Bill Murchison
And there before us, b'golly, was ... the car!
THE car. You know? The one positioned, in
blood and early 20th-century elegance, at the
center of modern history; the open car
carrying the heir to the Austro-Hungarian
throne, and his wife, when a teenage terrorist
in Sarajevo shot them dead on St. Vitus Day --
June 28 -- 1914, setting off nearly
uninterrupted shockwaves of horror. Or so
we generally hear. I will come back to that
point.
I saw the car nearly half a century ago at the
Austrian Museum of Military History in
Vienna: large, dark, eerie. The sight was akin
in my mind to the notion of inspecting the
cutlery employed by Brutus and Cassius on
mighty Caesar's carcass.
March 15, in 44 B.C., and June 28, 1914 have
historical consonance. They unleashed large
and bloody events: the more recent of which
we have begun already to commemorate.
The June 28 assassinations, as we know,
commenced a series of calculations and
miscalculations that produced the most
catastrophic and haunting event of modern
times -- the Great War; the toppling of
empires, the implantation of fear and doubt
in minds everywhere. Nobody "wanted" the
war, though maybe the Germans, who backed
the Austrians in their desire to avenge the
murders, were more amenable to it than the
other warring parties.
Everyone is agreed -- no detailed recounting
seems necessary -- that European civilization
died suddenly in the 1914-1918 war, save for
those leftovers lost between 1939 and 1945,
and afterward. Thus wrote England's great
modern poet Philip Larkin, in "MCMXIV":
"Never such innocence,/Never before or since/
As changed itself to past/Without a word."
The lessons of 1914 are hard to sort out. Did
the world suddenly go crazy? It seems crazy
to tear down your house and everyone else's.
Was "the system" so far amiss that it lacked
the corrective tools -- the ability to call off, or
better yet, prevent madness? "Systems" had
gone off the track before -- as far back as
anyone could recall. The effects were worse
in 1914 -- worse by far than in 44 B.C. -- on
account of the technology and techniques that
had made war unspeakably horrible, without
anyone's noticing until too late. Likewise
daily life around the world had grown
entangled and interrelated. Immunity from
disaster had receded vastly.
The lessons of 1914 are in truth hard to sort
out; their glare blinds the eyes. That
"innocence" of which Larkin spoke is not to
be equated with purity. It was ignorance --
blindness to human limitations, and to the
consequences of stupidity and inhumanity. It
was human malice (the execution of hostages,
the destruction of homes and churches and
libraries, slaughter as a goal. We possibly
didn't think we were capable of it, we
humans. No, no, not in the sanitized,
purified, electrified 20th century, held
together by science and rationality! We
proved more than capable. We did it. We all
-- by virtue of our membership in the human
fraternity -- did it. And keep on doing it.
Much more than, "Who started the war in
1914?" that is the question we could
profitably focus on in 2014 -- "Who are we, as
opposed to who we would like to imagine we
are?" Are we nuts? Human character is more
fittingly under the microscope than are the
acts and operations of humans who in a time
not so long ago wore crowns and plumed hats
as if every knob, every feather infused their
minds with Right Knowledge.
The continuing imperfections of the human
race are the headline story of 1914, not how
one grossly imperfect Serb lurched up to a car
in Sarajevo, killing two innocent people. The
world of 2014 is saddled with the same
encumbrances as the old one -- gluttony,
pride, anger, lust and such like: just not so
well-dressed, so well-perfumed. We might
learn something by looking around. That is, if
we could for a moment take our eyes off our
own allure, our science and soaring
landmarks, suspending the fateful certainty
that any gods are still hovering out there, fine
-- we just don't require their services.
24 Jun 2014
COMPLETELY PERSONAL: THE ASSASSINATION THAT DESTROYED A CENTURY
Marvin Olasky
The current issue of WORLD’s cover date is
June 28, a date that should live in infamy. On
June 28, 1914, an assassin killed Austrian
Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the Balkan city
of Sarajevo. That incident touched off World
War I, which ended with 18 million dead
bodies and led to a Communist takeover of
Russia (millions more) and, eventually, World
War II (tens of millions more).
Recently I read in Christopher Clark’s “ The
Sleepwalkers” (see “ A century ago,” in this
issue) how one false step among the leaders of
England, France, Germany, Russia, and
Austria-Hungary led to another. While
turning the pages, I watched on the AMC
network “ The Godfather” (second greatest
American movie of all time, according to the
American Film Institute) and its sequel, “ The
Godfather Part II” (32nd greatest).
The regular refrain in “ The Godfather,” as its
characters plan murders, is, “Nothing
personal. It’s just business.” Europe’s leaders
had the same rationale as they slouched into
war during post-assassination July. The two
“ Godfather” films form the tragic story of
how, in director Francis Ford Coppola’s
words, “a good man becomes evil.” A
theologically deeper assessment might note
that it’s about sinners becoming even more
sinful. World War I’s beginning one century
ago had a similar arc.
Here’s one more famous “ Godfather” line:
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies
closer.” Europe’s warring monarchs in 1914
were close (three of them were cousins)—and
this spring I looked back with wonder and
dismay at the arrogance and miscalculation
that (nothing personal) slaughtered so many
people.
At that point I almost went thoroughly astray.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand took
place because of a thoroughly unlikely set of
circumstances. The assassin with a handgun,
Gavrilo Princip, was a bad shot, but
Ferdinand’s driver made a wrong turn and
backed up, then stopped, in a way that left
Ferdinand several feet from Princip, who at
that distance couldn’t miss. And that got me
thinking: Why didn’t God (acting as He
usually does, in ways subtle enough to give
atheists deniability) keep Ferdinand from
being shot?
Think about it: No assassination, no war, no
Communist coup, no German hyper-inflation
and depression that paved the way for Hitler,
no World War II, no Holocaust…One small
flick of the wrist for God, one large leap for
mankind to the century of peaceful progress
that postmillennialists expected in 1900,
rather than the century of disaster that fueled
much premillennialist thought.
Then I thought: No, our merciful God must
have had His reasons for allowing the
assassination and the subsequent slaughter.
Musing that God makes all things work
together for good, I starting writing a playful
counterfactual column: What could have
happened had Ferdinand’s driver not made
the wrong turn, and if war had never come?
In my fanciful column I wrote that Germany
became Europe’s economic, scientific, and
technological power. It expanded its
leadership in science and did not make life so
miserable for Jews that leading physicists
ended up in America. The result: Germany
developed nuclear weapons and, given
German arrogance, used them to get its way
through much of the world. I was planning to
end the column with German nuclear bombs
dropping in August 1945, on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki—and dozens of other cities.
Well. Halfway through writing I picked up
my copy of J.I. Packer’s “ Knowing God ,” in
which the theologian notes that Christians err
by thinking that “if they were really walking
close to God, so that he could impart wisdom
to them freely, then they would…discern the
real purpose of everything that happened to
them, and it would be clear to them every
moment how God was making all things work
together for good.”
Packer continued, “Such people spend much
time poring over the book of providence,
wondering why God should have allowed this
or that to take place.” His recommendation:
Don’t do it. We do not and cannot have
“inside information as to the why and
wherefore of God’s doings.” Packer is right.
Trash my counterfactual. Not the Godfather
but God makes us an offer we cannot and
should not refuse: Trust me.
Massive killing is, of course, fodder for
atheists who can gibe that for God it’s nothing
personal, just business. But the brilliance of
Christ is that it couldn’t get more personal:
We die, He died—so all who trust in Him can
live forever.
The current issue of WORLD’s cover date is
June 28, a date that should live in infamy. On
June 28, 1914, an assassin killed Austrian
Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the Balkan city
of Sarajevo. That incident touched off World
War I, which ended with 18 million dead
bodies and led to a Communist takeover of
Russia (millions more) and, eventually, World
War II (tens of millions more).
Recently I read in Christopher Clark’s “ The
Sleepwalkers” (see “ A century ago,” in this
issue) how one false step among the leaders of
England, France, Germany, Russia, and
Austria-Hungary led to another. While
turning the pages, I watched on the AMC
network “ The Godfather” (second greatest
American movie of all time, according to the
American Film Institute) and its sequel, “ The
Godfather Part II” (32nd greatest).
The regular refrain in “ The Godfather,” as its
characters plan murders, is, “Nothing
personal. It’s just business.” Europe’s leaders
had the same rationale as they slouched into
war during post-assassination July. The two
“ Godfather” films form the tragic story of
how, in director Francis Ford Coppola’s
words, “a good man becomes evil.” A
theologically deeper assessment might note
that it’s about sinners becoming even more
sinful. World War I’s beginning one century
ago had a similar arc.
Here’s one more famous “ Godfather” line:
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies
closer.” Europe’s warring monarchs in 1914
were close (three of them were cousins)—and
this spring I looked back with wonder and
dismay at the arrogance and miscalculation
that (nothing personal) slaughtered so many
people.
At that point I almost went thoroughly astray.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand took
place because of a thoroughly unlikely set of
circumstances. The assassin with a handgun,
Gavrilo Princip, was a bad shot, but
Ferdinand’s driver made a wrong turn and
backed up, then stopped, in a way that left
Ferdinand several feet from Princip, who at
that distance couldn’t miss. And that got me
thinking: Why didn’t God (acting as He
usually does, in ways subtle enough to give
atheists deniability) keep Ferdinand from
being shot?
Think about it: No assassination, no war, no
Communist coup, no German hyper-inflation
and depression that paved the way for Hitler,
no World War II, no Holocaust…One small
flick of the wrist for God, one large leap for
mankind to the century of peaceful progress
that postmillennialists expected in 1900,
rather than the century of disaster that fueled
much premillennialist thought.
Then I thought: No, our merciful God must
have had His reasons for allowing the
assassination and the subsequent slaughter.
Musing that God makes all things work
together for good, I starting writing a playful
counterfactual column: What could have
happened had Ferdinand’s driver not made
the wrong turn, and if war had never come?
In my fanciful column I wrote that Germany
became Europe’s economic, scientific, and
technological power. It expanded its
leadership in science and did not make life so
miserable for Jews that leading physicists
ended up in America. The result: Germany
developed nuclear weapons and, given
German arrogance, used them to get its way
through much of the world. I was planning to
end the column with German nuclear bombs
dropping in August 1945, on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki—and dozens of other cities.
Well. Halfway through writing I picked up
my copy of J.I. Packer’s “ Knowing God ,” in
which the theologian notes that Christians err
by thinking that “if they were really walking
close to God, so that he could impart wisdom
to them freely, then they would…discern the
real purpose of everything that happened to
them, and it would be clear to them every
moment how God was making all things work
together for good.”
Packer continued, “Such people spend much
time poring over the book of providence,
wondering why God should have allowed this
or that to take place.” His recommendation:
Don’t do it. We do not and cannot have
“inside information as to the why and
wherefore of God’s doings.” Packer is right.
Trash my counterfactual. Not the Godfather
but God makes us an offer we cannot and
should not refuse: Trust me.
Massive killing is, of course, fodder for
atheists who can gibe that for God it’s nothing
personal, just business. But the brilliance of
Christ is that it couldn’t get more personal:
We die, He died—so all who trust in Him can
live forever.
23 Jun 2014
THE SPACES BETWEEN THE FACTS
Sylvia Lawson
When T.S. Eliot wrote that “Human
kind/Cannot bear very much
reality,” he hadn’t seen the
thousands packing in to the Sydney
Film Festival’s huge and remarkable spread
of documentary. “Reality” – in the sense of
truth pursued on locations and in editing
suites, assemblages of fact linked and netted
by interpretation – seemed to be exactly what
they were after, no matter where. It has been
said that a film festival is a lot of virtual
travel; some of that travel takes in places
where, outside of a film festival, we’d never
really want to go.
After The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line,
no one concerned with twentieth-century
history would stay away from the next Errol
Morris essay. Faced with the operations of the
military-industrial complex, the splits in the
conscience of the powerful, the illogic of the
deeply self-deceived, Morris is the ultimate
cunning, soft-spoken strategist; he has
described himself as a director-detective,
rather than producer-director – once, between
films, he spent time as a private eye. The
Unknown Known , this year’s examination of
Donald Rumsfeld and his obsession with
memoranda, isn’t as deeply searching a film
as The Fog of War , but that has to do with the
level of interest one can feel in the particular
human subjects. Robert McNamara, with his
many chapters of involvement back to the
second world war, was worth more of our
time and Errol Morris’s subtle interview-
management than is Rumsfeld. That said, The
Unknown Known must still count as one of the
2014 Sydney Film Festival’s most telling
documentaries, exposing some of the internal
workings of US imperialism under the G.W.
Bush administration. Rumsfeld is on screen
for most of the time; in consequence one
emerges with a wry sense of grim knowledge
gained, at the cost of spending more than an
hour-and-a-half in the company of an
accomplished professional liar.
The late and great critic Roger Ebert (1942–
2013) praised Errol Morris for being “much
more interested in the spaces between the
facts than with the facts themselves” – that is,
interested in the speaking positions assumed
by those interviewed, in the ways in which
“facts” do or don’t become evidence. Ebert
himself never tired, not only of viewing films
and writing about them for the Chicago Sun-
Times , but also of ferreting around their pre-
histories, and the conditions of production
and reception. Another of the festival’s best
documentaries is about him; this is Life Itself ,
directed by Steve James from material shot in
the last five months of the critic’s life, with
old photographs, video footage of the late-life
wedding, and images from the TV program in
which Ebert argued about movies in dialogue
with his perennial rival, Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune . The film gives us old and
new journalism, as Ebert dives into Facebook
and Twitter. En route, it’s full of the life of
the city and its newspapers; there are
moments which echo the early chapters in
Citizen Kane , and reminders of Page One ,
Andrew Rossi’s superb essay on the way the
New York Times and its personnel face the
digital age: is the Grey Lady on death row?
Roger Ebert is; with body, head and face
malformed by terminal cancer, he goes on
tapping on his laptop in hospital, and
continuing, miraculously, to get some fun out
of everything.
So many documentaries have to do with
survival. For Keep On Keepin’ On , two
Australian film makers, Alan Hicks and Adam
Hart, went to the United States to make their
vibrant essay on the life and work of the
trumpeter Clark Terry, who taught Miles
Davis and Quincy Jones among others, and
who, late in his life – and still blowing his
horn brilliantly – became a mentor for a
young blind pianist, Justin Kauflin. Terry,
Kauflin and Terry’s wife Gwen are their own
extraordinary stories, with Quincy Jones’s
masterly narration weaving through them,
and signalling outward; Jones’s own story is
something else again, connecting to those of
every other jazz master you’ve ever heard or
heard of. Terry’s music, which some called
“the happiest sound in jazz,” remains with us
in the film even after he, at past ninety and
ill, can’t help to produce it any longer;
Kauflin’s piano goes on.
It was accidental illumination that this film
was seen in short order after the curious,
perversely comic The Kidnapping of Michel
Houellebecq. This writer’s books, which I
haven’t read, are notorious for his special
forms of misanthropy and misogyny. Those
elements in his disposition are convincingly
enacted, by the man himself, in this demi-
fictional replay of the days when, on the point
of literary appearances, he disappeared from
public sight; with him, the supposed
kidnappers (played by Luc Schwarz, Mathieu
Nicourt and others) engage in meandering,
demi-philosophic dialogue while waiting for
ransom to be organised. There’s a sour kind
of comedy happening in the fogs of smoke
and drink; the jokes are all at the writer’s
expense, miserably self-absorbed as he is; he
defines and personifies a mentality. Moving
from this to Keep On Keepin’ On , you
understand all over again that jazz evolved
precisely to ride over and out from all that,
from its beginnings in an underdog culture
that refused exactly that mentality – grudging,
self-pitying, hopeless – and refused it
absolutely.
Some of the most popular documentaries are
likely to reach the cinema circuits; those
include Particle Fever , on the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN (European Centre for
Nuclear Research) on the Franco-Swiss
border. This huge and expensive installation
is there, in part, to work out what happened
at the beginning of the universe. Curiosity
drives crowds, even if your family doesn’t
include an aspiring nuclear physicist; both
screenings were packed out. Of this thrilling
tale, more to come. Its distributor, Madman
Entertainment, also has the wonderful
Sepideh: Reaching for the Stars , and this also is
one to wait for. The fourteen-year-old Sepideh
passionately wants to be an astronomer, and
if possible an astronaut as well; she is
philosophically akin to the Saudi-Arabian
Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadjda , first met at last
year’s festival and then at local cinemas. It
will be remembered that the intrepid Wadjda,
aged ten, wanted to acquire a bicycle and ride
it, against all the rules for girls; and also that
as a considerable strategist, she won the
money in a competition for recitation from
the Koran.
Wadjda was a fictional creation, the kind
where fiction is necessary precisely because
it’s all true. Sepideh , directed by Berit Madsen,
is documentary, and like many films from the
Middle East, it was enabled as a co-
production, with input from four European
sources as well as from Iran. We find the girl
toiling up a hillside at night, trailing her hijab
and carrying her portable telescope. The
uphill track is unforced symbolism; Sepideh’s
widowed mother is struggling, and can’t but
calculate that the best course is a well-
arranged marriage for the girl. In countries
where honour killings, forced marriages and
domestic imprisonment persist – and those
include Australia – the circulation of such
films must be taken beyond middle-class
urban audiences. Their excellence as cinema,
both drama and document, isn’t an end in
itself.
The major features on the program will
resurface, among them Richard Linklater’s
remarkable drama-documentary Boyhood , an
essay on normally dysfunctional family life
observed over twelve years in a sunny Texan
suburb, a benign, modern Sons and Lovers.
