Introduction:

I’ve been trying to get this article written and up on my site for about a couple of months now.  I finally got the motivation I needed to finish it (at least this first part) a couple of days ago when President Obama finally provided the nation and the world with the details of his flaccid and ineffective proposal for “sanctions” against the Russians for their illegal occupation of Ukrainian Crimea and their coerced referendum vote forcing Crimea’s return to Russian control.  For the last two days the Russians – and the rest of the world – have openly laughed at and ridiculed our President for his bumbling, faltering foreign policy, if you can call it that.

In the meantime I watch the Obama administration and the Democrat controlled Senate erode our Constitutional rights and push the government in the United States steadily toward becoming a Totalitarian Democracy.  I see the nations of Europe nearing collapse under the weight of their social programs.  I watch petty dictators in small countries continue to brutally oppress their populations, and powerful dictators in larger countries jockey for position on the global stage, acquire nuclear and biological weapons, and steal technology from the West.  The once great powers of the West stand idly by while the fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorist threat remains undefeated, and in fact grows and spreads like a cancer into Africa, Europe and across Asia… and they too are working hard to acquire nuclear and biological weapons, and steal technology from the West.

In the end we Americans will find ourselves surrounded, living on a besieged and embattled island of “democracy” called North America in a sea of adversaries comprised of dictatorships, rogue nations and failed states, our former allies broken from their self-inflicted Socialism – mere shadows of their former selves.

When that happens how long will we last… and who will come to our rescue?

 

Disclaimer:

The argument and key points I present in this article rest on the reader’s acceptance as fact that there is real evil in the world.  I’m not talking about extreme religious views, or strong nationalism, or fierce competition for scarce resources which might easily pit any given nation against another.  I am talking about the sort of evil that chooses to oppress millions and millions of people, murder tens of thousands for opposing the will of government, and conduct genocide of entire groups of people… for no reason other than the desire to acquire and maintain power over others.

If you cannot accept that premise then I recommend that you stop reading now and go watch reruns of “Cribs” on MTV or something because what you read here will only make you pity me for my ignorance and I really don’t need that crap.

 

What is the true nature of the world in 2014?

Here’s your reality check.  Contrary to the opinions of the President Obama, the appointees in his cabinet like Secretary of State Kerry, and his supporters in the American Left this world of ours is not through with war and violence.  The world of 2014 is not an enlightened and stable place.  It is not generally moving toward peaceful coexistence.  The Human race is not yet ready to cope with – and move past – the diversities brought about by religion, language, nationalism and skin color.  We are not yet ready to put aside our weapons of war, cooperate across national borders and work together for the betterment of Mankind and planet Earth.  That’s a shame.  I don’t want war, but that’s the reality I will discuss here.

In fact there is real evil left in the world – lots of evil.  On the global stage this evil sometimes wears a particular face such as that of Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Osama bin Laden of al Qaeda or Adolf Hitler.  Sometimes this evil hides within a system of a large government such as that of China.

Evil of this kind seeks to enslave and oppress whole populations, amass extreme wealth unto itself, and generally behave badly as a good friend of mine sometimes puts it understatedly.  Some estimates place the number of people living under the rule of a dictator or a dictatorial government at 2.5 billion – about 35% of the world!  Conservapedia.com (a great online research resource, by the way) lists at least 20 countries currently ruled by dictators who collectively oppress and enslave millions and millions worldwide (note that this list does not classify Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, or Burma (Myanmar) as dictatorships.)

Stalin’s “Great Purge” of 1934-1939 resulted in the murder of 680,000 Russians deemed by the new Communist regime to be less than “ideologically pure.”  The “Holocaust” perpetrated against the European Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, prisoners of war and other “undesirables” by Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler during World War II claimed an unknown number of lives, but most estimates are well above 15 million.  Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” in China conducted between 1958-1961 resulted in the deaths of an incredible 36 million Chinese, mostly from starvation, but included 2.5 million executions.

