HoltesThoughts

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Predicting 9/11 -- Kali Marching

I could feel something wrong. Something very wrong coming. And I went to Manhatten with my wife in 2000, because it was the place we loved. We went into the Twin Towers and passed through their magnificence. And I wrote the poem "The Archetypes come alive in Manhattan" while we were there and posted it in a yahoogroup I was a member of. Nobody understood what I was saying as usual. But there is something predictive in it. The third stanza goes:

These archetypes all dance their steps,

all dance in wild abandon!

In the minds of drunken revellers,

drunk with anger, drunk with hate,

marching down Broadway,

stopping at Harald Square.

Climbing the millenia tower,

on top of a giant skyscraper!

An angry Ape climbs the Empire State,

and Godzilla parades his hate!

And then both fall to their fate!

Less than 9 months later a large part of that cataclysmic vision came true. I'm gathering stanzas from this long poem and each one astounds me.

Full Poem: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-archetypes-come-alive-in-manhatten.html

More Recent:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/kali-marching-in-palestine.html

The Archetypes come alive in Manhatten

The Archetypes come alive like a great beehive,; out of the sky, all the sky kings dive!; Out of the ground, demons ride black steeds!; Out of the earth, ghosts raise up their heads,; Shake off the lethargy of years of being dead,; and march into town instead.; The Archetypes come alive, one by one, two by two,; Fat happy Sun kings, fawning, evil Richeliu,; Happy, gay, Three Musketeers, dueling D'Artanion too!; And cowboys duel with Musketeers,; while Indians brawl with Vikings!; And sea battles soon ensue,; between dragon ships, and triremes,; Treasure Ships and Pirates!; Black beard lights candles on his face,; and Berserkers scream their bravery!; Three musicians march in step,; celibrating their freedom!; While good priests meditate;; evil priests fornicate;; and everyone acts with wild abandon,; the fantasies of their soul.; Wielding a sword at illusions,; that seem to only get stronger,; While chiding others for delusions,; that are so plainly false!; These archetypes all dance their steps,; all dance in wild abandon!; In the minds of drunken revellers,; drunk with anger, drunk with hate,; marching down Broadway,; stopping at Harald Square.; Climbing the millenia tower,; on top of a giant skyscraper!; An angry Ape climbs the Empire State,; and Godzilla parades his hate!; And then both fall to their fate!; The archetypes come alive; and war like Devas and Ashuras!; While the real villains of these places,; gnash their teeth and hide their faces,; creating unleashed archetypes!; Calling "Peace" but unleashing war!; Calling "brotherhood" but disdaining love;; loving only their archetypes!; The police cannot leash them,; their own are loose!; And these archetypes dance together,; while their owners cry in delusion:
"You believe a lie, I utter truth!"
Their owners cry in unison:: "Your archetype is a monster,; and mine a world taming hero!"; "No yours is the monster,; and mine the hero!; Oh look here,; is that a child our heroes just crushed?"; "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! THIS DELUSION!"
Pointing fingers, three aimed at the breast!: "It's all my fault! This delusion!"
Without understanding why,
: this too is a lie.
Do you know the causal law?

Christopher H. Holte written December 27 2000

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BuddhistLampoon/conversations/messages/189

Friday, August 22, 2014

Who Funds ISIS: Follow up on "Bandar's Bandits" posts

Dark rumors are coming from officials about ISIS planning attacks in Britain and the USA. ISIS was rolling towards Baghdad, a little later it was exterminating local Christians and believers in an ancient religion (The Yezidi) in Kurd Territory. If I were onboard with the 1984 news media you'd think ISIS was about to take over the world and bomb the West to submission. Probably it's leaders would love to do that. But there is more here than meets the eye. Back in February I blogged on the subject of Prince Bandar ["Update on Bandar"] and before that in September of 2013 I shared information the Russians leaked on Bandar's boast that he controlled the anti-Assad revolutionaries in Syria. ["So Obviously about Oil"] that it was obvious that Prince Bandar was directing his "wasta" [influence] and bankrolling Al Nusra at the least and probably ISIS too. By December of 2013 this was obvious: [Bandar's Bandits, 911 & CIA frauds]

