A Step Closer To World War

My best friend is Russian and he loves to play chess with me in a strange way. He loves to take queen for queen. It doesn't matter to him that if he takes my queen that I will take his because it allows him to win a lot more often. He creates a psychological fallacy in my mind as every time I think that I'm better off without his queen forgetting that I'm without mine.

Today, I see our childhood chess is starting to play out in world politics as Putin dangles his queen while knowing that he will take ours if we take his.

Putin stepping into Syria may seem like just another player in a crowded market but it isn't. Putin seems to be doing a tactical move and a very dangerous one. Putin is essentially making sure that only Assad stays in power. By destroying all non-Islamist rebels leaves Assad and Islamic State as future owners of Syria. He knows that we will not allow IS and so he is trying to force our hands by killing as many rebels as possible. To take down Assad at that point means to leave the country in the hands of Islamists.

United States and the world have two choices: stand idly by while Putin bombs all future of Syria away by destroying any possible future democratic components, or begin to attack Putin's planes and troops to stop Putin from destroying the last remnants of democratic Syria.

To do so would be to start a third world war and that is what I think will now be called "The Putin Bluff".

Thus, at this moment, we have time to save Syria but it may mean starting a world war or we let Putin keep it in the hands of Assad. This has been the tactic of Putin in Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. He dangles the queen, we take it and then he wins a slow and painful game. The question is, how often will he do this? What is our alternative?

Sadly it may be too late, Putin may be too strong. We may have had a chance to reign them in in the nineties, but we ignored the slowly growing cancer thinking it would go away. But it hasn't and instead, has become a full grown tumor.

Refugees Need To Be Taken In, The Right Way And That Means Re-Education of The Mind

Europe thought it could sit out the war in Syria and watch Russia uphold one of the largest dictatorships in the Middle East as it destroyed itself from the inside. And now, along with thousands of migrants, these often well educated refugees are streaming into Europe by the millions after languishing in Turkey and Lebanon in squalid conditions for nearly two years.

It is clear that  Europe needs to help them and it looks like slowly but surely it is starting to move into that direction, even if it is doing it out of pure self-interest rather than one of humanitarian compassion. However, it is already becoming evident, that living under a despot for decades does not create people who have a grasp of the reality. They hate Israel, deny Holocaust having heard years of horrible propaganda about it and many love IS because they are often radicalized. The only reason many do not live in IS occupied lands due to the constant war that IS is not involved with US.

This mentality of new arrivals can mean a huge problem down the line if not dealt with immediately upon their arrival. If European countries simply give refugees food, language classes and housing, these people will continue to have a sick view of government in their lives, lack of understanding of how separation of church and state, democracy and of countries like Israel and United States.

This means that in ten to fifteen years, as millions of people with a backwards way of the world begin to work and make a life in Europe, begin to vote and exert influence on Europe, a downward slide into Islamisation, sharia law, lack of separation of church and state, lack of freedom of press and a host of other problems that are going on in Europe already will make the current problems with North African minorities seem small by comparison.

Thus it is very important for global peace and for an enlightened Western way of life that the new refugees are re-educated and de-brainwashed of the way of life they had in despotic Syria. They must be explained how and why democracy works, what is freedom of speech, that it involves making fun of politicians AND religious leaders and holding them accountable as well as explain to them realities of Holocaust, Israel and the fallacies that they were fed while living in Syria.

They cannot assume that these people will grasp all these things while they integrate into the European culture. Current events show that they do not and will not. If re-education not happen, then the sickness of the Middle East will spread to Europe and the dark thought patterns of the oppressed will cloud Western World for a long time to come.