Give 3 pounds a month, Give 5 pounds a month to save every thing from animal to children, provide hot meals and shelter, cancer research, you name it and it’s begging for funds.
Since the arrival of the internet, social media, algorithms not to mention climate change, our world has been desensitising to what really matters.
Our governments give billions to wars, and the millions airs of the world line their pockets shafting the underdogs with algorithms.
The US has carried out – or been a partner to – 622 overseas bombings in all, using drones or aircraft, since January 20, 2025, when Trump took office.
Russia is engaged in an aggressive campaign of subversion and sabotage against European and U.S. targets, which complement Russia’s brutal conventional war in Ukraine.
Actions below the threshold of conventional warfare have long been an important component of statecraft.
Such as gray zone activity, political warfare, asymmetric conflict, unconventional warfare, and low-intensity conflict.
These types of activities involve using tools of statecraft below the threshold of conventional warfare to shift the balance of power in their favor.
Examples include:
Information and influence operations, including psychological operations and propaganda.
Offensive cyber operations and electronic warfare.
Support to state and non-state partners, such as guerrillas and proxy forces.
Covert and clandestine actions by intelligence and special operations forces, including sabotage and subversion.
Economic coercion.
We need to wrap our heads around what is happening as this is another Titanic waiting to happen.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Nevertheless as things are in the world right now, both Muslims-and non- Muslims are carrying on as though they are two deities- God and Allah, both of them protecting their believers from the other.
Isn’t it pathetic and just doesn’t make intellectual, religious, philosophical or any other kind of sense.
Until we come to grips with this completely irrational and dichotomous ‘ GOD THING’ that has been dividing the world for getting close for 1600 years and still even now the threat of an oft- predicted ‘ clash of civilisation’ —- military, terroristic, religious or otherwise ——- remains.
Why?
Because we are unable to put aside being Muslim, Jew, Christian, or whatever ever and start being human beings? Does it really matter who’s right about a question that doesn’t really have an answer?
If we strip away the prejudice and mutual ignorance — non of us is right—-but a heck of a lot of us have got it wrong
More than ever the world needs unity if we are to leave anything worth while to the generation to come.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAYS THE PEACE Treaties and all other types of ALLIANCES whether they are carved in stone or the blood of kin, whether THEY arc week old or thousand years old can be broken when anybody feels the time is right.
You could wall paper the world with peace treaties. However most wars don’t last a yea with most ending with out solutions. Modern wars go on and on.
Right down the centuries we have been making treaties – from the Vikings to the English Kingdoms – to Spartiens – to the Persians – Spanish Moors – Portugal a- Jews – Arabians – Romans- Hitler- and now the Donald Trump – Putin- Xi Jinping – and Mr Kim Jong.
All of these treaties have an element of I hand over something of value in exchange for loyalty- trade. – protection, or access to something else of importance like water, or mountain pass.
Of course their wording ca be distorted as they come under pressure. And they can be themselves weaponised to produce better outcomes or terms .
Normally they don’t have expiry dates. They usually last for several hundred year.
Some of the Colonists still have Indian treaties in force to the present day.
Normally a ceasefire is established prior to a truce.
One thing that has change as Mr Putin is discovering with his invasion of the Ukraine is that no longer the size of your army that decides the outcome of a war or they negotiations which must follow to stop the war but the ability of your drones in inflicting damages, that will influence any treaty negotiations.,
The Danger man to world peace is Donald Trump who does not know or seems not to understand just how fragile peace can be.
The treaty of Versailles caused the second world war .
Annexing county because one is bigger is and remains a problem.
The question is what can be done to make peace treaties between countries more effective.
For me this has to be achieved as soon as possible.
Let’s start with a constitutions for the earth that has to be contained within all peace deals.
Without the earth there can be no peace deal big or small.
Within this constitution all peace deal big or small must be constructed within these boundaries.
No slavery, no contamination of land water or air, no persecution of religious beliefs, no mass killings.
Of course the question is how or who would one enforce the above
The options are limited to forming a new peace keeping force.
This force could be stationed in the western Sahara where the UN spent years .
This would boost the economics of the surrounding countries. but this time it replaces the United Nations and NATO with an Ukraine Cyber style Drone Technology Force.
The force should be around Five Thousand men and women in five units of a thousand per unit – one Europe one American one Chinese one Russia one Canada one South American unit.
They could serve on a yearly duty basses.
Perhaps knowing in advance what damage a war will do might discourage that war .,
Who would command such a force.
He would be appointed at the UN general assembly on a voting platform.
Once activated it cannot be stopped.
Any one got a better idea?
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
No matter how much you know — or think you know — about any War, there are always more horrible things lurking in the shadows.
Cast your eyes over any recent conflict, and you’ll see a litany of generals, politicians, and nations that have gotten away with stuff so horrific it defies comprehension.
This post is not an attempt to justify crimes of warfare. It is a feeble attempt to highlight the double standards went it comes to defining them.
