> return.
>
> I don’t want to talk about the worst-case scenario. But it’s
> clear that we either apply all treaties at the same time or we put
> them all aside."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Negotiations to overcome these differences will begin in September.
If no agreement is reached by October, then Turkey could gradually
increase the flow of migrants to Greece, and could also refuse to
implement other parts of the EU-Turkey deal, such as the "readmission
agreement," which would permit Europe to send migrants not granted
asylum back to Turkey. Daily Sabah (Ankara) and Guardian (London) and Washington Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Serbia,
Greece, Lesvos, Chios, Samos,
Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Joseph Biden,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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-Aug-16 World View -- US forced to choose between two close allies, as Turks bomb Kurds in Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey's invasion of Syria continues, bombing Kurdish targets
  
• America may be forced to choose between Turkey and Kurds
  

****
**** Turkey's invasion of Syria continues, bombing Kurdish targets
****


Turkish military action starting Aug 24. Objective is to prevent Kurdish forces (shown in yellow) from linking up western and eastern regions. (Anadolu)

Turkey continued execution of "Operation Euphrates Shield" on Sunday
by striking at the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian
Kurdish militia backed by the United States in its fight with the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). Airstrikes
from Turkish warplanes killed at least 25 or more people near the city
of Jarablus. Turkey claims that all those killed were Kurdish
terrorists. Other reports claim that dozens of civilians were killed.

Besides striking at ISIS, a major objective of Turkey's invasion into
Syria is to prevent further expansion of the region controlled by
Syrian Kurds.

As the map above shows, the YPG now controls large regions of northern
Syria, including an uninterrupted 400 km (250 mile) stretch of the
Syrian-Turkish border from the eastern frontier with Iraq to the
Euphrates river, and a pocket of territory in northwestern Syria. The
Kurds want to gain control of the region in between, controlling a
long strip of land, creating an independent Kurdish state called
Rojava.

The Turkish military objective is to prevent the Kurds from doing
this, and to force the YPG in the east to retreat back across the
Euphrates River.

The Kurds have had some notable military successes recently.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Syrian Kurds regained
control of the city of Manbij from ISIS. ( "14-Aug-16 World View -- Wild celebrations in Manbij Syria, after major defeat for ISIS"
) Since then,
the Kurds began advancing on Jarablus in the east, and on the
city of Azaz in the west.

A major ISIS terror attack on a wedding in Gaziantep, a Turkish town
near Jarablus, there was a major change in Turkish policy, which led
to the military invasion of Syria. ( "22-Aug-16 World View -- Turkey's Erdogan announces a complete U-turn on Syria policy"
)

Operation Euphrates Shield has already prevent the Kurds from taking
control of Jarablus, and the Turks have indicated that they intend to
drive the Kurds out of Manbij, back across the Euphrates River. The
Turks say that they will take control of a region up to 30 kilometers
from the border with Turkey, and create a "safe zone" for civilians,
under the control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

In a speech on Sunday, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
that he considers ISIS and the YPG to be the same:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"These betrayers will be drowned in the blood they
> shed. ... Turkey has not and will not surrender to any terrorist
> organizations or terror methods. ... We know the same face is
> behind all of them [ISIS and YPG].
>
> Turkey has no toleration for any terrorist organization activities
> within its borders and nearby. Our operations against the
> separatist organization [YPG] will continue without
> interruption."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Erdogan's remarks echo the statement on Friday by Turkey's prime
minister Binali Yildirim: "We’ve declared all-out war against these
terrorist groups." Anadolu (Ankara) and BBC

****
**** America may be forced to choose between Turkey and Kurds
****

Turkey's invasion of Syria so far consists of warplanes, tanks,
artillery, and special forces, backed by an army of so-called
"moderate" Syrian rebels known as the Free Syrian Army, or FSA.
Turkey is targeting both ISIS and the Kurdish YPG.

The United States is an ally of Turkey, which is a member of Nato.
The US is also an ally of the YPG, which has been the most effective
force fighting ISIS. And the US has also supported the FSA, because
they were fighting against the forces of the genocidal president of
Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

The US has been "forced to choose" between Turkey and the Kurds. In a
visit to Ankara on Wednesday, US vice president Joseph Biden said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We have made it absolutely clear that they
> [pro-Kurdish forces] must go back across the [Euphrates]
> River. They cannot and will not, under no circumstances, get
> American support if they do not keep that
> commitment."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

A big question is whether the Kurds will "obey" Biden's mandate. The
Kurds have a long history of feeling betrayed by the West, and with an
independent state in sight, they may refuse to retreat.

Both Russia and Syria's al-Assad regime approve of the Turkish
invasion of northern Syria, because it's the only thing preventing the
Kurds from taking control of the entire northern region and declaring
the independent Kurdish state of Rojava. Washington Post and Daily Sabah (Ankara) and BBC (23-Aug)

Related Stories

• Increasing anger in Turkey threatens the EU-Turkey migrant deal (28-Aug)
  
  
• US VP Biden snubbed by Turkey's angry president Erdogan (25-Aug)
  
  
• How Turkey changed in five months (2-Nov-15)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Kurds, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Joseph Biden,
Operation Euphrates Shield, Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Rojava,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish People’s Protection Units, YPG,
Jarablus, Manbij, Euphrates River, Free Syrian Army, FSA

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]

*** 30-Aug-16 World View -- China's 'thuggery' transforms Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement into independence movement

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hong Kong's pro-democracy 'Umbrella Movement' is viewed as a failure
  
• Beijing 'thuggery' motivates the rise of the independence movement
  
• Hong Kong debates the independence movement
  
• Hong Kong police prepare for election day riots from pro-independence activists
  

****
**** Hong Kong's pro-democracy 'Umbrella Movement' is viewed as a failure
****


Umbrella Movement protest in Hong Kong, September 2015 (Reuters)

In the summer of 2014, tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens, mostly
college age, staged a series of pro-democracy protests, bring central
Hong Kong to a standstill. These were the largest protests since
Britain gave up its Hong Kong colony in 1997, returning it to Chinese
sovereignty. It was also the worst and bloodiest police violence
in Hong Kong since 1997.

The police attacked the protesters with tear gas, and the protesters
defended themselves with umbrellas to protect themselves from the tear
gas. The sight of bright yellow umbrellas became commonplace, and the
protests have become known as the "Umbrella Revolution" or "Umbrella
movement."

What sparked the Umbrella Movement was that Beijing reneged on its
commitment to "one country, two systems." According to the agreement
that China made with Britain in 1997, when Britain returned its Hong
Kong colony to Chinese control, Beijing would pursue Communism and
Socialism, while Hong Kong would retain its democracy, its capitalist
system, and its way of life for at least 50 years, until 2047.

However, for the approaching 2017 elections, China is calling the
elections "free," but is tightly controlling who will be permitted to
run in the elections. The only candidates who will be permitted to be
run have to be approved a "nominating committee" completely controlled
by Beijing. So the effect is that the so-called "free" elections are
rigged to guarantee that only candidates selected by Beijing can win
the elections.

The Umbrella Movement is considered a complete failure, because
nothing change. China adamantly refused to make any changes to the
2017 election process, and so it's still absolutely guaranteed that
the so-called "free" 2017 elections will be tightly controlled, and
any candidate that wins the election is also guaranteed to be tightly
controlled by Beijing.

According to 25-year-old Edward Leung Tin-kei, who took part in the
Umbrella protests, "I was a peaceful protester. But what have we
achieved? Nothing."

The Umbrella Movement was conducted by peaceful protesters who only
wanted China to meet its commitment for free elections. The failure
of the Umbrella Movement to accomplish anything has caused the
radicalization of its leaders, to the point where for the first time
they're demanding independence for Hong Kong. BBC and
Hong Kong Free Press

Related Articles

• Pro-democracy protests bring Hong Kong to a standstill (29-Sep-2014)
  
  
• Hong Kong police clash with protesters, worst violence in weeks (1-Dec-2014)
  
  
• Taiwan voters choose independence from China (30-Nov-2014)
  

****
**** Beijing 'thuggery' motivates the rise of the independence movement
****

The failure of the Umbrella Movement caused its young generation
leaders to reevaluate their motives and what risks they're willing
to take to achieve their goals.

However, it was an event several months ago that really galvanized the
rise of the independence movement. Several Hong Kong booksellers who
had been selling pro-democracy books in their bookstores disappeared
mysteriously in October of last year.

Although it was widely believed that Beijing had abducted them, there
was no proof until June of this year, when 61-year-old Lam Wing-kee,
one of the booksellers, suddenly surfaced in Hong Kong and held a
press conference, saying that Chinese agents had abducted him. "They
blindfolded me and put a cap on my head and basically bundled me up."

He gave a detailed description of what happened. he was arrested
after crossing the border from Hong Kong into the southern mainland
Chinese city of Shenzhen in October, and was kept in a 200 sq ft room
for five months under guard. He was forced to sign a document
admitting to crimes that he hadn't committed, and giving up his right
to a lawyer or to speak to his family.

Eventually he confessed to his "crimes" on television, and then was
released on bail. His press conference was a complete surprise to
everyone. He said he had decided to speak out after thousands of
demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong to protest the
booksellers’ disappearances. "Hongkongers will not bow down before
brute force," Lam said.

Four other abducted booksellers are still in Chinese jails.

Lam Wing-kee's story lit a fuse among the former members of the
Umbrella Movement, turning it into a full-fledged independence
movement. According to one Hong Kong lawmaker:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"It’s now obvious to everyone that the so-called ‘one
> country, two systems’ promise is completely in tatters. We need
> to stand firm and stand tall and really fight back. ...
>
> This is not just an ordinary detention. This is literally a
> kidnapping by Beijing authorities."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

In July, the Hong Kong administration disqualified six potential
candidates with pro-independence stances from running in the 2016
Legislative Council election.

Earlier this year, any talk of Hong Kong independence was completely
unthinkable. But the disqualification action led, in early August, to
the first pro-independence rally in Hong Kong history.
Pro-independence activists are now referring to themselves as
"localists." A poll last month showed that one in six Hongkongers
supported independence.

25-year-old activist Edward Leung Tin-kei, whom we quoted earlier, has
become a leader of the pro-independence movement. Speaking at the
rally, he said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Hong Kong’s sovereignty doesn’t belong to Xi Jinping,
> the Communist Party, the Chinese or local governments – the
> sovereignty always belongs to us."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

A 30-year-old mother of two, attending the rally with her children,
said, "If Hong Kong doesn’t become independent, our next generation’s
well-being will be hampered." AFP (16-June) and Guardian (London, 17-June) and Time (5-Aug) and Reuters (7/25)

****
**** Hong Kong debates the independence movement
****

The Beijing view of the independence movement is summarized by
Chinese state media Global Times:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"From mainstream society in Hong Kong to Beijing,
> there is awareness that Hong Kong independence should not be given
> any credence. However, some political forces in Hong Kong have
> tried to make use of these calls to serve their own
> ends. Meanwhile, other dissenting sentiments may also expand by
> riding on the extreme independence wave. These have created room
> for the Hong Kong independence farce to grow.
>
> The Hong Kong authorities have realized that it is time to set
> systematic restraints. The general public in Hong Kong has also
> acknowledged the harmful effects.
>
> Such things as Hong Kong independence can by no means be tolerated
> in the mainland. But under the Hong Kong system, odd things are
> never a surprise. The West would like to see a farce, but its own
> farces may be more eye-catching."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So it's America's fault. Nothing new there.

