Humble Opinions

This will be my 2^nd snapshot of history, in an attempt to compile the only reliable source of historical accounting of this period in time, replete with accurate, verifiable predictions of the future. To see how far the world has progressed since my last snapshot, please see Snapshot: 1st of December 2008.

1. Barack Obama is now more than 100 days in office, as the 44^th president of the United States. Here are the major things he has done, as I see them:

   (a). Introduced a drastically altered defense budget. This new budget will remove focus on the monstrous, advance weapons systems the US has been developing and maintaining for the past few decades, and will apply new focus on what is being called “Irregular warfare.” I believe America is starting to see that the world has realized it is impenetrable by way of conventional warfare, but is vulnerable to irregular warfare / terrorism. The reasons for this are obvious:

   • Terrorist organizations are not an official, identifiable group that can be fought against, like a regular military can.
   • Terrorists don’t play by anyone’s rules, and don’t care about losing their own men, including the civilians they pretend to be fighting for.
   • Terrorists dress like civilians, and many times live in irregular terrain.

   Once again, Israel is leading the way. Israel has been fighting unconventional wars its entire existence, and apparently has gotten ridiculously good at it. You can judge this by Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel successfully destroyed thousands of Hamas smuggling tunnels, weapons caches, and which resulted in over 1,300 Palestinians deaths (over 900 Hamas militants, according to Israel) - compared with the 13 Israelis who were killed, 4 from friendly fire.

   America is seeing more and more who they are up against in the world. This past weekend, there were a string of suicide bombings in Iraq that left over 150 people dead. These days, I feel like I’m reading about another suicide bomber in Iraq or Pakistan almost daily. For a complete list of terror attacks around the world related to Islamic fundamentalism, please see TheReligionOfPeace.com. In my mind, it is quite clear who America is up against in the world, however, some actions by the current US administration seem to contradict what would appear to be in their best interests, namely:

   (b). Barack Obama has chosen appeasement, engagement, and partial acceptance toward those that support terror in the world, in contrast to the position of the last 500 American presidents. The Obama administration has chosen to join the UN Human Rights council, which has a blatant imbalance that serves the interests of those who are actually the worst human rights violators on earth. Previous administrations made a point of not joining, and legitimizing this council.

   Barack Obama has also feverishly attempted to engage Iran regarding its nuclear program, without any preconditions for talks, all while seemingly ignoring the fact that Iran is an open supporter of Hamas, and Hizbollah (whom are officially labeled terrorist organizations by the US). So far, that has blown up in his face, being that while he has attempted to befriend the Iranian government, they have detained and convicted a US journalist of spying for America, and have continued to publicly slam American foreign policy, and blame it for being a source of the international problems in the world.

   (c). Barack Obama has also been quite clear that he will not continue the unwavering commitment and support toward Israel that the previous US administration had. This week, the US okayed an enormous arms sale to Lebanon by Turkey. The US also pledged just under $900 million to the Palestinians living in the Gaza strip, in an effort to help them rebuild the Gaza Strip after the recent Israeli offensive that took place there. Everyone knows Hamas is running the show in the Gaza strip, and that it would be incredibly difficult to keep that money out of Hamas hands (which we all know will be spent on hospitals, education for its civilians, and NOT on weapons, rockets, explosives, and terrorism). The US publicly stated the aid will go through “even if Hamas joins the PA unity government.”

   This is something I simply cannot wrap my head around. The Obama Administration has stated it will even grant aid directly to Hamas, so long as they (a). Recognize Israel  (b). Renounce violence, and  (c). Agree to follow past accords secured between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Either I’m totally missing something here, or the US is on crack. Let me quote you a few things from the official Hamas charter, and then you can draw your own conclusions as to the practicality of those conditions:

   “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

   “Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

   The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Are you serious? Still? Wow. Anyway, moving on…

2. The worldwide economic crisis is clearly fleshing itself out. The overall government budget that the Obama administration has set fourth will bring the US deficit for this year alone to $1.7 trillion. That means the US is losing an average of $4.65 billion per day. Next year’s deficit is expected to be over $1 trillion as well.

   In my humble and correct opinion, I don’t see how it is possible for the US to patch this one up without an unprecedented, drastic change to US lifestyle, consumption, import/export ratios, or something. I’m no financial expert, just an ordinary genius, but still, it really is not looking great to me. Companies are continuing to announce major cuts in their workforces, and the stock market is still acting like a schizophrenic.

3. Benjamin Netanyahu finally took his seat as Israeli Prime Minister after several weeks of painful negotiations to form a coalition government. I am personally quite glad about this. Although historically, the Israeli governments that have made the most concessions to its Arab neighbors have been right-winged governments, I think Netanyahu is the right man for the job. Having served in Sayeret Matkal (the #1 most elite unit in the Israeli military), being a graduate of MIT, and having prior experience as Israeli prime minister, I think Netanyahu is clearly very qualified for this position. He speaks both Hebrew and English fluently. I also happen to agree with his stance on the overwhelming majority of issues. So far, nothing too crazy has happened since he has taken office, so we’ll have to sit tight and see who makes the first move (yes, that’s really how it is in the Middle East).