This was in the running for the Sydney Film
Prize; the one that got it, the Dardenne
brothers’ Two Days, One Night , will also
reappear. In the meantime, cinephiles aware
of Belgian cinema might profitably spend time
with Philip Mosley’s excellent new book on
Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne and their now-
considerable oeuvre, from the documentary
videos of the 1970s through the distinguished
fictions of the past twenty-five years: The
Cinema of the Dardenne Brothers: Responsible
Realism (Wallflower Press, the Director’s Cut
series, 2013). Their story should ring bells for
Australians; they took a clear decision, early
on, that they weren’t migrating to Paris, but
in the teeth of provincial struggle they were
going to make movies right there where they
were; not even Brussels or near it, but in the
province of Wallonia.
ith all the productive interaction
between festival and film trade,
there are still films which, without
the festival, would be very unlikely
to reach us. It’s because of the Sydney
festival’s current size and prosperity that, at
the last crowded minute, it could draw in
unprogrammed items hot from Cannes, those
including the winner of the Palme d’Or, Nuri
Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep .
I can report that this film held a large
audience mesmerised for all of its 196
minutes; and as with Ceylan’s Once Upon a
Time in Anatolia, the magnetism has only so
much to do with plot; these are tantalising
fragments of drama, appearing and
disappearing, trailing on into minds and
memories beyond the limits of the screen. In
this film the enchantment has to do with
landscape, the Anatolian steppes, snowbound
as we see them here, with the houses cut into
the rocks; with the presence of an angry child,
whose parents can’t afford the rent; and with
the work of a formidable actor, Haluk
Bilginer. His character, Aydin, is a former
actor and in the present of the film, both a
landlord and a columnist for a newspaper
called The Voice of the Steppe . Seeing the
alienation of Aydin’s beautiful younger wife,
we seem at first to be in a world like that of
Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (also seen in the
festival’s retrospective programs). But the
unhappiness of women – Nihal (Melisa Sözen),
and Aydin’s divorced sister Necla (Demet
Akbağ) – is an intractable, persistent element.
Nihal understands herself: she needs
meaningful work, as unequivocally as the wild
horse, brutally captured, needs its freedom.
This winter country isn’t so far from
Chekhov’s, and Istanbul, like Chekhov’s
Moscow, is always there, somewhere across an
uncrossable distance.
Sometimes there appears a small film which
strikes the viewer as being formally perfect.
That is the case with Ida, discussed here in the
last posting; it is the case with Abderrahmane
Sissako’s Timbuktu, which, like Winter Sleep,
came in late to the festival via Cannes.
Sissako, who is spoken of as present-day
Africa’s great director, takes up the jihadist
assault on northern Mali with drive and
clarity. A young deer is seen running over the
sandhills; a family is assembled peacefully in
their tent; a boy herds cattle in a river, and
angers a fisherman casting his nets. It will not
be possible for the end-credits to claim that
“no animal was harmed…”; the visible death
of a very important beast prefigures needless
human murder. The jihadist vigilantes want
women to be both hooded and gloved, even as
they’re cleaning fish in the market. At the
end, we understand more about the fleeing
animal.
I will give some further comment soon on this
super-abundant film festival. Its major
Australian offering, David Michôd’s The
Rover, is already on the circuits. •
When T.S. Eliot wrote that “Human
kind/Cannot bear very much
reality,” he hadn’t seen the
thousands packing in to the Sydney
Film Festival’s huge and remarkable spread
of documentary. “Reality” – in the sense of
truth pursued on locations and in editing
suites, assemblages of fact linked and netted
by interpretation – seemed to be exactly what
they were after, no matter where. It has been
said that a film festival is a lot of virtual
travel; some of that travel takes in places
where, outside of a film festival, we’d never
really want to go.
After The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line,
no one concerned with twentieth-century
history would stay away from the next Errol
Morris essay. Faced with the operations of the
military-industrial complex, the splits in the
conscience of the powerful, the illogic of the
deeply self-deceived, Morris is the ultimate
cunning, soft-spoken strategist; he has
described himself as a director-detective,
rather than producer-director – once, between
films, he spent time as a private eye. The
Unknown Known , this year’s examination of
Donald Rumsfeld and his obsession with
memoranda, isn’t as deeply searching a film
as The Fog of War , but that has to do with the
level of interest one can feel in the particular
human subjects. Robert McNamara, with his
many chapters of involvement back to the
second world war, was worth more of our
time and Errol Morris’s subtle interview-
management than is Rumsfeld. That said, The
Unknown Known must still count as one of the
2014 Sydney Film Festival’s most telling
documentaries, exposing some of the internal
workings of US imperialism under the G.W.
Bush administration. Rumsfeld is on screen
for most of the time; in consequence one
emerges with a wry sense of grim knowledge
gained, at the cost of spending more than an
hour-and-a-half in the company of an
accomplished professional liar.
The late and great critic Roger Ebert (1942–
2013) praised Errol Morris for being “much
more interested in the spaces between the
facts than with the facts themselves” – that is,
interested in the speaking positions assumed
by those interviewed, in the ways in which
“facts” do or don’t become evidence. Ebert
himself never tired, not only of viewing films
and writing about them for the Chicago Sun-
Times , but also of ferreting around their pre-
histories, and the conditions of production
and reception. Another of the festival’s best
documentaries is about him; this is Life Itself ,
directed by Steve James from material shot in
the last five months of the critic’s life, with
old photographs, video footage of the late-life
wedding, and images from the TV program in
which Ebert argued about movies in dialogue
with his perennial rival, Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune . The film gives us old and
new journalism, as Ebert dives into Facebook
and Twitter. En route, it’s full of the life of
the city and its newspapers; there are
moments which echo the early chapters in
Citizen Kane , and reminders of Page One ,
Andrew Rossi’s superb essay on the way the
New York Times and its personnel face the
digital age: is the Grey Lady on death row?
Roger Ebert is; with body, head and face
malformed by terminal cancer, he goes on
tapping on his laptop in hospital, and
continuing, miraculously, to get some fun out
of everything.
So many documentaries have to do with
survival. For Keep On Keepin’ On , two
Australian film makers, Alan Hicks and Adam
Hart, went to the United States to make their
vibrant essay on the life and work of the
trumpeter Clark Terry, who taught Miles
Davis and Quincy Jones among others, and
who, late in his life – and still blowing his
horn brilliantly – became a mentor for a
young blind pianist, Justin Kauflin. Terry,
Kauflin and Terry’s wife Gwen are their own
extraordinary stories, with Quincy Jones’s
masterly narration weaving through them,
and signalling outward; Jones’s own story is
something else again, connecting to those of
every other jazz master you’ve ever heard or
heard of. Terry’s music, which some called
“the happiest sound in jazz,” remains with us
in the film even after he, at past ninety and
ill, can’t help to produce it any longer;
Kauflin’s piano goes on.
It was accidental illumination that this film
was seen in short order after the curious,
perversely comic The Kidnapping of Michel
Houellebecq. This writer’s books, which I
haven’t read, are notorious for his special
forms of misanthropy and misogyny. Those
elements in his disposition are convincingly
enacted, by the man himself, in this demi-
fictional replay of the days when, on the point
of literary appearances, he disappeared from
public sight; with him, the supposed
kidnappers (played by Luc Schwarz, Mathieu
Nicourt and others) engage in meandering,
demi-philosophic dialogue while waiting for
ransom to be organised. There’s a sour kind
of comedy happening in the fogs of smoke
and drink; the jokes are all at the writer’s
expense, miserably self-absorbed as he is; he
defines and personifies a mentality. Moving
from this to Keep On Keepin’ On , you
understand all over again that jazz evolved
precisely to ride over and out from all that,
from its beginnings in an underdog culture
that refused exactly that mentality – grudging,
self-pitying, hopeless – and refused it
absolutely.
Some of the most popular documentaries are
likely to reach the cinema circuits; those
include Particle Fever , on the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN (European Centre for
Nuclear Research) on the Franco-Swiss
border. This huge and expensive installation
is there, in part, to work out what happened
at the beginning of the universe. Curiosity
drives crowds, even if your family doesn’t
include an aspiring nuclear physicist; both
screenings were packed out. Of this thrilling
tale, more to come. Its distributor, Madman
Entertainment, also has the wonderful
Sepideh: Reaching for the Stars , and this also is
one to wait for. The fourteen-year-old Sepideh
passionately wants to be an astronomer, and
if possible an astronaut as well; she is
philosophically akin to the Saudi-Arabian
Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadjda , first met at last
year’s festival and then at local cinemas. It
will be remembered that the intrepid Wadjda,
aged ten, wanted to acquire a bicycle and ride
it, against all the rules for girls; and also that
as a considerable strategist, she won the
money in a competition for recitation from
the Koran.
Wadjda was a fictional creation, the kind
where fiction is necessary precisely because
it’s all true. Sepideh , directed by Berit Madsen,
is documentary, and like many films from the
Middle East, it was enabled as a co-
production, with input from four European
sources as well as from Iran. We find the girl
toiling up a hillside at night, trailing her hijab
and carrying her portable telescope. The
uphill track is unforced symbolism; Sepideh’s
widowed mother is struggling, and can’t but
calculate that the best course is a well-
arranged marriage for the girl. In countries
where honour killings, forced marriages and
domestic imprisonment persist – and those
include Australia – the circulation of such
films must be taken beyond middle-class
urban audiences. Their excellence as cinema,
both drama and document, isn’t an end in
itself.
The major features on the program will
resurface, among them Richard Linklater’s
remarkable drama-documentary Boyhood , an
essay on normally dysfunctional family life
observed over twelve years in a sunny Texan
suburb, a benign, modern Sons and Lovers.
This was in the running for the Sydney Film
Prize; the one that got it, the Dardenne
brothers’ Two Days, One Night , will also
reappear. In the meantime, cinephiles aware
of Belgian cinema might profitably spend time
with Philip Mosley’s excellent new book on
Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne and their now-
considerable oeuvre, from the documentary
videos of the 1970s through the distinguished
fictions of the past twenty-five years: The
Cinema of the Dardenne Brothers: Responsible
Realism (Wallflower Press, the Director’s Cut
series, 2013). Their story should ring bells for
Australians; they took a clear decision, early
on, that they weren’t migrating to Paris, but
in the teeth of provincial struggle they were
going to make movies right there where they
were; not even Brussels or near it, but in the
province of Wallonia.
ith all the productive interaction
between festival and film trade,
there are still films which, without
the festival, would be very unlikely
to reach us. It’s because of the Sydney
festival’s current size and prosperity that, at
the last crowded minute, it could draw in
unprogrammed items hot from Cannes, those
including the winner of the Palme d’Or, Nuri
Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep .
I can report that this film held a large
audience mesmerised for all of its 196
minutes; and as with Ceylan’s Once Upon a
Time in Anatolia, the magnetism has only so
much to do with plot; these are tantalising
fragments of drama, appearing and
disappearing, trailing on into minds and
memories beyond the limits of the screen. In
this film the enchantment has to do with
landscape, the Anatolian steppes, snowbound
as we see them here, with the houses cut into
the rocks; with the presence of an angry child,
whose parents can’t afford the rent; and with
the work of a formidable actor, Haluk
Bilginer. His character, Aydin, is a former
actor and in the present of the film, both a
landlord and a columnist for a newspaper
called The Voice of the Steppe . Seeing the
alienation of Aydin’s beautiful younger wife,
we seem at first to be in a world like that of
Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (also seen in the
festival’s retrospective programs). But the
unhappiness of women – Nihal (Melisa Sözen),
and Aydin’s divorced sister Necla (Demet
Akbağ) – is an intractable, persistent element.
Nihal understands herself: she needs
meaningful work, as unequivocally as the wild
horse, brutally captured, needs its freedom.
This winter country isn’t so far from
Chekhov’s, and Istanbul, like Chekhov’s
Moscow, is always there, somewhere across an
uncrossable distance.
Sometimes there appears a small film which
strikes the viewer as being formally perfect.
That is the case with Ida, discussed here in the
last posting; it is the case with Abderrahmane
Sissako’s Timbuktu, which, like Winter Sleep,
came in late to the festival via Cannes.
Sissako, who is spoken of as present-day
Africa’s great director, takes up the jihadist
assault on northern Mali with drive and
clarity. A young deer is seen running over the
sandhills; a family is assembled peacefully in
their tent; a boy herds cattle in a river, and
angers a fisherman casting his nets. It will not
be possible for the end-credits to claim that
“no animal was harmed…”; the visible death
of a very important beast prefigures needless
human murder. The jihadist vigilantes want
women to be both hooded and gloved, even as
they’re cleaning fish in the market. At the
end, we understand more about the fleeing
animal.
I will give some further comment soon on this
super-abundant film festival. Its major
Australian offering, David Michôd’s The
Rover, is already on the circuits. •
AVOIDING A CATASTROPHE IN IRAQ
Mathew Gray
The spectacular emergence of ISIS – the
acronym stands for “the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria” or, more precisely,
“the Islamic State in Iraq and al-
Shams,” “al-Shams” effectively meaning the
Levant – appears remarkable at first glance.
Seemingly out of nowhere, it has overrun
several key towns and cities in the central-
north and central-west of Iraq, including
Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. As they
advance, ISIS fighters have brutally abused
their enemies and imposed their extreme
interpretation of an Islamic state on local
populations. They seem to combine the
fervour of an ideologically driven terrorist
group and the strength of a well-organised
militia, and few people appear willing to
resist them.
But these are early days in this newest battle
for Iraq’s future. ISIS may prove to be much
less potent than it appears; certainly, it speaks
for very few Iraqis. It faces formidable
challenges in holding territorial gains and
transforming into anything close to a
functional government. And it has a lot more
enemies than friends among the foreign
governments with a stake in Iraq’s future.
ISIS’s dramatic rise is not so much a
reflection of its capabilities as it is of the
weak opposition it has encountered thus far.
Its forces are highly motivated, for sure, and
its leadership has “sold” ISIS very skilfully on
social media and deftly created local sources
of revenue in Syria. Many of its fighters have
extensive combat experience in Iraq or Syria.
This sounds ominous, especially since around
800 ISIS fighters overran some 30,000 Iraqi
army soldiers and took Mosul on 10 June. But
in Mosul, the Iraqi soldiers probably fled out
of surprise and because of an unwillingness to
fight for an unpopular government and prime
minister in Baghdad, not just out of ineptness
or cowardice. Because many of the soldiers
were Sunni, moreover, they are less
threatened by ISIS than the Shiites, who are
seen as apostates by ISIS’s Sunni extremists.
And Mosul, while certainly a mixed Sunni–
Shiite city, is disproportionately Sunni and
has long been in violent disarray. In other
words, it was an easy target for a group like
ISIS.
On the same day, the Iraqi army also fled
from Kirkuk in disarray, this time in the face
of Kurdish peshmerga militia who took the
chance to seize the disputed city. The lesson
here is that the peshmerga is a strong, very
disciplined and well-trained fighting force,
far superior to most units of the Iraqi army.
These events do not mean that ISIS is about to
take Iraq as a whole, or even the Arab parts of
it. There is even a chance that they will
defeated on the battlefield – although what is
left of them would almost certainly regroup in
the future as a new group, just as ISIS is the
successor of al Qaeda in Iraq.
The challenges to ISIS in the longer-term are
several. Perhaps most obviously, the
organisation is extreme and small in number.
It probably has no more than two or three
thousand fighters in Syria and perhaps 7000
in Iraq, although these figures are little more
than guesstimates. Any higher number,
however, would probably include like-minded
or opportunistic Sunni militias. Weak as it is
in many respects, the 270,000-strong Iraqi
army is so much larger, and among its ranks
are many Shiites who see ISIS as a grave
threat to themselves and their families. More
importantly, ISIS would have little chance
against up to 200,000 well-organised and
well-trained peshmerga from the Kurdish
north.
As several observers have noted, ISIS has
proven effective at taking territory, but
holding it is another matter. To control,
exploit and govern a territory, it would need
a sympathetic (preferably ideologically
supportive) population, almost certainly
Sunni. Only a few places in Iraq will give it
that base – the mostly Sunni provinces of
Anbar and Salahuddin, and corners of a few
other provinces; otherwise, it will have to
operate in unfriendly areas, perhaps even
outright hostile ones in areas where there are
sizeable Shiite populations.
Finally, ISIS has few friends and plenty of
opponents beyond its own territory. It has
been quite effective at taxing the population
in areas of Syria under its control, for
example, and it might attract a few donations
from sympathisers abroad. But it has no real
external sponsor. As much as some Gulf
monarchies might prefer ISIS to Iraq’s Shiites,
they are not likely to openly support it if that
means clashing with the United States. Above
all, ISIS is opposed by Iran, which would go to
great lengths to support the Iraqi prime
minister, Nouri al-Maliki. It is noteworthy,
and bad news for ISIS, that one of the few
things on which Washington and Tehran
agree is the need for ISIS to be stopped.
The fall of Mosul to ISIS and Kirkuk to the
Kurds means that, although Iraq is not
necessarily lost to the central government, it
has now changed significantly and
irreversibly. Even if ISIS doesn’t gain
substantial control in Iraq – say, by capturing
several provinces and establishing themselves
there – it might still prove to be a spoiler. It
could also end up controlling a small,
unhappy corner of the country, using it as a
base to create wider mischief in Iraq or
elsewhere.
ISIS could be defeated and all but destroyed as
a military force, but this would probably only
come through US or Iranian intervention. If
Iran intervenes, it would exacerbate Sunni
grievances; in saving al-Maliki and his
colleagues from the immediate ISIS threat, it
would thoroughly undermine him as prime
minister.
US intervention is now looking quite likely,
but the exact nature of any support is being
very vigorously debated in Washington – and
with good reason. Not only do many
policymakers equate Iraq with past policy
failure and an eight-year quagmire – meaning
that the chance of ground troops being sent to
Iraq in any significant number can be ruled
out – but the United States will also limit its
actions so as to avoid handing Tehran any
advantages. If al-Maliki stays as prime
minister – which is looking less likely by the
day – he’s close enough to Tehran that
American intervention will focus not on
helping him, but on defeating ISIS.