Back in May 2013 Senator John (crash) McCain, who now wants to "bomb, bomb, bomb" was meeting with the "Gen. Salim Idris, chief of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, accompanied McCain and they met with 19 battalion commanders." [News Report asking for heavy weapons]. At the time the "Free Syria Rebel Army" consisted of a main group that was relatively weak, Al Nusra, which is salafist and openly aligned with ISIS and ISIS. Al Jazeera reports:

"Analysts generally agree that of the eight major armed factions in the Syrian opposition, al-Nusra and the ISIS are by far the most prominent. This is hardly due to their relative strength since there are many groups in the Syrian opposition that are much better armed with many more fighters. al-Nusra has no more than 6,000 active members, while ISIS boasts about 7,000 members, out of which only 4,000 engage in actual fighting."[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/al-qaida-third-generation-201421312828448349.html]

So when McCain was meeting those rebel leaders the allegations that at least 2 of them participated in beheadings was true. A lot of folks make hay from McCain's bull headed obtuseness, but that also says something about the intelligence of our intelligence. Who is funding ISIS, where did they get their weapons. And why did McCain not get briefed on the whole story. I don't believe he's that dumb. Someone was deliberately misleading him unless he was part of the con.

But it's true that only a few months ago he was meeting with it and it's equally radical but more local, rival Al Nusra and pinging Obama for not funding ISIS enough. He can't be so ambitious and mercenary as to support Al Qaeda just so he can criticize POTUS, can he? Yet it is obvious that the same people who had been cheering ISIS and criticizing the Administration for not going full stop to take down Assad are now criticizing the administration for not stopping them fast enough. I'm more interested in "Who, What, Where, Why and How questions about ISIS or "Islamic State" and the news media flies by important information in it's breathy focus on beheadings and fleeing refugees. So this blog is my attempt to make sense of what is going on.

The Role of Saudis/Prince Bandar in ISIL

One clue is that the Saudis seem to be trying to fire Prince Bandar from his main job. They can't actually fire him without possibly the current Sultan being beheaded himself, but they have tried. In July:

"Diplomatic sources told AFP on Thursday that Saudi Arabia has sidelined its intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, by transferring key aspects of the Syrian dossier, which he had previously been overseeing, to Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef."[https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/9894-saudi-arabia-replaces-bandar-bin-sultan-as-leader-of-syrian-dossier]

What went wrong. A little more than a year ago Prince Bandar was getting paid for moving into Syria where POTUS refused to tread. The article doesn't give reasons it just says:

"A Western diplomat in the Gulf region told the news agency that Prince Bandar is no longer in charge of the Syrian dossier, leaving Prince Nayef primarily responsible."[Same, Mideast Monitor]

It appears that:

According to a source close to the dossier, Prince Nayef participated in a meeting last week in Washington between Western and Arab officials to discuss the situation in Syria.

Obviously it had something to do with Prince Bandar's management of Al Nusra and ISIL/ISIS/IS. But will anyone state this openly? Not our government. As I noted before the Saudis are our Frenemies:

"Diplomatic sources added that Washington has criticised Prince Bandar's management of the Syrian dossier."

The article notes:

"Prince Bandar, the son of the former Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, was appointed in July 2012 as the head of the Saudi Intelligence Service. He had previously served as the Saudi Ambassador to Washington for 22 years and played a key role in encouraging the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003."

Bandar was also the controller of Al Qaeda when they launched the 9/11 attacks. Which is another subject left to the conspiracy nuts despite being obvious. Bandar dropped out of the pictures like a former Commissar in the old Soviet Union, or one of the leaders around Big Brother in the Novel 1984. Someone probably erased him from photos:

"The Saudi media have not covered any activity of Prince Bandar's since January."

And suddenly McCain and friends have forgotten him too.

"A diplomatic source told AFP that he was hospitalised recently in the United States and is currently in Morocco."

I'll bet he's "sick" as in avoiding getting beheaded. I am getting so cynical in my old age that I believe the Syrians on this one:

"Media aligned with the Syrian regime have accused him of backing extremists in Syria."