4. Iran has continued its dash toward the finish line of becoming a nuclear power, uninterrupted, as I have been clearly pointing out for almost a year already. At the same time, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not been shy about expressing his love for “the Zionist regime,” continuing his claims of Israel’s demise being imminent, and using the recent UN conference against racism (a.k.a. Durban II) as a staging ground to launch some of the nastiest charges against Israel in recent memory. An Iranian official even shouted ‘Zionazi’ at famed Jewish peace activist Elie Weisel, who has won a nobel peace prize, and who is a survivor of the Nazi holocaust that Ahmadinejad denies happened.

   The same country that beheads and hangs people on a regular basis, and who makes constant threats to Israel and the US, is enriching uranium at full speed. It has ignored all requests for a halt, endured economic sanctions waged against it, and has not allowed any inspections of its facilities to occur. I think the best move would be to sit around and do nothing, and let Iran figure out a solution that’s best for the world (note the bitter sarcasm).

5. Mexico was plagued this week what is being called “Swine Flu,” a pig-related illness that is traveling through the air, and has already killed 149 people, and injured well over 1,000. It has essentially shut down Mexico City, and has put many countries around the world on very high alert. If that isn’t enough, Mexico was also hit with a 6.0 earthquake this week. (That’s 6.0 on the Richter scale, not the all-new version 6).

On a personal note, I’ve been Israeli for 4 months. Yeah, we rule! My Hebrew is improving, and my taste buds are adapting to the awesomeness that is Middle Eastern food.

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I decided to take snapshots of history, so that future historians have at least one credible source for information about their past Here goes:

Today is December 1, 2008.

In America, we are nearing the very end of President Bush’s second term in office, and are awaiting the first term of president-elect Barack Obama. I think it would be a fair assumption for me to make if I said many American citizens are pretty frustrated at the state of their country, although many also seem to not care all that much.

We just finished thanksgiving weekend, over which a disastrous terrorist attack took place in Mumbai, India, killing over 200 people, a portion of which were specifically targeted Jews. How surprising. I think this illustrates the lack of regard for human life that exists in our otherwise modern world, as well as the inability for the innocent to be truly protected against acts of terrorism. I think America and other world superpowers may be regretting selling tons of arms to third-world countries for the past 100 years. Whoops.

The current situation in America is somewhat bleak. We have spent well over a trillion dollars fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - Afghanistan in hope of destroying the Taliban infrastructure, and Iraq to supposedly “free the Iraqis” ? If you read reports of what is going on in Afghanistan, the Taliban seem to be doing just fine 7 years later, and Iraq is experiencing an insane civil war, regular suicide and homicide bombings, and an unbelievable loss of innocent life. Nicely done, America. That region is usually pretty stable anyway.

On the flip side, America’s mortgage & credit industries have fallen to pieces. Banks are foreclosing left & right, the auto industry is on the verge of collapse, and all other industries seem to have begun to feel the heat. The American government pledged to fuse $700 billion into the economy, which seems to have done very little. They offered several individual companies their own bailout packages, and president-elect Barack Obama has been speaking of another $800 billion package. Looks like we may run out of trillion dollar bills at some point.

Somali pirates have been hijacking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods on ships in the sea, taking dozens hostage.

Russia and America are still bickering under the radar over last summer’s war in Georgia, and over the US-Polish deal to assemble a missile defense system in Poland.

Hamas and Israel have been in theoretic ceasefire since June, but that seems to have begun unraveling a few weeks ago, when Israel destroyed an underground tunnel dug by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into Israel, which would be used for kidnapping Israeli soldiers (since that form of terrorism seems to have quite a payoff in recent months). This caused a new round of rockets into Israel from Gaza, and the typical Hamas behavior we’ve all been missing. Shame on you Israel, how dare you protect your citizens!

This is amidst very rough political times in Israel. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was set to step down February 10th, after he officially resigned in September over charges of corruption; though, he may step down 2 months early after being indicted. So basically, Israel has little-to-no leadership at what seems a pivotal time - namely, a US administration rotation.

Syria has had its troops mobilized and practically surrounding all of Lebanon for the past few weeks. The US sent a message to Syria saying it would militarily intervene if Syria were to invade Lebanon. It’s great to see that practically nothing has changed since 1980, except for the grade of weaponry. I’m sure that’s safe.

Iran has been publicly toting how well it’s doing with its uranium enrichment program, as well as its basic desire to “wipe Israel off the map.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is surely enjoying all of the press and airtime he has been receiving, which US news channels have been happy to provide. The world has attempted to impose economic sanctions against Iran, so far many have been opposed by Russia, and the others haven’t seem to stem the tide. Iran is heading straight for a nuclear weapon. It’s amazing to me how little this bothers everyone. In 1932, America surely cared when Germany was working to develop nuclear weaponry, but now, that’s an old fad - much of the world believes it is only fair that Iran have a nuke to protect itself. When Iran finally completes its nuke, we will officially be living in a new world - one where Islam possesses the ability to ignite the destruction of mankind. That should be interesting, to say the least.

Internal to America, everyone greatly enjoyed their much needed 4-day thanksgiving weekend. The excitement over sales on DVD players was so high, a group of shoppers broke the door to a store down, trampled, and killed a store employee in a race for great deals. DVD player discounts are now officially worth more than human life. Nice! Progress! Although, maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps they were going for Blu-Ray Disc players, in which case I’d understand.

On a personal note, I am moving to Israel in 28 days. Somehow, this has slipped all news coverage, which I still don’t quite get. Oh well.

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