The United States only has a few safe options.
In the short term, to stop ISIS and then roll it
back, the Americans could provide the kind of
intelligence that the Iraqi army has little
capability to collect. Unmanned aircraft could
help collect this material, and could also
conduct limited but opportunistic strikes as
ISIS targets are identified. More extensive
airstrikes are possible, as are a special forces
commitment on the ground.
Washington is reportedly considering both of
these options: airstrikes, of course, would be
easiest to sell to American voters, but would
not be very effective without better tactical
intelligence on ISIS locations, movements and
key figures. For that, they need either Iraqi
human intelligence, which is probably not
available, or their own special forces on the
ground helping gather information and
coordinate Iraqi army operations. It is not
surprising, therefore, that as the United States
considers its options more closely, it is
reportedly leaning increasingly towards
special forces (although if they do choose this
option, it may not become public until well
after the fact).
Washington probably has no choice but to
intervene somehow. If Iraq collapses, it will
pose new threats, both as a base for terrorism
and to the stability of other states in the
region. If Iran steps in instead, the United
States risks handing Tehran a victory, or at
least greater influence in the region. Many
American allies in the region will be
unnerved by a lack of US action against ISIS.
At the same time, doing something requires a
delicate balance and a great deal of care to
avoid getting dragged into supporting Iraqi
security or serving Iran’s interests.
he only real winner from these events so
far has been Iraq’s Kurds. They have
long had semi-autonomy, administering
three of Iraq’s northern provinces
through the Kurdish Regional Government, or
KRG. Almost a quasi-state, the KRG has its
own parliament and makes many of its own
laws, and its peshmerga militia as, in effect,
its army. It has been the only part of Iraq that
has been stable and safe over the past decade.
Under Iraq’s 2005 constitution, the KRG is
promised 17 per cent of Iraq’s oil income,
although it has started trying to supplement or
replace this with oil contracts of its own in
recent years: in fact, the news about ISIS has
obscured the other major event related to Iraq
in the past week, the KRG’s attempt to sell oil
directly on the international market. A tanker
with one million barrels of oil is currently
sitting in the Mediterranean while the KRG
and Baghdad argue over whether the Kurds
have the right to sell it.
Events since the rise of ISIS have strengthened
the Kurds’ position but also increased the risk
of Iraq fragmenting and falling apart. The
KRG’s leadership must be quietly satisfied
with events. The Iraqi army’s flight from
Kirkuk has shown the peshmerga to be, by far,
the superior military force, an assessment
arguably endorsed by the fact that ISIS has
been careful not to engage the peshmerga in
fighting. The KRG will not let Kirkuk go:
expect to see the KRG integrate it into the rest
of their territory as quickly as possible.
Reportedly the Kurds have already connected
the main Kirkuk oilfield up to their own
pipeline, letting them drill and export to
Turkey. The KRG now will almost certainly
meet its goal of exporting 400,000 barrels of
oil a day by the end of the year, which would
come close to equally the revenues it is
promised from Baghdad under the
constitution. If it can expand and secure its
pipelines the Kirkuk superfield could produce
1.4 million barrels a day or more. If the KRG
can fully exploit this field, or even develop it
further, they would do so at Baghdad’s
expense. Iraq’s planned daily 2014
production rate of four million barrels, with
up to one-sixth going to the KRG, would
instead see the KRG produce about half of this
figure and Baghdad the other half. The
impacts on Iraq’s central government and its
capabilities would be substantial, and would
be a further incentive for the Kurds to seek
full independence.
The challenge for the Kurds remain
significant, however, and include significant
opposition to them formally becoming
independent and breaking up Iraq, as well as
practical concerns in Turkey especially that
this would motivate Turkey’s own Kurdish
population to seek independence from
Ankara. The Turks have enormous power over
the KRG, since Kurdish oil has to travel
through Turkey, along pipelines and out of
Turkish ports, and they could yet use this
power if they thought Iraq’s Kurds were
pushing for independence and saw this as a
threat.
In other respects, however, the current crisis
is probably a boon for the Kurds. Few other
Iraqis would take any joy in events, however.
Iraq has a violent modern history, but its last
decade has been especially horrid. Sectarian
and ethnic identities have become
entrenched, politics has become fragmented,
and a weak state has given often-extreme
groups, ISIS among them, the chance to gain a
foothold.
To avoid yet further catastrophe, a number of
things probably need to happen. Prime
minister Nouri al-Maliki needs to withdraw
from politics; he has become too divisive, too
pro-Shiite, and too authoritarian to unite
Iraqis against ISIS. This is becoming
increasingly likely. Far less likely, a longer-
term reconciliation effort needs to be made,
including a final agreement over the control
and exploitation of Iraq’s enormous oil
wealth, but also a program to give all the
main groups in Iraq a stake in its stability.
And least likely of all, the United States, Iran
and Saudi Arabia need to agree on what roles
they will play long-term in Iraq.
Otherwise, Iraq’s future is bleak, and there
will continue to be extremists who will fight to
control the country or a part of it. If ISIS does
not succeed this time, another group will
quickly succeed it, exploiting the same fears
and grievances and soon posing just as much
of a threat to its security and that of the
region. •
The spectacular emergence of ISIS – the
acronym stands for “the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria” or, more precisely,
“the Islamic State in Iraq and al-
Shams,” “al-Shams” effectively meaning the
Levant – appears remarkable at first glance.
Seemingly out of nowhere, it has overrun
several key towns and cities in the central-
north and central-west of Iraq, including
Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. As they
advance, ISIS fighters have brutally abused
their enemies and imposed their extreme
interpretation of an Islamic state on local
populations. They seem to combine the
fervour of an ideologically driven terrorist
group and the strength of a well-organised
militia, and few people appear willing to
resist them.
But these are early days in this newest battle
for Iraq’s future. ISIS may prove to be much
less potent than it appears; certainly, it speaks
for very few Iraqis. It faces formidable
challenges in holding territorial gains and
transforming into anything close to a
functional government. And it has a lot more
enemies than friends among the foreign
governments with a stake in Iraq’s future.
ISIS’s dramatic rise is not so much a
reflection of its capabilities as it is of the
weak opposition it has encountered thus far.
Its forces are highly motivated, for sure, and
its leadership has “sold” ISIS very skilfully on
social media and deftly created local sources
of revenue in Syria. Many of its fighters have
extensive combat experience in Iraq or Syria.
This sounds ominous, especially since around
800 ISIS fighters overran some 30,000 Iraqi
army soldiers and took Mosul on 10 June. But
in Mosul, the Iraqi soldiers probably fled out
of surprise and because of an unwillingness to
fight for an unpopular government and prime
minister in Baghdad, not just out of ineptness
or cowardice. Because many of the soldiers
were Sunni, moreover, they are less
threatened by ISIS than the Shiites, who are
seen as apostates by ISIS’s Sunni extremists.
And Mosul, while certainly a mixed Sunni–
Shiite city, is disproportionately Sunni and
has long been in violent disarray. In other
words, it was an easy target for a group like
ISIS.
On the same day, the Iraqi army also fled
from Kirkuk in disarray, this time in the face
of Kurdish peshmerga militia who took the
chance to seize the disputed city. The lesson
here is that the peshmerga is a strong, very
disciplined and well-trained fighting force,
far superior to most units of the Iraqi army.
These events do not mean that ISIS is about to
take Iraq as a whole, or even the Arab parts of
it. There is even a chance that they will
defeated on the battlefield – although what is
left of them would almost certainly regroup in
the future as a new group, just as ISIS is the
successor of al Qaeda in Iraq.
The challenges to ISIS in the longer-term are
several. Perhaps most obviously, the
organisation is extreme and small in number.
It probably has no more than two or three
thousand fighters in Syria and perhaps 7000
in Iraq, although these figures are little more
than guesstimates. Any higher number,
however, would probably include like-minded
or opportunistic Sunni militias. Weak as it is
in many respects, the 270,000-strong Iraqi
army is so much larger, and among its ranks
are many Shiites who see ISIS as a grave
threat to themselves and their families. More
importantly, ISIS would have little chance
against up to 200,000 well-organised and
well-trained peshmerga from the Kurdish
north.
As several observers have noted, ISIS has
proven effective at taking territory, but
holding it is another matter. To control,
exploit and govern a territory, it would need
a sympathetic (preferably ideologically
supportive) population, almost certainly
Sunni. Only a few places in Iraq will give it
that base – the mostly Sunni provinces of
Anbar and Salahuddin, and corners of a few
other provinces; otherwise, it will have to
operate in unfriendly areas, perhaps even
outright hostile ones in areas where there are
sizeable Shiite populations.
Finally, ISIS has few friends and plenty of
opponents beyond its own territory. It has
been quite effective at taxing the population
in areas of Syria under its control, for
example, and it might attract a few donations
from sympathisers abroad. But it has no real
external sponsor. As much as some Gulf
monarchies might prefer ISIS to Iraq’s Shiites,
they are not likely to openly support it if that
means clashing with the United States. Above
all, ISIS is opposed by Iran, which would go to
great lengths to support the Iraqi prime
minister, Nouri al-Maliki. It is noteworthy,
and bad news for ISIS, that one of the few
things on which Washington and Tehran
agree is the need for ISIS to be stopped.
The fall of Mosul to ISIS and Kirkuk to the
Kurds means that, although Iraq is not
necessarily lost to the central government, it
has now changed significantly and
irreversibly. Even if ISIS doesn’t gain
substantial control in Iraq – say, by capturing
several provinces and establishing themselves
there – it might still prove to be a spoiler. It
could also end up controlling a small,
unhappy corner of the country, using it as a
base to create wider mischief in Iraq or
elsewhere.
ISIS could be defeated and all but destroyed as
a military force, but this would probably only
come through US or Iranian intervention. If
Iran intervenes, it would exacerbate Sunni
grievances; in saving al-Maliki and his
colleagues from the immediate ISIS threat, it
would thoroughly undermine him as prime
minister.
US intervention is now looking quite likely,
but the exact nature of any support is being
very vigorously debated in Washington – and
with good reason. Not only do many
policymakers equate Iraq with past policy
failure and an eight-year quagmire – meaning
that the chance of ground troops being sent to
Iraq in any significant number can be ruled
out – but the United States will also limit its
actions so as to avoid handing Tehran any
advantages. If al-Maliki stays as prime
minister – which is looking less likely by the
day – he’s close enough to Tehran that
American intervention will focus not on
helping him, but on defeating ISIS.
The United States only has a few safe options.
In the short term, to stop ISIS and then roll it
back, the Americans could provide the kind of
intelligence that the Iraqi army has little
capability to collect. Unmanned aircraft could
help collect this material, and could also
conduct limited but opportunistic strikes as
ISIS targets are identified. More extensive
airstrikes are possible, as are a special forces
commitment on the ground.
Washington is reportedly considering both of
these options: airstrikes, of course, would be
easiest to sell to American voters, but would
not be very effective without better tactical
intelligence on ISIS locations, movements and
key figures. For that, they need either Iraqi
human intelligence, which is probably not
available, or their own special forces on the
ground helping gather information and
coordinate Iraqi army operations. It is not
surprising, therefore, that as the United States
considers its options more closely, it is
reportedly leaning increasingly towards
special forces (although if they do choose this
option, it may not become public until well
after the fact).
Washington probably has no choice but to
intervene somehow. If Iraq collapses, it will
pose new threats, both as a base for terrorism
and to the stability of other states in the
region. If Iran steps in instead, the United
States risks handing Tehran a victory, or at
least greater influence in the region. Many
American allies in the region will be
unnerved by a lack of US action against ISIS.
At the same time, doing something requires a
delicate balance and a great deal of care to
avoid getting dragged into supporting Iraqi
security or serving Iran’s interests.
he only real winner from these events so
far has been Iraq’s Kurds. They have
long had semi-autonomy, administering
three of Iraq’s northern provinces
through the Kurdish Regional Government, or
KRG. Almost a quasi-state, the KRG has its
own parliament and makes many of its own
laws, and its peshmerga militia as, in effect,
its army. It has been the only part of Iraq that
has been stable and safe over the past decade.
Under Iraq’s 2005 constitution, the KRG is
promised 17 per cent of Iraq’s oil income,
although it has started trying to supplement or
replace this with oil contracts of its own in
recent years: in fact, the news about ISIS has
obscured the other major event related to Iraq
in the past week, the KRG’s attempt to sell oil
directly on the international market. A tanker
with one million barrels of oil is currently
sitting in the Mediterranean while the KRG
and Baghdad argue over whether the Kurds
have the right to sell it.
Events since the rise of ISIS have strengthened
the Kurds’ position but also increased the risk
of Iraq fragmenting and falling apart. The
KRG’s leadership must be quietly satisfied
with events. The Iraqi army’s flight from
Kirkuk has shown the peshmerga to be, by far,
the superior military force, an assessment
arguably endorsed by the fact that ISIS has
been careful not to engage the peshmerga in
fighting. The KRG will not let Kirkuk go:
expect to see the KRG integrate it into the rest
of their territory as quickly as possible.
Reportedly the Kurds have already connected
the main Kirkuk oilfield up to their own
pipeline, letting them drill and export to
Turkey. The KRG now will almost certainly
meet its goal of exporting 400,000 barrels of
oil a day by the end of the year, which would
come close to equally the revenues it is
promised from Baghdad under the
constitution. If it can expand and secure its
pipelines the Kirkuk superfield could produce
1.4 million barrels a day or more. If the KRG
can fully exploit this field, or even develop it
further, they would do so at Baghdad’s
expense. Iraq’s planned daily 2014
production rate of four million barrels, with
up to one-sixth going to the KRG, would
instead see the KRG produce about half of this
figure and Baghdad the other half. The
impacts on Iraq’s central government and its
capabilities would be substantial, and would
be a further incentive for the Kurds to seek
full independence.
The challenge for the Kurds remain
significant, however, and include significant
opposition to them formally becoming
independent and breaking up Iraq, as well as
practical concerns in Turkey especially that
this would motivate Turkey’s own Kurdish
population to seek independence from
Ankara. The Turks have enormous power over
the KRG, since Kurdish oil has to travel
through Turkey, along pipelines and out of
Turkish ports, and they could yet use this
power if they thought Iraq’s Kurds were
pushing for independence and saw this as a
threat.
In other respects, however, the current crisis
is probably a boon for the Kurds. Few other
Iraqis would take any joy in events, however.
Iraq has a violent modern history, but its last
decade has been especially horrid. Sectarian
and ethnic identities have become
entrenched, politics has become fragmented,
and a weak state has given often-extreme
groups, ISIS among them, the chance to gain a
foothold.
To avoid yet further catastrophe, a number of
things probably need to happen. Prime
minister Nouri al-Maliki needs to withdraw
from politics; he has become too divisive, too
pro-Shiite, and too authoritarian to unite
Iraqis against ISIS. This is becoming
increasingly likely. Far less likely, a longer-
term reconciliation effort needs to be made,
including a final agreement over the control
and exploitation of Iraq’s enormous oil
wealth, but also a program to give all the
main groups in Iraq a stake in its stability.
And least likely of all, the United States, Iran
and Saudi Arabia need to agree on what roles
they will play long-term in Iraq.
Otherwise, Iraq’s future is bleak, and there
will continue to be extremists who will fight to
control the country or a part of it. If ISIS does
not succeed this time, another group will
quickly succeed it, exploiting the same fears
and grievances and soon posing just as much
of a threat to its security and that of the
region. •
THE TOP 8 THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
Matt Barber
Look at your life. Life is hard. Look at the
news. In our fallen, sinful world, evil swirls
about like a violent dust devil, clouding the
air of absolute truth and muddying the
waters of pure grace that flow to eternal life
through Christ Jesus.
It seems the world has gone mad, and it has.
Relativism rules as up is down, black is white
and that which God calls evil is called good.
All forms of sexual immorality are celebrated
and deceptively tagged “human rights,” while
God’s design for marriage, family and
sexuality, along with true human rights, are
systematically trampled to accommodate
disorder and sin. Innocent children are
slaughtered at will in the safety of their
mothers’ wombs, while demonic political
systems rooted in the pagan traditions of
Islam and secular humanism stack the bodies
of tens-of-millions like cordwood.
The enemy is enraged because his time is
short.
Yet through it all, and in His infinite mercy
and grace, God gives us a taste of things to
come.
In biblical terms, the number 8 represents a
new beginning with God. It signifies man’s
covenantal relationship with his Creator
through the physical act of circumcision,
which, in the Jewish tradition, is performed
on the male child’s eighth day. For the
Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, we
undergo a “circumcision of the heart”
through belief upon, communion with and
worship of Jesus, the God-man.
That’s why I believe the Holy Spirit, through
the Apostle Paul, gave mankind eight specific
things to “think about” so that “the God of
peace will be with you.” There can be peace
in the eye of storm – a “new beginning” each
day – and that peace is Christ with us.
Said Paul: “Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever
is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable – if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy – think about such
things” (Philippians 4:8).
1) Whatever is true
The opposite of true is the lie. Truth is fixed.
Truth is objective. Moral relativism fosters
the absurd notion that truth is malleable and
subjective. Therefore, relativism is a lie. But,
as Pilate asked Christ, “What is truth?” God’s
created order, His natural law, is truth. The
Bible is God’s word. The Bible is truth. It is
called “the word of truth. “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus
Himself is truth. He says, “I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Immerse yourself in the word of God and you
cannot help but “think about” truth.
2) Whatever is noble
Merriam Webster defines “noble” as “having,
showing, or coming from personal qualities
that people admire (such as honesty,
generosity, courage, etc.).” We know noble
when we see it. We see it in the teenage boy
who returns the cash-flush wallet to the lost
and found. We see it in the philanthropist
who anonymously and generously gives to the
widow and the poor – to “the least of these.”
