Observations on a wacky world

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF

Isn’t it strange that out of the millions of words on TV ranting about the Russian move into Syria – the pro Assad airstrikes – not one dealt with the greater peril, the obvious danger posed to an Israeli strike at the Iranian Nuke centers of activity?

It is no longer the slam-dunk of yesterday. When the move of Russian aircraft, missiles, and radar is completed, it will constitute a formidable barrier to penetration of Iranian airspace. An Iran that is the godfather of world-wide terrorism. I have no explanation as to why the foreign affairs pundits never mention this threat. But I guarantee you that the Israel Air Force (IAF) ponders it hourly.

Disregarding this oversight, however, it looks like Mr. Putin is no smarter than Mr. Obama, both of whom would fail a high school exam on politics, geography, and Islamic rivalries in the Middle East. Putin has stepped into deep quicksand. (We often overrate our adversaries –it’s an American habit.) Who can discriminate between freedom fighters (so-called), Assad supporters, and the cluster of thugs dubbed ISIS?

They don’t wear uniforms, you know. Russia has little to gain from establishing supremacy into his neighborhood that makes an American slum look like the Garden of Eden. Is he suffering political dementia? Has he forgotten that oil is no longer at platinum prices? A basic question: What’s in it for him, except a few raggedy, tattered communities (no cohesive nations) that will laugh at his jokes,
inflate his ego and then line up at Bank of Russia, hands outstretched for loans or gifts? And not to be forgotten – but infrequently mentioned – is the presence of two- to three-million Islamic Chechens
within Russian boundaries who have waged an ongoing war for independence going back to the 19th Century.

No need to inflame their hostility by killing more Muslims on Middle East battlefields and who cares whether they’re pro- or anti-Assad? Definitely not a smart move by a fragmented (and broke) Russia that begins to look more and more like the Austria-Hungary of pre-World War I fame, the Hapsburg empire
of too many races jammed together in an ill-fitting puzzle that finally resolved itself into a homogenous but shrunken Austria.

And while we are talking about Russian occupation of the Syrian madhouse, consider the refugee problem. Hundreds of thousands of possessionless refugees swarming out of Syria and other Islamic states from Yemen to Libya looking for a home. And where is their target? Not Saudi Arabia or Egypt. But overwhelmingly, Germany. The country that killed six million non-Aryan Jews. The goal? A ”Judenfrei” Germany. A pure German state. Irony of ironies. They murder millions of Jews who made immense contributions to their culture and they awake from their bloody dreams to find hordes of impoverished, ill-educated refugees pounding on the door demanding entry. And not an Aryan in the bunch.

And then there’s the further mystery – Why Germany? I suppose it’s the health of the economy, the availability of jobs. But they don’t appreciate their luck. If it were 1938, they would have been welcomed by the Gestapo and bedded down into hotel chains like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen–Belsen and Dachau.