Source: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/9894-saudi-arabia-replaces-bandar-bin-sultan-as-leader-of-syrian-dossier

The role of John McCain And Lindsey Graham in ISIS

The Atlantic magazine [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/ ] quotes John McCain from 2014:

“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January 2014. “Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends,” the senator said once again a month later, at the Munich Security Conference.[Atlantic Article]

The Atlantic author continues:

"McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces."

But the Atlantic then dryly notes:

"shortly after McCain’s Munich comments, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah relieved Bandar of his Syrian covert-action portfolio, which was then transferred to Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. By mid-April, just two weeks after President Obama met with King Abdullah on March 28, Bandar had also been removed from his position as head of Saudi intelligence—according to official government statements, at “his own request.” Sources close to the royal court told me that, in fact, the king fired Bandar over his handling of the kingdom’s Syria policy and other simmering tensions, after initially refusing to accept Bandar’s offers to resign. (Bandar retains his title as secretary-general of the king’s National Security Council.)"[Atlantic Article]

“ISIS has been a Saudi project.”

The Atlantic Article continues:

"The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the “moderate” armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assad’s forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia."[Atlantic Article]

The Qataris' spill the beans:

"Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.”"[Atlantic Article]

ISIS was Bandar's covert Op

"ISIS, in fact, may have been a major part of Bandar’s covert-ops strategy in Syria. The Saudi government, for its part, has denied allegations, including claims made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that it has directly supported ISIS. But there are also signs that the kingdom recently shifted its assistance—whether direct or indirect—away from extremist factions in Syria and toward more moderate opposition groups."

Sounds like the Saudis created a Frankenstein.

"The United States, France, and Turkey have long sought to support the weak and disorganized FSA, and to secure commitments from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to do the same. When Mohammed bin Nayef took the Syrian file from Bandar in February, the Saudi government appeared to finally be endorsing this strategy. As The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote at the time, “Prince Mohammed’s new oversight role reflects the increasing concern in Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries about al-Qaeda’s growing power within the Syrian opposition.”

So, this is circumstantial evidence that, as he had done with Chechen Rebels, Al Qaeda, and more recently with ISIS Prince Bandar had been arming, training and supporting Jihadis. With the full cooperation of some members of our CIA. No wonder we haven't seen what was on Bin Laden's hard drive or in his files.

"The worry at the time, punctuated by a February meeting between U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and others in the region, was that ISIS and al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra had emerged as the preeminent rebel forces in Syria. The governments who took part reportedly committed to cut off ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, and support the FSA instead. But while official support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia appears to have dried up, non-governmental military and financial support may still be flowing from these countries to Islamist groups.

"May still" is journalist speak for "probably is but I can't prove it in court."

"Senior White House officials have refused to discuss the question of any particular Saudi officials aiding ISIS and have not commented on Bandar’s departure. But they have emphasized that Saudi Arabia is now both supporting moderate Syrian rebels and helping coordinate regional policies to deal with an ascendant ISIS threat."

But the firing of Bandar is enough indication of the reality.

"Like elements of the mujahideen, which benefited from U.S. financial and military support during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and then later turned on the West in the form of al-Qaeda, ISIS achieved scale and consequence through Saudi support, only to now pose a grave threat to the kingdom and the region. It’s this concern about blowback that has motivated Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to encourage restraint in arming Syrian rebels. President Obama has so far heeded these warnings."

So once again we see that tactical thinking, especially "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is often stupid strategy. McCain and the Con artist right may make a big deal about "who lost Iraq" or "how did Al Qaeda get to rule Syria" in coming days, but they encouraged the Saudis to Arm ISIS and were blind to it's brutal practices and Salafist/Wahabi ideology. Both of which are direct reports from Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic article notes:

"John McCain’s desire to help rebel forces toss off a brutal dictator and fight for a more just and inclusive Syria is admirable. But as has been proven repeatedly in the Middle East, ousting strongmen doesn’t necessarily produce more favorable successor governments. Embracing figures like Bandar, who may have tried to achieve his objectives in Syria by building a monster, isn't worth it."[Atlantic Article]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/

I started this several months ago, but it is still topical so I figured I'd better finish it. The leading cleric denounced ISIS yesterday, but the funding hasn't stopped. It's still a Saudi project, just not one of the Central Government and it's Spy operations.