From the personal perspective this same evil commits the most heinous murders imaginable.  For just one shocking example read about the so-called “Hi-Fi Murders.”  Evil walks alongside of each of us daily – in the supermarket, pumping gas alongside of you at the gas station, sitting on the bleachers with you at your son’s softball game… all the while thinking of, planning, waiting for the opportunity to spring from the shadows and devour some unsuspecting, helpless victim guilty of nothing but being at the wrong place at the wrong time, unprepared and vulnerable.

Evil exists.  Evil controls dictators who control a large portion of the population of the world.  Evil dwells deep within a great many more individuals than any of us are really comfortable acknowledging.  Evil waits for the right moment to strike… and then it does strike.  Evil does not care what century it is.  Evil does not consider whether the people it oppresses and murders are “enlightened” or “civilized.”  Evil simply does what evil does.

 

But what about World War II?  Didn’t we defeat evil?  Aren’t things better now?

For a time following World War II freedom seemed secure, and for a few years it was possible to believe that evil had been defeated.  Even when the Korean War sprung up it was considered just a “small war”… a “bush war” – like the Vietnam War and a great many other “guerrilla wars” fought across the world from 1945 to the present day.

In the victorious and celebratory atmosphere following World War II freedom and democracy did flourished, temporarily supported at first by powerful new nuclear weapons available only to the ‘Forces of Good’, then by the stronger economies of the Western nations driven by their post-war boost in war production and technology turned back to civilian use, and most recently through our technological superiority brought about by things like the space program, microelectronics and the Internet… but it was not to last.

I will acknowledge that there are many free and democratic countries in the world administered by generally benevolent governments; all of North America, large portions of South America, Great Britain, Western Europe and Australia.  But certainly Russia and China are not free in the sense we think of freedom here in the United States or in Europe.  Very little of the Africa, the Middle East, South-West Asia or Asia is free, with only pockets in those areas such as Israel, India and Japan.  There are other nations in those areas that are “freer” perhaps than others, but the harsh reality is that much of the world is not free.

Of the nations that are free none are free because there is no one that would invade and oppress them.  They are made free and kept free by having large, powerful, technologically advanced militaries, or they depend on a close ally that has such a military.

The uncomfortable truth is it’s a fairly easy point to make that World War II came very close to snuffing out the free nations of the world.  Consult with any historian of World War II and they will tell you the true story of how close the Axis Powers of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy came to winning that war.  If the Germans had won the race to a nuclear weapon for example the world would be a very different place today.

It was only through years of brutal warfare which raged to nearly every corner of the globe, the deaths of millions and a final cost of untold trillions (in today’s dollars) that our world today has any remaining free nations at all… and all of that happened only 70 years ago – within the lifetimes of millions of people worldwide that are still alive to recall that horror.

However the so-called “peace dividend” the free West enjoyed having won World War II quickly disappeared.  The Russians immediately erected the “Iron Curtain” drawing a demarcation line between East and West, dramatically elevating the Soviet Union’s post-war prowess.  By 1949 – only 4 years after the end of World War II – the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear weapon bringing them “super power” status.  Since then the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology despite our best efforts to control that knowledge has put nuclear weapons in the hands of at least 9 nations including Israel (they’ve denied having them), 10 if you count North Korea (still some debate about that) and that list will soon include Iran.

Obviously as more and more nations acquire nuclear weapons the fact that we have them becomes less and less relevant, and the likelihood that someone will use them grows.

Feeling any safer?

At the same time that nuclear weapons have spread so have chemical weapons (at least 9 nations with declared programs and stockpiles) and biological weapons (at least 6 nations with declared programs and stockpiles) – the so-called “poor man’s nukes.”  Several instances of the use of both have already occurred, some in the hands of terrorists.