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Our best hope of curbing humankind’s peculiar talent for superfluous violence and extravagant self-destruction lies in the ideal of humanitarianism.
What is a war crime?
War crimes are often associated with atrocities committed on a scale that defies credulity. I.E the number of victims did not pass some arbitrary threshold. At the most basic level, war crimes are [objectionable] acts committed by combatants, either against other combatants or against noncombatants—that is, civilians—during wartime.
Mass murder and genocide—crimes against humanity and atrocities committed on a large scale—have become the hallmarks of war crimes.
The question is who or what decides which acts are war crimes.
In an eerie echo of our own time, defining war crimes is not so much the issue anymore.
It’s prosecuting them actually, administering justice that is the primary obstacle.
The ICC is the product of a strand of idealistic thinking about justice between waring states stretching back at least to the first world war.
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In world war two was it a crime to kill 60,000 to 80,000 people in Hiroshima and another 75,000 in Nagasaki or 100,000 people in one night during the firebombing of Tokyo, an event barely talked about today.
In the American war in Vietnam, was it a crime to shower 45 million liters of the herbicide Agent Orange? In the process, it doomed up to 4.8 million Vietnamese residents.
Ask someone today to list war crimes of recent history and he or she may think of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or genocide in Rwanda, the Afghan war, the Syrian War, the Yemeni War, the Iraq war, the list is endless.
The overall theme is hard to miss but there is a vast gulf separating our indifference to war crimes.
A few months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (hereinafter referred to as “9/11”), the Bush Administration decided that the Geneva Conventions did not protect members of Al Qaeda.
The president (George W. Bush) thinks the ICC is fundamentally flawed because it puts American servicemen and women at fundamental risk of being tried by an entity that is beyond America’s reach, beyond America’s laws, and can subject American civilians and military to arbitrary standards of justice.
Another example is that there are clear parallels between Russian and Israeli violations of international law, including the committing of war crimes by Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
There are no sanctions against Israel that have so far desisted from joining nations including the US, Europe, the UK, Australia, and Japan in the imposition of an “unprecedented” number of sanctions on Russia, Belarus, and the two breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the wake of the invasion.
According to Israel’s controversial Law of Return, “Jews, their children, grandchildren and spouses” are all eligible to visit Israel and claim Israeli citizenship.
However, millions of Palestinian refugees are unable to return to the homes they and their forebears were expelled from in Israel and the occupied West Bank in 1948 and 1967.
Israel has granted citizenship to Russian mining oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, a figure linked to President Vladimir Putin and known to be one of the world’s richest men.
Last year, the two countries said the ICC should drop an investigation of Israel in part on the grounds that Palestine is not a sovereign country, although it is recognized as a state by the UN.
Netanyahu has accused the ICC of “pure anti-Semitism” for investigating attacks and has said Israel does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, however, it does not have to.
Whatever the answer, it seems unlikely that President Bush or Benjamin Netanyahu, will ever be tried for war crimes but the question of whether they actually committed war crimes remains.
——————
Neither the US nor Russia nor China nor Ukraine are members of the ICC.
If justice in general moves slowly, international justice barely moves at all.
Investigations at the ICC take many years. Only a handful of convictions have ever been won and by the time the Barbarian is locked up there is nationwide amnesia.
Court proceedings can be brought in one of two ways:
Either a national government or the UN Security Council can refer cases for investigation. Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has veto power over council actions.
In all likelihood, there will never be a trial for either President Bush or Putin not to mention Benjamin Netanyahu,.
Why?
I think it has a lot to do just with the power, the authority, of well-heeled countries, powerful countries, to shield their political and military members from prosecution by bodies like the ICC.
Even if we were able to bring War Criminals to trial we just don’t have a true international police force that would arrest the offenders.
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War is a place where young people who don’t know each other and don’t hate each other, kill each other, by the decision of older rulers who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other.
It’s a world in which if you have the power you also have the power not to be held accountable for your power.
Where are we with the Russian Ukraine war?
Could Russian leaders be brought to justice under international law?
Yes. Because they fall under the overarching crime of aggression, all uses of armed force by Russia on Ukrainian territory can be viewed as illegal.
But that doesn’t mean the country pointing the finger has always been in the right itself.
Are countries supplying arms prolonging the war? Yes
The national interest is for this war to end. If we wish to stop war crimes then we need to stop the war. Prolonging it will only see more of the same.
We should not be blackmailed and guilt-tripped into feeding more weapons into the meat grinder. How about, just for once, we put our own interests first?
On the other hand, understanding the twin meanings of ‘humanity’ means something universal and immensely important”. Recognising its worth is “the least we owe the dead.
Meanwhile, NATO is just itching to get further involved in the war.
We live in a world in which making the wrong comment on social media can lead to people losing their jobs but where politicians and public officials, whose actions affect the lives of millions and whose failure can lead to deaths in the most unimaginable circumstances, can simply walk away and into their next lucrative assignment.