PS & Further Reading

I drafted this a few months ago, but just now finished it. This is further reading:

Independent Article:: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html
Global Research makes Case that ISIS was a anti-Shia CIA project of the Bush Administration:: ISIS: Made in USA (Pushes origins to Iraq war)

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Criminal behavior Criminal Assumptions

In 1979 I was trying to sell insurance. It was garbage insurance. I had just graduated College and had been told that this was the way to advance my degree and win fame and fortune. Unfortunately this insurance company wanted me going door to door and trying to convince farmers, cops, watermen and their friends to buy the insurance. It was a lousy product, I'm a lousy salesman, but I enjoyed meeting people. At least I'd sometimes get a meal from the salt of the earth types I was selling to. One experience I had while selling the garbage over in Calverton was that I met a woman after work in a bar, and she invited me to a police party. The police were throwing a party in the name of a man with a name similar to a famous actor. The man had been hurt in a car chase and was paralyzed waste down. The party was to raise funds to help him out. Sounded good to me. I was broke, and it would be cheaper than spending my little bit of money in a bar. So I went.

I don't remember much except I did drink a little more than I should (two beers is more than I should) and got sick. And the people. I met the hurt cop. Lots of Maryland State Troopers, the local volunteer firemen, and their groupies and relatives. They were doing all sorts of things I would never do at a party; Cocaine, smoking pot, drinking, not sure what else. And I was impressed by the notion that these were just regular people. Doing everything society as a whole was doing. And everything they were paid to arrest people for doing. I suspected they had their supplies from the evidence room. I quit my job soon after and the girl I took to the party broke up with me (I think) I know she stopped answering my phone calls. So I never went to another party where there were so many cops, except maybe a few given by one of my X's relatives. He was a retired cop.

But what I did learn is that we aren't fighting drugs by arresting people and throwing them in jail. I also went to NA meetings and AA meetings and there would be cops there. Cops get addicted too. I found out that the only thing that jail seems to do is to punish folks who get caught. It doesn't stop them from doing drugs or stop the pain. Most of the people I met at that time who were doing hard drugs like heroin, Methadone, or similar got addicted due to back pain. Some of them were cops injured in the line of duty. Cutting off those drugs sent them to the black market and all of them found their moral and legalized stressed by the difficulty of paying for such drugs. It is rare that a drug addict like Rush Limbaugh can support his habit legally. Most of them throw away vast sums of money that enrich both police chiefs and criminal syndicates alike. Drugs are a huge industry partly because our people are so sick, but also because they are illegal and the risk premium on their sales is so high the industry creates millionaires. They'll tell you "it's just business" -- and they mean it.

Prohibition is corrupting our country more than the drugs and alcohol do.

Parasitizing the Edges

Whenever there is a demonstration or event, there are people who are there for a multitude of reasons. And usually not all are the ones the organizers or primary event goers have in mind. The demonstrations in Ferguson are an example. All was swimming until less than a dozen thugs woke up and decided to loot another store. Those same thugs threw bottles and mouthed the usual revolutionary and violent nonsense. And some of them wore masks. The community of demonstrators tried to stop them, but as always with hard heads they weren't interested in being stopped. That is where police are supposed to make arrests.

WSFA

The incident reminded me of my own experiences. I was a member of WSFA, and am still mentally one. It's still around. Like the Ferguson demonstration we had meetings, we had people attending for all kinds of reasons. And we hosted an annual "DISCLAVE" convention in a hotel each year. Alternating with a "Balticon" because our memberships overlapped with the brother Baltimore based Science Fiction association. We were united by a love of Science fiction. But our members loved comics, Goth, Orthodox Jewry, Ayn Randian athieism, Orthodox Catholicism, Unitarianism, every other Protestant Church, Mormons, mainstream Atheism, New Age religions, Paganism, and just about a cross section of the educated of the two metropolitan areas. It was a lot of fun planning for the conventions and seeking to attract authors, vendors, and others. We rarely got the famous Hollywood types, but we had as much fun planning the conventions as having them. And our Baltimore club was the same, only better. They (we also) had a clubhouse in the Eastern Part of the City that used to be a theater.