Western economies are struggling under the weight of their social programs – enacted in part to fend off Communism itself, by attempting to placate the masses with gifts like higher wages, shorter hours, and larger and earlier pensions… and yes, Socialized medical care; revolutions always start amongst the poor.

All World War II did was stop one particular historic instance where several evil nations united at once for the expressed purpose of the destruction of the free world.  It did not change the nature of Man, and it is not time to beat our swords into plow shears.  Indeed the man who beats his sword into a plow shear will be enslaved by the one who does not!

 

So what’s the threat now?

Russia and China – long-standing enemies of the United States – are still there, despite how enthusiastically President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry (and Secretary Clinton before him, with her “reset button”) wish otherwise.

As I write this the Russians have forced the hand of the previously free citizens of a large and valuable portion of southern Ukraine known as the Crimea to succeed from that nation and rejoin Russia.  Now Obama is talking about “off-ramps” for Putin – as if Putin knows he made a mistake and is only looking for a way out!  How freakin’ naïve!  Obama seems surprised that Putin’s Russia can sponsor the Olympics one week and invade Ukraine the next! A scorpion will always be a scorpion!

Without question the Russians are still our enemy.  Yet one of the first official acts of the Obama Presidency was to slash NASA’s budget, and sign agreements with Russia that the U.S. would use the Russians as our only means to get into space for things like resupplying and expanding the International Space Station!  Shortly thereafter he cancelled the deployment of a ballistic missile system that was to have been built-in Poland in order to appease the Russians (also see.)  In return the Russians gave America exactly NOTHING!  It boggles the mind!

China is facing many internal problems at the moment, but they are already making expansionist move in the Pacific, and improving their naval posture.  Obama is already preparing to implement what he is calling the “Pacific Pivot Strategy.”  How that shapes up in the face of his intent to slash our defense budget remains to be seen, but at least he seems to recognize the danger of an expansionist China.

 

Rogue nations, failed states, the rise of Islam and their struggle for a new Caliphate:

I probably don’t really need to go into the why rogue nations and failed states like Somalia and Mali pose serious threats to the United States.  Remember when al Qaeda attacked the United States after planning and preparing for the attack from the deserts of the failed state of Afghanistan?  Well you can probably add Afghanistan back to the list of threatening rogue states if the President Obama makes good on his promise to pull U.S. troops out at the end of this year; Afghanistan may fall back to the Taliban shortly thereafter.

Some experts estimate that with the current state of Iran’s nuclear weapons program – even in the face of UN backed sanctions which took years to develop, and which Obama is now inexplicably dismantling – they are probably no more than four or five months away from being able to detonate their first nuclear weapon once they decide to take that step.

As I write this there is new reporting that Iran is not cooperating with the IAEA inspectors, Syria is failing to meet deadline after deadline to destroy its chemical weapon stockpiles, and Benjamin Netanyahu Israel’s Prime Minister publicly announces that he no longer has faith in America’s ability to deal with either – another step toward their own action independent of the United States.

Then there’s the rise of fundamentalist Jihadist Islam and globalized terrorism.  An important distinction must be made here.  I’m not saying that all Muslims are Jihadists.  In fact I believe that nearly all Muslims are peaceful, God-fearing, compassionate, hard-working people, who want nothing more than we all want which is to live in freedom, earn a living, have the basic necessities of life, and raise our families and hopefully enjoy a gradual betterment in our living conditions throughout our lives as a result of that hard work.

However polls show that globally – including those living within the United States, citizens or not – about 20% of Islam are willing to publicly state (to pollsters) that they believe terrorism and suicide attacks are valid ways for Muslims to strike out at those who defy the Muslim way of life!

There are 2.6 million Muslims in America.  With a population of 318 million about 8.3% are Muslims.  That population is among the fastest growing demographics in the United States at the present time.Globally there are more than 1.6 billion Muslims (2010) which is about a quarter of the world’s population.

