A Big Jigsaw Puzzle

I was sitting here trying to get my thoughts together on what I wanted to write about. I know I don’t write every week but with everything that has been happening I just couldn’t let the week go by without spewing out my thoughts. Anyhow, as I was starting to type a commercial came on the TV for a thing called the Ready Box. It’s a box that contains some first aid supplies, water, food and a multipurpose flashlight/radio. I started realizing that with all the talk of stocking up on precious metals, seed banks and food storage we were headed to the same place that the country was in back in the 60’s with the Bay of Pigs and threats of nuclear holocaust. Is this something we need to worry about? While it may not be a nuclear holocaust there are all the earmarks of some sort of major event on the horizon, if not; it’s sure missing one heck of a chance.

Right now the Middle East is on fire; then again they have been for what the last say, 3000 years. So really there is nothing new there, or is there. We have had an uprising in Egypt that luckily ended relatively peaceful. Our politicians like to downplay the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood was a major player in the protests in Egypt and now the Brotherhood is making its play for power. Evidently Libya was encouraged by the events in Egypt; or were they encouraged by the words of our President supporting the protests in Egypt? Libya has only been under the rule of the same man for 42 years so the good honest peace loving citizens finally decided it was time to do something about it. The thing is these good honest Libyans are supplemented by many of the same people we were fighting in Afghanistan. During all this there are all sorts of humanitarian atrocities going on in the Middle East, but like I said before, this is the way it’s been for around 3000 years. There have been a couple of things that have really stood out. First is with all the events’ going on our President decides to violate our Constitution and send our Military into Libya without going through Congress. Sounds like a small thing but in truth, it’s just another way this President has shown that he is above our laws and our Constitution. For now let’s stick with the Middle East, I’ll get back to America later.

What the major news organizations are not reporting on are how all the events in the Middle East are tied to the religious beliefs of the People in the Middle East. Up until just a few days ago we have all heard about the Koran, what we have not heard about are the Hadiths. Hadiths are narrations or communications of the words or actions of the prophet Muhammad. These Hadiths are taken very seriously in the Islamic faith. Evidently the Hadiths refer to the coming of the 12th Imam, Al-Mahdi, for Christians this would be the equivalent of the return of Christ. The problem with the 12th Imam is that in order for him to return chaos must ensue first. There also seems to be a Hadith that directs the destruction of Jerusalem and the west, guess who the west is. In the Christian world no one knows when Christ will return and no one is trying to hasten the return. Not so true with the 12th Imam. Apparently one of the Hadiths has been interpreted, correctly or not, to state that a certain leader would have to be in power for 72 months and at the end of that the 12th Imam would return. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed to be named as the one that will bring in the return of Al-Mahdi. Whether we or Muslims that don’t believe in the return of Al-Mahdi like it or not; Ahmadinejad has been in power since August 2005; that is about 65 months. Is this the recipe for a self-fulfilling prophecy? During the “Cold War” there was restraint shown by the leaders of the United States and Russia because they knew any actions taken could mean a war that could potentially destroy the world, unfortunately the believers of the Al-Mahdi do not have that type of restraint, they are not afraid to die for what they believe, right or wrong.

I’m not trying to be a doomsayer or a conspiracy theorist; I’m just trying to put pieces together. The President obligates our military resources to support the UN sanctioned no-fly zone in Libya under the pretense of National interests, which no one else can justify. This created a lot of discussion about just how much leeway he has with our military without going through Congress. The bottom line on that is that he can not go charging off on his own without Congress support unless it is a defensive action based on an actual attack or actionable intelligence that the Nation is under threat of imminent attack. Neither of those apply to Libya, it is possible it could apply to Iran but I’m not in the Intelligence world so I don’t know if we have actionable intelligence to support that. What I have gleaned from all the information spewing out of the media makes me nervous about our Presidents motives. For years Egypt has been a strategic partner for Israel, albeit a cold relationship, a mostly peaceful relationship just the same. This relationship has minimized the possibility of full scale war on Israel by other Muslim Nations; in fact Egypt has been key in several cease fire negotiations between Palestine and Israel. Our President supported the uprising and protests in Egypt that could potentially put the anti-Israel group, the Muslim Brotherhood, in power in Egypt, if not in power at least in a more influential position. Two years before the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center Muammar Quadaffi pledged Libya’s commitment to fighting al-Qaeda in an attempt to improve its relations with the west. This would put Quadaffi at odds with the rest of the Muslim world, or at least the Muslims that are trying to make the world Muslim. From what I have read about Quadaffi I agree that he is a brutal dictator that continually commits crimes against humanity, but, he is not the only brutal dictator in Africa and he is not the only one that is committing crimes against humanity. As for the National interest to the United States, Libya only supplies about 1% of the oil that is imported into the US and it’s not in any strategic location that is important to the US, so what interest do we really have there?

While all this is going on back home in America our Government is encouraging, and in some people’s minds, supporting union uprisings against State Governments. This is the same Government that refused to acknowledge the Tea Party movement, which so far has been a peaceful movement, even going to the point of calling it “astro-turf”, rednecks clinging to god and guns and comparing it to the South trying to cling to slavery. This is the same Government that has tried to rationalize our involvement in Libya by appealing to the nobility of the American People. What nobility? We are broke so our nobility is being shown in the form of protests by Unions wanting more money that the States don’t have, our nobility is being shown in the crumbling of our inner cities, our nobility is being shown in cities like Detroit where downtown is starting to look like bombed out portions of England during WWII. You want nobility; look at how the Japanese People are conducting themselves in the midst of one of the greatest natural disasters in recent history. With all of this happening our Federal Government is 6 months into the fiscal year and still can’t get a budget approved so we are facing a potential Government shutdown. Maybe a Government shutdown would be a good idea, or maybe that is the real plan. This is just my opinion but with everything our current President has done since taking office it appears to me that he is views himself as a dictator, not as a President. With the limited research I have done over the past couple of years I also have to wonder if this has not been an on-going plan for close to 100 years. Were our major political players steering the country to this moment? Were past Presidents being handled in such a way to gently guide us into a country totally dependent on the Federal Government? We know that the States have lost or given away their sovereignty without ever changing the Constitution. We know that the State of welfare has become a way of life for some. And we know that more and more people are expecting the Government to solve all their problems and provide for all their needs from cradle to grave. This is too much for one President to have engineered in a short 2 years, so it’s not just this President.

Here is where I throw all the pieces on the table and try to put together the puzzle, not that I’ll be able to but here goes. The strength and resolve of our once great country is being weakened and our military is being stretched to thin. The United States credit is just about tapped out and our Government is still acting like we still have checks in the checkbook. Our creditors, other countries, are also facing financial problems so the potential for them calling in debts is right on the horizon which we won’t be able to pay. A little history now, how many remember the reasons Japan attacked Pearl Harbor? Japan was trying to take parts of Indochina and China in the 40’s to gain access to natural resources, oil in particular. The United States and other countries didn’t want this to happen so we placed trade embargos on Japan. Japan tried to have the embargos lifted and when they weren’t they attacked Pearl Harbor hoping to cripple the Pacific Fleet which was the only thing standing in their way of taking the territories they wanted. With America on the brink of insolvency what action will our Government take? With the Middle East on fire and countries of the United Nations interfering, what action will they take? Are we on the brink of another World War? Are we ready for it? I hope not since I don’t believe we are. I am purposely leaving out the questions about our Presidents religious leanings because for me it’s just to scary a thought that maybe he is working in conjunction with the Middle East to make the world Muslim, it’s not something I’m ready to believe. (Guess I did throw it out there after all, just too really make everyone think).

Steve Avery
4/3/11