One year we planned our DISCLAVE over at the Ramada Inn in Hyattsville. And it was a disaster. The event itself was fun. Was entirely peaceful, and enjoyed by everyone. But during one of the nights a couple enjoying kinky sex in their private room thought they could handcuff themselves to a sprinkler. The Sprinkler broke. The system went off all on that floor. And enough water came down to flood that floor and all the floors below it. I'm sleeping with my kids (who were just becoming teenagers) in my room when the alarms go off and we all had to go to our cars. The Power was off, and the place was ruined. This proved a blessing for the Hotel as they were due for rennovations anyway and our and their insurance paid for them. But we were banned from holding Sci-Fi conventions and ultimately had to rename DISCLAVE to something else. No more DISCLAVE. They call it CAPCLAVE instead. Works for me. I'm still an original nerdist.

What had happened was a group into kinky and Sado-Masochistic sex was parasitising our conventions. Most of them didn't have overlapping interests, they were there to party and do something they couldn't get a Hotel as a group on their own to do. We had to change our bylaws to be more restrictive about such things. This occured in the late 90's, just before I started dating my wife. She wasn't too much into Sci Fi, and her interests were more hi brow so I couldn't attend WSFA after that and don't know how they came back, but I know they did fine. The point is I've seen this sort of thing with political groups, demonstrations, and it also occurs within organizations as folks take advantage of people to do their personal business on the sly. It happens, and blaming folks for the people who take advantage of them is unfair -- unless they let them continue to get away with it.

Saving Schumer

Woke up early having a dream. I had a big trash bin full of artifacts from the "composer Schumer" and i was under orders to trash it all. Loud voices were telling me to do so. So I went through the bin and saved the things that say who Schumer was, what his music was about, and it's words, preparation for play etc... anyway. Despite threats that they'd kill me and trash my stuff too. Last I save a pair of glasses and wake up. I realized my unconscious was talking about my Wife's legacy. She was no "Schumer" composing great music, but she was a great scholar, teacher, peace maker and thinker and a person who will be missed by the world. And this world treats most folks as so much trash to be dumped when they die. The glasses belonging to Schumer in my dream were the same as a pair I found the other day of my wife's glasses. Man I miss her. But mostly I wish the world did.

Time to bring the adults in the Room

I am an unabashed supporter of POTUS. Some of that is principle. Some of that is genuine admiration. Yes, the President is black. Barack Obama is a bit phlegmatic in his presentation. His humor is subtle. Yes he doesn't often directly address issues that I'm passionate about. Yes, he sometimes is on the "wrong side" of other issues I'm passionate about. Yes, the USA has been following bad strategy, tactics and policies on criminal, security and world policy fronts, and he's bought into some of it publicly. That doesn't make him weak, a tyrant, a bad president or mean it makes sense to impeach him or charge him as a war criminal. He's carrying out USA law. He reflects the zeitgeist that elected him. I believe he privately believes much the same as I do, and that shooting him in the back is counter-productive. Especially right now when we have a bully party that is driving all those policies we hate and that would do a coup against him at the first opportunity.

The Zeitgeist has shifted since he was elected. And he's responded to those shifts slowly. We were still in the grip of con conservative ideology in 2008. He'd have been shot by his own people if he hadn't supported the "war on terror" or talked too loudly and critically on the "war on drugs." Our establishment has been fighting the "war on terror" as a strategy for oppression and terror since Reagan used propaganda about the Russians supporting terror to justify his terrorism back in the 80's. I'm re-reading the book "Veil" in the light of material all about it this week. [Finally unpacked it from it's box] and Reagan discounted reports that contradicted his propaganda to make that case, just as the Bush Administration ignored reports that Al Qaeda was about to attack somewhere in the USA. Strategy is a moral game where folks often ignore morals on the grounds of the "ends justify the means." I would be naive to think that Obama doesn't have to consider strategy issues when plotting his own responses. Everything is timing. And Politicians are often in a no-win situation. If they move too early they lose and what they want to do loses. But if they wait too long it loses too.