While our own media doubles down on warmongering. They seem not to care if further escalation will plunge all of Europe into economic hardship or risk wider conflict. For some reason, it’s news to Western pundits that war isn’t very nice.
In the end, this war is shining a light on just how useless our United Nations is and dark skin automatically made you less than human.
There was a day that the UN could muster Blue helmets to intervene in conflicts. Now, all it can do is pass worthless resolutions.
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When it comes to war crimes, Ukraine’s hands are also blooded.
What’s bizarre about this is that these countries that are supplying millions in arms are the same people courting Ukrainian membership of the EU, as though Ukraine was some kind of liberal democracy.
As with all wars, they end with denials of involvement in killing the innocent which are called collateral damage or a mistake of identification by a rogue drone, or ballistic rocket.
The issue of reparations doubtless will be raised in negotiations to resolve the conflict and as an international condition for resuming any normal relationship with Russia. If the sanctions are eventually lifted in stages, it could prove effective to include conditions requiring the surrender of indicted fugitives.
Perhaps if the United Nations were to tell Mr. Putin that it is going to place a few thousand Blue Helmets between the present front lines Russia would think twice about any further advancement.
( It is however due to the presence of Nato on the Russian borders too late. As they would be labeled Nato, not UN)
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
In today’s world, it is impossible to find a phenomenon that harms people more than war.
By now in our history, we all know that any war is to blame for people being killed.
It is not only military deaths but every living individual so you might be well asking why do we now have another war breaking out in Ukraine?
We all know that there are so many reasons for starting these wars that no appeal and no desire for peace will ever be heard if the authorities want so. Sometimes it simply is inevitable.
(This post is not to justify the out brake, rather try and understand why it is occurring in the first place.)
It’s not just that Putin has become a “farce with fangs.” in reclaiming Crimea. More than 90 percent of the population of Crimea voted to return the territory to Russia.
The conflict in Ukraine started with the refusal of ex-president Viktor Yanukovich to sign the agreement of Ukraine’s association with the European Union. Thousands of people, shocked by his decision, went to the streets to show their willingness to become part of Europe and live a happier and wealthier life.
Most of us have no knowledge about Ukraine and it’s not possible to explain its history in this post.
However, most of us are still not quite sure what Ukraine was or is.
“Ukraine was a little bit like Ireland used to be within the United Kingdom” It was a subordinate part of a greater whole, of a greater empire.
“During the revolution that ushered in the Soviet Union, Ukraine fought for independence. It lost, and in 1922 was subsumed inside the communist state.
This was followed by Stalin creating “The Holodomor an artificial famine,” to crush its people its language and culture. Just like the Irish Potato Famine known as the Great Hunger, which began in 1845 that saw millions of Irish either starve to death or immigrate. Stalin between 1932 and 1933, starved some four million Ukrainians to death.
The significance of the Potato Famine (or, in the Irish language, An Gorta Mor) in Irish history, and its contribution to the Irish diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries, is beyond doubt still to this day.
“The attempt to eliminate Ukrainian-ness and the sense of it, of a separate identity and the sense of nationhood, has really been a Russian policy since the 19th century, but its sense of nationhood was growing stronger.
And now this disaster has befallen them and this feeling that they may be dragged back into some horrific Stalin-era or Czarist-era nightmare must be tormenting a lot of them.
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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes, and missiles as part of its Nato Enlargement Project. NATO has, in effect, militarily occupied eastern Europe.
In fact in the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato’s expansion is the biggest military build-up since the Second World War.
Imagine the response if these acts of provocation, or intimidation, were carried out on America’s borders.
“It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers.”
The once hopeful concept of “Russian reform” now means regression, even destruction. In Orwellian fashion, this has been inverted in the west to the “Russian threat”.
The Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”
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As a consequence, we have witnessed Iraq dismembered with between 97,461 and 106,348 civilian deaths up to July 2010.
(The US has lost 4,487 service personnel. Half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five make up the Iraq deaths.)
Syria flattened. A decade of war in Syria has left more than 350,200 people dead.
Yemen. Almost a quarter of a million people have died in Yemen’s war.
Afghanistan, so far the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; some 2,460 US military personnel and 51000 Taliban.
Israel/Palestine. At least 10,316 Palestinians and 1,287 Israelis.
Myanmar. The Rohingya genocide.
“Behind each recorded death is a human being, born free and equal, in dignity and rights”.
Some sources say that the Soviet Union had over 20,000,000 casualties, in world war Two.
_________________
” Perhaps the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open-ended nature: its conviction that it represents a superior form of life.”
It is “so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable”.
In the modern era, the employment of ethnic differences in western power and propaganda systems is now seen as essential.
Today’s grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective, and liberal is creating a world of inequalities.
No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today.
“Austerity” is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few.
It’s no wonder we have wars.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin
We are incapable of living in peace with each other as there will always be incentives for conflict.
Wars are inevitable because of the disposition of man and if we are unsuccessful in tackling climate change we will be seeing lots more of them so the answer to this question is that wars will be inevitable.