We see it in the men and women who serve
so that we may enjoy freedom. We especially
see it in the soldier, in anyone, who lays
down his life so that others may live.
3) Whatever is right
There is right and wrong. Right is correct.
Wrong is incorrect. Love, true love, which
derives from love Himself, is right. Hate is
wrong. Right stems from truth and grace.
Wrong stems from the lie, enmity and
ruthlessness. Right is to forgive others so that
we may be forgiven. Wrong is to resent,
begrudge and refuse to forgive. Right is the
exclusivity of Christ. Wrong is the
“inclusivity” of religious pluralism. Right
comes from God the Father. Wrong comes
from the father of lies.
4) Whatever is pure
“Pure” is that which is “free from what
vitiates, weakens, or pollutes: containing
nothing that does not properly belong.”
Chastity is pure. Fornication is impure.
Fidelity to one’s spouse and the faithful
marriage bed is pure. Adultery is impure.
True marriage is pure. Counterfeit same-sex
“marriage” is “vitiated, weakened and
polluted” by sexual immorality and is,
therefore, impure. Contentment is pure.
Covetousness is impure. Selflessness, when
harmonized with and motivated by God’s
moral truths, is pure. Selfishness is impure.
Jesus is pure. We are impure. True
Christianity is pure. Apostate “Christianity”
and other false religions that deny Christ and
the truth of His word are impure.
5) Whatever is lovely
“Lovely” is defined as “attractive or beautiful,
especially in a graceful way.” Outward
beauty can be lovely. Inward beauty that
derives from the Holy Spirit is always lovely.
The creative arts are lovely, especially when
motivated by a desire to serve, honor and
glorify the Creator. Handle’s Messiah is
lovely. The Sistine Chapel is lovely. God’s
nature, creation and created order is lovely.
My beautiful wife and daughters are lovely,
inside and out.
6) Whatever is admirable
That which is “admirable” is “worthy of
admiration; inspiring approval, reverence, or
affection.” The whole of God’s creation, save
those aspects corrupted by sin, is admirable.
Our Creator God is beyond admirable and
worthy of infinite wonder, praise and
worship. Unfortunately, in our sinful nature,
we often admire things that fall well short of
admirable. We “think about” things
anathema to those eight given us by Paul.
7) Whatever is excellent
Excellence means “of extremely high quality.”
We are told to not only think about that
which is excellent, but to strive for excellence
in all we do. “Whatever your hand finds to
do, do it with all your might. …” (Ecclesiastes
9:10)We also know excellence when we see it.
Michael Jordan was excellent. Legendary jazz
drummer Buddy Rich was excellent. The rib-
eye at Ruth’s Chris is excellent. President
Obama’s leadership and policies – economic,
social, and national security-related, both
foreign and domestic – are decidedly not
excellent.
8) Whatever is praiseworthy
Finally, Webster’s defines “praiseworthy” as
“laudable: deserving praise: worthy of
praise.” The previous seven things Paul gives
us to “think about” are also praiseworthy.
They are laudable. That which is true, noble,
right, pure, lovely, admirable and excellent, is
also praiseworthy.
Do you see what Paul did here – what the
Holy Spirit did through Paul? He gave us eight
things to “think about.” Does anything in
particularly strike you about these eight
things?
They are eight in One.
Each of these eight things represents a
specific character trait of Christ Himself.
Jesus is true. Jesus is noble. Jesus is right.
Jesus is pure. Jesus is lovely. Jesus is
admirable. Jesus is excellent and, finally,
perhaps most importantly, Jesus is infinitely
and eternally praiseworthy.
Look at your life. Life is hard. Look at the
news. In our fallen, sinful world, evil swirls
about like a violent dust devil, clouding the
air of absolute truth and muddying the
waters of pure grace that flow to eternal life
through Christ Jesus.
It seems the world has gone mad, and it has.
Relativism rules as up is down, black is white
and that which God calls evil is called good.
All forms of sexual immorality are celebrated
and deceptively tagged “human rights,” while
God’s design for marriage, family and
sexuality, along with true human rights, are
systematically trampled to accommodate
disorder and sin. Innocent children are
slaughtered at will in the safety of their
mothers’ wombs, while demonic political
systems rooted in the pagan traditions of
Islam and secular humanism stack the bodies
of tens-of-millions like cordwood.
The enemy is enraged because his time is
short.
Yet through it all, and in His infinite mercy
and grace, God gives us a taste of things to
come.
In biblical terms, the number 8 represents a
new beginning with God. It signifies man’s
covenantal relationship with his Creator
through the physical act of circumcision,
which, in the Jewish tradition, is performed
on the male child’s eighth day. For the
Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, we
undergo a “circumcision of the heart”
through belief upon, communion with and
worship of Jesus, the God-man.
That’s why I believe the Holy Spirit, through
the Apostle Paul, gave mankind eight specific
things to “think about” so that “the God of
peace will be with you.” There can be peace
in the eye of storm – a “new beginning” each
day – and that peace is Christ with us.
Said Paul: “Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever
is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable – if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy – think about such
things” (Philippians 4:8).
1) Whatever is true
The opposite of true is the lie. Truth is fixed.
Truth is objective. Moral relativism fosters
the absurd notion that truth is malleable and
subjective. Therefore, relativism is a lie. But,
as Pilate asked Christ, “What is truth?” God’s
created order, His natural law, is truth. The
Bible is God’s word. The Bible is truth. It is
called “the word of truth. “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus
Himself is truth. He says, “I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Immerse yourself in the word of God and you
cannot help but “think about” truth.
2) Whatever is noble
Merriam Webster defines “noble” as “having,
showing, or coming from personal qualities
that people admire (such as honesty,
generosity, courage, etc.).” We know noble
when we see it. We see it in the teenage boy
who returns the cash-flush wallet to the lost
and found. We see it in the philanthropist
who anonymously and generously gives to the
widow and the poor – to “the least of these.”
We see it in the men and women who serve
so that we may enjoy freedom. We especially
see it in the soldier, in anyone, who lays
down his life so that others may live.
3) Whatever is right
There is right and wrong. Right is correct.
Wrong is incorrect. Love, true love, which
derives from love Himself, is right. Hate is
wrong. Right stems from truth and grace.
Wrong stems from the lie, enmity and
ruthlessness. Right is to forgive others so that
we may be forgiven. Wrong is to resent,
begrudge and refuse to forgive. Right is the
exclusivity of Christ. Wrong is the
“inclusivity” of religious pluralism. Right
comes from God the Father. Wrong comes
from the father of lies.
4) Whatever is pure
“Pure” is that which is “free from what
vitiates, weakens, or pollutes: containing
nothing that does not properly belong.”
Chastity is pure. Fornication is impure.
Fidelity to one’s spouse and the faithful
marriage bed is pure. Adultery is impure.
True marriage is pure. Counterfeit same-sex
“marriage” is “vitiated, weakened and
polluted” by sexual immorality and is,
therefore, impure. Contentment is pure.
Covetousness is impure. Selflessness, when
harmonized with and motivated by God’s
moral truths, is pure. Selfishness is impure.
Jesus is pure. We are impure. True
Christianity is pure. Apostate “Christianity”
and other false religions that deny Christ and
the truth of His word are impure.
5) Whatever is lovely
“Lovely” is defined as “attractive or beautiful,
especially in a graceful way.” Outward
beauty can be lovely. Inward beauty that
derives from the Holy Spirit is always lovely.
The creative arts are lovely, especially when
motivated by a desire to serve, honor and
glorify the Creator. Handle’s Messiah is
lovely. The Sistine Chapel is lovely. God’s
nature, creation and created order is lovely.
My beautiful wife and daughters are lovely,
inside and out.
6) Whatever is admirable
That which is “admirable” is “worthy of
admiration; inspiring approval, reverence, or
affection.” The whole of God’s creation, save
those aspects corrupted by sin, is admirable.
Our Creator God is beyond admirable and
worthy of infinite wonder, praise and
worship. Unfortunately, in our sinful nature,
we often admire things that fall well short of
admirable. We “think about” things
anathema to those eight given us by Paul.
7) Whatever is excellent
Excellence means “of extremely high quality.”
We are told to not only think about that
which is excellent, but to strive for excellence
in all we do. “Whatever your hand finds to
do, do it with all your might. …” (Ecclesiastes
9:10)We also know excellence when we see it.
Michael Jordan was excellent. Legendary jazz
drummer Buddy Rich was excellent. The rib-
eye at Ruth’s Chris is excellent. President
Obama’s leadership and policies – economic,
social, and national security-related, both
foreign and domestic – are decidedly not
excellent.
8) Whatever is praiseworthy
Finally, Webster’s defines “praiseworthy” as
“laudable: deserving praise: worthy of
praise.” The previous seven things Paul gives
us to “think about” are also praiseworthy.
They are laudable. That which is true, noble,
right, pure, lovely, admirable and excellent, is
also praiseworthy.
Do you see what Paul did here – what the
Holy Spirit did through Paul? He gave us eight
things to “think about.” Does anything in
particularly strike you about these eight
things?
They are eight in One.
Each of these eight things represents a
specific character trait of Christ Himself.
Jesus is true. Jesus is noble. Jesus is right.
Jesus is pure. Jesus is lovely. Jesus is
admirable. Jesus is excellent and, finally,
perhaps most importantly, Jesus is infinitely
and eternally praiseworthy.
THE PAGES OF OUR LIVES
Rich Galen
Sap Alert: This past weekend marked the 50th
anniversary of the graduation from high
school of the class of 1964 from West Orange
(New Jersey) Mountain High. That's what this
column will be about.
If you are looking for an angry screed, hit the
key now and tune in later in the week when
I'm cranky again.
The thing about fifty years isn't that it goes by
so quickly when you're looking backwards,
and seems so impossibly far away when
you're looking ahead. That's true, but it's not
what is most important.
What I got to thinking about this past
weekend - the weekend of the inaccurately
named "50th Reunion" of my high school
graduating class - was about the inexorability
of the whole thing. (The inaccuracy occurs
because we have not had 50 reunions, it is
the reunion marking the 50th anniversary of
our graduation.)
From the moment of our birth one page
comes off the calendar of our lives every 24
hours (or, to keep the accuracy thing going,
23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds).
Good times, bad times, smooth or rough,
happy or sad: One day, one page.
There are pages we would like to rip off, tear
into shreds, throw away from our lifetime
calendars in about 12 hours, and forget
about. Others, we would like to savor and
keep for weeks or months, and remember
forever.
Both are possible, but the will each use up the
same exact 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds.
Not more. Not less.
Stipulating that graduation day for the West
Orange Mountain class of 1964 was on the
Summer Solstice of that year, June 21; 18,262
pages have fallen from the life calendars of
every one of the living 236 graduates. No
more. No less.
Gathering about half of them in the same
place at the same time allowed us to share the
vast variety of careers that a group of middle
class kids from Northern New Jersey have
been allowed to pursue during America's post
World War II go-go decades.
At this point in their lives many of my
classmates have retired and, being from New
Jersey, a significant number of them have
relocated to Florida. But there was a
California contingent, a classmate that came
from Finland and one from Israel. And one,
of course, from Alexandria, Virginia.
The last reunion I went to was our 42nd. At
the time I wondered (in a reply-all email)
why 42nd? "Why not 41st or 43rd," I wrote.
"Those are prime numbers. That's at least a
little amusing. What's funny about 42?"
One of my mates replied-all to my query with
this: "Because we're all turning sixty, you
moron."
I would have gotten to that if I'd thought
about it long enough.
Now, most of the class is 68 with a few of the
"children" including me, still 67.
When we were 60, we all looked like slightly
older versions of what we looked like when
we were 17 and 18. For the most part we
could look at one another and remember in a
glance who was who.
But, the pages of the calendar have taken
their toll on most of us physically over the
past eight years. Without name tags complete
with senior yearbook photos attached, it
would have been very difficult to answer the
question: "Do you remember who I am?"
Once I looked at the name and photo, each
68-year-old face resolved itself into the 18-
year-old person I remembered from high
school.
I also wondered what was going on fifty years
before we graduated, It was on June 28, 1914
(the 100th anniversary will be next Saturday)
when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was
assassinated sparking the Great War; a war
the U.S. would not enter for nearly three
more years. From July on, the rest of the year
is largely taken up by the news of European
nations choosing up sides.
Except for July 11, 1914 when Babe Ruth
made his major league debut with the Boston
Red Sox.
At our 50th reunion, the old flirtations
became new flirtations between slightly older
men and women. The high school feuds have
been either resolved, forgotten, or forgiven.
The talk had moved from who is secretly
dating whom, to what type of hearing aids we
favored and what brand of statin we are
taking.
The pages of our calendars will continue, God
willing, to drop away. Some day each of us
will reach the cardboard at the back and
we'll say goodbye.
But for this weekend, at least, a group of
senior citizens were young high school
graduates again and got to share their 18+
thousand calendar pages with one another
leaving with a new little twinkle in our
collective reading-glasses-needed eyes, the
better for having reconnected, and having
relived, the days that have gone by oh so
quickly.
Sap Alert: This past weekend marked the 50th
anniversary of the graduation from high
school of the class of 1964 from West Orange
(New Jersey) Mountain High. That's what this
column will be about.
If you are looking for an angry screed, hit the
key now and tune in later in the week when
I'm cranky again.
The thing about fifty years isn't that it goes by
so quickly when you're looking backwards,
and seems so impossibly far away when
you're looking ahead. That's true, but it's not
what is most important.
What I got to thinking about this past
weekend - the weekend of the inaccurately
named "50th Reunion" of my high school
graduating class - was about the inexorability
of the whole thing. (The inaccuracy occurs
because we have not had 50 reunions, it is
the reunion marking the 50th anniversary of
our graduation.)
From the moment of our birth one page
comes off the calendar of our lives every 24
hours (or, to keep the accuracy thing going,
23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds).
Good times, bad times, smooth or rough,
happy or sad: One day, one page.
There are pages we would like to rip off, tear
into shreds, throw away from our lifetime
calendars in about 12 hours, and forget
about. Others, we would like to savor and
keep for weeks or months, and remember
forever.
Both are possible, but the will each use up the
same exact 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds.
Not more. Not less.
Stipulating that graduation day for the West
Orange Mountain class of 1964 was on the
Summer Solstice of that year, June 21; 18,262
pages have fallen from the life calendars of
every one of the living 236 graduates. No
more. No less.
Gathering about half of them in the same
place at the same time allowed us to share the
vast variety of careers that a group of middle
class kids from Northern New Jersey have
been allowed to pursue during America's post
World War II go-go decades.
At this point in their lives many of my
classmates have retired and, being from New
Jersey, a significant number of them have
relocated to Florida. But there was a
California contingent, a classmate that came
from Finland and one from Israel. And one,
of course, from Alexandria, Virginia.
The last reunion I went to was our 42nd. At
the time I wondered (in a reply-all email)
why 42nd? "Why not 41st or 43rd," I wrote.
"Those are prime numbers. That's at least a
little amusing. What's funny about 42?"
One of my mates replied-all to my query with
this: "Because we're all turning sixty, you
moron."
I would have gotten to that if I'd thought
about it long enough.
Now, most of the class is 68 with a few of the
"children" including me, still 67.
When we were 60, we all looked like slightly
older versions of what we looked like when
we were 17 and 18. For the most part we
could look at one another and remember in a
glance who was who.
But, the pages of the calendar have taken
their toll on most of us physically over the
past eight years. Without name tags complete
with senior yearbook photos attached, it
would have been very difficult to answer the
question: "Do you remember who I am?"
Once I looked at the name and photo, each
68-year-old face resolved itself into the 18-
year-old person I remembered from high
school.
I also wondered what was going on fifty years
before we graduated, It was on June 28, 1914
(the 100th anniversary will be next Saturday)
when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was
assassinated sparking the Great War; a war
the U.S. would not enter for nearly three
more years. From July on, the rest of the year
is largely taken up by the news of European
nations choosing up sides.
Except for July 11, 1914 when Babe Ruth
made his major league debut with the Boston
Red Sox.
At our 50th reunion, the old flirtations
became new flirtations between slightly older
men and women. The high school feuds have
been either resolved, forgotten, or forgiven.
The talk had moved from who is secretly
dating whom, to what type of hearing aids we
favored and what brand of statin we are
taking.
The pages of our calendars will continue, God
willing, to drop away. Some day each of us
will reach the cardboard at the back and
we'll say goodbye.
But for this weekend, at least, a group of
senior citizens were young high school
graduates again and got to share their 18+
thousand calendar pages with one another
leaving with a new little twinkle in our
collective reading-glasses-needed eyes, the
better for having reconnected, and having
relived, the days that have gone by oh so
quickly.
IRAQ CRISES: LATEST SIGNS OF U.S VULNERABILITY TO OIL PRICE SPIKES
Ken Blackwell
The ongoing conflict in Iraq has serious
implications for vital U.S. interests, the extent
of which are difficult to decipher at this early
stage. Who ends up holding the keys to power
within Iraqi territory? What happens to the
regional balance of power? How will Iran’s
pursuit of nuclear weapons—and our efforts
to stop them—be affected?
One immediate effect of the turmoil,
however, is painfully obvious: oil prices have
already hit a nine-month high. Brent crude
reached $115 per barrel this week, a level our
country has not experienced since the height
of U.S. tensions with Syria in September
2013. As a result, a number of market
analysts now expect U.S. gasoline prices to
surpass their highest levels for the month of
June since 2008, rising from today’s level of
$3.68 per gallon to as much as $3.80 per
gallon by the end of the month.
