This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatists grudgingly give up ‘black boxes’
- Gaza war splits Arab states into competing alliances
Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatists grudgingly give up ‘black boxes’
Late Monday, the pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine, underenormous international pressure, grudgingly handed over to Malaysianofficials the “black boxes” from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 thatwas shot out of the sky on July 17. The separatists, currently beingled by self-declared prime minister Alexander Borodai, have beenpreventing international access to the crash site in order to hide thecomplicity of the separatists and Russia in shooting down theairliner. Borodai himself is a Russian, a former deputy directory ofRussia’s FSB (known as the KGB in Soviet days).
The so-called “black boxes” (which are actually orange) are likely tocontain the last few minutes of the voices of the pilots flying MH17,as well as numerical data generated by the plane’s computers. Mostexperts consider it unlikely that the MH17 pilots even suspected whatwas going to happen until the missile actually struck, so theblack boxes are not likely to contain data that would indicateculpability in the shoot down.
US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared on a number of Sunday news talkshows, and on each one he enumerated what he called “an enormous arrayof facts” providing evidence that Russia was implicated in shootingdown Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on Thursday. Here are some of theitems in his evidence list:
- “There are reports of drunken separatist soldiers unceremoniously piling bodies into trucks, removing both bodies, as well as evidence, from the site.”
- “The separatists are in control. Some of the separatist leaders are Russian. Russia has armed the separatists. Russia has supported the separatists. Russia has trained the separatists.”
- “Russia continues to refuse to call publicly for the separatists to engage in behavior that would lend itself to a resolution of this issue. The lack of access [to the crash site] makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.”
- “In the last month, we have observed major supplies moving in. Several weeks ago, about a 150-vehicle convoy, including armored personnel carriers, tanks, rocket launchers, artillery, all going in and being transferred to the separatists.”
- “We know that they had an SA-11 [ground to air missile] system in the vicinity, literally hours before the shoot-down took place. There are social media records of that.”
- “They were talking, and we have the intercepts of their conversations, talking about the transfer and movement and repositioning of the SA-11 system.”
- “The social media showed them with this system moving through the very area where we believe the shoot-down took place, hours before it took place.”
- “Social media, which is an extraordinary tool, obviously, in all of this, has posted recordings of separatists bragging about the shoot-down of a plane at the time right after it took place. The defense minister, so-called, self-appointed, of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Mr. Igor Strelkov, actually posted a bragging statement on the social media about having shot down a transport. And then, when it became apparent it was civilian, they quickly removed that particular posting.”
- “But even more importantly, we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar. We also know, from voice identification, that the separatists were bragging about shooting it down afterwards.”
Russian commentators, including Russia’s president Vladimir Putin,have been advancing one fantastical theory after another to deflectblame from themselves. The most common theme is that the Ukrainiangovernment purposely shot down the airliner to give themselves anexcuse to attack the separatists. It’s hard to think of any betterword than “desperate” to describe these theories. CNN and ABC News and NBC News
Gaza war splits Arab states into competing alliances
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday evening,apparently to add one more effort to the long list of fruitless peacemediations he’s attempted. In this case, he’s teaming up withU.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a joint effort to negotiate apeace process between Israel and Gaza. Both Kerry and Ban have madestatements in the last few days suggesting that they’re critical ofthe number of Palestinian casualties that have resulted from Israel’sground invasion of Gaza, and so both Kerry and Ban are widely seen atleast slightly favoring Hamas over Israel.
In a sense, Kerry and Ban are playing out of their league because,really, no one in the Mideast really cares at all what they think.The Gaza war is inflaming a powerful geopolitical fault line in theMideast, and events are not under the control any politician or groupof politicians.
The Gaza war is exposing two major factions:
- A Qatar-led coalition that includes Turkey, Sudan, and Iran. All of these countries are strong supporters of Hamas and have supplied money and weapons. Qatar and Turkey have also been very vocal supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent organization of Hamas.
- Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Under the current government of president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi, which considers the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization, Egypt offered last week a cease-fire proposal and negotiation framework that Hamas immediately rejected and Israel immediately accepted. Israel and Saudi Arabia both consider Iran to be a mortal enemy, and they’ve discussed an anti-Iran alliance in the past. Egypt is struggling with the same kinds of terrorist attacks as Israel which it blames on Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, so Egypt and Israel are also allied.
Long-time readers of Generational Dynamics are aware of thepredictions, over a decade ago, of an approaching war between Jews andArabs, re-fighting the genocidal war between Jews and Arabs thatfollowing the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creation of thestate of Israel. However, there’s been a need to fill in additionaldetails, and one of the most important and most puzzling “details” washow the different Arab states would align themselves in that comingwar between Jews and Arabs. These alignments are now beginning toclearly emerge.
I now have to add a word about Iran. As I’ve been saying for years,Iran will be an ally of the United States in the approaching Clash ofCivilizations world war. This prediction is firm, but is onlyslightly related to what’s happening in the Mideast. In the comingworld war, China will be allied with Pakistan, and America will beallied with India — which will be allied with Iran. The close tiesbetween Hindus and Shia Muslims date all the way back to the epochalBattle of Karbala in 680, and the relationship continues to this day.
This suggests that the above alignment (Egypt + Saudi Arabia + Israelversus Qatar + Turkey + Iran) may not be final. In fact, given thatsome 30% of Egypt’s population is still loyal to the MuslimBrotherhood, and given the explosive rise of ISIS, many of thealignment “details” are still to be determined. Reuters and CNN Wire and AFP and Debka and Israel Hayom
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Ukraine, Alexander Borodai,John Kerry, Igor Strelkov, Vladimir Putin,Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi,Ban Ki-moon, Qatar, Hamas, Israel, Gaza, Turkey, Iran,Sudan, Saudi Arabia,, China, Pakistan, India, Battle of Karbala
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