AUGUST 2014 
 
"THERE IS A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE"
(Well four of them, actually)


HAMAS IN GAZA

In Australia, the ABC provides much of the news by rebroadcasts of Al Jazeera.  Al Jazeera translated from Arabic means "The Island" or "Peninsular" and is owned by the ruling family of Qatar.


And who is the main supporter of Hamas?  Qatar.  Where Khaled Marshal, the head of Hamas lives.

The photograph above has it's own references.  My readers can investigate.

Suffice to say, Hamas is reported to strongly resist the taking of any photographs or reporting anything that might cast Hamas in a bad light.  Only "sympathetic" journalists need apply for permission to enter Gaza. (e.g. search Peter Stefanovic, Radjaa Abu Dagga)


THE ISLAMIC STATE. (aka "IS")

First, just to give you an idea of the geopolitics of the middle east, consider the following diagram...


This diagram is not complete.  For instance the Saudis provided several $billion to the Egyptian secularists/army.  Also, to be complete it should show hidden sympathies.  For instance, nobody in the Muslim world can be seen to be friendly to Israel, because Muslims don't do Israel.  If a leader of a Muslim country wants to be popular, he just has to rail against "The Zionists in Israel".

The Islamic State or IS (In the picture above "Syrian Islamist Rebels", now, after a couple of hiccups, are known as "The Islamic State".) are a gang of bloodthirsty Sunni Muslims.  They have reportedly killed more than 6000 in Iraq and Al Monitor reports that 65,000 Syrians have died.  That is several times the count of Gazans that the Israelis have killed.  The Islamic State are quietly supported by Turkey, and opposed by the IRAQ Shias and the Syrian Assad regime and the Sunni Kurds in North IRAQ.  The stated aim if IS is to establish a Caliphate.

ISIL can argue that it is doing God's stated will when they kill unbelievers.  The word "Koran" means "recitals".  This is because Mahommed would go into the desert and commune with God, then he would return and "recite" word for word what God had allegedly said to him.  The collected "recitals" have the name "Koran" or "Quran", and are considered by Moslems to be the direct word of God, and therefore as much the law of God as e.g. the Ten Commandments which were allegedly inscribed by God.  One of these verses, Sura 9.5 is named "The Sword Verse".   Abdullah Yusef Ali has translated the verse as:

But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every strategem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them, for Allah is oft forgiving, most merciful

The Kurds in Iraq might well be viewed with suspicion by the Turks, because Turkey has a 15% - 25% Kurdish population, who, it is reported, would very much like to secede into a Kurdish nation.


The current leader in Turkey is reported as also attempting to reinstate the old Turkish Caliphate form of government (as existed between about 1200AD to Attaturk circa 1918AD) under cover of becoming President.  The area blacked out in the diagram is an indication of the extent of the lands conquered by the Islamic Jihad circa 900 AD


A Caliphate is a state where the holder of religious power and military power are the Caliph.  A bit like England under Elizabeth I.

The IS is causing much concern in the US because it is a genius with publicity and money.  They are reportedly selling oil from captured oilfields, and ransoming prisoners back to European governments.  The proof of their publicity is measured by the number of volunteers that are streaming in from the youth of the Muslim diaspora.  These youth are apparently attracted by the graphic violence.

Some military and intelligence commenters are claiming that we will be fighting the IS for the next hundred years.  In my opinion those people are not very well informed.  They were probably astounded when the US began to release convicted rapists after the newly discovered DNA tests circa 1990's proved them to be "not guilty".

In like manner, the rapid evolution of "person recognition" (PR) technology can be expected to put an end to terrorism in advanced countries, probably within 5-20 years.  PR technology will combine facial recognition with movement dynamics recognition with body shape and stance recognition and with auditory (voice) recognition.  Already webcams and microphones are blanketing inner London, and when a crime is committed in Sydney or Melbourne, the police always seem to find a webcam image of possible culprits.

The turning point will be when that information is fed into a database of everyone in Australia.  Then it will become very easy to trace terror contacts through family, friendships, clubs and other social contacts, and forestall 99.9% of terror activity.

And that database will stretch back in time to cover all the metadata and visual images that are now captured.  For example the IS terrorist who murdered James Foley will be identified, and everyone of his friends in the UK for years into the past will become a suspect.  The people who radicalized him will be identified.  Other people those trainers radicalized will be identified.  The children of radicalized persons will be watched throughout their lives.

I can already hear the "Privacy Alarmists" baying at this evolution of state power.  Their concerns are that "government" will misuse the information gathered for personal ends (by blackmail or other means).  Their solution is to stop the gathering of such information.

I also am alarmed by similar concerns.  However I would argue for a different solution.  This "right to privacy" is a newly discovered right, in a country that has no "Bill of Rights".  Instead of restricting information about people, I would require that all information about happenings in public places on publicly funded cameras or microphones should be made publicly available.  Any information broadcast should be considered "Public Information".


EBOLA

On this blog I have reported SARS and H5N1.  I watch zombie sifi.  So I am familiar with some of the pop doomsday scenarios.  SARS was not very dangerous because people developed an elevated temperature before they became capable of transmission.  Thus we installed IR (Infra Red) temperature detectors at all inbound and outbound airport gates.  H5N1 was well quarantined, and not very good at P2P (person to person) infection.  Ebola is capable of P2P but the infected person must show symptoms before they become infectious.  The real fear is a disease which has no (or virtually nil) symptoms, but once caught begins to unrepairably damage the brain in such a way that the person becomes a mindless hunger for living meat.  (OK, other possibilities exist, like just becoming a vegetable).  Worst case, nobody spots the disease until 90% - 99% of the world's population has caught the disease.

UKRAINE

Vlad Putin is supporting a liberation movement in Eastern Ukraine.  Already Crimea appears to have seceded and joined Russia.  Since Sevastapol in Crimea was a major Naval base for Russia, it can be no surprise that a significant proportion of the people there were pro Russian.

Currently he is denying that he is offering support.  The missile that shot down a commercial airliner was suspected to have been fired by either secessionists or Russians.  So far, NATO is not committing forces to Ukraine, although troop movements at the borders have been scheduled. 

This is not a helpful development for world peace.

SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

Scotland is to vote to secede from the UK on 14th September 2014.

Economic considerations aside.  A YES (success) vote would be a clarion call to independence movements worldwide.   Independence forces exist in Sri Lankar, Sumatra, ISIS, Kurds (Turkey, Iraq, Iran), Spain (Basque), China (Tibet, Sin Kiang, Mongolia, Hong Kong{Cn/En}) Texas, Vietnam.  And I am quite sure that list is not exhaustive.

For that reason alone, I support the separatists.

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