If that were not troubling enough, Iraq’s vital
importance to the global oil market could
mean that today’s rising prices may be just
the beginning . Markets are already reeling
from a series of oil production outages in
countries across the globe—from Nigeria,
Libya, and South Sudan to Iraq, Iran, and
Syria. Any additional loss of supplies from
Iraq could stress the system to its limit and
send oil prices to levels that many of
America’s political leaders had hoped were a
thing of the past.
A recent analysis by the Commission on
Energy and Geopolitics, a group of former
high-ranking military and civilian
government officials, found that a partial
disruption to Iraq’s oil supplies—1 mbd, or
about a third of Iraq’s current production—
would cause oil prices to rise by more than
$30 per barrel, amounting to an approximate
50 cent per gallon increase at the pump for
American consumers. With the United States
consuming close to 20 million barrels of oil
per day, it doesn’t take a trained economist to
understand that we would take a serious
economic hit.
At today’s oil price levels, the average U.S.
family is already spending more than twice
as much on gasoline as they were a decade
ago—a total of $2,700 per household in 2012
compared to $1,200 in 2002 according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. An oil price spike
of the magnitude described by the
Commission and other analysts would send
spending on oil to record levels and have an
immediate, damaging impact on economic
growth.
We need to take back control of our economic
fate. We shouldn’t accept as fact the idea that
our overall prosperity and economic well-
being are held hostage to the kinds of
violence, extremism, corruption, and
mismanagement that are endemic to the
global oil market. We can do better, and we
have options.
Part of the answer can be found in rising
domestic oil production. The U.S. oil boom
has provided significant benefits, including
an improved balance of trade and hundreds
of thousands of new American jobs. That
should be embraced and supported. However,
no matter how much we produce at home, oil
will be priced in a global market, meaning
that geopolitical events beyond our control
will still have the ability to send our economy
into a tailspin.
Energy security starts and ends with oil
consumption, and that means we have to do
something about transportation. About 70
percent of the oil America consumes is used
in the transportation sector, and 92 percent
of all fuel used to power that sector is derived
from oil. Reducing oil dependence in the
transportation sector is a tremendous
opportunity to de-link the American economy
from the global oil market and the various
events—like the crisis in Iraq—that impact
that market.
The solutions have already begun to be
implemented. More than 200,000 electric
vehicles and 140,000 vehicles powered by
natural gas are currently on America’s
roadways. Simply converting the nation’s
fleet of heavy-duty, long-haul trucks to
natural gas would save 2 million barrels of oil
every day. The widespread adoption of
passenger vehicles powered by electricity
would have an even greater impact, and such
vehicles are selling at a crisp pace and
earning rave consumer reviews.
Still, more must be done to accelerate this
progress. The country needs to increase its
investment in oil-displacement transportation
technologies so that we can more quickly
sever our ties to the global oil market and
shield our economy from its volatility. Doing
so will also benefit our national security, as
decreasing our economic exposure to oil price
spikes will provide foreign and defense
policymakers with expanded options.
Time and time again, we’ve learned the
lesson that oil dependence makes us
vulnerable to flare-ups in the Middle East
and around the globe. Of all the serious
fallout that will stem from the current crisis
in Iraq, all we can predict with confidence is
that any resultant high oil prices will harm
our economy at a time when our families and
businesses can hardly afford another setback.
Let this latest lesson be the one that motivates
us to embrace the solutions that are now at
our fingertips.
The ongoing conflict in Iraq has serious
implications for vital U.S. interests, the extent
of which are difficult to decipher at this early
stage. Who ends up holding the keys to power
within Iraqi territory? What happens to the
regional balance of power? How will Iran’s
pursuit of nuclear weapons—and our efforts
to stop them—be affected?
One immediate effect of the turmoil,
however, is painfully obvious: oil prices have
already hit a nine-month high. Brent crude
reached $115 per barrel this week, a level our
country has not experienced since the height
of U.S. tensions with Syria in September
2013. As a result, a number of market
analysts now expect U.S. gasoline prices to
surpass their highest levels for the month of
June since 2008, rising from today’s level of
$3.68 per gallon to as much as $3.80 per
gallon by the end of the month.
If that were not troubling enough, Iraq’s vital
importance to the global oil market could
mean that today’s rising prices may be just
the beginning . Markets are already reeling
from a series of oil production outages in
countries across the globe—from Nigeria,
Libya, and South Sudan to Iraq, Iran, and
Syria. Any additional loss of supplies from
Iraq could stress the system to its limit and
send oil prices to levels that many of
America’s political leaders had hoped were a
thing of the past.
A recent analysis by the Commission on
Energy and Geopolitics, a group of former
high-ranking military and civilian
government officials, found that a partial
disruption to Iraq’s oil supplies—1 mbd, or
about a third of Iraq’s current production—
would cause oil prices to rise by more than
$30 per barrel, amounting to an approximate
50 cent per gallon increase at the pump for
American consumers. With the United States
consuming close to 20 million barrels of oil
per day, it doesn’t take a trained economist to
understand that we would take a serious
economic hit.
At today’s oil price levels, the average U.S.
family is already spending more than twice
as much on gasoline as they were a decade
ago—a total of $2,700 per household in 2012
compared to $1,200 in 2002 according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. An oil price spike
of the magnitude described by the
Commission and other analysts would send
spending on oil to record levels and have an
immediate, damaging impact on economic
growth.
We need to take back control of our economic
fate. We shouldn’t accept as fact the idea that
our overall prosperity and economic well-
being are held hostage to the kinds of
violence, extremism, corruption, and
mismanagement that are endemic to the
global oil market. We can do better, and we
have options.
Part of the answer can be found in rising
domestic oil production. The U.S. oil boom
has provided significant benefits, including
an improved balance of trade and hundreds
of thousands of new American jobs. That
should be embraced and supported. However,
no matter how much we produce at home, oil
will be priced in a global market, meaning
that geopolitical events beyond our control
will still have the ability to send our economy
into a tailspin.
Energy security starts and ends with oil
consumption, and that means we have to do
something about transportation. About 70
percent of the oil America consumes is used
in the transportation sector, and 92 percent
of all fuel used to power that sector is derived
from oil. Reducing oil dependence in the
transportation sector is a tremendous
opportunity to de-link the American economy
from the global oil market and the various
events—like the crisis in Iraq—that impact
that market.
The solutions have already begun to be
implemented. More than 200,000 electric
vehicles and 140,000 vehicles powered by
natural gas are currently on America’s
roadways. Simply converting the nation’s
fleet of heavy-duty, long-haul trucks to
natural gas would save 2 million barrels of oil
every day. The widespread adoption of
passenger vehicles powered by electricity
would have an even greater impact, and such
vehicles are selling at a crisp pace and
earning rave consumer reviews.
Still, more must be done to accelerate this
progress. The country needs to increase its
investment in oil-displacement transportation
technologies so that we can more quickly
sever our ties to the global oil market and
shield our economy from its volatility. Doing
so will also benefit our national security, as
decreasing our economic exposure to oil price
spikes will provide foreign and defense
policymakers with expanded options.
Time and time again, we’ve learned the
lesson that oil dependence makes us
vulnerable to flare-ups in the Middle East
and around the globe. Of all the serious
fallout that will stem from the current crisis
in Iraq, all we can predict with confidence is
that any resultant high oil prices will harm
our economy at a time when our families and
businesses can hardly afford another setback.
Let this latest lesson be the one that motivates
us to embrace the solutions that are now at
our fingertips.
GLOBALIZATION AND IDENTITY POLITICS: CONTESTING IDEAS
Sohan Prasad Sha
There are contesting ideas among academicians with
regard to ‘identity’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘caste’, ‘religion’,
‘linguistic’, and ‘regional’ boundaries. Globalisation has
led to the movement of people in the Himalayan as well
as trans-Himalayan regions in South and West Asia,
and opened up new socio-political space that has an
inherent impact on these contesting ideas which often
transcend national bonds or are repackaged in new
narratives. In this context, researchers seek new
methodological or analytical tools to reflect these
complexities through the prism of “belonging” “to
uncover crucial shifts in the meaningful constellations
reproduced and evolving in global era.”
This book has emerged from an earlier volume in the
same series, The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas:
Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics , published in
2011. The editors of this volume, Gerard Toffin and
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, bring together a range of
dynamic contributors from diverse disciplines like
anthropology, religious studies, international studies,
sociology, cultural studies etc, who have been working
in Nepal and Himalayan India. At best, this book
problematises the myths about globalisation that is
often popularised to integrate the world into a single-
space and promote homogenisation. It offers a new
dimension to the features of globalisation - connectivity,
interdependence, and openness - as a multifaceted
process impinging upon the relations of ‘belonging’.
Belonging and the Politics of Self is conveniently
organised in five parts and sixteen chapters which
provide historical and (trans)migration anthropological
analyses and perspectives on the politics of the
Himalayan region, and asserts the concept of
‘belonging’ circumstantially.
The first section, 'Shifting Horizons of Belonging',
contains three essays. In chapter 2, Blandine Ripert
attempts to understand the Tamang community of
central Nepal where religious conversion to Christianity
is a process to connect the local to the global and to
avoid the full sense of belonging attached to Hinduism
at the national-level, which has led to the overall
marginalisation of Tamangs in their own local social
space. Sara Shneiderman discusses the case of the
Thangmi ethnic group (chapter 3) and narrates the story
of their circular migration from Nepal (Dolkaha and
Sindhupalchok district) to India (Darjeeling district) in
which their ‘politics of belonging’ describes the
processes of social inclusion (in India) and exclusion (in
Nepal, in terms of caste, ethnic and economic
exploitation). The last essay of this section by Pascale
Dollfus (chapter 4) deals with the changing life of
nomads, once known to be pastoralists from Ladakh in
India.
The second section, 'Migrant Experiences in South Asia
and Beyond', contains three essays. Jeevan R Sharma
discusses the case of male migrants from rural hill
villages in Western Nepal to Mumbai, India, in which the
narratives of belonging (chapter 5) are attached to their
identities as men and as a way to transcend their status
due to material, symbolic and emotional pressure to
look after their families back home. Mitra Pariyar et al.
deal with Nepali diaspora communities in two social
spaces (Xhapter 6), ex-Gurkhas in the UK and the
Newar community in Sikkim (India), in which the UK is
characterised as a weak multicultural society as
compared to Sikkim. The last essay in this section by
Tristan Brusle deals with Nepali labour migrants in Doha
(Qatar) and Uttarakand (India). Here, the sense of
belonging varies along caste and regional lines (chapter
7). For instance, the stereotype of Nepali migrant
labourers as Bahadur vs Dhotiwala and Madhesis vs
Pahadis blurs as well as complicates the sense of
belonging.
The third section, 'Creating Transnational Belonging',
contains four essays. Sondra L Hausner discuss the
case study of Nepali nurse migrants to the UK and how
they reconcile identity and belonging in two nation-
states (chapter 8) while struggling for professional
integrity and against discriminatory policies their in host
country. Ben Campbell contextualises the
multiculturalism aspect (chapter 9) of Manchester city,
UK and the Nepali festival held there “to make a make a
show of their belonging to Manchester, at the same time
as their affective belonging to Nepal.” The other two
essays narrate the story of Nepali immigrants in the US.
Bandita Sijapati (chapter 10) draws attention to how
Nepali youth feel alienated from a “sense of ‘being in
America’ but not ‘belonging to America’.” The last essay
in this section by Susan Hangen deals with the Gurung
ethnic community (chapter 11) in the US and their sense
of belonging through “promoting and preserving their
[Gururg] identity abroad” and their simultaneous
“commitment [to projects] to end ethnic inequality…of
indigenous nationalities in Nepal.”
The fourth section, 'Globality and Activist Experience'
contains three chapters. Chiara Letizia (chapter 12)
shows how Buddhism among some ethnic groups like
Tharu and Magar in Nepal becomes a politics of their
global recognition and helps in the imagination of new
forms of belonging through liberation from a
discriminatory Hindu state. The two subsequent essays
by Tanka Subba and Vibha Arora draw attention
towards the proposed power project in Dzongu, North
Sikkim, and the Lepcha community’s socio-political
belonging which is “to the place and its
culture” (chapter 13) and “belonging with cyber
activism” ( chapter 14) to promote their identity.
The fifth section, 'National Reconfiguration', contains
three chapters. Mark Turin (chapter 15) brings in
linguistic assertion to (re)claim identity in the case of
Nepal through Nepali vs Hindi which often blurs the
sense of belonging to a community in the larger national
identity. However, the Lepcha community of Sikkim
(India) has constructed its own sense of belonging by
“becoming Indian through Sikkimese, becoming
Sikkimese being Lepcha”, while the English language
acts as a glue that defies territorial boundaries. Martin
A Mills (chapter 16) narrates the complex history of
Tibet in the Tibet Autonomous Region to contextualise
the sense of belonging in the trans-Himalayan socio-
political landscape. Michael Hutt (chapter 17) discussed
the sense of belonging called ‘institution (monarchy)’ to
explain why the Shahs of Nepal could not survive
institutionally while the Bhutanese Wangchuck monarchy
survived. Moreover, the complexity of language, religions
etc help to explain through comparative perspective the
belongingness of the monarchy as an institution in
Nepal which could not survive, while the Bhutanese
monarchy did as it embodies national identity.
The bringing together of diverse case studies in one
volume makes it difficult to give conceptual clarity to
‘belonging’, which blurs considerably. That being said,
the volume’s introduction makes a sincere effort to
distinguish ‘belonging’ and various categories like
identity, religion, language, ethnicity, caste, region in
theory. However, for the reader, ‘belonging’ and ‘the
politics of self’ might be difficult to reconcile
conceptually. The reader can certainly look forward to
new insights on ground realities, problematic social and
political landscapes and fascinating narratives, rather
than the movement of the people of the Himalayan
region.
There are contesting ideas among academicians with
regard to ‘identity’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘caste’, ‘religion’,
‘linguistic’, and ‘regional’ boundaries. Globalisation has
led to the movement of people in the Himalayan as well
as trans-Himalayan regions in South and West Asia,
and opened up new socio-political space that has an
inherent impact on these contesting ideas which often
transcend national bonds or are repackaged in new
narratives. In this context, researchers seek new
methodological or analytical tools to reflect these
complexities through the prism of “belonging” “to
uncover crucial shifts in the meaningful constellations
reproduced and evolving in global era.”
This book has emerged from an earlier volume in the
same series, The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas:
Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics , published in
2011. The editors of this volume, Gerard Toffin and
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, bring together a range of
dynamic contributors from diverse disciplines like
anthropology, religious studies, international studies,
sociology, cultural studies etc, who have been working
in Nepal and Himalayan India. At best, this book
problematises the myths about globalisation that is
often popularised to integrate the world into a single-
space and promote homogenisation. It offers a new
dimension to the features of globalisation - connectivity,
interdependence, and openness - as a multifaceted
process impinging upon the relations of ‘belonging’.
Belonging and the Politics of Self is conveniently
organised in five parts and sixteen chapters which
provide historical and (trans)migration anthropological
analyses and perspectives on the politics of the
Himalayan region, and asserts the concept of
‘belonging’ circumstantially.
The first section, 'Shifting Horizons of Belonging',
contains three essays. In chapter 2, Blandine Ripert
attempts to understand the Tamang community of
central Nepal where religious conversion to Christianity
is a process to connect the local to the global and to
avoid the full sense of belonging attached to Hinduism
at the national-level, which has led to the overall
marginalisation of Tamangs in their own local social
space. Sara Shneiderman discusses the case of the
Thangmi ethnic group (chapter 3) and narrates the story
of their circular migration from Nepal (Dolkaha and
Sindhupalchok district) to India (Darjeeling district) in
which their ‘politics of belonging’ describes the
processes of social inclusion (in India) and exclusion (in
Nepal, in terms of caste, ethnic and economic
exploitation). The last essay of this section by Pascale
Dollfus (chapter 4) deals with the changing life of
nomads, once known to be pastoralists from Ladakh in
India.
The second section, 'Migrant Experiences in South Asia
and Beyond', contains three essays. Jeevan R Sharma
discusses the case of male migrants from rural hill
villages in Western Nepal to Mumbai, India, in which the
narratives of belonging (chapter 5) are attached to their
identities as men and as a way to transcend their status
due to material, symbolic and emotional pressure to
look after their families back home. Mitra Pariyar et al.
deal with Nepali diaspora communities in two social
spaces (Xhapter 6), ex-Gurkhas in the UK and the
Newar community in Sikkim (India), in which the UK is
characterised as a weak multicultural society as
compared to Sikkim. The last essay in this section by
Tristan Brusle deals with Nepali labour migrants in Doha
(Qatar) and Uttarakand (India). Here, the sense of
belonging varies along caste and regional lines (chapter
7). For instance, the stereotype of Nepali migrant
labourers as Bahadur vs Dhotiwala and Madhesis vs
Pahadis blurs as well as complicates the sense of
belonging.
The third section, 'Creating Transnational Belonging',
contains four essays. Sondra L Hausner discuss the
case study of Nepali nurse migrants to the UK and how
they reconcile identity and belonging in two nation-
states (chapter 8) while struggling for professional
integrity and against discriminatory policies their in host
country. Ben Campbell contextualises the
multiculturalism aspect (chapter 9) of Manchester city,
UK and the Nepali festival held there “to make a make a
show of their belonging to Manchester, at the same time
as their affective belonging to Nepal.” The other two
essays narrate the story of Nepali immigrants in the US.
Bandita Sijapati (chapter 10) draws attention to how
Nepali youth feel alienated from a “sense of ‘being in
America’ but not ‘belonging to America’.” The last essay
in this section by Susan Hangen deals with the Gurung
ethnic community (chapter 11) in the US and their sense
of belonging through “promoting and preserving their
[Gururg] identity abroad” and their simultaneous
“commitment [to projects] to end ethnic inequality…of
indigenous nationalities in Nepal.”