Community Policing Strategy

But what is going on in Ferguson shows the value of strategy. I've been around the USA government enough so that I can detect the President's hand in what happened Wednesday. The current Governor of Missouri was responsible for intervening in that town when the city government decided to act like a third world country and repress demonstrators. It's obvious the Governor wasn't up to the task. But I think Holder and Obama hit him from behind the scenes, and he did the right thing. They sent in the adults. Not only are right wing policies bad for our economic, moral and social health. They are also obtuse, counter-productive, costly and stupid. The press has made a big deal about "getting things done" and the effectiveness of thugs like Giuliani or Bloomberg, but hard-ass policing (enforcing minor laws against "criminals") is ineffective and winds up labeling ordinary people (who might break the law) as criminals and alienating them. Community policing has demonstrated utility that dates to the invention of modern police forces. Police as occupying armies has been done before. It doesn't work. Going after "bad guys" gets difficult after a while as it is hard to tell bad guys from good guys. And when one is killing people without due process, that radicalizes their brothers and children. The tactics used in Ferguson last week were just an echo of the tactics used against groups like ISIS (by US) or Hamas (by Israel), but the response is as predictable as if it were an exegesis of the process of radicalization. Children will seek revenge for the unfairly killed. So if you want justice you have to distinguish between people who are breaking the law and those you might just be able to recruit to do the right thing.

Obama and the rest of us pushed on Governor Jay Nixon to do the right thing. And he almost literally "sent in the cavalry" and replaced the keystone cops handling Ferguson Demonstrators as an enemy with adults. Captain Johnson is a professional and did what was required, which was the right thing. And that also happens to be respectful, "community policing". Community Policing was invented by Sir Robert Peel in the 1830's:

"The history of modern law enforcement began 166 years ago with the formation of the London Metropolitan Police District in 1829. By creating a new police force, the British Parliament hoped to address the soaring crime rate in and around the nation's capital, attributed at the time to rapid urban growth, unchecked immigration, poverty, alcoholism, radical political groups, poor infrastructure, unsupervised juveniles, and lenient judges. The principles adopted by Sir Robert Peel, the first chief of the London Metropolitan Police, for his new "bobbies" have served as the traditional model for all British and American police forces ever since. These principles include the use of crime rates to determine the effectiveness of the police; the importance of a centrally located, publicly accessible police headquarters; and the value of proper recruitment, selection, and training."[http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cjs07.htm]

We need adults in the room in our other conflicts too. ISIS is really a collection of grown men living out fantasies of restoring the Caliphate style government that once ruled much of the Middle East. They are living a delusional ideal, but they are opposed by folks with no clear strategy, doctrine, or idea of an alternative. Yet there are basic principles that work and are not so harsh or violent, that we the people of this world need to start adopting. Yes, not all doctrines of community policing work in isolation. Yet the principles derive from Sir Robert Peel and community policing aren't just a strategy they are also requirements for a civil society. [Read more: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/commp.pdf] Kudos to Captain Johnson for showing how it's done.

Peace Making requires local democracy and power sharing

The USA constitution has a passage that says:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

I believe that "guarantee[ing]" states a republican form of government is a requirement that republican forms and democratic attributes be replicated down to the community. The adults are needed in the room. And the way you guarantee that is to ensure that people are engaged in local government as well as national government. And you do that by sharing power and collaboration in the legislative, regulative and requirement arena. If the USA would concentrate on empowering local people with local government. This limits the power of central governments. Central governments should have supervisory, oversight, and system ownership powers. But the members of the system are the local governments and an intelligent application of the principle of subsidiarity requires that they have republican forms of government and a say in the operation of those central systems. When you have that sort of robust local power, then it is harder for dictators to dictate and easier to create commonwealth. Representation reduces conflict and makes it easier to depose bad leaders, while making leaders respond to representatives makes them better leaders. If Israel really wants peace with Gaza it needs to help locals throughout it's area of control govern themselves. Every country needs adults in the room. Including ours, as demonstrated by the mess in Ferguson. The root cause of the problems in Ferguson are local governments with responsibilities but no control over revenues except those from local courts. Looking for revenue sources they take advantage of racism and prejudice. We need to reconstitute our country, and we probably don't even need an amendment.