The plagues of wars these days seem more elusive than a cure for Covid/Climate change…No end to the carnage seems to be in sight. A lucrative arms trade ensures that the world’s armies—and guerrillas—will continue to be grimly effective.
More localized for the moment and ironically, this wholesale butchery is occurring during an age that has seen unparalleled efforts to outlaw war as a way of resolving disputes between nations.
The machine gun is no respecter of the fittest or boundaries, with the bomb annihilating the strong along with the weak.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “Mankind has grown great in an eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish. . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker.”
Over 2,000 years ago, Plato said that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Is his bleak assessment a bitter truth we must learn to accept?
If war were inevitable, there would be little point in trying to end it.
War is not something created by the heat of passion. It takes years of preparation and indoctrination, weapons production, and training.
This is why we must use more effective and less destructive tools to resolve conflicts and to achieve security. Militarism has made us less safe and continues to do so.
War long predates Capitalism/ Communism. War in human history up to this point has not correlated with population density or resource scarcity.
The idea that climate change and the resulting catastrophes will inevitably generate wars could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The looming climate crisis is a good reason for us to outgrow our culture of war.
Hunger in the world must be abolished, inequality must be irritated and profit for profit sake
Why?
Because weapons must be the arbiters of so many disputes.
There is an interrelation between different factors that lead to war?
All wars have some plausible situations in the eyes of the decision-makers such that the anticipated gains from a war in terms of resources, power, glory, territory, and so forth exceed the expected costs of conflict, including expected damages to property and life.
Thus, for war to occur with rational actors, at least one of the sides involved has to expect that the gains from the conflict will outweigh the costs incurred.
There has to be a failure in bargaining so that for some reason there is an inability to reach a mutually advantageous and enforceable agreement.
A lack of enforceable agreements is often one of the main ingredients leading to protracted wars.
Being faced by an armed rational or irrational foe leads a rational country to arm to some level. In turn, this now means that either a foe who is irrational or a foe who thinks that I might be irrational will be armed, even more, and this feedback continues to build.
So here we are after two world wars still unable to have any real understanding as to why we are witnessing the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine.
Now, Ukraine is the pawn.
America has bombed a sovereign country every day for the last twenty years, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Yet that is never part of the story we tell ourselves.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have used NATO to surround Russia.
Despite assurances, NATO would not expand to include former Soviet bloc countries, we have done just that. We weaponized Ukraine, minimized diplomatic solutions such as the Minsk Protocol, played a role in the 2014 coup that ousted the government there, and installed a pro-Western one.
But it does not seem to prevent our pro-Western government, our news media, our own selves from repeating the war myth it now becoming our bedtime story, one that seeds a nightmare.
The West as the good guys and everyone else as evil. We have arrived at this point of peril in Eastern Europe because we have lost the ability to see the world through the eyes of another.
It thus becomes impossible to comprehend the behavior of other nations, to understand their fears, their concerns. We know only our own created story, our own myth, we care only for our own concerns, and so are forever at war.
We become provocateurs rather than peacemakers.
Ukraine should not have to suffer invasion by Russia. And Russia should not have had its safety and security threatened by NATO expansion and weaponry.
A good portion of our overview of the causes of war is thus spent discussing a framework of different bargaining failures.
So how will this Russian/ Ukrainian war be ended?
The same as all wars a tragedy, creating the ground for the next war.
We seem to be caught somewhere in an unplanned downward trajectory slipping lower and lower, circling around and around toward some kind of catastrophe that is as yet unvisualised and unseen.
We are very close to passing some irreversibly turning point, after which we will not be able to go back.
Let’s see if maybe we can miss the huge disaster that now seems to be looming in our future. We need to turn our full attention to fixing our environment.
Are we truly incapable of resolving these concerns without slaughtering each other? Is our intellect that limited, our patience that short, our humanity so curdled that we must repeatedly reach for the sword? War is not genetically set in our bones, and these problems are not divinely created. We made them, and the myths surrounding them, and so we can unmake them.
We must believe this if we are to survive.
This is a long hard battle to be won. Let’s pick our own future.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
” Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” John F. Kennedy
If you ask Google how many wars have they been in the world.
Here is the answer:
” Early humans could have fought wars that went unnoticed. Sources range from 100,000 to 300,000 WARS.”
Then if you look at wikipedia.org and ask how many are current wars, on top of the list of the 40 active conflicts/ wars around the world at the moment, the Afghanistan conflict is number one, because of the letter A.
You could not be blamed for wondering that after so many wars why it is in these modern days of interconnectivity other than the insanity of one or more leaders that causes wars. The boundary between rational and non-rational is fuzzy. There must exist incentives for conflict and some barriers to the ability to reach an enforceable bargain.
The ideological change is both the most common cause of conflict and the root of most wars, but there is rarely only one cause of dispute.
Not only do we go to war we supply arms to the potential adversity.
War is a better-known word in England that Afghanistan.