The fourth section, 'Globality and Activist Experience'
contains three chapters. Chiara Letizia (chapter 12)
shows how Buddhism among some ethnic groups like
Tharu and Magar in Nepal becomes a politics of their
global recognition and helps in the imagination of new
forms of belonging through liberation from a
discriminatory Hindu state. The two subsequent essays
by Tanka Subba and Vibha Arora draw attention
towards the proposed power project in Dzongu, North
Sikkim, and the Lepcha community’s socio-political
belonging which is “to the place and its
culture” (chapter 13) and “belonging with cyber
activism” ( chapter 14) to promote their identity.
The fifth section, 'National Reconfiguration', contains
three chapters. Mark Turin (chapter 15) brings in
linguistic assertion to (re)claim identity in the case of
Nepal through Nepali vs Hindi which often blurs the
sense of belonging to a community in the larger national
identity. However, the Lepcha community of Sikkim
(India) has constructed its own sense of belonging by
“becoming Indian through Sikkimese, becoming
Sikkimese being Lepcha”, while the English language
acts as a glue that defies territorial boundaries. Martin
A Mills (chapter 16) narrates the complex history of
Tibet in the Tibet Autonomous Region to contextualise
the sense of belonging in the trans-Himalayan socio-
political landscape. Michael Hutt (chapter 17) discussed
the sense of belonging called ‘institution (monarchy)’ to
explain why the Shahs of Nepal could not survive
institutionally while the Bhutanese Wangchuck monarchy
survived. Moreover, the complexity of language, religions
etc help to explain through comparative perspective the
belongingness of the monarchy as an institution in
Nepal which could not survive, while the Bhutanese
monarchy did as it embodies national identity.
The bringing together of diverse case studies in one
volume makes it difficult to give conceptual clarity to
‘belonging’, which blurs considerably. That being said,
the volume’s introduction makes a sincere effort to
distinguish ‘belonging’ and various categories like
identity, religion, language, ethnicity, caste, region in
theory. However, for the reader, ‘belonging’ and ‘the
politics of self’ might be difficult to reconcile
conceptually. The reader can certainly look forward to
new insights on ground realities, problematic social and
political landscapes and fascinating narratives, rather
than the movement of the people of the Himalayan
region.
22 Jun 2014
3 WAYS GOD RESPOND TO WICKED LEADERS
Doug Giles
I don't know about you, but when I look at
the multifaceted ways Obama and his ilk are
destroying our nation I get more angry and
depressed than Ted Nugent being forced to
watch Lois Lerner do an interpretive dance to
Boy George's song Do You Really Want To
Hurt Me, the extended cut.
Obama has overwhelmed/is truly
overwhelming our nation with truly
overwhelming cataclysmic crises that have
left a lot of good people saying, “Screw it. I'm
moving to Panama.”
Despair seems to be the soup de jour and it's
being served up to us cold. Ice cold.
When I get around people who still give a flip
about our nation the conversation inevitably
goes to “What can we do to stop this fetid
mess BHO and his boys are foisting upon our
land?”
The typical response is: Get knowledgeable
about what our nation was originally
intended to be and what a cartoon of that we
have now become. After that get active, get
vocal, protest, vote with your money, join
Facebook groups with like-minded warriors,
go to a bunch of conferences, scream at the
television, and of course, vote during
elections.
The problem is we do all that and it still
doesn't look like we're putting a dent in what
the President and the progressives are doing
to our land and a lot of folks think that our
votes won't count anyway because of voter
fraud and corruption.
Some people of faith conclude, “Well ... I
guess this is The End. Our preacher said it
was gonna get this way before Jesus returns
to kick some ass.' And they resolve
themselves to apathy and cynicism and
become about as active Howard Hughes was
during the flu season.
Speaking of God, for those who still care
about Him and what He and His word think,
what does the Bible say we should believe and
look for when our nation is getting gutted and
ransacked by leaders and policies that try to
dispense with that which is holy, just and
good? Does it lead us to despair? Should we
look for Jesus to rapture us out of this mess?
Should our current climate make believers act
like Lewis Black? Are. We. Done. For?
First off, let state that as much as it might
look like we’re Paula Abduling and going one
step forward and three steps back with the
best of our efforts to right the Obama wrongs,
I do believe our righteous works are working
and we need to step everything that we’re
doing up several notches and get aggressive
with the progressives.
Secondly, who the heck says that God’s only
recourse when dealing with sucky situations
is to rapture his people out the mess they’ve
allowed themselves to get into? Biblically
we've got a slew of passages that show that
God can and will jackhammer rulers who
dispense with his way and turn nations into a
lawless, idolatrous and godless mess. For
instance check out Psalm 2 gloomy Christian
…
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed,
saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your
heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Let’s break this Psalm down, shall we? So,
what do we have? Well, according to the
psalm we have a nation and their ruler[s]
that’re blowing off God and his righteous
decrees, right? Right.
How does God respond? Does he pout? Quit?
Move to Panama? Start overeating Hagen Daz
because he’s so depressed? Does he
emotionally check out and starting smoking
weed and get into tie-dyeing beefy T’s to pass
the time? Let’s see shall we?
According to Psalm 2 God does three things.
1. He laughs at the people and rulers who
snub his ways. God’s amused that the puny
ants he has created have now decided they
can take things from here and they don’t
need his holy ways or wisdom. Not only does
he laugh at these wicked rulers who seek
autonomy but he also scoffs at them and
holds ‘em in derision. He thinks not only is
their rebellion laughable but he also makes
fun of them and sneers at them. Didn’t they
ever teach you this at Sunday School? I didn’t
think so. But it is Biblical, eh?
2. God rebukes the people and the rulers
crapping on the nation. “Rebuke” is a word
we don’t hear much of anymore, which
makes me like it all the more. Rebuke is sharp
or harsh disapproval. Check it out. Psalm 2
does not say, “God forgives and forgets” how
wicked people and policies are destroying a
land. It doesn’t say he’s changed his eternal
ways and is now cool with their hip, groovy,
21 century decisions. It does not say he’s
passive and merely acknowledges or, worse
yet, winks at their wantonness. Oh, heck no.
It says he castigates the folks that are jacking
things up.
3. Not only does God laugh, scoff and rebuke
the unrighteous acts of ingrate leaders, Pslam
2 also states that He is out to terrify him.
What does that mean? I don’t know but it
sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? When God arises
to whup some ass, from what I’ve read and
seen, you don’t what to be the recipient of
that pool cue. In several different ways the
inspired psalmist brands the reader with the
revelation that leaders and godless policies
impenitently pursued and propagated stir up
God’s terrible wrath and that he will unleash
it on their particular heads and land. Here,
in this psalm, a promise is given, in a
metaphorical way, that he will break and
dash their wicked ruler and their reign into
pieces. Whatever that means, it sounds pretty
bad and pretty thorough.
In conclusion, according to the Verbum Dei,
God states, according to Psalm 2, that he’s
going to bless his people; he promises to
establish his son’s rule and to protect those
who take refuge in him. For those who’re
blowing Him off and leading their nation
down highway 666 to CrapTown, God
promises in no small or unclear way to deal
with them in an exhaustive manner as only
he can.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, who love
God and this great land: expose, fight, protest,
vote, rally, decry and do everything in your
power to derail this dastardly dismantling of
our nation; and never forget that a Holy God
is also monitoring this BS and will temporally
and eternally kick the backside of those who
despise and dispense with His ways.
I don't know about you, but when I look at
the multifaceted ways Obama and his ilk are
destroying our nation I get more angry and
depressed than Ted Nugent being forced to
watch Lois Lerner do an interpretive dance to
Boy George's song Do You Really Want To
Hurt Me, the extended cut.
Obama has overwhelmed/is truly
overwhelming our nation with truly
overwhelming cataclysmic crises that have
left a lot of good people saying, “Screw it. I'm
moving to Panama.”
Despair seems to be the soup de jour and it's
being served up to us cold. Ice cold.
When I get around people who still give a flip
about our nation the conversation inevitably
goes to “What can we do to stop this fetid
mess BHO and his boys are foisting upon our
land?”
The typical response is: Get knowledgeable
about what our nation was originally
intended to be and what a cartoon of that we
have now become. After that get active, get
vocal, protest, vote with your money, join
Facebook groups with like-minded warriors,
go to a bunch of conferences, scream at the
television, and of course, vote during
elections.
The problem is we do all that and it still
doesn't look like we're putting a dent in what
the President and the progressives are doing
to our land and a lot of folks think that our
votes won't count anyway because of voter
fraud and corruption.
Some people of faith conclude, “Well ... I
guess this is The End. Our preacher said it
was gonna get this way before Jesus returns
to kick some ass.' And they resolve
themselves to apathy and cynicism and
become about as active Howard Hughes was
during the flu season.
Speaking of God, for those who still care
about Him and what He and His word think,
what does the Bible say we should believe and
look for when our nation is getting gutted and
ransacked by leaders and policies that try to
dispense with that which is holy, just and
good? Does it lead us to despair? Should we
look for Jesus to rapture us out of this mess?
Should our current climate make believers act
like Lewis Black? Are. We. Done. For?
First off, let state that as much as it might
look like we’re Paula Abduling and going one
step forward and three steps back with the
best of our efforts to right the Obama wrongs,
I do believe our righteous works are working
and we need to step everything that we’re
doing up several notches and get aggressive
with the progressives.
Secondly, who the heck says that God’s only
recourse when dealing with sucky situations
is to rapture his people out the mess they’ve
allowed themselves to get into? Biblically
we've got a slew of passages that show that
God can and will jackhammer rulers who
dispense with his way and turn nations into a
lawless, idolatrous and godless mess. For
instance check out Psalm 2 gloomy Christian
…
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed,
saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your
heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Let’s break this Psalm down, shall we? So,
what do we have? Well, according to the
psalm we have a nation and their ruler[s]
that’re blowing off God and his righteous
decrees, right? Right.
How does God respond? Does he pout? Quit?
Move to Panama? Start overeating Hagen Daz
because he’s so depressed? Does he
emotionally check out and starting smoking
weed and get into tie-dyeing beefy T’s to pass
the time? Let’s see shall we?
According to Psalm 2 God does three things.
1. He laughs at the people and rulers who
snub his ways. God’s amused that the puny
ants he has created have now decided they
can take things from here and they don’t
need his holy ways or wisdom. Not only does
he laugh at these wicked rulers who seek
autonomy but he also scoffs at them and
holds ‘em in derision. He thinks not only is
their rebellion laughable but he also makes
fun of them and sneers at them. Didn’t they
ever teach you this at Sunday School? I didn’t
think so. But it is Biblical, eh?
2. God rebukes the people and the rulers
crapping on the nation. “Rebuke” is a word
we don’t hear much of anymore, which
makes me like it all the more. Rebuke is sharp
or harsh disapproval. Check it out. Psalm 2
does not say, “God forgives and forgets” how
wicked people and policies are destroying a
land. It doesn’t say he’s changed his eternal
ways and is now cool with their hip, groovy,
21 century decisions. It does not say he’s
passive and merely acknowledges or, worse
yet, winks at their wantonness. Oh, heck no.
It says he castigates the folks that are jacking
things up.
3. Not only does God laugh, scoff and rebuke
the unrighteous acts of ingrate leaders, Pslam
2 also states that He is out to terrify him.
What does that mean? I don’t know but it
sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? When God arises
to whup some ass, from what I’ve read and
seen, you don’t what to be the recipient of
that pool cue. In several different ways the
inspired psalmist brands the reader with the
revelation that leaders and godless policies
impenitently pursued and propagated stir up
God’s terrible wrath and that he will unleash
it on their particular heads and land. Here,
in this psalm, a promise is given, in a
metaphorical way, that he will break and
dash their wicked ruler and their reign into
pieces. Whatever that means, it sounds pretty
bad and pretty thorough.
In conclusion, according to the Verbum Dei,
God states, according to Psalm 2, that he’s
going to bless his people; he promises to
establish his son’s rule and to protect those
who take refuge in him. For those who’re
blowing Him off and leading their nation
down highway 666 to CrapTown, God
promises in no small or unclear way to deal
with them in an exhaustive manner as only
he can.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, who love
God and this great land: expose, fight, protest,
vote, rally, decry and do everything in your
power to derail this dastardly dismantling of
our nation; and never forget that a Holy God
is also monitoring this BS and will temporally
and eternally kick the backside of those who
despise and dispense with His ways.
OBAMA'S DEFICIENT STUDENT LOAN PLAN
Steve Chapman
The government normally doesn't care
whether you or I accumulate large bills for
home improvement, a new car or exotic
vacations. But Barack Obama feels no
hesitation in concluding that the cost of
higher education has placed "too big a debt
load on too many young people." Therefore,
something must be done.
The problem with Obama's analysis is
defining "too big." Compared to what? Most
of these young people, often in conjunction
with their parents, have voluntarily
shouldered student loans to pursue their
studies. If they thought the burden was too
heavy, they didn't have to take it on.
They have done so not because they are
careless wastrels, but because they place an
accurate value on higher education. They
comprehend that it is very likely to pay for
itself and that forgoing it would be the most
costly option of all.
The president says the debt burden makes it
hard for these people "to start a family, buy a
home, launch a business or save for
retirement." But they would most likely have
even less money for those purposes had they
avoided borrowing by avoiding college.
That's because people with bachelor's degrees
make more money than people without --
nearly twice as much, on average. Not only
that, but the value of higher education has
risen substantially. Over the past 50 years,
the real value of a degree has tripled.
Some perspective is in order. Though some
students acquire huge debts, two-thirds
graduate owing $10,000 or less, and only 2
percent owe more than $50,000. Not all of the
latter need to worry. A newly minted doctor,
lawyer or MBA from a good school can expect
an income more than adequate to the need.
Obama wants to let some five million
borrowers cap their monthly repayments at
10 percent of their income and, after 20
years, be relieved of any remaining balance.
What would the change cost? "We'll figure
that out the back end," said Education
Secretary Arne Duncan, in one of the more
alarming budget projections ever issued.
The administration blames the problem on
the growing cost of higher education. It has a
point. College costs have risen much faster
than other prices. In 1973, annual resident
tuition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign was $496 -- which is $2,566 in
today's money. For the 2013-2014 academic
year, the sticker price for U of I freshmen was
$11,834 -- four times more, in real terms,
than their parents might have paid.
But thinking that more federal aid will make
college affordable is like believing that a dog
can catch its tail if it goes faster. One reason
colleges charge so much more today is that
federal aid makes it easier for students to
cover the bill. The more the government does
the less reason students have to demand cost
control, and the higher tuition will climb.
Forgiving more debts after 20 years (10 for
those in "public service" jobs), as Obama
proposes, adds to the expense inflicted on
taxpayers without doing borrowers much
good in the meantime.
Among those taxed to provide these benefits
are people who earn less than college
graduates because they didn't go to college. If
it seems unfair for people to shoulder big
loans to finance their degrees, it's even more
unfair for people without degrees to share the
sacrifice.
A better idea than Obama's is to make
repayments simpler and more efficient by
shifting to paycheck deductions, like Social
Security taxes, at a rate chosen by the
borrower, for up to 25 years. This gives
borrowers more flexibility in the short run
and the long run. University of Michigan
professors Susan Dynarski and Daniel
Kreisman, who devised the plan, figure it
would cost taxpayers no more than the
current program and might cost less.
The other thing that would really help is a
stronger economy, which would put more
debt-ridden grads into the jobs they prepared
for. Any loan terms are tough for the
unemployed and underemployed.
But the rising cost of college mainly stems
from the fact that people are willing to pay a
lot because it's so valuable, and it won't stop
going up until it declines in value or they
become more cost-conscious.
Obama says he really cares about the issue
because he and his wife paid off their loans
just 10 years ago. Obviously he wishes their
education had cost less. But note: He doesn't
say it wasn't worth it.
The government normally doesn't care
whether you or I accumulate large bills for
home improvement, a new car or exotic
vacations. But Barack Obama feels no
hesitation in concluding that the cost of
higher education has placed "too big a debt
load on too many young people." Therefore,
something must be done.
The problem with Obama's analysis is
defining "too big." Compared to what? Most
of these young people, often in conjunction
with their parents, have voluntarily
shouldered student loans to pursue their
studies. If they thought the burden was too
heavy, they didn't have to take it on.
They have done so not because they are
careless wastrels, but because they place an
accurate value on higher education. They
comprehend that it is very likely to pay for
itself and that forgoing it would be the most
costly option of all.
The president says the debt burden makes it
hard for these people "to start a family, buy a
home, launch a business or save for
retirement." But they would most likely have
even less money for those purposes had they
avoided borrowing by avoiding college.
That's because people with bachelor's degrees
make more money than people without --
nearly twice as much, on average. Not only
that, but the value of higher education has
risen substantially. Over the past 50 years,
the real value of a degree has tripled.
Some perspective is in order. Though some
students acquire huge debts, two-thirds
graduate owing $10,000 or less, and only 2
percent owe more than $50,000. Not all of the
latter need to worry. A newly minted doctor,
lawyer or MBA from a good school can expect
an income more than adequate to the need.
Obama wants to let some five million
borrowers cap their monthly repayments at
10 percent of their income and, after 20
years, be relieved of any remaining balance.
What would the change cost? "We'll figure
that out the back end," said Education
Secretary Arne Duncan, in one of the more
alarming budget projections ever issued.
The administration blames the problem on
the growing cost of higher education. It has a
point. College costs have risen much faster
than other prices. In 1973, annual resident
tuition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign was $496 -- which is $2,566 in
today's money. For the 2013-2014 academic
year, the sticker price for U of I freshmen was
$11,834 -- four times more, in real terms,
than their parents might have paid.