Beijing is trying to crush the pro-independence movement by
disqualifying candidates and by acting like Mafia gangsters,
abducting booksellers of all people.

The Beijing politicians are just stupid as politicians in the west.
They think that they will stop protests by college age students by
abducting booksellers. Is Xi Jinping a total idiot? Do these Chinese
officials have no sense of their own history? Do they think that Mao
Zedong would have been stopped if Chiang Kai-shek had abducted some
booksellers?

According to a Hong Kong columnist:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Don’t worry. All this talk of independence by Hong
> Kong’s younger generation will fizzle out in time. Anyone who
> tells you that is either an idiot or takes you for one.
>
> The independence movement has gained too much traction. Time will
> not derail it, nor temper the hostility many young people have
> towards mainland China. Compare it to a cancer if you like. It has
> spread from loony talk to universities, and now to secondary
> schools. ...
>
> When so many believe fantasy can become reality, the worst thing
> you can do is to dismiss it as a passing folly
>
> A political cause dies only when the reasons that spawned it no
> longer apply. But the reasons that lit the independence fire still
> remain. In fact, more have materialized, convincing young people
> that independence is a wall that can guard against mainland
> culture invading Hong Kong. You can’t blame them for thinking that
> way when they see booksellers being abducted, their peers being
> blocked as Legislative Council candidates for their political
> beliefs, and Beijing loyalists demanding a ban on independence
> talk in schools.
>
> Yes, Hong Kong independence is fantasy, but when so many believe
> fantasy can become reality, the worst thing you can do is to
> dismiss it as a passing folly. Trying to choke it with tactics
> that go against Hong Kong’s values won’t work
> either."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

As in America, this is a generational Crisis era for China. Just as
young Americans are supporting loons like Bernie Sanders, young
Hongkongers are going to support independence. The difference is that
America has political freedoms and structures that permit the
political energy to be diffused, while Chinese thugs use gangster
tactics that only guarantee that the political energy will increase.
We haven't seen the end of this issue.
Global Times (Beijing, 8-Aug)
and Hong Kong Free Press and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

****
**** Hong Kong police prepare for election day riots from pro-independence activists
****

With the independence movement growing in Hong Kong, authorities fear
protests and violence during the Legislative Council elections to be
held on Sunday. Kowtowing to Beijing, the Hong Kong administration
had disqualified six potential candidates from running, on the grounds
that may support Hong Kong independence from China.

As a result, Hong Kong police will be deployed in massive numbers on
Sunday. Over 5,000 police officers will be stationed at police
stations around the city to combat "possible unrest." According to
officials:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"There is a risk of unrest [during the elections]
> because causing trouble is one of their propaganda campaigns to
> promote independence and reach their target. ...
>
> About 40 officers [on the morning shift] will be sent out in case
> of any trouble in their police district. Another 30 detectives
> working in each of the stations will also be deployed in case of
> any major unrest."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

In preparation, police have running training exercises, using dozens
of mock protesters staging a sit-in. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Hong Kong, Umbrella Movement, Britain,
Edward Leung Tin-kei, Lam Wing-kee

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]

*** 31-Aug-16 World View -- Uzbekistan's dictator president Karimov suffers stroke, threatening Central Asia stability

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Uzbekistan's dictator president Karimov suffers stroke, threatening Central Asia stability
  
• Brief generational history of Uzbekistan
  

****
**** Uzbekistan's dictator president Karimov suffers stroke, threatening Central Asia stability
****


Uzbekistan

All that's known with reasonable certainty is that Uzbekistan's
78-year-old ruthless, bloody dictator, Islam Karimov has been
hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage. The reason that we think we
know that last bit is because his younger daughter, Lola
Karimova-Tillyaeva, said so on Instagram on Monday. The rumors are
that Karimov has already died. Either way, it's not thought that
he'll ever govern again.

Karimov became leader of Uzbekistan's Communist Party in the 1980s,
the last decade of the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed
in 1991, Uzbekistan became an independent country, and Karimov became
president. He's been re-elected to office several times in elections
that are widely believed to have been rigged.

Karimov has been one of the bloodiest and most brutal dictators in the
world, massacring civilians and even boiling protesters alive.
According to Human Rights Watch, "thousands are imprisoned on
politically-motivated charges. Torture is endemic in the criminal
justice system. Authorities continue to crack down on civil society
activists, opposition members, and journalists." Possibly the
bloodiest event in Karimov's tenure was the killing of hundreds of
peaceful protesters in the Fergana valley in 2005.

These are, unfortunately, standard tactics for a dictator of a country
in the decades following a generational crisis civil war. We see it
every day in Syria, where Shia/Alawite Bashar al-Assad is conducting a
genocidal holocaust against the losing ethnic group, the Sunnis. We
see it all the time in Zimbabwe, where president Robert Mugabe, of the
Shona tribe, has conducted a continuing holocaust against the losing
tribe the Nbdele.

The reason that these bloody dictators do what they do is because they
believe that it's necessary to prevent more tribal fighting and, even
more important, it's necessary to prevent the dictator from being
thrown out of office, giving power to the other tribe.

Karimov used more than just torture and atrocities to keep the country
and the region stable. He had relations with all the powers -- the
US, Russia, China, and the other Central Asian nations -- and was able
to play them off one another.

Uzbekistan is right in the middle of Central Asia, and shares a border
with all the other Central Asia states. Instability there would
quickly spread to the entire region. One border that's of particular
importance to Americans is the one with Afghanistan, where American
troops are fighting the Taliban, and the Taliban are gaining strength.
Besides the Taliban, one particularly potent al-Qaeda linked jihadist
group is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who for the last
decade have been considered the most formidable terrorist group in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The fragility of the region was illustrated on Tuesday by car bombing
near the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, injuring three
embassy personnel. No one has claimed responsibility, but the
perpetrators might be Uighur separatists or the IMU or a terror group
linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
It's not believed that the attack is related to Karimov's stroke, but
it illustrates the growing threat of jihadist terrorism, especially
since it's believed that several thousand Uzbeks have gone to Syria to
fight Bashar al-Assad.

Thursday is Uzbekistan's independence day. In the base, Karimov has
attended the celebrations and performed a traditional dance. Whether
he's dead or still alive, it's not expected that he'll be doing is
dance this time. We may get a sense of whether there is a solid line
of succession or whether there'll be a succession battle that could
spiral out of control. CNN and Atlantic Sentinel and Irish Times and Stratfor and Xinhua

Related Articles

• Uzbekistan closes border to refugees from Kyrgyzstan (15-Jun-2010)
  
  
• Jihadists from New York to Uzbekistan flock to Syria to fight (21-May-2014)
  
  
• Islamist Uzbeks lead terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan (2-Nov-2009)
  

****
**** Brief generational history of Uzbekistan
****

The historic importance of Uzbekistan is well illustrated by how many
conquering armies swept through. By about 400 BC, the Uzbekistan
region was dominated by tribes of Persian descent and Greek descent,
conquered by Alexander the Great. The region became critical for
trade between China and the Roman Empire. In the 700s AD, only a few
decades after the Prophet Mohammed, the armies of Islam invaded and
took control. Around 1000 AD, a confederation of Turkish tribes known
as the Ghazna conquered part of the region and established a state.

In the thirteenth century the Mongol leader Genghis Khan put together
an alliance of Mongol and Turkic tribes in north central Asia, known
as the Golden Horde, which embarked upon a conquest of much of
Asia. One of the leaders of that alliance was Uzbek, a man who
accepted Sunni Islam as his religion. The Moslem branch of the Golden
Horde became known as the Uzbeks.

In the mid-1800s, the Russians invaded, with an ironic outcome.
Russia had lost its supply of cotton from the southern United States
because of the American Civil War, and the Russians wanted to
establish a safe source of cotton, and so they developed a large
cotton-producing agriculture in Uzbekistan.

World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was an extremely
bloody generational crisis war for Uzbekistan, fought between the
Sunni Muslim Uzbeks and the Orthodox Christian Russians. This was
Uzbekistan's last generational crisis war.

World War II thus occurred during a generational Awakening era for the
Uzbeks. Thus the Uzbeks stayed out of the war, and in fact carried out
a "humanitarian mission," according to Turkish history. Russia
drafted thousands of Uzbek men to fight the Nazis, but the the country
itself performed a humanitarian mission by sheltering hundreds of
thousands of refugees from fascist occupied territories.

As part of Stalin's Soviet Union, Uzbekistan became a cotton
powerhouse starting in the 1920s. In support of the cotton trade,
millions of ethnic Russians began pouring into the country, especially
into the fertile Fergana Valley (or Ferghana Valley), in the far
eastern portion of the country.

The old Uzbek / Russian fault line became critical again, starting in
the 1980s with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. At that time,
Uzbek militants began joining the Pashtuns in Afghanistan to fight the
Soviets.

1991 was a pivotal year for the Fergana Valley. That was the year
that the Soviet Union collapsed, resulting in the formation of
Uzbekistan as an independent republic. It also resulted in a great
deal of financial hardship for the Russians in the Fergana Valley.
The result was the first signs of Islamic fundamentalism in Uzbekistan
when some unemployed young Muslims seized the Communist Party
headquarters in the city of Namangan in the Fergana Valley.

The leaders of this terrorist action, Tohir Yuldeshev and Juma
Namangani, eventually made their way to Afghanistan in 1996, after the
Taliban had taken control of the government. They joined Osama bin
Laden and al-Qaeda, and formed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
(IMU).

The IMU has been playing an important role in terrorist acts in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Karimov's bloody massacre of hundreds of
peaceful protesters in 2005 was an attempt to prevent a violent
takeover by Islamist IMU militants. Journal of Turkish Weekly and San José State University and Advantour


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva,
Russia, Soviet Union, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe,
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, China, Kyrgyzstan, al-Qaeda,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Alexander the Great, Mohammed, Genghis Khan, Golden Horde,
Bolshevik Revolution, Fergana Valley, Ferghana Valley

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-Sep-16 World View -- Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China sign economic and military agreements

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Fault lines: Saudi Arabia-China-Pakistan and India-U.S. continue to harden
  
• Saudi Arabia and China sign economic and military agreements
  
• Saudi Arabia and Pakistan discuss economic and military ties
  
• U.S. and India sign a landmark defense agreement
  

****
**** Fault lines: Saudi Arabia-China-Pakistan and India-U.S. continue to harden
****


Saudi Arabia and China sign economic and military agreements (al-Arabiya)

For ten years, I've been predicting, based on Generational Dynamics
analyses, that in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, the
"allies" will be the United States, India, Russia and Iran, while the
"axis" will be China, Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim countries. Ten
years ago, this alignment seemed almost preposterous, but in the last
few years, the trends have moved more and more rapidly in the
direction of that alignment. Major global events, including the Arab
Spring, the Syria war, the Yemen war, the US-Iran nuclear agreement,
and China's policy in the East and South China Seas, have all advanced
global geopolitics along this trend line.

These alignments are not shallow political policies for domestic
consumption. These alignments are deep in the DNA of the countries,
based on experiences of multiple generations over centuries.

Many people refuse to believe these alignments. They point to some
ephemeral agreement between Russia and China, or to a speech by Iran's
Supreme Leader, as "proof" that something else will happen, typically
that Russia, China and Iran will gang up on the United States, which
is absolute nonsense. Unfortunately, many government and commercial
policies are also made on erroneous assumptions, as I've pointed out
many times, and the generational theory analysis has always been
right.