(According to Wikipedia,) The Kingdom of England has fought conflicts in 171 of the world’s 193 countries that are currently UN member states, or nine out of ten of all countries.So it is not surprising to learn that the British invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1830s.
You could say England has been at war from the Battle of Edgehill (October 1642)
What do you define as a war? What do you define as the UK?
Take the nicely named Troubles in Northern Ireland – 30 years.
(The leftover of theIrish War of Independence 2 years has its origins in the 12th century when England invaded to create its first colony.)
As with all wars once they start the original reasons are eventually forgotten in the devastation inflicted.
World war one started in 1914 after four years it left over 15 million people dead and set the stage for World war two six short years.
The Holocaust alone resulted in over 11 million people killed, 6 million of which were Jewish. Somewhere between 22 and 26 million men died in battle during the war. In the final act of the war, between 70,000 and 80,000 Japanese were killed when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years and 5 months.
The Falklands 10-week.
The Gulf War six months was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production disputes.
The ongoing war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict with Israel established in 1948 continues to the present day on various levels.
Or the ongoing Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen now 22 years.
So here is what I have learned about the Afghan wars.
During the nineteenth century, two large European empires vied for dominance in Central Asia. In what was called the “Great Game,” the Russian Empire moved south while the British Empire moved north from its so-called crown jewel, colonial India.
Their interests collided in Afghanistan, resulting in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839 to 1842.
This resulted in a series of unsuccessful wars for the British to control Afghanistan, Bukhara, and Turkey. The British lost at all four wars — the First Anglo-Saxon War (1838), the First Anglo-Sikh War (1843), the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848) and the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878) — resulting in Russia taking control of several Khanates including Bukhara.
Following this great victory over the British, Afghanistan maintained its independence and continued to play the two European powers off of each other for three more decades.
Soviet-Afghan War.
Afghanistan is not called the “graveyard of empires” for nothing.
The Soviet-Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups are known collectively as the mujahideen, as well as smaller Maoist groups, fought a guerrilla war against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed primarily by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.
More than nine years of direct involvement and occupation.
On April 27, 1978, a Soviet-supported communist government took over the country with the first Soviet deployment into Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. They had President Amin put to death because he was talking to the Yanks and installed their own leader, President Babrak Karmal.
The Soviets resorted to using napalm, poison gas and helicopter gunships against the Mujahideen – but they experienced exactly the same military scenario the Americans had done in Vietnam.
In the years that followed, more than 870,000 Afghans were killed, three million were maimed or wounded, a million were internally displaced and over five million were forced to flee the country.
It became a source of embarrassment for the Soviet Union as the Mujahideen (a guerilla force on a holy mission for Allah) would come down from the mountains in the summer with US-supplied Stinger missiles and after around 13,000 Soviet troops were killed the Russian had had enough with the country becoming one of the poorest nations in the world.
By 1982 some 2.8 million Afghans had sought asylum in Pakistan, and another 1.5 million had fled to Iran. The Soviets suffered some 15,000 dead and many more injured. 1988 the Soviet Union signed an accord with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and agreed to withdraw its troops.
Mikhail Gorbachev took the U.S.S.R. out of Afghanistan.
Men start growing beads and destroy all non-islamic idols and statues- al-Qaid.
By the end of the 1980s, the Mujahideen was at war with itself in Afghanistan with hard-line Taliban fighters. The word Taliban means “students”
By 1982, the Mujahideen controlled 75% of Afghanistan despite fighting the might of the world’s second most powerful military power.
On 25 April 1992, a civil war had ignited between three, later five or six, mujahideen armies, which escalated into another full-blown conflict. By mid-1994, Kabul’s original population of two million had dropped to 500,000. In 1995–96, the new militia Taliban, supported by Pakistan and ISI, had grown to be the strongest force.
On September 2001 the 9/11 terrorist attack which the USA believed that Osama Bin Laden head of al-Qaida was the behind the attacks. The United States began bombing Afghanistan and 10 years later kill Osama.
As of August 2016, about 104,000 people have been killed in the war in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 31,000 being civilians.
With the rising of ISIS in Afghanistan, the country was plunged into a new humanitarian emergency and Afghans into a new internally displacement and the refugee crisis.
Since invading in 2001, the United States has poured more than $117 billion into Afghanistan.
The war has enjoyed bipartisan support from the beginning. Bush launched it. Obama began his administration approving a “surge” of 30,000 troops for what he called the “good war.”
The United States went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks to get bin Laden, quash Al Qaeda and punish the Taliban for harbouring them. Bin Laden is dead; Al Qaeda has metastasized across the region; the Taliban have been hunted for 16 years.
Now there is no clear vision of where we’re headed.
A blank check to wage war anywhere, any time, for any length,
To me it is quite clear with Trump “where we’re headed”—to more years of endless war without victory, wasting more lives ensnared in a war with no exit.
So the situation isn’t complicated:
The origins of opium date as far back at 3400 B.C
There is enough opium production in Afghanistan (something the US was never truly capable of controlling or suppressing.) to ensure that the current war ends in a dream-like state and armed nation-building does not work.
