Yes, you read that title correctly, there may be one good thing to come out of this administration of terror, at least for me, and it is the extra learning it has forced me into. Trump talks about maintaining forest floors, I now am a qualified Ministry of Natural Resources officer. My forest Roomba (patent pending) is being tested in the northern Canadian wilderness as I type this. Trump talks about herd mentality/impunity/developed/immunity, or whatever he said/meant, and I'm now a licensed immunologist. Incidentally, am I the only one who, with my nine-year-old sense of humour, heard (or herd) Donald Trump say "turd" there? Here's the video, you be the judge.
So call it what you will, turd mentality, herd immunity, but coupled with the Woodward tapes in which he clearly shows he knew the dangers of the virus, but didn't care, could this have been his plan all along? And I just have to add here, you're president, you're engaged in all manner of shady dealings and chicanery, "SURE person who brought down president Nixon with tape recordings, I'll agree to a taped interview." What kind of a schmuck... but then again, check my last post. If Dunning and Kruger had a love child... THAT, would be Donald Trump, your turd mentality.
But can we get back to herd immunity? Even with the rosiest of Trump-supporting scenarios, that's advocating a couple/few million deaths! Avoidable deaths. Dare I go as far as to say murders? If you can wrap your head around that, it's not such a huge leap of logic to assume he might also have a plan to implement this herd immunity in blue states before November 3rd and red states after, is it??? "Is that how you plan to win the election, Mr. Trump? Do you mind if I record your answer?" "Not at all Mr. Woodward. Now, if you think THAT'S bad, wait'll you hear my plans to eliminate immigration..."
HEY! Another benefit just came to mind! TWO! TWO good things might have come out of this presidency! I have a lesson on tag questions coming up and it has just occurred to me that Trump has provided all the examples I need. "Trump couldn't possibly have intended that... could he?" "Trump isn't a sociopath, is he?" "Trump didn't call the 15-year-old daughter of Michael Cohen a 'piece of ass...' did he?" And you know I could go on. It's sadly apropos to say, but, God help me, now Trump has me researching the middle east. Along with rocket science, brain surgery and learning Korean as a second language, the middle east is an intellectual challenge that few are up to. Even during my knowledge thirsty youth, which inevitably trundled its way into alcohol thirsty middle age, I don't think I was up to it. Now I'd just be happy to get the gist. But it helps if you would like to understand the ludicrous concept of Trump's latest campaign stunt, the UAE and Bahrain "normalization" show! Is there a better example of a political nonsense word than "normalization?" Well, today I want to try to talk about what it means. Not what that whole political dog and pony show want us to THINK it means, but what it literally means. In order to do that, we need to do something I, and Inigo Montoya, are fond of doing: we need to go back to the beginning. Well, no, check that. Sorry, Inigo, but probably, "Let there be light," was the beginning. Let's go back to - let's call it earlier. 1967, when an old fella like me, was a newborn baby. When Canada was only 100 years old. When the Queen was still pretty hot.
It is thought that one effect of the war was the secularism of Muslim countries and the relaxation of strict, harsh rules abruptly ended and reversed course to well into radical dogmatism. This, in turn, is believed to have led to the rise of Muslim extremist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Just read the article above. State nationalism is now frequently cast as pro-Western and retrograde, while Islamism is often cast as revolutionary and patriotic, while the opposite was true before the 6 Day War. Amongst Jewish people Zionism was a bit of a lost cause that was raised from the dead by the 6 Day War. And its influence spread well beyond the Jews as I have written about before in this blog. Proxy wars in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, all over this area that I prefer to call Pipelinistan, are raging and the reasons that people are given for them are very much like religion. No way we'll ever know, just gotta believe what we're told.
The religious zealots closer to home, we'll call them the evangelicals, also breathed new life into their cause via the 6 Day War. They were seeing signs of the end. A righteous abandonment of mankind by God because of our wicked ways. What else could we see? But then a glimmer of hope. The Jews returning to their "homeland!" It was a sign prophesied to pre-empt the second coming. The Jews returning to their homeland meant Jesus was coming back!
Even the Mormons were affected! There is still division, but some believe in the return to Jerusalem as Joseph Smith did, others think the treatment of the Palestinians has been indicative of ungodly occupation. And therein lies the conflict for most anybody who studies the Middle East. It looks very much like the Jews were blowing Joshuan trumpets while they set about one of the most unlikely military defeats, and not just defeats, but comprehensive defeats, the likes of which a GOD might just absolutely influence! But to others the time since that war has diminished the godliness of it and laid bare the unholy underpinnings that prove the absence of any benign deity.
So what the hell bro? I'm sorry to be flippant, but after all this religiosity, what the fucking hell, bro?
If I could answer that question, I wouldn't be writing a blog that will be read by a dozen people. At best. But what I CAN shed some light upon, what this little history lesson has been leading up to, is the abject frivolity of the Donald Trump nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Okay... Israel had plans to annex the west bank. The UAE agreed to "normalize" relations with Israel if they didn't. What a wonderfully nonsensical political word, "normalize!" We'll see what it means in actuality in a minute. So the UAE says NO! Don't destroy the Palestinians who are living there, we'll make a treaty with you to avoid violence! Looks like a peace treaty, doesn't it? Looks like Trump was a catalyst, doesn't it? Well he was, but in the exact opposite way you might think. The UAE was not coerced into doing this by Trump's superior negotiation skills. As he would like the world to think. As might be worthy of a Nobel Prize. No, the actual thing that is happening here, the real meaning of "normalization" is the UAE is acquiescing to dignify and honour Israel's claim to all that land they illegally captured during the 6 Day War.