In today's World View column, we're reporting on a series of
agreements made by China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, India and the United
States that once again move those countries along the trend line to
the predicted alignment. For any readers who are in policy positions,
either governmental or commercial, you really ought to pay attention
what's going on in the world, which is what Generational Dynamics
explains.

****
**** Saudi Arabia and China sign economic and military agreements
****

In the last week, China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have signed new
economic and military agreements linking the three countries together.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman began
a three-day visit to Beijing, meeting with top Chinese leaders.
Fourteen memoranda of understanding are being signed by the two
countries. The agreements were related to security, national defense,
exchange of data information, energy, technology, services, cultural
exchange, and human resources development.

In the past, China has sold hundreds of millions of dollars of arms
sales to the Saudis, but that's by $33 billion in US arms sales in
2011 alone.

This is only the latest in a series of visits and agreements that only
began in 1990, when Saudi Arabia became the last Arab country to
officially recognize the People’s Republic of China. Saudi Arabia was
firmly anti-communist during the Cold War, and a close ally of the
United States. However, a series of decisions by the Obama
administration have caused the Saudis to reevaluate their relationship
with both the US and the Chinese. The major decisions were:

• Obama's failure to support Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak during the
  Arab Spring;
  
  
• Obama’s reversal of his “red line” decision to strike Bashar
  al-Assad, after the latter used Sarin gas on his own people, and
  continues to use chlorine gas on his own people with impunity;
  and
  
  
• The lifting of sanctions on Iran in conjunction with the nuclear
  deal.

Over time, these decisions convinced the Saudis that they've become
overly dependent on the United States.

However, there are also issues about China that concern the Saudis:

• China is improving ties with Iran as well as with Saudi
  Arabia.
  
  
• China and Saudi Arabia do not see eye to eye on the war in Syria,
  with China largely siding with Russia and Bashar al-Assad.
  
  
• Most important, China has shown neither the willingness nor the
  capability to take over the role the US has played in the region,
  though that could change if the next US president continues the policy
  adopted by President Obama of withdrawing from the Mideast.

On the other hand, China has become increasingly dependent on Middle
Eastern oil. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is an important link in
China's proposal for the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century
Maritime Silk Road. So it's not surprising that security cooperation
between Saudi Arabia and China is improving. Saudi Gazette and Global Times (Beijing) and Al Arabiya

****
**** Saudi Arabia and Pakistan discuss economic and military ties
****

Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman stopped briefly in
Pakistan on the way to his visit in China. It's not clear whether any
agreements were reached, but the subject of Yemen surely came up.

Relations between Saudi and Pakistan have been difficult for almost
two years, since the beginning of the Yemen war. Saudi Arabia has led
a multi-nation coalition to fight the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen,
but the Saudis are bogged down in a quagmire and may actually be
losing. Pakistan has refused from the beginning to join the
coalition, because it wants to continue having good relations with
Iran.

The statement issued after the meeting was non-committal.
"[Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz] Sharif and the Saudi defense
minister pledged to further enhance the bilateral ties between the two
brotherly countries and strengthen their cooperation in diverse
fields."

Nonetheless, Pakistan is closely tied to Saudi Arabia, and is even
heavily dependent on the Saudis. Possibly the greatest symbol of this
dependence is that already over 100,000 Pakistanis have traveled to
Saudi Arabia to perform the yearly pilgrimage of the Hajj, which will
be held in Mecca on September 9-14.

There are also 1.5-2 million Pakistanis living and working in Saudi
Arabia, sending remittances back to their families in Pakistan. And
Pakistan's need for Saudi energy is critical and longstanding. One
reason for China's close relationship with Pakistan is that it opens
up access to the Gulf and Saudi oil. However, Pakistan's relationship
with China goes well beyond that, because of their shared hatred of
India. As we've reported in the past, they describe their
relationship as "all-weather friends," "deeper than the deepest
ocean," "sweeter than honey" and "dearer than eyesight."

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has paid four visits to Saudi
Arabia since January this year. President Mamnoon Hussain also visited
Saudi Arabia last month.

Because of Pakistan's dependence on the Saudis, some analysts believe
that Pakistan is secretly aiding the Saudis in Yemen, and may even
have boots on the ground. According to one analyst, "Pakistan remains
solidly allied with Saudi Arabia, regardless of how intense the
outreach may be from Tehran. There are decades of close military
cooperation that are not about to undone." Deutsche Welle and Al Arabiya and The News (Pakistan)

****
**** U.S. and India sign a landmark defense agreement
****

During a visit to Washington by India's Defense Minister Manohar
Parrikar, the US and India signed a landmark defense agreement Tuesday
that will increase the military cooperation between the two countries.

India has resisted this agreement in the last decade for fear that the
agreement would aggravate China, and would lock India into a formal
and irreversible military alliance and push New Delhi into supporting
U.S. conflicts. However, in recent years India has become
increasingly nationalistic, leading to the election of a nationalistic
prime minister, Narendra Modi, making this defense agreement with the
US possible.

Still, the agreement signed on Tuesday is extremely limited, in order
allay Indian concerns. The agreement authorizes port visits, joint
exercises, joint training, humanitarian assistance and disaster-relief
efforts, and it streamlines relations between the two militaries.
However, the agreement "does not create any obligations on either
party to carry out any joint activity. It does not provide for the
establishment of any bases or basing arrangements," according to
India.

According to one military analyst:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"For the US, this is one part of the much larger pivot
> to Asia intended by President Obama to meet a rising China. The US
> Navy plans to deploy 60 percent of its surface ships in the
> Indo-Pacific in the near future. Instead of having to build
> facilities virtually from the ground up, as in Afghanistan and
> Iraq, the US has the benefit of simple arrangements for the
> tremendous Indian facilities.
>
> For both the US and India, [the agreement] responds to the
> powerful challenge of Xi Jinping's artificial islands - with air
> bases — in the South China Sea. It may also matter against the
> common enemy of the US and India in radical
> jihadists."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Earlier this year, U.S. Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. said at an event in
New Delhi that soon the naval vessels of the two nations steaming
together “will become a common and welcome sight throughout
Indo-Asia-Pacific waters.” The statement was aimed at countering
China's expanding military footprint in the region and echoed
Washington’s expectation that India will play the role of a net
security provider in Asia. Washington Post and Times of India


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan,
India, Iran, Syria, Yemen, South China Sea, Russia,
Mohammad bin Salman, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, Bashar al-Assad,
Silk Road Economic Belt, 21st Century Maritime Silk Road,
Nawaz Sharif, Mamnoon Hussain, Manohar Parrikar, Narendra Modi,
Harry B. Harris Jr.

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

[Cynic Hero '86]

A US-Russia-India alliance would have a favorable cultural glue as would a Sino-Sunni alignment, and Generationaldynamics uses generational and cultural/political alignments to predict alliances. But this is where Generationaldynamics runs aground in my opinion: countries don't form alliances based on cultural compatibility or whether the common citizenry has a favorable opinion of various countries: Nations make alliances based on national interests. That is why Russia, China and Iran ganging up to attack the US is much more likely than a US/Russia vs China/Arabs war.

This is also true of domestic politics as well: If you used the generational dynamics method to predict the current election, you would likely predict that hillary would be elected. This is because the Cultural and generational DNA of the USA as it existed for the last 100 to 120 years (or the last 5 to 6 generations) to have continuity with that political and cultural DNA, a second Clinton presidency would be favored. However this is not the case as the majority of the American people reject the 2T values and to a partial extent the previous 4T and the previous (missionary/progressive) 2T values. That is why a Trump presidency would occur. That the Current administration attempts to move toward certain alliances, is irrelevant if the incoming administration not only repudiates those policies but also the entire value system of not just the previous administration but repudiates the entire value system of the last 7 or 8 administrations. Once that occurs the course of geopolitical events are likely to move in an entirely different direction altogether.

[John J. Xenakis]

I never refer to cultural/political alignments. I do refer to
identity groups, but those are based on history. Cultural
relationships are often the most vitriolic, as can be seen in any
divorce court. On the other hand, sometimes the people who stab you
in the back are the ones that you're emotionally dependent on, since
the sex is so good after you make up.

There's absolutely no history to support the belief that Russia and
China are going to be united on anything except ephemerally. They
hate each other, they've been in massive bloody wars with each other
for centuries, and they were close to war as recently as 1970. China
is totally disgusted with Russia for the collapse of Russia's
communist party. Their respective client states, India and Pakistan,
are close to thermonuclear war. They're competing for resources in
Russia's Far East and in Central Asia. Russia is on Vietnam's side in
the South China Sea.

They only have one thing in common. They're both imitating Hitler by
annexing regions belonging to other nations, they're both contemptuous
of the United States and the United Nations. Those "commonalities"
could dissolve at a moment's notice.

Actually, they do have one more thing in common. They both want to
kill jihadists in Syria - Caucasians and Uighurs. But China is allied
with Saudi Arabia and Russia is allied with Iran, so that part of
Utopia won't last for long either.

As for domestic politics, Chaos Theory tells us that you can't predict
elections.

[Cynic Hero '86]

(09-01-2016, 09:26 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I never refer to cultural/political alignments.  I do refer to
identity groups, but those are based on history.  Cultural
relationships are often the most vitriolic, as can be seen in any
divorce court.  On the other hand, sometimes the people who stab you
in the back are the ones that you're emotionally dependent on, since
the sex is so good after you make up.

There's absolutely no history to support the belief that Russia and
China are going to be united on anything except ephemerally.  They
hate each other, they've been in massive bloody wars with each other
for centuries, and they were close to war as recently as 1970.  China
is totally disgusted with Russia for the collapse of Russia's
communist party.  Their respective client states, India and Pakistan,
are close to thermonuclear war.  They're competing for resources in
Russia's Far East and in Central Asia.  Russia is on Vietnam's side in
the South China Sea.

They only have one thing in common.  They're both imitating Hitler by
annexing regions belonging to other nations, they're both contemptuous
of the United States and the United Nations.  Those "commonalities"
could dissolve at a moment's notice.

Actually, they do have one more thing in common.  They both want to
kill jihadists in Syria - Caucasians and Uighurs.  But China is allied
with Saudi Arabia and Russia is allied with Iran, so that part of
Utopia won't last for long either.

As for domestic politics, Chaos Theory tells us that you can't predict
elections.

China has no alliance with the Saudis, The Saudis are a US ally, as are the Turks, the Egyptians and the Israelis. China has far more military links with Iran. If Iran and Saudi Arabia went to war today, China would have to side with Iran.

As for domestic politics you mention the policies of the current Obama administration as if they will stick, If the incoming trump administration has sworn to repudiate everything the current Obama administration does ( as well as many long-standing policies followed by the previous 4 or 5 administrations). How can the current policies become the basis of the 4T policy if they are repudiated?

[Cynic Hero '86]

(09-01-2016, 09:26 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I never refer to cultural/political alignments.  I do refer to
identity groups, but those are based on history.  Cultural
relationships are often the most vitriolic, as can be seen in any
divorce court.  On the other hand, sometimes the people who stab you
in the back are the ones that you're emotionally dependent on, since
the sex is so good after you make up.

