The twilight of the era of normalcy
August 19, 2014 at 8:32pm
I don’t know about you but I, miss the days of the cold war bi-polar world. The ideological lines were clear it was Communism Vs. Democracy. At the end of the 80’s the iron curtain fell, and there was immense hope for a new stable and peaceful world.
The aftermath of the falling of the iron curtain brought with it a mlti-polar and much less stable world. With many contradicting ideological lines.
During the cold war era, one could claim that terrorism was state sponsored there was a patron, that in fact limited the scope of terrorism. With the fall of the iron curtain these limitations on terror organizations and the satellite states that harbored them disintegrated as well.
One of the highlights of this process was the El-Quida 9-11 attack, which in my opinion was the opening shot of World War 3. This war has accelerated recently for a number of reasons:
The cardinal reason is a lack of leadership in the Western democracies leaders such as Churchill and F.D.R. Furthermore there is a basic lack of understanding in the West that not all the world works by the same rulebook – That of Democracy.
And on top of that there is a basic lack of understanding or willingness to understand that Islam at it’s core is NOT tolerant to competing ideologies. Basically Islam claims that the world is divided into two houses:
The House of peace (Beit el-Salam in Arabic) – this house is the house of Islam.
The second house is known as- The house of war (Beit el-Harb in Arabic) – this house is the house of all none Muslims. And all those in the house of war must either be converted to Islam or destroyed.
But what else can fuel this war waged on the West and it’s way of life? In my subjective humble opinion’ that fuel is jealousy- They see the modernity and advancement in the West and they want it now Immediately! They lack the understanding that this modernity and way of life is based on hundreds of years of sweat blood and tears. The key to modernity is Freedom of thought and the free exchange of ideas. Modernity cannot be achieved through monolithic thought and marching to the tune of one drum.
In Aug 2012 together with Sept 2013 President Obama, started a chain of events. When he stated that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria would be considered a red line. When this line was indeed crossed in Sept 2013 there was not a forceful response by the United States to back the Statement made the prior year.
This lack of action joined with the events of Benghazi 2012 brought the perception that America is weak to critical mass. The result of this critical mass a number of Flash points:
Ukraine
ISIS in North Iraq and Syria
Gaza
And Let’s not forget the Iranian Nuclear program while we are at it.
And who knows what flashpoints I may have forgotten?
America may in fact not be weak but her actions or lack thereof have created the above flash points and to those have indeed created weakness of the USA.
This is where I have to interject the Israeli/Jewish perspective:
First the Chances of a long-term agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have declined considerably not that they were good before hand but the deterioration is due to the perception that America is weak and that Islam is on the rise. Therefore the Chances to destroy Israel are better and there is no need to seek an agreement.
Secondly to the question can another holocaust or genocide happen again? Unfortunately the answer to that question is yes, it as happening right now!
Since the civil war in Syria started Some 180000 lost there lives and it’s probably more since that number is from last week.
Thousands have been murdered by ISIS in Northern Iraq, because they were not of the house of peace i.e. not Muslim. And the world is silent.
Let’s make No Mistake Hamas and ISIS are the same DNA and there fore it is a reasonable assumption that if Hamas could perpetrate another Jewish holocaust they would and the world would be silent. The Only reason this has not happened is because of out of the ashes of WW-2 Europe the Jews Stood up fought and created the State of Israel and the IDF and the Jewish people are on Guard Thwarting the fulfillment of Hamas’s plan and wet dreams.
Appeasement failed in the 30’s and it is failing now!
It time to remember the leaders from our past:
-Theodore Roosevelt: Speak softly and carry a big stick
-Attributed to Bismarck: He who wants peace should prepare for war.
Weather we like it or not the world is at war.
So why is thus the twilight of the era of normalcy? Well for years as a Historian I asked myself what did the citizens of Europe do in the 20’s and 30’s when the clouds of war came from the horizons? For years I had no answer but today I know because I and many others are probably doing the same: They hung to their normal routine and way of life. Until that ugly wave of war was upon them and swept them to the Army or the military war effort of there nation or to a death camp or concentration camp.
A new ugly wave is upon us and we are hanging on to our normalcy the best we can.