Most Arab nations have held that they will never do so because the Palestinians, an Arab people, were wronged by it. But the UAE changed their minds. Now what could have led to that? Hmmmmm.... Could it have been an advantage in the stalemate that has kept constantly warring nations from just having it out and killing each other? If you look at the details of the 6 Day War, you will see that the intricacies were like two frightened teenagers who the whole school wanted to fight, but were grasping at reasons not to. Israel decided to invade Damascus. Syria appealed to their treaty with Egypt and the Gamal Abdel Nasser govt to protect them. Jets were shot down. Nasser did nothing. It made him look weak. But he maintained that it was only if Israel tried to take over land that they would defend Syria. Then it looked like Israel was planning to do so. Egypt reluctantly moved troops to Syria in hopes of avoiding a scuffle neither Israel nor Egypt wanted. It worked! Israel laid off. It should have stopped there, but these are big-headed dictators we're talking about here. Nasser, pumped up by his successful show of strength (show being the operative word) decided to cut Israel off from the Straits of Tiran, a key shipping canal between the Sinai Peninsula and the Arabian peninsulas, through which Israel imported oil from Iran. Understand that this is where the masks come off. This is where the politics falls away and reality shows itself. Iran is the arch-enemy of Saudi Arabia. And if you want to talk proxy wars, Iran is backed by Russia and some other usual suspects and Saudi Arabia is backed by the U.S. and some other usual suspects. This WHOLE thing is about, (BIG HUGE SURPRISE) MONEY! Oil, and as I blogged about extensively, and as the world knows so little about, natural gas. Gazprom is up there every year with Microsoft and Amazon with the richest companies in the world. It's a Russian natural gas company and Putin is openly secretly its main shareholder.
I know. This is ridiculously complicated. But if we just go back to the F-35's. Oh, did I forget to mention those? Yeah this PEACE deal that Trump hopes to get a Nobel for, includes fighter jets that could upset the delicate balance of power that has kept the Middle East relatively peaceful for so long. Shit, I forgot to mention that. Oh, and also, Israel has long since been engaged in a treaty with the United States to maintain that delicate balance of power and NOT give weapons or money to any nation in the area that might upset it. Speaking of upset, you can imagine how Israel feels about the idea of those F-35's going to the UAE especially knowing how air superiority was what led to their Davidic win over the Goliath of Egypt and the other nations in the 6 Day War, which was a monumental upset!
What happened? Is there anyone who can explain this? Well as it happens, there is a perfect explanation for it all. And it's far from Nobel Peace Prize material. WHAT A HUGE SURPRISE! There is an expert on the Middle East named Vali Nasr who teaches at Johns Hopkins University. He was asked about what was happening with this "normalization" show. He gave a perfect answer. It has been removed from Youtube because it was so perfect. But here it is on a Facebook page. He says this will change nothing. It only formalizes diplomatic, military and intelligence ties that have been an open secret for a long time. Trump desperately needs a foreign policy victory. North Korea, China and Iran haven't worked out. This will be a popular victory with evangelicals in the US as well. Netanyahu wrote a book in which he stated that he doesn't want to give up land in exchange for peace with Arab countries. Now Bahrain and the UAE can be added to Egypt and Jordan as Arab countries which are okay with Israel's land grab in the 6 Day War. And the UAE? Well they get F-35's.
So if you think this Nobel Peace Prize nomination was a political stunt that was orchestrated close to election day, you'd be right. The guy who nominated Trump was the same guy who nominated him last time. You know, when he got a broner for Kim Jong Un diminishing the chances of dangerous conflict between North Korea AND TRUMP. "I'm gonna bomb North Korea. No I'm not. I just averted disaster, gimme a Nobel Prize." Now he's basically saying, "I created this peace and cooperation that already existed. Gimme a Nobel Prize."
Now Trump is talking at his rallies like he's won a couple of Nobel Prizes. In fact, he's been nominated twice. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were also nominated, so it doesn't mean much. But he is telling people it does and they're believing him. And who is this guy who twice nominated Trump? Christian Tybring-Gjedde is a far right (surprise surprise) Islamaphobic Norwegian politician. He once equated hijabs to KKK hoods. He thinks that people immigrating to Norway is his county's biggest problem. He probably loves Trump's wall. He's as big a fan of Putin as he is of Trump. He is probably kissing Trump's ass to get a spot in his cabinet because he wants to leave his country where everybody hates him.
And as if to put the cherry on top of this absurdity sundae, guess who else was just nominated. Yup, Vladdy Poison-Your-Political-Opponents Putin. Putin the war criminal.
What a whacky world!
And now it turns out there are MORE weapons in store for the UAE as this article attests. Aside from F-35's, they'll get Reaper drones and Growler jets. So you could look at this as the UAE and Bahrain maintaining "peace" in their countries, or, as the article views it, just better enabling themselves to (decidedly UNpeacefully) beat down any insurrection. Also, something I read about but forgot to mention in the article, this gives Trump a better position in case he plans to bring Iran to the bargaining table in the future. And if future talks fail, it may have increased the likelihood of military conflict with Iran.
I'm not sure I qualify, but I'd like to nominate Trump for an Ignoble War Prize. But, in the attitude I so reluctantly, but often adopt, AT LEAST I'm reading more.
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