There's absolutely no history to support the belief that Russia and
China are going to be united on anything except ephemerally.  They
hate each other, they've been in massive bloody wars with each other
for centuries, and they were close to war as recently as 1970.  China
is totally disgusted with Russia for the collapse of Russia's
communist party.  Their respective client states, India and Pakistan,
are close to thermonuclear war.  They're competing for resources in
Russia's Far East and in Central Asia.  Russia is on Vietnam's side in
the South China Sea.

They only have one thing in common.  They're both imitating Hitler by
annexing regions belonging to other nations, they're both contemptuous
of the United States and the United Nations.  Those "commonalities"
could dissolve at a moment's notice.

Actually, they do have one more thing in common.  They both want to
kill jihadists in Syria - Caucasians and Uighurs.  But China is allied
with Saudi Arabia and Russia is allied with Iran, so that part of
Utopia won't last for long either.

As for domestic politics, Chaos Theory tells us that you can't predict
elections.

China has no alliance with the Saudis right now Just trade and weapon shipment arrangements, The Saudis are a US ally, as are the Turks, the Egyptians and the Israelis. China has far more military links with Iran. If Iran and Saudi Arabia went to war today, China would have to side with Iran. Also Russia is on China's side in the SCS, they are scheduled to carry out joint military exercises there.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/milit.../87651530/

As for domestic politics you mention the policies of the current Obama administration as if they will stick, If the incoming trump administration has sworn to repudiate everything the current Obama administration does ( as well as many long-standing policies followed by the previous 4 or 5 administrations). How can the current policies become the basis of the 4T policy if they are repudiated?

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 2-Sep-16 World View -- UK's 'junior doctors' call a devastating 5-day strike against the National Health Service

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• UK's National Health Service continues to slash services to survive
  
• UK's 'junior doctors' call a devastating 5-day strike against the National Health Service
  
• Obamacare in severe death spiral, as insurers bleed billions
  

****
**** UK's National Health Service continues to slash services to survive
****


Protester against cuts to UK's National Health Service (Daily Mail)

As we reported a year ago, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is
facing an existential crisis, with a huge and accelerating deficit
expected to reach 22 billion pounds ($32 billion) by 2020. ( "5-Aug-15 World View -- Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faces existential financial crisis"
)

The system is deeply corrupt, with doctors falsifying records,
claiming for work that was never done, or putting in for bogus
overtime. Dentistry services are so bad that people are buying
"do-it-yourself (DIY) dentistry kits" to take care of their whole
families, as was done centuries ago.

Because the NHS bureaucracy is so old and bloated, and because the
services are "free," costs can only be controlled by rationing,
queuing, reduced quality and artificial cost suppression. UK's
doctors earn far less than doctors in other countries, and UK
specialists earn about half of what they do in America. As a result,
UK's homegrown doctors have left to work in other countries, and NHS
has had to import 28% of its doctors from abroad, usually from poorer
countries where low UK salaries look attractive.

General practitioner (GP) appointments are limited to 10 minutes,
requiring some doctors see up the 60 patients in a 10-hour day. And
yet, NHS commissioners are planning to cut GPs by 1/3 in the next ten
years, and cut GP appointments by 24%. GPs will be replaced with
cheaper, easier-to-train physician associates, nurses and pharmacists.

At the same time, population is rising and aging, as new people are
born and old people are getting older. In East London, for example,
where population is rising rapidly, the plan is to cut 136 GPs by
2020, and replace them with 58 more pharmacists, 25 more physician
associates, and 49 more nurses. That is, 136 high-cost doctors will
be replaced by 132 much cheaper people. In addition, a number of
hospitals are slated for closure.

Many analysts believe that NHS commissioners are either in denial
about trying to save NHS, or a lying to the public. According to
Helen McKenna, a senior policy adviser:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Politicians need to be honest with the public about
> what the NHS can offer with the funding allocated to it.
>
> It is no longer credible to argue that the NHS can continue to
> meet increasing demand for services, deliver current standards of
> care and stay within its budget. This is widely understood within
> the NHS and now needs to be debated with the public.
>
> There are no easy choices, but it would be disastrous to adopt a
> mindset that fails to acknowledge the serious state of the NHS in
> England today."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

In other words, UK's National Health Service is in a death spiral, and
no one wants to say so. Chronicle Live (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) and Guardian (London) and BBC (11-Jul) and
GP Online (UK)

****
**** UK's 'junior doctors' call a devastating 5-day strike against the National Health Service
****

The British Medical Association (BMA), the labor union representing
doctors in the UK's National Health Service (NHS), will stage an
England-wide 5-day strike for the week of September 12-16.

The walkout will be devastating for patients. About 100,000
operations and one million hospital appointments will be postponed.

One patient, Simon Emmet, quoted by the BBC has a kidney stone
and is waiting for surgery. The surgery was scheduled for four
weeks (it would have been less than one week in the US),
but with the strike, he expects it to be delayed.

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I can't see that the strikes won't delay my
> surgery. There are only two people at the hospital that can carry
> it out, meaning I already have a four-week waiting time.
>
> I've been to A&E [emergency room] with abdominal pain twice in the
> last week. I constantly feel nauseous and I'm in constant pain. I
> have to take very strong painkillers which make me drowsy.
>
> I work from home as an IT consultant and I have to balance taking
> enough painkillers so I can work through the pain but no so many
> that I'm too dopey to work. Often I end each day in so much pain
> that I just lie on the floor waiting for the next day's work.
>
> I'd really like to believe the doctors have the patient's best
> interest at heart but it doesn't seem right. They've been arguing
> about this for three years."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

This patient is covered by free medical insurance, but can only
go to one hospital with two doctors. In America, you have to
pay for medical insurance, but the patient can go to any number
of private clinics and get it done quickly.

The labor dispute is centered on overtime work on evenings and
weekends, which is usually assigned to the "junior doctors." Since
the NHS is facing economic disaster, there was no money available for
large increases in pay that the BMA demanded. So, the government
offered a contract that would pay more to doctors that do a lot of
work on weekends, and would pay less to other doctors.

The BMA recommended that its membership accept the revised contract,
but the membership rejected it in July by a vote of 58% to 42%.

The BMA announced on Wednesday that junior doctors will strike from
September 12-16. The BMA is scheduling additional walkouts for
October 5-7 and 10-11, November 14-18, and December 5-9.
WebMD (UK) and BBC and Guardian (London)

****
**** Obamacare in severe death spiral, as insurers bleed billions
****

I saw Mark Bertolini, the CEO of health insurer Aetna, on television
numerous times in the last few years. He always expressed concerns
about Obamacare, but repeatedly said that he was going to make it
work, and he expected Aetna's Obamacare insurance to break even in
2016, or in 2017 at the latest. As late as spring of this year, he
announced plans for Aetna to expand Obamacare coverage of 2017.

On August 15, Aetna announced major cutbacks in Obamacare coverage. I
saw Bertolini on CNBC that morning, and he was asked why things had
changed since the spring. He said, "Losing $200 million in the second
quarter really focuses my mind."

Aetna announced it will exit 11 of the 15 health-insurance exchanges
where it sells Obamacare plans. Other companies, including
UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico,
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, and Texas’ Scott and White
Health Plan, have all announced similar massive losses, and have all
made similar announcements.

In 2016, half the states saw premiums on Obamacare plans increase by
30% or more. The premiums in 2017 are beginning to rise even faster,
at 44% or more.

Even worse, Pinal County in Arizona will have absolutely no Obamacare
plans to purchase. That means that 10,000 families in that country
will lose their health insurance at the end of 2016, with nowhere else
to go. The average proposed premium rate increase among all insurers
for 2017 plans in Arizona tops 65%.

Let's review how we got here.

As long time readers are well aware, 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.

Nixon's price controls were the typical plan that loony left loves --
use government regulations to keep prices low, at a time when
inflation was at 4%. It's a great idea, and one that "progressive"
and left-wing politicians absolutely adore, because they're low IQ's
and limited mental capacities make them incapable of understanding
that giving things away for free only creates economic disaster, as it
always has in history. Nixon was forced to repeal the price
controls because there were huge shortages of many things, and
inflation was skyrocketing to 12%.

We've recently been seeing the same thing happen in Venezuela, in a
more extreme form. Citizens have to queue for hours to get basics
like milk, rice, flour, ketchup, diapers, and toilet paper. Crime and
violence are becoming rampant. 75% of Venezuelan homes now live in
poverty, compared to 27% just two years ago. The inflation rate was
275% in 2015, and still surging. The government has ordered the
jailing of factory owners if their factories cannot produce products
as ordered.

So now the same thing is happening with Obamacare. President Obama
has been able to stall for years by stealing billions of dollars in
funds meant for other purposes. We haven't yet seen President Obama
order the jailing of insurance company CEOs for withdrawing from
Obamacare. But this is an administration that earlier this year
threatened to use RICO racketeering laws to prosecute organizations,
corporations, and individual scientists who are climate change
deniers. As Obamacare spirals into disaster, anything is possible.

And as always at times like this, I like to remind readers that
Obamacare's principal architect, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, said
that Obamacare passed because of "the stupidity of the American
voter." Gruber was talking about Obamacare supporters. Time and
Business Wire - Aetna (15-August) and Fox News and Daily Signal (8-Aug)

Related Articles

• Venezuela economy close to collapse as Maduro orders jailing of factory owners (15-May-2016)
  
  
• Healthcare.gov -- The greatest software development disaster in history (23-Aug-2015)
  
• Obamacare: 500M lines of code, $500M, only 60% completed (1-Dec-2013)
  
  
• History of President Richard Nixon's Wage-Price Controls (5-Jul-13)
  
  
• Obama's health plan, a proposal of economic insanity (25-July-2009)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, United Kingdom, National Health Service, NHS,
Helen McKenna, British Medical Association, BMA, Simon Emmet,
Obamacare, Aetna, Mark Bertolini, UnitedHealthcare, Humana,
Richard Nixon, Nixon's Wage-Price Controls, Venezuela,
Jonathan Gruber

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

[Cynic Hero '86]

There is one prediction that JohnX made ten years ago that he got right: Xers and Millennials will identify with the GOP instead of with democrats. He Just did not realize that it was not the GOP of Bush that millies will embrace; instead it was the GOP of TRUMP.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 3-Sep-16 World View -- Japan and Russia may settle post-World War II Kuril Islands dispute

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Japan and Russia may settle post-World War II Kuril Islands dispute
  
• Reading between the lines: Russia, Japan, China, India and border disputes
  

****
**** Japan and Russia may settle post-World War II Kuril Islands dispute
****


Shinzo Abe and Vladimir Putin on Friday

Both Japan and Russia seem determined to resolve the last major issue
that has kept the countries from signing a peace treaty to formally
mark the end of World War II.

When World War II ended in 1945 with Japan's surrender, Russia annexed
four islands in Japan's Northern Territory, known to Russia as the
Kuril Islands. The Soviet Union and Japan reestablished diplomatic
relations in 1956, but they failed at that time to resolve the island
dispute. In fact, over the decades, there have been multiple attempts
at negotiating a resolution to the dispute, but those attempts have
all been derailed for various reasons. The most recent attempt
occurred in 2014, but that was derailed as well because Japan had to
withdraw because of international sanctions imposed on Russia, after
Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

However, this week there was outreach from both sides to resolve the
issue, culminating in a meeting on Friday between Russia's president
Vladimir Putin and Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe. The meeting
took place in Vladivostok, a port city in Russia's Far East. Abe’s
trip to Vladivostok was a rare visit to Russia by a Western leader, in
view of the sanctions.