Forty years might seem a long time but its nothing compared to wars back in the days when wars lasted from anything up to 700 years.
So here are few brewing for the future.
The U.S.A. vs. Iran.
Why?
Because of Donal Trump re-election. His inability to learn from Vietnam or Afghan that military power will mean little when drawing into a decades-long guerrilla war with factions of the Iranian regime.
Egypt vs. Ethiopia.
Why?
Because the Ethiopia Blue Nile dam is 60% completed…
Iran vs. Saudi Arabia.
Why?
Because the collapse of Lebanon, the Arab Spring, the Yemen civil war, and the Qatari blockade are all significant global geopolitical events spawned by tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The two nations are already engaged in numerous proxy wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and as time goes on this list is only set to grow in size.
North Korea vs. the U.S.A.
Why?
Because North Korea operates as a military dictatorship,
Russia vs. NATO.
Why?
Because Nato needs to justify its existence.
The Irish have always been noted for a complete disregard for time.
Venezuelan Civil War.
Why?
Because it is safe to say things are not going too well in Venezuela.
South China Sea War.
Why?
Because it is home to 10% of the world’s fisheries and tens of billions of barrels of oil.
Amazon Apps ves Humanity
Why?
Because we were too lazy and gave away all of our data.
Climate War.
Why?
Because this could very well be the catalyst to end all wars.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Anyway back to the term Fourth Generation Warfare.
This term is used to describe the current growing inferno that is currently wreaking havoc in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen which will engulf the whole region and beyond and has the potential to push it over the threshold into a third world war.
What is needed is a concept which explains to blinkered military and political leaders why *they cannot win* unless they change what they are doing in *truly radical* ways. Why? Because what has changed is the near instantaneous nature of the cognitive and moral aspects of war, empowered through information technology.
What we are really seeing is that the increased “dispersion and democratization of technology, information, and finance” brought about by globalization has given terrorist groups greater mobility and access worldwide.
Isis ,Hamas and Hezbollah ( If you consider the latter two terrorist organisations) ,especially, have established themselves as organizations capable of addressing the everyday problems of their constituencies. They are integrating themselves into the social and political fabric of Muslim societies worldwide.
While we watch they are turning their constituencies into effective weapons by creating strong social, political, and religious ties with them; in short, they have become communal activists for their constituencies, which have, in turn, facilitated the construction and maintenance of substantial financial and logistical networks and safe houses. This support then aids in the regeneration of the terrorist groups.
We see that even in the so-called information age, the use of brute force remains an effective tactic in many parts of the world.
Terrorists, guerrillas, and similar actors generally aimed at eroding an opponent’s will to fight rather than destroying his means.
“Maybe those gangs of Islamist terrorists and Jihadists are doing a hell of a job destabilizing and fragmenting the Arab world. And surely the US/EU will continue to look from on high and make-believe they see no terrorism and hear no terrorism until the whole region is set for a greater Israel scenario.” To Quote (Hillary Clinton.) The next President more than likely of the USA.
No boots and uniforms on the ground has turn ISIS, contrary to Al Qaeda hoax, into the most dangerous international terrorist organization the world has ever come to witness.
If ISIS is allowed to grow bigger in the hope of fragmenting the Arab world and giving more space and influence for the Zionist entity then this whole thing will turn into an imminent world menace.
Unfortunately or perhaps fortuitously there is no stomach in the west to tackle ISIS head on. That option has long gone.
The main target behind ISIS is to ignite a Shiite/Sunni inferno that is drag Saudi Arabia and Iran into a dreadful conflict that will destabilize and weaken both states.
ISIS is already issuing passports and promotional publications for the new Caliphate and is now presenting itself as an ideologically a superior alternative to al-Qaida.
All three groups – Jabhat al-Nusra and Zawahiri’s al-Qaida on the one hand, and Isis on the other – share the same goals: the creation of an Islamic state in Syria (and Iraq.) Iraq is already a country of two distinct halves.
Everybody now seems to have some kind of involvement in this fight, which may have killed more than 200,000 people, and no one has a realistic idea of how to end it or for that matter to navigate the chaotic seeming tempest of our modern world.
One way other the other history never begins with a sudden event.
No matter what terminology we use ISIS definitely has its origins in the USA invasion of Iraq after 9/11. It is now shaped by the nature of conflict which is taking on an increasingly sectarian characteristic. As a Jihadist organization claiming to represent the true Islamic Khilafat, its project( for the lack of a better word) will not stop at the current borders and it will continue seeking to expand its territory. Building its own state and consolidating its power in the areas it manages to control.
So where do we stand to-day?
As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June.
The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared by Isis on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area larger than Great Britain and inhabited by at least six million people, a population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland.
It is believed to have some 30,000 fighters in its ranks, with about 10% of them from the West. ( 3,000 Westerners)
In a few weeks of fighting in Syria Isis established itself as the dominant force in the Syrian opposition, routing the official al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor and executing its local commander as he tried to flee.