But thinking that more federal aid will make
college affordable is like believing that a dog
can catch its tail if it goes faster. One reason
colleges charge so much more today is that
federal aid makes it easier for students to
cover the bill. The more the government does
the less reason students have to demand cost
control, and the higher tuition will climb.
Forgiving more debts after 20 years (10 for
those in "public service" jobs), as Obama
proposes, adds to the expense inflicted on
taxpayers without doing borrowers much
good in the meantime.
Among those taxed to provide these benefits
are people who earn less than college
graduates because they didn't go to college. If
it seems unfair for people to shoulder big
loans to finance their degrees, it's even more
unfair for people without degrees to share the
sacrifice.
A better idea than Obama's is to make
repayments simpler and more efficient by
shifting to paycheck deductions, like Social
Security taxes, at a rate chosen by the
borrower, for up to 25 years. This gives
borrowers more flexibility in the short run
and the long run. University of Michigan
professors Susan Dynarski and Daniel
Kreisman, who devised the plan, figure it
would cost taxpayers no more than the
current program and might cost less.
The other thing that would really help is a
stronger economy, which would put more
debt-ridden grads into the jobs they prepared
for. Any loan terms are tough for the
unemployed and underemployed.
But the rising cost of college mainly stems
from the fact that people are willing to pay a
lot because it's so valuable, and it won't stop
going up until it declines in value or they
become more cost-conscious.
Obama says he really cares about the issue
because he and his wife paid off their loans
just 10 years ago. Obviously he wishes their
education had cost less. But note: He doesn't
say it wasn't worth it.
THE IMPEACHMENT OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Kevin McCullough
When the President was first elected, I
pledged to wait from the day of his election--
to his then swearing in--to begin critique of
his public policy. I promised to do so because
in the day of the first "post racial" President I
felt it was a necessary discipline to criticize
him on policy, actions, behaviors, and
decisions rather than abstract arguments like
birth certificates and "the President is a
secret Muslim" conspiracies.
For the duration of his presidency I have kept
this rule. I have not bought into the
conspiracies, I have observed what our courts
have said about the birth certificate, and I
have narrowed my critique to what his
actions are. In my nine-week number one
political best-seller NO HE CAN'T I refined
those arguments to four specific sections of
critique--and even complimented him on an
attribute I found admirable.
None of the above has shielded me from the
irrationally insane defenders of the President
from labeling me racist, homophobic, bigoted,
and the usually invoked stuff the left throws
out when they have absolutely nothing to
debate you of substance over.
Early in his Presidency I felt his view points
were just wrong, as time went by I believed
his goals were misguided/short-sighted, as his
term continued I believed his policies were
damaging, but now I believe his decision
making is treacherous.
It is for that final item that I have publicly
now finally called for what many normal
people who listen to me on close to a 1000
affiliates a day have been saying--some for
months--that the time for impeaching
President Obama has come. They believe this
is imperatively important if the Senate is won
by the opposing party in November.
For the record I was on-the-air and on the
record supporting the impeachment of
William Jefferson Clinton. Lying to a federal
prosecutor is a felony and in every sense of
the word a felony is a high crime. But I also
believe direct imperilment of the nation--
treachery--is as well. And on the level of
treacherous acts the President's
administration stands singularly cast as the
worst Presidential administration in
American history.
Highlights as to why:
1. Fast and Furious Scandal : running high powered weapons to
major drug cartels on purpose ended up
getting border patrol personnel killed with
the same weapons in just days to weeks
following.
2. Black Panther Case Nullification: with an
actual conviction in hand against the Black
Panthers for voter intimidation, blocking the
free access to polling stations, and literal
threatening of press who showed up to cover
it, as well as those they believed to be against
the President, the administration
purposefully voids the consequences of the
behavior that was dangerous to the welfare of
the voting public.
3. 2009 State Dinner Breaches : any breach of
security is problematic but to do so more
than once is pure recklessness.
4. Benghazi Attack on 9.11.12 : No idea where
the President was during the attack from
5:16pm the night of till nearly 6:30am the
next morning. His lack of action the evening
of the battle, seems to have led to a deadly
malaise that comes with voids in leadership
vacuums.
5. The Benghazi Cover-Up : The lack of truth
telling about everything related to the attack
is a crime that still haunts the victims'
families of the ambassador, the navy seals,
and the retired air-man who all lost their
lives that night. What we know that the
President knew was that as of 5:30-5:45pm
the night of the attack, the Pentagon notified
the White House that this was not a
spontaneous demonstration, that it was
terrorism, and connected to the Muslim
Brotherhood. We know that the White House
then developed talking points--in the midst of
a contested Presidential election--that told
factually untrue things about the origin of the
attack. The Ambassador to the United
Nations--at the President's behest--told these
to the nation on five separate Sunday
morning news network broadcasts. The
President then repeated these points, along
with the Secretary of State to the victims'
families at Andrews Air Force base. The
President then repeated these false
assumptions again to the world at the United
Nations' general assembly. And even as the
military has now supposedly found and
arrested the terrorist behind the Benghazi
attack, the administration has yet to admit
that the action of 9.11.12 was an orchestrated
terror attack.
7. The Bowe Bergdahl disaster: Pretending to
obtain the "freedom" of an individual who
walked away from his unit, in betrayal of his
nation, who declared jihad against America,
and desired to become and be part of the
Taliban is a national embarrassment. But on
it's own it is an acceptance of the betrayal of
the nation. Hosting this individual's parents
in a Rose Garden ceremony, while his dad
speaks to him via television in the language
of the terrorists is unfathomable.
8. The Release of the Taliban 5: Allowing five of
the worst terrorists captured in the fight
against us, admitting that he fully believes
they will return to the fight against us, and in
a straight face attempting to argue that it was
the right thing to do defies credulity. The
problem that they have already taken visitors
from Al Qaeda, the Taliban of Pakistan, the
Taliban of Afghanistan, the Muslim
Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah
demonstrates that they are far from being "in
custody" and likely are already scouting out
locales to begin planning their next
contribution to the intifada against the USA.
9. Changing the Rules of Engagement on USA
Border : With a flurry of rules being changed
and implemented in the last two weeks,
Border Patrol have been turned into a
feckless, powerless, agency that is disallowed
to do even what their name implies. And
since the rule changes have gone into effect,
hundreds per hour, and thousands per day
are violating our border's sovereignty--
among them Syrians, Egyptians, and Saudis.
10. Watching Al Qaeda Take Iraq: Forgetting
that 4000 brave Americans paid the ultimate
price to give freedom to the Iraqi people, the
greatest cost of this passive action is the
possible beginning of a testing ground for a
new Al Qaeda territory, where they may plan,
train, refine, and execute plans against the
free world. The confiscation of vehicles,
weapons, and ammunition coupled with the
robbery of up to one half billion dollars will
make defeating them difficult under any
circumstances--much less ones where a
complete lack of discernment or priorities is
understood.
Each of these ten items has contributed to the
direct treachery that we face as a people.
Each of them crossing a threshold by which
the President's actions went from being
merely offensive or damaging to the health of
the United States, to actually being dangerous
to our welfare.
One could make an argument that any of
them singularly might be grounds for
impeachment. But the sum total of their
impact collectively leaves little doubt that
whether his motives are negligent or
intentional, his decisions are not trust
worthy, and for this he deserves to be
removed from office.
When the President was first elected, I
pledged to wait from the day of his election--
to his then swearing in--to begin critique of
his public policy. I promised to do so because
in the day of the first "post racial" President I
felt it was a necessary discipline to criticize
him on policy, actions, behaviors, and
decisions rather than abstract arguments like
birth certificates and "the President is a
secret Muslim" conspiracies.
For the duration of his presidency I have kept
this rule. I have not bought into the
conspiracies, I have observed what our courts
have said about the birth certificate, and I
have narrowed my critique to what his
actions are. In my nine-week number one
political best-seller NO HE CAN'T I refined
those arguments to four specific sections of
critique--and even complimented him on an
attribute I found admirable.
None of the above has shielded me from the
irrationally insane defenders of the President
from labeling me racist, homophobic, bigoted,
and the usually invoked stuff the left throws
out when they have absolutely nothing to
debate you of substance over.
Early in his Presidency I felt his view points
were just wrong, as time went by I believed
his goals were misguided/short-sighted, as his
term continued I believed his policies were
damaging, but now I believe his decision
making is treacherous.
It is for that final item that I have publicly
now finally called for what many normal
people who listen to me on close to a 1000
affiliates a day have been saying--some for
months--that the time for impeaching
President Obama has come. They believe this
is imperatively important if the Senate is won
by the opposing party in November.
For the record I was on-the-air and on the
record supporting the impeachment of
William Jefferson Clinton. Lying to a federal
prosecutor is a felony and in every sense of
the word a felony is a high crime. But I also
believe direct imperilment of the nation--
treachery--is as well. And on the level of
treacherous acts the President's
administration stands singularly cast as the
worst Presidential administration in
American history.
Highlights as to why:
1. Fast and Furious Scandal : running high powered weapons to
major drug cartels on purpose ended up
getting border patrol personnel killed with
the same weapons in just days to weeks
following.
2. Black Panther Case Nullification: with an
actual conviction in hand against the Black
Panthers for voter intimidation, blocking the
free access to polling stations, and literal
threatening of press who showed up to cover
it, as well as those they believed to be against
the President, the administration
purposefully voids the consequences of the
behavior that was dangerous to the welfare of
the voting public.
3. 2009 State Dinner Breaches : any breach of
security is problematic but to do so more
than once is pure recklessness.
4. Benghazi Attack on 9.11.12 : No idea where
the President was during the attack from
5:16pm the night of till nearly 6:30am the
next morning. His lack of action the evening
of the battle, seems to have led to a deadly
malaise that comes with voids in leadership
vacuums.
5. The Benghazi Cover-Up : The lack of truth
telling about everything related to the attack
is a crime that still haunts the victims'
families of the ambassador, the navy seals,
and the retired air-man who all lost their
lives that night. What we know that the
President knew was that as of 5:30-5:45pm
the night of the attack, the Pentagon notified
the White House that this was not a
spontaneous demonstration, that it was
terrorism, and connected to the Muslim
Brotherhood. We know that the White House
then developed talking points--in the midst of
a contested Presidential election--that told
factually untrue things about the origin of the
attack. The Ambassador to the United
Nations--at the President's behest--told these
to the nation on five separate Sunday
morning news network broadcasts. The
President then repeated these points, along
with the Secretary of State to the victims'
families at Andrews Air Force base. The
President then repeated these false
assumptions again to the world at the United
Nations' general assembly. And even as the
military has now supposedly found and
arrested the terrorist behind the Benghazi
attack, the administration has yet to admit
that the action of 9.11.12 was an orchestrated
terror attack.
7. The Bowe Bergdahl disaster: Pretending to
obtain the "freedom" of an individual who
walked away from his unit, in betrayal of his
nation, who declared jihad against America,
and desired to become and be part of the
Taliban is a national embarrassment. But on
it's own it is an acceptance of the betrayal of
the nation. Hosting this individual's parents
in a Rose Garden ceremony, while his dad
speaks to him via television in the language
of the terrorists is unfathomable.
8. The Release of the Taliban 5: Allowing five of
the worst terrorists captured in the fight
against us, admitting that he fully believes
they will return to the fight against us, and in
a straight face attempting to argue that it was
the right thing to do defies credulity. The
problem that they have already taken visitors
from Al Qaeda, the Taliban of Pakistan, the
Taliban of Afghanistan, the Muslim
Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah
demonstrates that they are far from being "in
custody" and likely are already scouting out
locales to begin planning their next
contribution to the intifada against the USA.
9. Changing the Rules of Engagement on USA
Border : With a flurry of rules being changed
and implemented in the last two weeks,
Border Patrol have been turned into a
feckless, powerless, agency that is disallowed
to do even what their name implies. And
since the rule changes have gone into effect,
hundreds per hour, and thousands per day
are violating our border's sovereignty--
among them Syrians, Egyptians, and Saudis.
10. Watching Al Qaeda Take Iraq: Forgetting
that 4000 brave Americans paid the ultimate
price to give freedom to the Iraqi people, the
greatest cost of this passive action is the
possible beginning of a testing ground for a
new Al Qaeda territory, where they may plan,
train, refine, and execute plans against the
free world. The confiscation of vehicles,
weapons, and ammunition coupled with the
robbery of up to one half billion dollars will
make defeating them difficult under any
circumstances--much less ones where a
complete lack of discernment or priorities is
understood.
Each of these ten items has contributed to the
direct treachery that we face as a people.
Each of them crossing a threshold by which
the President's actions went from being
merely offensive or damaging to the health of
the United States, to actually being dangerous
to our welfare.
One could make an argument that any of
them singularly might be grounds for
impeachment. But the sum total of their
impact collectively leaves little doubt that
whether his motives are negligent or
intentional, his decisions are not trust
worthy, and for this he deserves to be
removed from office.
PUTIN PREPARING TO COME TO IRAQ'S RESCUE
Night Watch
Iraq: Situation update. News sources indicate
that some Iraqi government forces remain in
the Baiji refinery complex, but are
surrounded. Fighting also continues at Tal
Afar in the northwest, where another Iraqi
army unit remains.
Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL) also are engaged with Kurdish
militiamen south of Kirkuk.
Comment: Ultra-extreme Islamist propaganda
still warns that the terrorists intend to attack
Baghdad, but thus far they continue to work
on consolidating the territory they claim to
control. Multiple news services reported that
Iraq is assembling forces and making
preparations for a large counter-offensive to
take back the north.
Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin
spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki
over the phone and expressed his support for
Iraq.
"Putin confirmed Russia's complete support
for the efforts of the Iraqi government to
speedily liberate the territory of the republic
from terrorists," according to a Russian
statement released after the phone call.
Comment: Longstanding Russian interests
were disrupted by the US intervention. In the
last three years, Putin has been rebuilding
Russian ties with Iraq through arms
assistance. The Iraqi helicopter gunships that
are mentioned occasionally by the news
media were bought from Russia last year in
an arms contract worth more $4.3 billion.
Iraq purchased at least 40 Russian
helicopters, including Mi-28 NE Night
Hunters.
The first Russian-trained Iraqi pilots, crews
and technicians completed training last
autumn. Without those gunships, Iraq would
have little to no air power to bring against
ISIL and its supporters.
Turkey: Thinking about a Kurdish state . Turkish
political analysts and politicians are
rethinking their longstanding hostility to the
formation of an independent Kurdish state.
This is a reaction to the ISIL incursion and
the partial Sunni rebellion in northern Iraq.
One official said, "It has become clear for us
that Iraq has practically become divided into
three parts."
Comment: Kurdestan's stability has proven
beneficial and profitable for Turkey. The
Kurds made their second major sale of oil
today. Kurdish oil is exported through
Turkey. The ISIL incursion reportedly has
prompted Kurdish insurgents in Turkey to
return to Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region
to help defend it. Iran and the Kurdish region
are the only stable geo-political entities on
Turkey's southern and southeastern borders.
Turkey has opposed the formation of an
independent Kurdish state because Turkish
leaders judged it would pose an instability
threat to Turkey's Kurdish region. Now, even
in Ankara, the idea of redrawing the borders
of Iraq is more acceptable than it was before
the ISIL incursion. A change in Turkey's
policy from hostility to support of a Kurdish
state would be more revolutionary than the
creation of a Sunni state in Iraq.
Ukraine: Situation update. President
Poroshenko ordered his forces to cease fire
today and to halt military operations in
eastern Ukraine for a week. This is part of
Petroshenko's peace plan.
Russia immediately dismissed the peace plan,
saying that it looks like an ultimatum and
lacks an offer to start talks with the
insurgents.
Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Oleksandr
Turchynov said on 20 June that Ukrainian
security forces have shut down the
Ukrainian-Russian border. Petroshenko
promised the border would be closed by the
end of this week.
Russia: The US State Department spokesperson
said that the US has information that
additional tanks have been prepared for
departure. The US also said it has
information that Russia has accumulated
artillery at a deployment site in southwest
Russia, including a type of artillery utilized
by Ukrainian forces but no longer in Russia's
active forces.
Comment: Separatists reported that Ukrainian
forces ceased firing near Slavyansk, but
conditions at other cities were not clear. The
purpose of the ceasefire is to allow separatists
to surrender and give up their weapons.
The Russian leaders distrust Petroshenko
because he refuses to talk with the
separatists. Russia appears to be making
preparations to provide military equipment
support to the separatists that will enable
them to withstand the Ukrainian offensive
and compel Petroshenko to negotiate with
them.
If the Russians decide to send military
equipment to the separatists, Ukrainian
border guards would be noimpediment.
Iraq: Situation update. News sources indicate
that some Iraqi government forces remain in
the Baiji refinery complex, but are
surrounded. Fighting also continues at Tal
Afar in the northwest, where another Iraqi
army unit remains.
Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL) also are engaged with Kurdish
militiamen south of Kirkuk.
Comment: Ultra-extreme Islamist propaganda
still warns that the terrorists intend to attack
Baghdad, but thus far they continue to work
on consolidating the territory they claim to
control. Multiple news services reported that
Iraq is assembling forces and making
preparations for a large counter-offensive to
take back the north.
Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin
spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki
over the phone and expressed his support for
Iraq.
"Putin confirmed Russia's complete support
for the efforts of the Iraqi government to
speedily liberate the territory of the republic
from terrorists," according to a Russian
statement released after the phone call.
Comment: Longstanding Russian interests
were disrupted by the US intervention. In the
last three years, Putin has been rebuilding
Russian ties with Iraq through arms
assistance. The Iraqi helicopter gunships that
are mentioned occasionally by the news
media were bought from Russia last year in
an arms contract worth more $4.3 billion.
Iraq purchased at least 40 Russian
helicopters, including Mi-28 NE Night
Hunters.