In an interview prior to the meeting, Putin that Russia "would very
much like to find a solution to this problem with our Japanese
friends":

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We do not trade territories although concluding a
> peace treaty with Japan is certainly a key issue and we would like
> to find a solution to this problem together with our Japanese
> friends. ...
>
> It has nothing to do with any kind of exchange or sale. It is
> about the search for a solution when neither party would be at a
> disadvantage, when neither party would perceive itself as
> conquered or defeated."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Friday's talks continue a discussion that began at a meeting between
the two leaders in May, in which Abe was said to be trying an entirely
"new approach" to reach an agreement. At the talks, Abe laid out an
eight-point plan for cooperating in the revitalization of the Russian
Far East, including energy development and the construction of
state-of-the-art hospitals among other areas.

In return, Abe will ask for return of two of the four disputed
islands, while continuing talks on the fate of the other two, say
sources.

At Friday's Vladivostok meeting, Abe said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I had substantially deep discussions about a peace
> treaty (with Putin). To achieve a breakthrough in the abnormal
> situation where a peace treaty has never been concluded for over
> 70 years, there is no other way than finding a solution based on
> the leaders’ trust. ...
>
> I believe the development of the Far East region with big
> potential is Russia’s top priority issue. The growth of the
> Asia-Pacific leads the global economy. Japan, as Russia’s
> neighbor, will promote Japan-Russia cooperation in the region
> strongly."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

However, analysts say that whatever economic incentives Abe offers,
they will almost certainly not be enough to overcome the strong
nationalistic feelings of the Russian people toward ownership of the
Kuril Islands.

There are plans to talk again, when Putin visits Japan on December 18.
Siberian Times and Nikkei (Tokyo) and Japan Times (7-May) and Kyodo

****
**** Reading between the lines: Russia, Japan, China, India and border disputes
****

When we try to analyze the intentions of different nations from the
point of view of Generational Dynamics, we use a variety of analytical
and historical tools. If two neighboring countries are headed for a
major war, the chances are that border disputes will become a major
casus belli that both sides will use to justify the war, in
order to excuse and explain the mutual extermination of their
civilians. Thus, any behaviors exhibited prior to any war can be
analyzed as a strong sign of the intensity of a future war.

As we look at various border disputes around the world, we see some
very dramatic and stark differences.

Japan and Russia were enemies during World War II, and yet their
current discussions of the Kuril Islands are anything but hostile.
Even if it takes time to reach an agreement, the compromising and
conciliatory tone of the negotiations, and the fact that negotiations
are taking place at all, suggest that these two nations will not be
going to war.

Now contrast that with China's various border disputes -- with Japan
in the East China Sea, with Vietnam and the Philippines in the South
China Sea, and with India over their land border. No one would ever
accuse the Chinese of being conciliatory.

China is militarizing the South China Sea by building artificial
islands and annexing regions belonging to other countries.

Last month, China used a different technique to militarize the East
China Sea. It sent a huge fleet of 240 fishing boats to the region
around Japan's Senkaku Island, and then used the fishing boats as an
excuse to send in over a dozen military patrol boats, presumably to
"protect" the fishing boats.

One doesn't have to be a psychic to see that while Russia is NOT
headed to war with Japan, China IS headed for with Japan, as well as
with Vietnam and the Philippines.

Similarly, China has ruled out any negotiations with a very bitter
border dispute with India. It's clear that China is also headed to
war with India.

On the other hand, China also has a border disagreement with Pakistan,
but there's no vitriol over that, as both countries describe their
relationship as "all-weather friends," "deeper than the deepest
ocean," "sweeter than honey" and "dearer than eyesight." Tass (Moscow, 8-Aug) and Reuters (9-Aug) and India Today (17-July)

Related Articles

• Philippines humiliates China in harsh Hague Tribunal ruling over South China Sea (13-July)
  
  
• Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China sign economic and military agreements (1-Sep)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Japan, Northern Territory, Kuril Islands,
Vladimir Putin, Abe Shinzo, Vladivostok, China, India, Senkaku Islands,
Vietnam, Philippines, Pakistan

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]

(09-02-2016, 06:11 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > There is one prediction that JohnX made ten years ago that he got
> right: Xers and Millennials will identify with the GOP instead of
> with democrats. He Just did not realize that it was not the GOP of
> Bush that millies will embrace; instead it was the GOP of
> TRUMP.

I don't remember making the prediction, and it doesn't sound like
something that I believed ten years ago.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 4-Sep-16 World View -- Bashar al-Assad's Syrian army once again close to collapse

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey sends more tanks into Syria in 'New Phase' of military action
  
• Syrian rebels capture 14 villages near Hama in four days
  
• Bashar al-Assad's Syrian army once again close to collapse
  

****
**** Turkey sends more tanks into Syria in 'New Phase' of military action
****


A Turkish tank in Suruc, near the Syrian border, on Saturday. (AP)

A large number of Turkish tanks crossed the border into Syria, and
many more are massed on the border, ready to cross, in what Turkey is
calling a "new phase" of its military action in Syria.

Turkey's tanks are supported by thousands of Free Syrian Army (FSA)
rebels who have been fighting both the so-called Islamic State (IS or
ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units
(YPG). Both the FSA and the YPG are backed by the US military, even
though they're fighting each other. The US administration favors the
YPG because it's been the major fighting force against ISIS, which the
US considers a threat to its national security.

Last week, US vice president Joe Biden issued a demand to the Kurdish
YPG forces to move back east and remain east of the Euphrates River.
( "29-Aug-16 World View -- US forced to choose between two close allies, as Turks bomb Kurds in Syria"
)

The Syrian Kurds have been the most effective US ally in fighting ISIS
in Syria, but they've had another major objective -- namely to take
control of a region along almost the entire Syria-Turkey border, in
order to declare an independent Kurdish state called Rojava. This
plan is anathema to both Turkey and Syria. Although Turkey's tanks
are nominally fighting ISIS, there's little doubt that the principal
target is the YPG.

The Kurds now see themselves the victims of betrayal by the United
States, and have vowed to fight to the death to stop Turkey from
"invading the region." Anadolu (Turkey) and BBC and
Independent (London) and Hurriyet (Ankara)

****
**** Syrian rebels capture 14 villages near Hama in four days
****

From Tuesday to Friday of the last week, Syria's anti-regime rebels
conducted the biggest coordinated rebel assault in Hama province since
2014, and seized control at least 14 villages. The rebels came under
heavy air attacks by the air force of Syria's president Bashar
al-Assad, as well as by Russian warplanes.

Hama province is of strategic importance, because it connects
rebel-controlled Idlib province to Damascus. But it also carries a
great deal of symbolic importance. Hama was the site of some of the
first anti-Assad protests at the beginning of the "Arab Spring" in
2011. At that time, al-Assad responded to the peaceful protests by
shelling civilian neighborhoods and shooting protestors on sight.

But it was also the site of the bloodiest massacre by al-Assad's
father Hafez al-Assad in the Syrian civil war. Syria's last
generational crisis war was the civil war that climaxed in 1982 with
the massacre at Hama. There was a massive uprising of the 400,000
mostly Sunni citizens of Hama against Syria's president Hafez
al-Assad, the current president's father. In February, 1982, al-Assad
turned the town to rubble, 40,000 deaths and 100,000 expelled. Hama
stands as a defining moment in the Middle East. It is regarded as
perhaps the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its
own people in the modern Middle East. But once the Hama was
destroyed, the anti-government movement against Hafaz al-Assad pretty
much ended, as that was the climax of the generational crisis
civil war.

But today's war is not a generational crisis war, but an
Awakening era war, and the rules are different. Today's anti-Assad
rebels still have fresh memories, either personally or through
their parents, of the 1982 massacre, and they're not going to
allow anything like that to stop them this time.

The larger picture is that the rebel assault on Hama has a strategic
objective of forcing al-Assad to split his forces between Hama and
Aleppo, the latter being the city where Syrian forces have been trying
to take control for months. ( "8-Aug-16 World View -- Syrian regime apparently suffers major setback in Aleppo"
) The regime declared several times that
victory was at hand, only to be defeated each time. Al-Jazeera and Syria Direct (Lebanon) and Al-Jazeera (5-July-2011)

****
**** Bashar al-Assad's Syrian army once again close to collapse
****

During 2015, we repeatedly reported that the army of Syria's president
Bashar al-Assad was near collapse, after al-Assad's army suffered a
number of significant major setbacks, and was being crippled by
massive desertions. ( "8-Apr-15 World View -- Bashar al-Assad's Syria army showing signs of collapse"
)

Al-Assad was saved by the massive intervention by Russia, Iran
and Hezbollah. However, al-Assad's government is rotten to the
core, and the Russian military intervention appears to have
save al-Assad only temporarily, as the army is once again
showing signs of collapse.

Mideast expert Scott Lucas, a professor at Birmingham University,
described the situation in an interview on RFI. He said that the
attack on Hama has forced al-Assad to split his forces between Hama
and Aleppo (my transcription):

> [indent]<QUOTE>"What we've seen in the past week does raise the
> prospect he may lose Hama city, which is the 4th largest city in
> Syria.
>
> The majority of the local population is against the regime there,
> and it's really in effect been an occupying force in Hama since
> early in the uprising.
>
> [The regime is] trying to get back into this artillery base in
> Aleppo, and they're putting up wave after wave of attacks to be
> able to do this, and they may be able to claim this one victory,
> but the problem is that they've got to this on multiple fronts
> now. They not only have to be able to secure areas on the Aleppo
> front, they've got to be able to push the rebels back on the Hama
> front.
>
> We knew this a year ago. At the time when the rebels took the
> entire Idlib province up in the northwest, we knew that there were
> manpower problems, because president Assad came out and said it.
> He sort of warned his population almost in a sense that the
> military was on the point of collapse.
>
> What saved the regime at that point was this massive intervention
> by the Russians, in terms of the aerial operations, in combination
> with a sharp escalation of Iranian and Hezbollah support,
> including not only Iranian units, but Iranian-led foreign
> militias, especially the use of Iraqis and Afghan militias. ...
>
> We're now looking at a [i]de facto partitioning of the
> country. You're going to have Kurdish areas of Syria up in the
> northeast, because the Kurds have pushed back the Islamic State.
> The rebels who now of course have Turkish support will hold parts
> of the north and the northwest. The Assad regime, which can no
> longer hold a national government, will try to hold the line from
> the Mediterranean through Homs to Damascus, and president Assad
> will hope to continue to remain in power as president of not all
> of Syria but at least part of it."<END QUOTE>[/i][/indent]

Other reports indicate a crashing economy with surging inflation, and
growing infighting stemming from massive corruption. War On The Rocks


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Syria, Free Syrian Army, FSA,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish People’s Protection Units, YPG, Rojava,
Hama, Aleppo, Arab Spring, Hafez al-Assad, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah,
Scott Lucas

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]

*** 5-Sep-16 World View -- Anti-immigrant party in Germany hands Angela Merkel a stinging defeat

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Migrants from Libya to Italy surge in the Mediterranean
  
• Anti-immigrant party in Germany hands Angela Merkel a stinging defeat
  

****
**** Migrants from Libya to Italy surge in the Mediterranean
****


Rescuing an overcrowded migrant boat off the Libyan coast (Reuters)

Italy's coast guard rescued nearly 10,000 migrants in just two days,
Monday and Tuesday of last week, as the number of migrants risking the
dangerous trip is surging in the mild weather.