In northern Syria some five thousand Isis fighters are using tanks and artillery captured from the Iraqi army in Mosul to besiege half a million Kurds in their enclave at Kobani on the Turkish border.
In central Syria, near Palmyra, Isis fought the Syrian army as it overran the al-Shaer gas field, one of the largest in the country, in a surprise assault that left an estimated three hundred soldiers and civilians dead. Repeated government counter-attacks finally retook the gas field but Isis still controls most of Syria’s oil and gas production.
Branches of ISIS have sprung up in Egypt and Libya, and in March 2015, the Nigerian-based Islamist sect Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIS.
ISIS is definitely not Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda distanced itself from ISIS as it grew increasingly violent and intolerant, even of Muslims.
It has no boundaries in regard to its savagery.
This inferno will not be controllable, and nobody will be immune from it, most of all the Jewish state of Israel (maybe only then the US/EU will regain some of their lost senses and start to see and hear the evil of their own doing.)
Our reluctance to act promptly and decisively with the present and imminent danger of ISIS might seems contradictory to their holy Gospel of war on terrorism, but a closer look will reveal the perfect harmony of the western passive stand with their newly adopted trend of 4th generation asymmetrical warfare.
What is the beauty of this new 4th generation warfare?
In brief, the theory holds that warfare has evolved through four generations:
1) The use of massed manpower, 2) firepower, 3) maneuver, and now 4) An evolved form of insurgency that employs all available networks—political, economic, social, military—to convince an opponent’s decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly.
This is laughable : The Caliphate may be poor and isolated but its oil wells and control of crucial roads provide a steady income in addition to the plunder of war.
When it comes to ISIS is a different story; it’s an obviously more organized, highly militarily trained to use US sophisticated weaponry and attracting evermore young recruits from the west. Who by the way through the Media are its biggest propaganda arm with on average 25 articles per day.
The group uses social media outlets such as Twitter, Whats App, and Facebook to promise new recruits material rewards, such as free housing and a steady salary.
Egypt
The most virulent militant organization in Egypt, pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Libya
At least three militant groups, one in each of Libya’s three regions, pledged allegiance to ISIS.
The group has also reportedly received funding from wealthy individuals in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, and Qatar and then used the money to buy arms on the black market. These nations support ISIS because both consider Iran and Syria a threat, share anti-Shiite sentiment, and want to protect fellow Sunnis from violence sanctioned by Assad and Maliki.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar have passed legislation banning such aid, but the governments have done little to enforce the laws.
As we are unwilling to cut the head of the serpent we can only hope that ISIS might have its own internal disagreements about the future. (A slow burn, rather than complete eradication, may be the best possible outcome).
First, a dispute with local populations and the more indigenous groups that have their distinct concerns and priorities other than the strict interpretation of Sharia law, and this dispute is already in place in Syria and some parts of Iraq.
The second. A conflict within the organization between its Iraqi wing that might prioritize the “sectarian conflict” with Shias and issues related to communal identity, and the global wing that adopts the ideology of jihad and looks beyond Iraq.
So we are left with: Why do it yourself when your own enemies (infiltrated by covert operatives) could do it, even better, and change their own sovereign country into a failed state ready to be controlled and subjugated.
The price we might pay in a future conflict could be high indeed.
Life is not a solo act. It’s a huge collaboration.
So where does 4th Generation War come into the picture. War is war no matter what term you give.
It is a loose collection of ideas that does not hold up to close scrutiny.
4GW has reinvented itself several times, taking advantage of the latest developments in technology or tactics, and whatever ideas or theories happened to be in vogue is not working.
Victory in 4GW warfare is won in the moral sphere. The aim of 4GW is to destroy the moral bonds that allows the organic whole to exist — cohesion.
There does not seem to be anything Moral about ISIS or Drones.
Through the haze of horror and grief we all witness this war is becoming internationalized and we are running out of time to do anything about it.
Mr Bush wanted to leave Iraq divided up into three separate states along sectarian lines, Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish. He got his wish.
As a species, we are social beings who live out our lives in the company of other humans. We organize ourselves into various kinds of social groupings, such as nomadic bands, villages, cities, and countries, in which we work, trade, play, reproduce, and interact in many other ways. Unlike other species, we combine socialization with deliberate changes in social behavior and organization over time.
Consequently, the patterns of human society differ from place to place and era to era and across cultures, making the social world a very complex and dynamic environment.
The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential.
We are increasingly dependent on one another through international economic systems and shared environmental problems. The growing interdependence of world social, economic, and ecological systems makes it difficult to predict the consequences of social decisions. Changes anywhere in the world can have amplified effects elsewhere, with increased benefits to some people and increased costs to others.
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All year I have advocated that Greed is the curse of Capitalism. It is at the root cause of Inequality.
One hundred and six billion of us have being born since the dawn of the human species. Making the current population 6% of all the people who ever lived on the planet. ( 7,283,314749) With 2.8 Billion of us living on less than two dollar a day, with over a billion not having access to healthy water, with 876 million of adults illiterate, with ½ a million murders a year, with 30,000 children under 5 die every day from avoidable diseases it’s no wonder we have terrorists.