The problem is that while most Muslims are peaceful they have shown no stomach for raising up against the small portion of their number who wish to wage a global armed Jihad against the evils they see in Western civilization, law, lifestyle and culture.  Instead they tolerate these murderers in their ranks.

If only ½ of one percent of the entire Muslim population worldwide are the sort that would actually engage directly in violent terrorist actions in order to usher in a new “worldwide Caliphate” then there are 8,000,000 (that’s million) violent extremist Jihadist Muslims in the world ready to strap on a suicide vest and kill innocent women and children – even other Muslims – without a second thought.  The remaining 99.5% of “peaceful” Muslims in the world could rise up and snuff out these extremists… but they have shown no intent whatsoever to do so.

Further complicating matters Pakistan – a country of 185,000,000 people and a nuclear power since 1998 – is not only a Muslim nation but is currently largely under the control of their own version of the CIA – their Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence or “ISI” and most of that organization has extremist ties and ideology.  Pakistan has their own version of the Taliban called the Tehrik-i-Taliban, which has been heavily involved in the war in Afghanistan since before the U.S. invasion.  Lastly of course Pakistan vies constantly with India – another nuclear power – over a great many issues.

Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth and is hardly a religion of peace and coexistence.  Muslim countries which operate under Sharia Law regularly abuse women, execute homosexuals and drug users, and exile or execute practitioners of all other religions.  Christians throughout the Muslim world are being persecuted and murdered, and churches are burned.  European countries are re-thinking their decisions to allow unchecked Muslim immigration, which is sparking endless riots in those countries as they attempt to regain control in the ghettos they have allowed to spring up.

 

Genocide:

What did World War II bring an end to?  Certainly not oppression, poverty, evil – or even genocide.  In just the last 20 years…

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 claimed the lives of as many as 1,000,000 people

The Srebrenica Massacre in 1995 took the lives of at least 8,000 people and is the most recent genocide committed in Europe

Since 1999 an ongoing genocidal campaign by the Chinese government against the Falun Gong spiritual practice began, and has thus far taken more than 2,000 lives

Between 2004 and 2010 an estimated 400,000 people were murdered in the Darfur region of Sudan, when the government there directed their Janjaweed militias to carry out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur

… just in the past 20 years!

 

The Internet – blessing turned curse:

The advent of the Internet has brought Mankind lots of great things; online shopping, instant access to research information, Twitter, Facebook, empty hours spent with online games and pornography, and of course hackers.  Through the Internet it’s now a fairly simple task for lesser powers to steal technology – even the technology for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons – right out of our own computer networks.

As more and more technology slips through our fingers as a result of Internet hacking our technological advantage is less and less significant, and the power and capabilities of our adversaries grows.

The Internet is bringing change to the Human race – until someone like the Iranians pop a nuke at high altitude above the US and the resulting EMP sends us back to the Stone Age.  In the meantime the fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorist movements are all very well engaged in Cyberspace.  These organizations regularly use the Internet (and the little known “Deep Web” – follow this link if you what the s#!t scared out of ya!) for recruiting, coordinating, communicating, distributing “how to” training manuals, and for general propaganda.

 

In closing:

I’d like to be delivering better news – to tell you how there is hope for Mankind, and that things are about to get better, that we’ll never again face a large regional, or even global war.  However this is not the conclusion I come to.

The concept that the world is now on a glide path to peace and cooperation, and that we may now turn our attention to ‘fine tuning’ our societies to eliminate poverty, disease, overcrowding, pollution and a host of other problems is based on wishful thinking – it is not a reality.

 

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Please watch for Parts II, III and IV…

II. What actions are the leaders of Western civilization taking in response to this violent world?

III. What does America’s chosen role mean for those of us who live here?

IV. What can we do to avoid this?

These installments will be published over the next four to six weeks (I’m still in Afghanistan as I write this and free time is at a premium.)

Subscribe to my mailing list and get each installment as soon as it’s finished, before it’s posted to my site!