The migrants are believed to be mostly from Somalia and Eritrea. More
than 100,000 migrants have made the journey so far in 2016, and 3,000
are estimated to have died.

The deaths are caused by increasingly dangerous practices by people
smugglers. Rubber dinghies are overfilled with migrants to dangerous
levels. The smugglers provide just enough gas and food to allow the
boat to reach international waters in the Mediterranean, where they
can only wait to be rescued by the Italian coast guard before the boat
sinks. It's an unbelievably cynical situation. Deutsche-Welle and Australian Broadcasting and Deutsche-Welle

Related Articles

• Number of migrants reaching Greece surges since Turkey's attempted coup (18-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Increasing anger in Turkey threatens the EU-Turkey migrant deal (28-Aug-2016)
  

****
**** Anti-immigrant party in Germany hands Angela Merkel a stinging defeat
****

Three years after being founded on an anti-euro ticket in 2013, the
right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has scored its
fourth significant regional victory this year, by getting 21% of the
vote in an important regional election in the state of
Mecklenburg-West Pomerania in the former East Germany. AfD has gotten
15.1%, 24.3% and 12.6% of votes in other regional elections this year.

What makes Sunday's vote so significant is that it occurred in the
home district of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, and her
center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party received only 19%,
putting it in third place, not only behind AfD, but also behind the
center-left Social Democrat Party (SPD), which came in first with
30.5% of the vote.

There's little doubt of the reason behind Merkel's stinging defeat.
There was only one major issue in the election campaign, immigration.
It was a year ago that Merkel invited Syrian refugees to come to
Germany with the slogan "Wir schaffen es" ("We can do it"). However,
Germany has taken in 1.1 million refugees in the last year, and Merkel
is being held responsible for any problems that have arisen, including
allegations of rape. ( "7-Jan-16 World View -- German 'Code of Conduct' for women shows pendulum swing on gender issues"
)

The AfD party, founded in 2013, has moved on from its original
anti-euro stance to an anti-immigrant stance, though this has not been
without problems, as there was a split in 2015 when one of the leaders
quit the party, saying that was becoming increasingly xenophobic.
However, as I've written many times, this is consistent with the rest
of the world, as countries around the world become increasingly
xenophobic and nationalistic in this generational Crisis era.
BBC and
Deutsche-Welle and Guardian (London)

Related Articles

• Stephen K. Bannon is named chairman of Donald Trump's campaign (19-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Migration crisis signals historic shifts in Europe and Mideast (24-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Germany's Angela Merkel under pressure to restrict migrants (20-Jan-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Italy, Libya, Somalia, Eritrea,
Germany, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Alternative für Deutschland, AfD,
Christian Democratic Union, CDU, Social Democrat Party, SPD

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]

*** 6-Sep-16 World View -- Sharply polarized Hong Kong electorate hands Beijing a stinging setback

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Sharply polarized Hong Kong electorate hands Beijing a stinging setback
  
• China's relations with Hong Kong and Taiwan set to become more tense
  

****
**** Sharply polarized Hong Kong electorate hands Beijing a stinging setback
****


Radical activist candidate Eddie Chu Hoi-dick (right), celebrates after winning a seat at the legislative council elections in Hong Kong (Macau Daily Times)

Pro-democracy or "localist" candidates won 27 seats out of 70 in
Sunday's elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo).
Although these aren't enough seats to push through new legislation,
they are enough to veto important legislation that pro-Beijing
factions had hoped to pass into law.

The 27 localist seats are even more significant when you consider that
only 35 seats are directly elected by the voters. The other 35 seats
are for "functional constituencies," which are elected by elite voters
in particular professions or trades, such as accounting, finance,
medicine and fisheries, most of which support Beijing because their
members have close ties to China’s Communist elite on the mainland.

China's thuggish policies in Hong Kong have apparently backfired
spectacularly, as the election handed a major setback to Beijing.
Beijing had hoped that more seats would go to pro-Beijing candidates,
but the opposite happened instead.

The turnout was almost as significant as the output. Some 2.2 million
people voted, much more than in past elections, indicating increased
polarization and an intense interest in both sides to "send a
message."

The term "localist" is new this year. It doesn't mean
"pro-independence," because being pro-independent is illegal. But it
means more than "pro-democracy," because the latter refers mostly to
election rules, while "localists" advocate much more self-government,
and much more independence from Beijing.

Before Sunday's election, the pro-Beijing camp held 43 seats, and had
hoped to increase that number to 47, giving them the two-thirds
majority needed to pass constitutional reform, including laws that
would give Beijing much more control over Hong Kong. Instead, the
pro-Beijing camp now has only 40 seats, and the localists can veto any
attempts at constitutional "reform" that would give more power to
Beijing.

A statement from Beijing emphasized that any talk of "Hong Kong
independence" was against the Constitution of China, the Basic Law,
and relevant laws of Hong Kong. The statement accused "certain
organizations and candidates" of publicly advocating for "Hong Kong
independence," and it called on the Hong Kong authorities to punish
these individuals and "to mete out penalties according to law."
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Macau Daily Times and Xinhua and
BBC

****
**** China's relations with Hong Kong and Taiwan set to become more tense
****

During Mao's bloody Communist Revolution, Hong Kong was a British
colony, and many people fled to Hong Kong in the late 1940s to escape
Mao's atrocities. Many remained in Hong Kong, while many others
continued on to the island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan. As the
survivors of Mao's revolution have died off over the decades, and
younger generations have come of age, the populations of both regions
have become more polarized and more tense.

In the past few years, we've seen China become increasingly
nationalistic and militarized. In the South China Sea, China is
building artificial islands and military bases in waters that a United
Nations court recently ruled were the territorial waters of the
Philippines. China is making it clear that it does not recognize any
international authority except its own self-interest, and that it will
use its increasingly powerful military to crush any opposition.

So in China's mainland, young people are increasingly demanding
military action against Hong Kong and Taiwan, while on Hong Kong and
Taiwan, young people are increasingly demanding complete independence
from China.

China has suffered major electoral setbacks in both regions this year.
In January, Taiwan's pro-independence party won an overwhelming
victory, and now on Sunday, Hong Kong's localist activists have won a
very significant victory.

In both Taiwan and Hong Kong, "independence" is a forbidden word, and
Beijing has said it will violently crush anyone who even talks about
it. But pro-independence sentiments are growing in both regions,
while nationalist sentiments are growing in China's mainland. Anyone
can see that this won't end well. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Chatham House (UK) and Manila Times

Related Articles

• China's 'thuggery' transforms Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement into independence movement (30-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Taiwan's pro-independence party wins historic presidential election (17-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Taiwan voters choose independence from China (30-Nov-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Hong Kong, localist,
Legislative Council of Hong Kong, LegCo,
Mao Zedong, Communist Revolution, Taiwan

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]

*** 7-Sep-16 World View -- From 2013: The history of how Syria's Bashar al-Assad created ISIS

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Syrian regime drops chlorine-laded barrel bomb on Aleppo market
  
• From 2013: The history of how Syria's Bashar al-Assad created ISIS
  

****
**** Syrian regime drops chlorine-laded barrel bomb on Aleppo market
****


Partial contents of a Bashar al-Assad barrel bomb (Sky News)

At least 71 people, including 37 children and 10 women, were
hospitalized in Aleppo in Syria on Tuesday with severe breaking
difficulties, after the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad
used helicopters to drop barrel bombs containing chlorine on a crowded
market. Other reports indicate that 120 people were hospitalized.

The al-Assad regime denied that it was responsible for the chemical
weapon attack, and blamed it on "terrorists." However, al-Assad is
the only "terrorist" with access to helicopters, so there's no doubt
that the regime was responsible for the chemical weapons attack.

Last month, the United Nations issued a report concluding that
chemical weapons have been used by the Syrian regime and also by the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).

Once again, there was no doubt that the regime had been the
perpetrators of the chemical weapons attack because the United Nations
"found no evidence that armed opposition groups had been operating
helicopters at the time and location of the cases investigated."

In 2013, the United Nations investigated a Sarin gas attack in Syria,
killing hundreds of people. A U.N. chemical weapons team was
authorized to investigate the incident. However, thanks to a
threatened Russian veto, the U.N. team was forbidden from assigning
blame for the Sarin attack. But the team found a clever way of assigning blame without having to say it.
In their scientific analysis of the evidence, they included
calculations of the trajectories of the rockets that delivered the
Sarin gas. They drew no conclusions about where the rockets were
launched, but they provided enough scientific information within the
report so that experts studying the report could analyze the
trajectories to prove that the rockets must have been launched from a
Syrian Republican Guard unit. AP and Middle East Eye and United Nations (30-Aug)

****
**** From 2013: The history of how Syria's Bashar al-Assad created ISIS
****

There has been much discussion in the news lately about how the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) came into
existence. I happen to be in an excellent position to answer that
question, since I was writing "World View" articles pretty much every
day. I wrote 361 articles in 2013, comprising almost 400,000 words.
So I went back in time to 2013 to see what I wrote about how ISIS was
created, and there's no doubt whatsoever that Syria's president Bashar
al-Assad created ISIS.

Starting around April 2013, there were reports of jihadists from other
parts of the world coming to Syria to fight al-Assad. What was
remarkable is that I was the only person I knew of who was describing
the dangerous consequences of this. Of course I couldn't predict the
formation of ISIS at that time, though I did start to mention ISIS in
October of that year. And I repeatedly predicted that these jihadists
would develop terrorist skills in Syria and bring them back to other
countries to conduct terrorist attacks.

I was particularly contemptuous of the three leaders responsible for
this impending disaster -- Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, Russia's
president Vladimir Putin, and Iran's supreme leader Seyed Ali
Khamenei. Even then it was clear to me that this these three idiots
were going to cause a huge disaster and Mideast and beyond. And as I
said, no one else was writing about this.

I was also contemptuous of president Obama's flip-flop on the Sarin
gas red line. That's the reason that no one else was writing about
this -- because it gave the lie to Obama's claim that things were
under control in the Mideast, and the mainstream media didn't
dare to write anything critical of Obama.

The flow of jihadists into Syria began as a trickle, but turned
into a flood because of two events.

The Mideast changed dramatically on April 30, when Sayyed Hasan
Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanon-based Shia terror group
Hezbollah, gave a televised saying that Hezbollah would militarily
enter the fight in Syria on the side of the regime of Syria's
president Bashar al-Assad, and then followed up by winning an
overwhelming victory against Syria's opposition in Qusair. That was
the point in time when Syria's civil war turned into a war between
Sunnis and Shias in the Mideast. Nasrallah was acting under orders
from Iran.

The second event was President Obama's flip-flop on his "red line"
declaration, after al-Assad used Sarin gas on his own people. It's
hard to overestimate the impact of this flip-flop, because it made it
clear to everyone -- al-Assad, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc. --
that for the first time in decades, the United States would no longer
be a force for peace in the Mideast. After this, everyone knew that
they could do anything they wanted with impunity.

With tens of thousands of jihadists flooding into Syria to fight
al-Assad, it was only a matter of time when there would be total
disaster, and that's what's happened. These thousands of jihadists
joined together to form ISIS, and I blame it entirely on the
unbelievably stupid actions of al-Assad, Putin, and Khamenei.