The first Russian-trained Iraqi pilots, crews
and technicians completed training last
autumn. Without those gunships, Iraq would
have little to no air power to bring against
ISIL and its supporters.
Turkey: Thinking about a Kurdish state . Turkish
political analysts and politicians are
rethinking their longstanding hostility to the
formation of an independent Kurdish state.
This is a reaction to the ISIL incursion and
the partial Sunni rebellion in northern Iraq.
One official said, "It has become clear for us
that Iraq has practically become divided into
three parts."
Comment: Kurdestan's stability has proven
beneficial and profitable for Turkey. The
Kurds made their second major sale of oil
today. Kurdish oil is exported through
Turkey. The ISIL incursion reportedly has
prompted Kurdish insurgents in Turkey to
return to Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region
to help defend it. Iran and the Kurdish region
are the only stable geo-political entities on
Turkey's southern and southeastern borders.
Turkey has opposed the formation of an
independent Kurdish state because Turkish
leaders judged it would pose an instability
threat to Turkey's Kurdish region. Now, even
in Ankara, the idea of redrawing the borders
of Iraq is more acceptable than it was before
the ISIL incursion. A change in Turkey's
policy from hostility to support of a Kurdish
state would be more revolutionary than the
creation of a Sunni state in Iraq.
Ukraine: Situation update. President
Poroshenko ordered his forces to cease fire
today and to halt military operations in
eastern Ukraine for a week. This is part of
Petroshenko's peace plan.
Russia immediately dismissed the peace plan,
saying that it looks like an ultimatum and
lacks an offer to start talks with the
insurgents.
Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Oleksandr
Turchynov said on 20 June that Ukrainian
security forces have shut down the
Ukrainian-Russian border. Petroshenko
promised the border would be closed by the
end of this week.
Russia: The US State Department spokesperson
said that the US has information that
additional tanks have been prepared for
departure. The US also said it has
information that Russia has accumulated
artillery at a deployment site in southwest
Russia, including a type of artillery utilized
by Ukrainian forces but no longer in Russia's
active forces.
Comment: Separatists reported that Ukrainian
forces ceased firing near Slavyansk, but
conditions at other cities were not clear. The
purpose of the ceasefire is to allow separatists
to surrender and give up their weapons.
The Russian leaders distrust Petroshenko
because he refuses to talk with the
separatists. Russia appears to be making
preparations to provide military equipment
support to the separatists that will enable
them to withstand the Ukrainian offensive
and compel Petroshenko to negotiate with
them.
If the Russians decide to send military
equipment to the separatists, Ukrainian
border guards would be noimpediment.
CONNECTING THE DOTS OF PRESIDENT OBAMA
Michael Youssef
Let me just say that President Obama is
probably not a Muslim, but not a Christian,
either. Most likely, he’s agnostic. Politics is
his religion.
That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t possess
strong loyalties. Many people are afraid to
discuss those loyalties, however, lest they be
branded some type of crazy “Obama is a
Muslim” truther.
But let me throw out twenty “dots” and see if
you can connect them into a pattern:
1. Barack Obama spent part of his childhood
in Indonesia, stepson to a Muslim. His
natural father was born as a Muslim in
Kenya.
2. Obama romantically reminisces about his
fond memories of hearing the "izan," or
the Muslim call to prayer, echoing from a
nearby mosque each day.
3. One of his closest friends in Chicago is a
member of the Hamas terror group,
funded in part by Qatar.
4. Obama claims to embrace the Christian
faith, however, he attended a churchfor
20 years where he was taught by a
preacher who sees Islam and Christianity
on par with each other.
5. During his 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama
saw himself as the defender of Islam in
America and promised to eliminate
prejudices against Muslims (something I
have never witnessed).
6. He asked the head of NASA (yes, NASA!) to
ensure the defense of Islamic causes and
to help improve their reputation.
7. Among his first overseas trips as President
of the United States were to Muslim
countries with secular governments:
Turkey and Egypt.
8. In Turkey, he declared that America was
not a Christian nation.
9. In Egypt, he humiliated his host, then-
president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, by
insisting that the Muslim Brotherhood, an
outlawed Islamist group, occupy the front
seats for his "lecture" at Cairo University.
10. President Obama has largely ignored the
U.S. National Day of Prayer , which was
signed into law by President Harry
Truman and is recognized on the first
Thursday of May.
11. Conversely, he has annually hosted
Islamic leaders for an "iftar" during the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
12. In 2011, he forced a sovereign nation
(Egypt) under U.S. influence to accept a
member of the Muslim Brotherhood as its
new president, despite unofficial results
that showed his opponent had actually
won by a slight margin.
13. Then, after the subsequent collapse of the
Muslim Brotherhood government in
Egypt, Mr. Obama continued to support
the terrorist group - going against more
than 30 million Egyptians who had sought
to oust that illigitimate government.
14. He suspended aid to Egypt in retaliation
for ousting the Muslim Brotherhood cabal
from power - aid that was agreed upon
more than 30 years prior.
15. President Obama failed to bring to justice
the Islamist killers of the U.S. Ambassador
to Libya and three others. [This article
was written before the capture of Ahmed
Abu Khattala ]
16. Mr. Obama has recognized the Hamas
coalition Palestinian government, to
Israel's deep disappointment, despite our
government's repeated official
designation of Hamas as a terror
organization.
17. In at least four cases, he appointed
Muslim Brotherhood-sympathizers to his
administration, instead of more moderate
or secular American Muslims.
18. He met personally with the Emir of Qatar
at the 2014 West Point graduation
ceremony, who was supposedly there to
witness the first Qatari obtain a military
bachelor degree from West Point. Qatar
funds various Islamic terrorist groups
around the world, plus they host almost
every Islamist terror misfit group in their
country (including the Muslim
Brotherhood). Qatar has offended so
many Arab countries that even Saudi
Arabia threatened to blockade it.
19. Now President Obama has entrusted Qatar
with five known terrorists released from
Guantanamo Bay, which he secretly
exchanged for an Army deserter.
20. To top all that off, the father of the Army
dererter claimed the White House for
Islam by naming the name of Allah
during his speech at the Rose Garden.
For those who know me, it won’t come as a
surprise when I say that I love the Muslim
people. I grew up with them, and I have spent
lots of time and money to share the love of
Christ with them. But this article isn’t about
how we should feel toward Muslims.
I have put forward those twenty “dots” so
readers can try to connect them and
understand how we are governed. It’s
important to have a clear picture of where
we’ve been and where we’re going.
During an election year, every citizen needs
to be informed about the decisions of our
government. We must take a hard look at
every candidate, regardless of political
affiliation. Congress has the power to affirm
or restrain the direction we are headed in.
Let me just say that President Obama is
probably not a Muslim, but not a Christian,
either. Most likely, he’s agnostic. Politics is
his religion.
That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t possess
strong loyalties. Many people are afraid to
discuss those loyalties, however, lest they be
branded some type of crazy “Obama is a
Muslim” truther.
But let me throw out twenty “dots” and see if
you can connect them into a pattern:
1. Barack Obama spent part of his childhood
in Indonesia, stepson to a Muslim. His
natural father was born as a Muslim in
Kenya.
2. Obama romantically reminisces about his
fond memories of hearing the "izan," or
the Muslim call to prayer, echoing from a
nearby mosque each day.
3. One of his closest friends in Chicago is a
member of the Hamas terror group,
funded in part by Qatar.
4. Obama claims to embrace the Christian
faith, however, he attended a churchfor
20 years where he was taught by a
preacher who sees Islam and Christianity
on par with each other.
5. During his 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama
saw himself as the defender of Islam in
America and promised to eliminate
prejudices against Muslims (something I
have never witnessed).
6. He asked the head of NASA (yes, NASA!) to
ensure the defense of Islamic causes and
to help improve their reputation.
7. Among his first overseas trips as President
of the United States were to Muslim
countries with secular governments:
Turkey and Egypt.
8. In Turkey, he declared that America was
not a Christian nation.
9. In Egypt, he humiliated his host, then-
president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, by
insisting that the Muslim Brotherhood, an
outlawed Islamist group, occupy the front
seats for his "lecture" at Cairo University.
10. President Obama has largely ignored the
U.S. National Day of Prayer , which was
signed into law by President Harry
Truman and is recognized on the first
Thursday of May.
11. Conversely, he has annually hosted
Islamic leaders for an "iftar" during the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
12. In 2011, he forced a sovereign nation
(Egypt) under U.S. influence to accept a
member of the Muslim Brotherhood as its
new president, despite unofficial results
that showed his opponent had actually
won by a slight margin.
13. Then, after the subsequent collapse of the
Muslim Brotherhood government in
Egypt, Mr. Obama continued to support
the terrorist group - going against more
than 30 million Egyptians who had sought
to oust that illigitimate government.
14. He suspended aid to Egypt in retaliation
for ousting the Muslim Brotherhood cabal
from power - aid that was agreed upon
more than 30 years prior.
15. President Obama failed to bring to justice
the Islamist killers of the U.S. Ambassador
to Libya and three others. [This article
was written before the capture of Ahmed
Abu Khattala ]
16. Mr. Obama has recognized the Hamas
coalition Palestinian government, to
Israel's deep disappointment, despite our
government's repeated official
designation of Hamas as a terror
organization.
17. In at least four cases, he appointed
Muslim Brotherhood-sympathizers to his
administration, instead of more moderate
or secular American Muslims.
18. He met personally with the Emir of Qatar
at the 2014 West Point graduation
ceremony, who was supposedly there to
witness the first Qatari obtain a military
bachelor degree from West Point. Qatar
funds various Islamic terrorist groups
around the world, plus they host almost
every Islamist terror misfit group in their
country (including the Muslim
Brotherhood). Qatar has offended so
many Arab countries that even Saudi
Arabia threatened to blockade it.
19. Now President Obama has entrusted Qatar
with five known terrorists released from
Guantanamo Bay, which he secretly
exchanged for an Army deserter.
20. To top all that off, the father of the Army
dererter claimed the White House for
Islam by naming the name of Allah
during his speech at the Rose Garden.
For those who know me, it won’t come as a
surprise when I say that I love the Muslim
people. I grew up with them, and I have spent
lots of time and money to share the love of
Christ with them. But this article isn’t about
how we should feel toward Muslims.
I have put forward those twenty “dots” so
readers can try to connect them and
understand how we are governed. It’s
important to have a clear picture of where
we’ve been and where we’re going.
During an election year, every citizen needs
to be informed about the decisions of our
government. We must take a hard look at
every candidate, regardless of political
affiliation. Congress has the power to affirm
or restrain the direction we are headed in.
THE UN-DUPING OF AMERICA
Sarah Perry
Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma has done what
might once have been improbable, and
signed a bill removing from the Sooner State
every vestige of the Common Core State
Standards Initiative.
Oklahoma is just the latest state to mount a
legislative revolt against Common Core. It
appears the scales are off the eyes of an
increasing number of Americans, those who
were made to believe that federal meddling
in education was best for their children, best
for commerce, and perhaps most critically,
their own idea. They were sold whole cloth
on the concept that all state educational
benchmarks needed to be chucked in favor of
an initiative that arose from corporate edu-
crats whose interests were intrinsically tied
to the standards themselves; standards that in
the words of Bill Gates, Common Core’s
money man, were geared toward creating a
“ large uniform base of customers.”
Indiana led the way when it formally
withdrew from the Common Core State
Standards Initiative in March. In an effort to
retain federal funding and No Child Left
Behind Waivers, Gov. Mike Pence substituted
standards “ by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers ” that
were nothing more than a simple re-branding
of the previous Core material.
Despite this, Indiana’s withdrawal is proving
to be the critical crack in the fed-led
education dam. On Indiana’s heels, law
makers in South Carolina, North Carolina,
Missouri, and Oklahoma have taken up the
cause, and passed legislation to withdraw
from the Core Standards.
South Carolina’s Gov. Nikki Haley made clear
her enmity for the Standards from the start,
stating that she would continue to fight
implementation of the Core “ until it’s no
longer part of our school system’s
curriculum .” On May 30th, she made good on
that promise, signing into law H 3893 that
required the development of new, non-Core
standards by the 2015-2016 academic year.
Shortly thereafter on June 5, Gov. Mary Fallin
of Oklahoma signed HB 3399 nullifying
Common Core in her state. As the chair of the
National Governor’s Association – the
organization that co-sponsored the initiative
and holds the copyright to the Standards –
her decision to dump them is a political wild
card. The bill ensures the standards are
meticulously compared with previous Core
standards so there isn’t a back-door re-
introduction, as per Indiana. Fallin stated,
“What should have been a bipartisan policy
is now widely regarded as the president’s
plan to establish federal control of curricula,
testing and teaching strategies.”
HB 1061 was filed in North Carolina with the
strong support of Lt. Gov. Dan Forest who
also serves on the state education board, and
who has made vocal his support for the
elimination of Core standards in favor of
those drafted from scratch by the State Board.
Similar legislation is currently under
consideration in the Senate. While Missouri
Gov. Jay Nixon hasn’t indicated which way
he leans on his state’s bill , if ratified, the
legislation would allow teachers to continue
using any recently adopted standards while a
committee of educators, parents, and
business leaders develops new standards to
be put into effect in two years. Louisiana's
Gov. Bobby Jindal has revised his original
position on Core, and is now considering
executive action to withdraw his state from
the Standards and the PARCC testing
consortium that would administer uniform
tests based on those standards, stating : "We
can have rigorous standards without giving
control to the federal government. Parents
deserve a voice in this debate."
And on it goes.
It may well be that the privacy-violating
databases required by the Core program are
tipping the scales against it. The Department
of Education’s Faustian report of February
2013 elucidates federally funded and
mandated student databases that not only
include academic information, but can
similarly be used to create a personal dossier
comprised of “ health-care history,
disciplinary record, family income range,
family voting status, and religious
affiliation .” The DOE report seeks to
catalogue “ attributes, dispositions, social
skills, attitudes, and intrapersonal resources,
independent of intellectual ability ,” under the
guise of tracked and tailor-made academic
rigor.
If this period of American wakefulness has
taught us anything, it’s that despite the lure of
language like “rigorous” and “benchmarked,”
or the pledge of success in “college, career
and life,” We The People will only be fooled
once.
Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma has done what
might once have been improbable, and
signed a bill removing from the Sooner State
every vestige of the Common Core State
Standards Initiative.
Oklahoma is just the latest state to mount a
legislative revolt against Common Core. It
appears the scales are off the eyes of an
increasing number of Americans, those who
were made to believe that federal meddling
in education was best for their children, best
for commerce, and perhaps most critically,
their own idea. They were sold whole cloth
on the concept that all state educational
benchmarks needed to be chucked in favor of
an initiative that arose from corporate edu-
crats whose interests were intrinsically tied
to the standards themselves; standards that in
the words of Bill Gates, Common Core’s
money man, were geared toward creating a
“ large uniform base of customers.”
Indiana led the way when it formally
withdrew from the Common Core State
Standards Initiative in March. In an effort to
retain federal funding and No Child Left
Behind Waivers, Gov. Mike Pence substituted
standards “ by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers ” that
were nothing more than a simple re-branding
of the previous Core material.
Despite this, Indiana’s withdrawal is proving
to be the critical crack in the fed-led
education dam. On Indiana’s heels, law
makers in South Carolina, North Carolina,
Missouri, and Oklahoma have taken up the
cause, and passed legislation to withdraw
from the Core Standards.
South Carolina’s Gov. Nikki Haley made clear
her enmity for the Standards from the start,
stating that she would continue to fight
implementation of the Core “ until it’s no
longer part of our school system’s
curriculum .” On May 30th, she made good on
that promise, signing into law H 3893 that
required the development of new, non-Core
standards by the 2015-2016 academic year.
Shortly thereafter on June 5, Gov. Mary Fallin
of Oklahoma signed HB 3399 nullifying
Common Core in her state. As the chair of the
National Governor’s Association – the
organization that co-sponsored the initiative
and holds the copyright to the Standards –
her decision to dump them is a political wild
card. The bill ensures the standards are
meticulously compared with previous Core
standards so there isn’t a back-door re-
introduction, as per Indiana. Fallin stated,
“What should have been a bipartisan policy
is now widely regarded as the president’s
plan to establish federal control of curricula,
testing and teaching strategies.”
HB 1061 was filed in North Carolina with the
strong support of Lt. Gov. Dan Forest who
also serves on the state education board, and
who has made vocal his support for the
elimination of Core standards in favor of
those drafted from scratch by the State Board.
Similar legislation is currently under
consideration in the Senate. While Missouri
Gov. Jay Nixon hasn’t indicated which way
he leans on his state’s bill , if ratified, the
legislation would allow teachers to continue
using any recently adopted standards while a
committee of educators, parents, and
business leaders develops new standards to
be put into effect in two years. Louisiana's
Gov. Bobby Jindal has revised his original
position on Core, and is now considering
executive action to withdraw his state from
the Standards and the PARCC testing
consortium that would administer uniform
tests based on those standards, stating : "We
can have rigorous standards without giving
control to the federal government. Parents
deserve a voice in this debate."
And on it goes.
It may well be that the privacy-violating
databases required by the Core program are
tipping the scales against it. The Department
of Education’s Faustian report of February
2013 elucidates federally funded and
mandated student databases that not only
include academic information, but can
similarly be used to create a personal dossier
comprised of “ health-care history,
disciplinary record, family income range,
family voting status, and religious
affiliation .” The DOE report seeks to
catalogue “ attributes, dispositions, social
skills, attitudes, and intrapersonal resources,
independent of intellectual ability ,” under the
guise of tracked and tailor-made academic
rigor.
If this period of American wakefulness has
taught us anything, it’s that despite the lure of
language like “rigorous” and “benchmarked,”
or the pledge of success in “college, career
and life,” We The People will only be fooled
once.
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