Currently we have 20% of the global population with 90% of the wealth.
Christmas is over and all the words of peace to mankind have been sung once more, but the canvas of the World remains weeping. It is time to return dignity to the world. Which can only be achieved by capping greed to create a perpetual fund. ( see previous postings)
Here is the current painting.
A round revolving ball in the vastness of space teaming with life, with 1.35 billion of us spending 20 minutes each day of Facebook each month. The new slavery of our age leading us to the globalization of indifference, born out of ego selfishness, removing our sense of compassion and dignity.
A world on which we have 26 countries in a state of conflict , with 170 Militias, Guerrillas, Separatist, Anarchic, are all represented by a world of 31% Christians, 23% Muslims, 15% Hindus, 7% Buddhists, 6% Folk religionists, 1% Others and 0,02% Jews.
A Disposable world full of Ego Centrism in which man was probably happiest when he was swinging from tree to tree.
A world with 20/30 million in modern-day slavery ( A slave in 1850 in America cost the equivalent of $40,000 in to days money, to-day an average of $90.)
A world that has this much fresh water.
This much gold. 171.300 tons.
Just enough oil to last the world 53.3 years at the current production rates.
That will run out of phosphorus in 50 to 100 years unless new reserves of the element are found.
That has enough coal to meet 188 years of global production.
A world that when you take a deep breath the chances are, the air filling your lungs is far from pure. Even if you live in a clean, ecologically conscious area, you may be inhaling pollutants from faraway, less-pristine locales. Your hometown air may contain microscopic particles of mercury-coated coal dust from China, diesel from Europe, ozone from Los Angeles, or carbon monoxide from India—or possibly a cocktail of all of the above.
Where Scandium and terbium are just two of the 17 rare earth minerals that are used in everything from the powerful magnets in wind turbines to the electronic circuits in smartphones. The elements are not as rare as their name suggests but currently 97% of the world’s supply comes from China and they can restrict supplies at will. Exact reserves are not known.
Where we are told by the Artists not to don’t worry,( the Artists being our World Leaders places in power by us the people with black x’s in square boxes) because the Economy and World Trade, is turning people into merchandise for trade while depriving its victims of all dignity.
Where there is 75 trillion dollars in circulation. A billion Cars. With roughly 10/11 million standing soldiers between 10 countries. While 86%-91% of the 8.7 million(± 1.3 million) species that we share the world with still await description before we are all swimming.
Where Scientific research indicates sea levels worldwide have been rising at a rate of 0.14 inches (3.5 millimeters) per year since the early 1990s. The trend, linked to global warming, puts thousands of coastal cities, like Venice, Italy, (seen here during a historic flood in 2008), and even whole islands at risk of being claimed by the ocean.
A world where we now need more than ever to apply different brush strokes if the painting for 2015 is to have any chance of been appreciated in the future.
Day after day I follow news reports of the enormous suffering endured by many people in the Middle East. It is not enough to contain wars, or international terrorism, which displays deep disdain for human life and indiscriminately reaps innocent victims we must stop the bankrolling of these conflicts by the unchecked traffic in weapons.
There seem little point to continue to catalog the illnesses that are plaguing the world. You could continue to list all the shortcomings till the end of the earth.
Communications is about informing people – not collecting “hits.” In order to progress towards the future we need the past. However in doing so we need to move away from the present World model that is more prone to make demands than to serve humanity.
We all know that the human family, must be grounded on respect, cooperation, solidarity and compassion. That it must be built on justice, socio-economic development, freedom, respect for fundamental human rights, and the participation of all in public affairs and the building of trust between people’s.
None of our present political systems are coming up to the mark ( Democracy, Republic , Monarchy, Communism , Dictatorship) because of Greed.
If we are to break out of the structures that hold us back from a recognition, we must share and share a like. Update our out of date World Organisations that are unable to function due to lack of funds, United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, the World Health Organisation,that are run by our of date Government Systems (see post: Is Democracies outdated and Disfunctional)
If we are to reduce the Inequalities of the future a Global ethic is needed.
We all deserve a peaceful world order based on unity of purpose. Their dignity is your dignity.
As Pope said. ” It (the earth) is the greatest resource which God has given us and is at our disposal not to be disfigured, exploited, and degraded, but so that, in the enjoyment of its boundless beauty, we can live in this world with dignity.”
We need profound roots, sustainability, not a disposable society, which can only be achieved if we use the power of social media to effect change (see previous posts)
So there you have it a master piece deserving of to be hung in the Louvre, beside the Mona Lisa.
If your have by any chance read this post, I am not interested in receiving your like tick. I am Interested in any suggestions as to how we might go about setting up a grass roots Organisation to apply pressurize where needed by using the power of Social Media ( Not a Petition site.) more a name and shame site. Happy New Year.
bobdillon33blog 