I put the collection of 2013 excerpts into a posting in the Generational Dynamics forum.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Aleppo,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Iran, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,
Hezbollah, Turkey, Saudi Arabia

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]

*** 8-Sep-16 World View -- Darfur in Sudan facing new genocide as refugees are expelled from camps

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Darfur in Sudan facing new genocide as refugees are expelled from camps
  
• Generational history of the Darfur war
  

****
**** Darfur in Sudan facing new genocide as refugees are expelled from camps
****


Celebrity star George Clooney visiting a Darfur refugee camp in 2008 (AP)

The ongoing genocidal massacre in Darfur, the far western province of
Sudan, is almost completely forgotten today in the West, and is no
longer as chic and high fashion an issue as it was ten years ago.

Ten years ago, politicians and celebrity stars, led by George Clooney,
were anxious to appear on the evening news shows to demonstrate what
caring and concerned people they were, and to suggest some politically
correct way to end the genocide. Running for the president in 2008,
Barack Obama declared that Darfur was a “stain on our souls,” and that
“as a president of the United States I don’t intend to abandon people
or turn a blind eye to slaughter.”

Well, he abandoned them. The celebrities and politicians are now long
gone, having done nothing the for the people of Darfur.

In 2007, the a UN Security Council resolution established the United
Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and provided
peacekeeping troops to protect the Darfurians. Millions of people who
were threatened with violence were moved from their villages to camps
for refugees and IDPs (internally displaced persons) controlled by
UNAMID. Today, there are still more than 3.1 million IDPs living in
these refugee camps, and they are still suffering from hunger, thirst,
and attacks from the militias that were attacking them ten years ago.

Sudan's president Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir is blamed for the
ongoing genocide, and for launching the Janjaweed Militias that
perpetrated the actual massacres. In March, 2009, the International
Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, charging
him with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Since
then, al-Bashir has very carefully avoided traveling to any country
where the government might take him into custody and send him off to
the ICC to be tried, and he's still considered to be an international
fugitive.

And so he considers the UNAMID refugee camps, which are at least
partially protected by 19,000 UN peacekeeping troops, to be a personal
humiliation and a humiliation for the government of Sudan, because
they stand as a permanent monument to the genocide and other war
crimes of which he's accused. For those reasons, al-Bashir has wanted
for a long time to close the refugee camps.

On Wednesday, at a major celebration in Sudan's capital city Khartoum,
al-Bashir declared the Darfur war to be over. He said that the
country was now at peace, and that the UNAMID camps are to be closed
by the end of the year. The 3.1 million people in these camps can
return to their original villages, though Sudan may set up some
non-UNAMID refugee camps for the others. In either case, there will
be no peacekeeping troops to protect them from the Janjaweed militias.

Al-Bashir made the announcement at a ceremony attended by two other
Arab leaders -- Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and
Chad's president Idriss Deby.

Meanwhile, fighting is still going on, though not at previous levels.
The Janjaweed militias have been renamed as the Rapid Support Force
(RSF), but their actions haven't changed, and 3.1 million people are
now threatened with renewed massacres from the militias controlled
Omar al-Bashir's militias. AFP and Kigali (Rwanda) Today and Deutsche Welle and Sudan Tribune

****
**** Generational history of the Darfur war
****


Darfur refugee camp - changes from 2005 to 2014. Tarpaulin roofs have been covered with mud bricks as homes have morphed into permanent settlements, packed between narrow alleys. (BBC)

The core issue in the Darfur war is one that I've described many
times -- the battle between farmers and herders. Farmers and herders
have two completely different lifestyles, and in many countries they
come from two completely different ethnic groups. Battles between
farmers and herders occur in country after country, as I've described
many times in Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Sudan,
and even America in the 1800s. The farmers accuse the herders of
letting the cattle eat their crops, while the herders accuse the
farmers of planting on land that's meant for grazing. If the farmers
put up fences, then the herders knock them down.

In Sudan, low level violence began in the 1970s between two ethnic
groups, one of farmers (the "Africans") and the other of camel herders
(the "Arabs"), in the usual disputes over land and water. The
violence increased from year to year, and in the 1990s, Sudan's
government in Khartoum delegated the responsibility of policing the
region to the Arab Janjaweed militias, formed from certain groups of
herders.

Violence continued to increase, and by 2003, it had turned into a
full-scale generational crisis war. That was the time when the world
began to pay attention.

That was only nine years after the Rwanda genocide of 1994, involving
the slaughter of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis by ethnic Hutus, in a
three month period. There had been years of finger-pointing among
politicians for "allowing" the Rwanda genocide to occur, while doing
nothing to stop it.

So by 2004, it had become an international cause to prevent a new
"Rwanda genocide" from occurring in Darfur. There were international
calls to do something, although any such actions were opposed by the
Arab nations in Africa -- Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria and
Chad.

The crisis was all the rage among the glitterati and the hoi polloi.
George Clooney visited Darfur, raised money, addressed the UN, and got
other celebrities to speak out about the atrocities. In 2004, Jesse
Jackson called for sending American troops to Darfur. In 2007,
Senator Joe Biden called for withdrawing all the American troops from
Iraq and sending them to Darfur. Ban Ki-moon blamed the United States
and the West for the genocide in Darfur, by saying that it was caused
by global warming.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, something important
has been missing from the Darfur crisis, and until that missing piece
emerges, the crisis will continue unabated.

The missing piece is the "explosive climax." Every generational
crisis war has to end with an explosive climax, or the war won't end.
Sometimes the explosive climax is literally "explosive," as in the
nuking of Japanese cities at the end of World War II. In other cases,
it's a massacre and atrocity so horrific that it's well-remembered for
decades or even centuries. The Rwanda genocide was such an explosive
crisis. So was the massive slaughter of tens of thousands of Sunnis
from the town of Hama, Syria, in 1982, when Hafez al-Assad turned the
town to rubble.

In the case of Darfur, when I was writing about it ten years ago, I
was expecting this explosive climax to occur at any time. But it
didn't happen because of the massive peacekeeping operation by UNAMID,
starting in 2007, with millions of people moved into peacekeeping
camps where they could be "protected."

But the UNAMID operation did not end the need for an explosive climax;
it only postponed it. The explosive climax MUST happen before the
Darfur war will end.

Although we don't know WHEN the climax will occur, we can take a
pretty good guess about HOW it will occur. You have those 3.1 million
IDPs like sitting ducks in refugee camps, protected by 19,000 UN
troops. One day those troops will be removed, whether or not the
refugee camps are closed. Either way, that will clear the path for
the Janjaweed militias to finish the job they started. That will be
the explosive climax. Sudan Tribune
and Guardian (London, 11-Dec-2014) and BBC (11-Aug-2014)
and Martin Plaut (6-Jan)

Related Articles

• Jesse Jackson calls for sending American troops to Darfur (27-Jul-2004)
  
  
• Women's groups protest rape as a weapon of war in Darfur (11-Dec-2006)
  
  
• Senator Joe Biden wants to move troops from Iraq to Darfur civil war (29-Apr-2007)
  
  
• Ban Ki Moon blames Darfur genocide on global warming / Detailed history of Darfur war (19-Jun-2007)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Sudan, Darfur, Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir,
United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur, UNAMID,
International Criminal Court, ICC, George Clooney,
Janjaweed Militias, Rapid Support Force, RSF,
Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Chad, Idriss Deby,
Rwanda, Syria, Jesse Jackson, Joe Biden, Ban Ki-moon

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]

*** 9-Sep-16 World View -- Saudi Arabia makes a dangerous accusation - that Iranians are 'not Muslims'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Two million Muslims -- but no Iranians -- begin the Hajj pilgrimage on Friday
  
• Saudi Arabia makes a dangerous accusation - that Iranians are 'not Muslims'
  
• Obama warns China not to ignore the Hague tribunal ruling on South China Sea
  

****
**** Two million Muslims -- but no Iranians -- begin the Hajj pilgrimage on Friday
****


View of the streets of Mina at last year's Hajj, where thousands of pilgrims were suffocated or trampled to death. (AP)

Up to 2 million Muslims from around the world have arrived in Saudi
Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca that takes place this
year on September 9-14.

The Hajj is Islam's holiest event, commemorating rituals that date
back to the prophet Abraham, and then codified by the prophet Mohammed
in the Quran. Each Muslim is required to make a pilgrimage to the
Hajj at least once in his lifetime. Last year, about two million
Muslims from 180 countries around the world arrived in Saudi Arabia
for their once in a lifetime Hajj pilgrimage. Around the same number
are expected this year, but with one big exception: Several thousand
Muslims from Iran will not be attending.

At last year's Hajj, two massive crowds of pilgrims converged on the
same narrow street just outside of Mecca, in burning hot weather with
a temperature of 46 degrees centigrade (= 114 degrees fahrenheit).
Over 2000 pilgrims, including several hundred Iranian pilgrims, were
suffocated or trampled to death. Although the catastrophe was
apparently completely unintentional, Iran's leaders have strongly
condemned Saudi Arabia's behavior, saying that the crowds should have
been better managed before, during and after the incident, and even
insinuated that the Saudis had purposely intended for Iranians to be
killed.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran took a major step towards
increased hostility in January of this year, when Saudi Arabia
executed 47 alleged terrorists -- 46 Sunnis and one Shia, Mohammad
Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, infuriating Iran and Shias because it implied that
Shia terrorism is equivalent to Sunni terrorism. Iranian mobs
firebombed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and attacked the consulate in
Meshaad. Saudi Arabia and Iran broke diplomatic relations. Other
Saudi allies followed suit. In May, Iran banned Iranians from
attending the Hajj.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei posted the
following on his personal web site this week:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Those who have reduced hajj to a religious-tourist
> trip and have hidden their enmity and malevolence towards the
> faithful and revolutionary people of Iran under the name of
> “politicizing hajj”, are themselves small and puny satans who
> tremble for fear of jeopardizing the interests of the Great Satan,
> the U.S.
>
> Saudi rulers, who have obstructed the path of Allah and Masjid
> ul-Haraam this year and who have blocked the proud and faithful
> Iranian pilgrims’ path to the Beloved’s House, are disgraced and
> misguided people who think their survival on the throne of
> oppression is dependent on defending the arrogant powers of the
> world, on alliances with Zionism and the U.S. and on fulfilling
> their demands. And on this path, they do not shy away from any
> treason. ...
>
> The fitna-promoting rulers who by forming and arming wicked
> takfiri groups, have plunged the world of Islam into civil wars,
> murdering and injuring the innocent and shed blood in Yemen, Iraq,
> the Levant, Libya and other countries- the godless politicians who
> have extended the hand of friendship towards the Zionist regime,
> have closed their eyes on the Palestinians’ sufferings and
> heartrending tragedies and have spread their oppression and
> betrayal to the cities and villages of Bahrain- the irreligious
> and unconscionable rulers who gave rise to the great tragedy in
> Mina and in the name of being servants of the two holy places,
> sacrificed divine sanctity and God’s guests on the day of Eid in
> Mina and in Masjid ul-Haraam shortly before that- these same
> people are now claiming the need to avoid politicizing hajj and
> are accusing others of the great sins that they themselves have
> committed and caused."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Khamenei went on to call for removing Saudi Arabia as managers of the
two holy places (Mecca and Medina) and the Hajj. Guardian (London) and Ayatollah Khamenei's web site

Related Articles

• After Hajj stampede disaster, Muslims debate the 'Will of Allah' (27-Sep-2015)
  
  
• Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran (18-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Increasingly hostile Iran-Saudi relations affect this year's Hajj (27-May-2016)
  

****
**** Saudi Arabia makes a dangerous accusation - that Iranians are 'not Muslims'
****

Saudi Arabia's leading Sunni Muslim cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh
Abdulaziz Al al-Sheik, responded to a criticism from Iran's Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei by saying:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We must understand that these [Iranians] are not
> Muslims, they are the sons of the Magi, and their hostility to
> Muslims is old and specifically with the Sunnis and the
> community."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The phrase "sons of the Magi" refers to Zoroastrianism, the official
religion of the Sasanian Empire. This empire, which existed for
several centuries before it was defeated by the Arabic Muslim army in
650 AD, is considered by many Iranians today to be the glorious
height of Persian civilization, and an important part of Iran's
cultural heritage, even though Iranians today are Shia Muslims,
not Zoroastrians.

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on his twitter
account by saying, in essence, that it's the Saudis who are not true
Muslims:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians &
> most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi
> terror masters preach."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

This is a very dangerous situation, because it goes to the heart of
many wars between Sunnis and Shias going back almost to the time of
the prophet Mohammed himself. Even if we assume that the leaders of
the two countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are somehow able to remain
cool-headed (a questionable assumption), these two remarks will
trigger anger and possibly terrorist acts by extremists in both
countries.

The question about who is a "true Muslim" dates back to the period
following the death of Mohammed.

The Koran was codified 20-30 years after Mohammed's death. Some of it
had been written down, but many of the texts were based on the
testimony of one or two persons who had been acquainted with Mohammed.
The selection and interpretation of texts was controlled by a
politician (Caliph Uthman) whose clan was to become the Sunnis, and
who was in a bitter political and ideological fight with Ali Ibn Abi
Talib, the first Shia imam. Although some Muslim scholars claim that
the Koran text is unimpeachable, there is nothing in my experience
that leads me to believe that Uthman, who was a politician, didn't
filter all the texts according to his ideological fight with Ali,
exclude some texts contrary to his ideology, and change a word here or
there based on his ideology.

But most of the disagreements between Sunnis and Shias come about from
the selection of the sunnah and hadiths -- statements by Mohammed or
his companions, respectively, preserved in the memories of people, and
passed on from generation to generation, not codified until one or
more centuries later. These statements were filtered by multiple
politicians, and there is nothing in my experience that leads
me to believe that anything beyond a well-defined core set of
sunnah can be considered valid.

So when the Saudi cleric accuses the Iranians of being Zoroastrians,
he's accusing them of recognizing a group of sunnah and hadiths that
Shia Muslims recognize as valid, but Sunni Muslims do not.

Conversely, when the Iranians criticize the Wahhabis, he's accusing
them of adopting an extremely questionable set of sunnah not
recognized by more than a small minority of Sunni Muslims.

So these mutual accusations really go to the deepest core of the
disagreement between Sunnis and Shias. As the war of words continues
to worsen, we will never be far away from the possibility that one
side or the other will translate words into action, as had been the
case for thirteen centuries. First Post and Al-Monitor and Exploring Islam and Professor Philip A. Pecorin, CUNY and Amman Message (2006)

****
**** Obama warns China not to ignore the Hague tribunal ruling on South China Sea
****

President Barack Obama, attending the meeting of the Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), warned China that it must abide by
the ruling United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the
Hague. That ruling eviscerated China's claims to the South China Sea.

Speaking to the national leaders at the summit, Obama said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The landmark arbitration ruling in July, which is
> binding, helped to clarify maritime rights in the region. I
> recognize this raises tensions but I also look forward to
> discussing how we can constructively move forward together to
> lower tensions and promote diplomacy and stability."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

China's foreign ministry spokesman said, "We hope the US can take an
objective and just attitude with respect to South China Sea issues."
What China means by "objective" is to ignore the ruling, which took
three years to reach, and just do whatever China wants.

The Hague ruling makes it clear that China's actions are unambiguously
and "objectively" illegal. China's statements have become
increasingly furious since the Hague ruling, and it's feared that the
ruled has provoked a surge in emotional nationalism in China that
could lead China's military to start a war. AFP and Straits Times (Singapore)

Related Articles

• China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax (22-Jun-2016)
  
  
• South China Sea: China's list of supporters is found to be delusional (24-Jun-2016)
  
  
• Philippines humiliates China in harsh Hague Tribunal ruling over South China Sea (13-Jul-2016)
  
  
• China's military deploys bombers and closes part of the South China Sea (19-Jul-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, Mina, Mecca, Hajj,
Iran, Prophet Abraham, Prophet Mohammed,
Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheik, Magi, Zoroastrianism, Wahhabis,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Koran, Caliph Uthman, Ali Ibn Abi Talib,
China, South China Sea, Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN,
United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration, PCA

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]

*** 10-Sep-16 World View -- Turkey plans assault on Syria's Kurds, as US-Russia announce another peace deal

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey presses to establish a 'no-fly zone' in northern Syria
  
• Turkey's forces and Kurdish forces set to clash in Manbij
  
• US and Russia once again announced a peace deal in Syria
  

****
**** Turkey presses to establish a 'no-fly zone' in northern Syria
****


Hadiya Yousef, Kurdish official leading the effort to create Rojava, a new Kurdish 'federal system' in Syria. (Reuters)

Turkey is continuing with its invasion of Syria, known as Operation
Euphrates Shield, now in its third week. On Thursday, the 15th day of
the operation, Turkey announced that the operation had killed 110 of
the enemy, where the enemy included both fighters from the so-called
Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) and also fighters from the
Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The Turks did not announce how many of the 110 killed were from ISIS
and how many from the YPG, but Turkish officials have said that a
major objective of the invasion was to drive the Kurdish forces back
east, to the other side of the Euphrates River.

Turkey's tanks, planes and special forces crossed the border into
Syria on August 24, backed up by around 1,500 anti-Assad Syrian rebels
called the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Turkey's forces were rushed into
action to drive ISIS out of Syria's border city of Jarablus before the
Kurdish YPG beat them to it.

Now that Turkey's army and the FSA are in control of a large section
of northern Syria, Turkey wants them to stay there by forming a "safe
zone" for refugees. At last week's G20 summit meeting, Turkey's
president Recep Tayyip Erdogan restated this objective, and also
criticized Syria's president Bashar al-Assad:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"At the leaders' summit in Antalya, we said that the
> Syrian crisis could be solved by creating a safe zone for the
> refugees, and we reiterated this. Not a single country took a
> solid step; the Syrian subject continues to be a bleeding
> wound. ...
>
> Right now, in Syria, 600,000 civilians lost their lives. To still
> say 'let Assad stay' seems to me like an embarrassment to
> humanity."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Erdogan also wants the safe zone to be a "no-fly zone," enforced by
the US coalition of warplanes fighting ISIS. However, the Obama
administration opposes a no-fly zone, according to national security
advisor Ben Rhodes:

> [indent]<QUOTE>We do not think a no-fly zone would resolve the
> fundamental issues on the ground because there continues to be
> fighting on the ground.
>
> A no-fly zone would necessarily only be contained to one specific
> area, and we have problems and violence across the
> country."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

However, Rhodes also congratulated Turkey on the operation in
Jarablus:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"It has been a key priority for a long time.
>
> If we can seal that border using Turkish forces, opposition
> forces, with our logistical and air support, I think that would
> help us make a substantial gain against ISIS."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So if I understand Rhodes correctly, the intention is to for Turkish
and FSA forces to remain in place in northern Syria, protected by
coalition warplanes. What's the difference between that and a safe
zone / no-fly zone? I can't tell the difference.

If it isn't a safe zone, then ISIS and the Kurds will attack Jarablus
again. If it isn't protected by coalition air power, then it will be
attacked by Syrian regime warplanes. So we'll have to wait and see
what's going on. Reuters and Middle East Monitor and Hurriyet (Ankara)

Related Articles

• Turkey's 'Operation Euphrates Shield' turns into full-scale invasion of Syria (26-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Turkey's Erdogan announces a complete U-turn on Syria policy (22-Aug-2016)
  

****
**** Turkey's forces and Kurdish forces set to clash in Manbij
****

In January 2014, ISIS captured the city of Manbij, with over 100,000
people, south of Jarablus, west of the Euphrates River.

Early in August, the Kurds had scored a major victory by defeating
ISIS in the city of Manbij. In capturing Manbij, The Kurds' objective
was to continue westward and to control a long strip of land in
northern Syria, and declare an independent state called Rojava,
something that's strongly opposed by Turkey.

Now Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that Turkey's
military operation will continue southward, first to expel ISIS from
the city of Al-Bab, and then to expel the Kurds from the city of
Manbij.

US officials have asked their allies, the YPG Kurds, to retreat from
Manbij and move back to the eastern side of the Euphrates River, but
Hadiya Yousef, a Syrian Kurd politician, says that the Kurds have no
intention of retreating:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We have decided to convene a meeting of the founding
> assembly of the federal system at the start of October, and we
> will declare our system in northern Syrian.
>
> We will not retreat from this project. On the contrary, we will
> work to implement it. The Turkish intervention will not obstruct
> us."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Yousef is co-chair of a 151-member council including Kurds, Arabs,
Turkmen, Assyrians and other groups that will approve a new
constitution known as a "social contract" that plans to form Rojava,
which they describe as a new "federal system" in Syria.

According to Erdogan, both ISIS and the YPG Kurds are terrorists.
However, the Turks and the Kurds are both allies of the United States,
and it looks like they'll be fighting each other. Reuters and Yeni Safak (Ankara) and Reuters (12-April)

Related Articles

• Wild celebrations in Manbij Syria, after major defeat for ISIS (14-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Turkey doubles down on shelling Kurds in Syria (15-Feb-2016)
  

****
**** US and Russia once again announced a peace deal in Syria
****

After what has been described as over ten hours of arguing, US
Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov announced a new "cessation of hostilities," to begin on Monday,
September 12, and last seven days.

The "bedrock of the agreement," according to Kerry, will be to prevent
the air forces of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad from flying combat
missions that target the "moderate rebels," which would exclude the
al-Nusra Front and ISIS. In particular, the agreement would prevent
al-Assad's warplanes from dropping barrel bombs on civilian
neighborhoods, marketplaces, hospitals and schools.

After the cessation of hostilities has been in place for seven days,
then the peace agreement will be extended to include al-Nusra Front,
which in July announced that it had split with al-Qaeda, and renamed
itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

We've now had several years of peace agreements, peace envoys,
cessations of hostilities, but the core problem has always been the
psychopathic Bashar al-Assad, who considers all Sunnis to be like
cockroaches to be exterminated.

In this new peace deal, the Russians have committed to keeping
al-Assad from bombing civilians with barrel bombs. I don't expect
anything to be different this time, but we'll have to wait and see.
BBC
and CNN and Russia Today

Related Articles

• 18-May-16 Syria peace talks in Vienna collapse in farce - again (18-May-2016)
  
  
• During 'peace process' Turkey bombs ISIS targets in northern Syria to set up 'safe zone' (26-Jul-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Syria, Operation Euphrates Shield,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish People’s Protection Units, YPG, Rojava,
Jarablus, Manbij, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Free Syrian Army, FSA,
Ben Rhodes, al-Bab, Hadiya Yousef, John Kerry, Russia, Sergei Lavrov,
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front,
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, JFS, Front for the Conquest of Syria

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