History – Middle East – education and deconstruction.com

Butterfly

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The Book of the Week is “Butterfly, From Refugee to Olympian– My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph” by Yusra Mardini, published in 2018.

The author was born in March 1998 in a southern suburb of Damascus, Syria. Since her father was a swimming coach, she took up the sport with a passion.

In 2011, people expressed anti-government sentiments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in what became known as the Arab spring. During that year, Syria caught the bug. By summer 2012, armed soldiers and operators of heavy artillery and tanks, harassed protestors on the streets of the southern districts of Damascus.

By 2015, any Damascus residents who had yet to flee the violence, could die any day at any time from a fire, a bomb, shrapnel, a bullet, or a rocket-propelled grenade, aside from the more common ways life can end. Conscription into the Syrian military began at age eighteen, so early on, numerous teenage boys had already left for Lebanon, Turkey or European countries.

The author and her older sister finally decided to leave in 2015. Since they were from a middle-class family and they had been raised in a capitalist environment, they had resources that increased their likelihood of survival more than ever before in world history.

Western Union allowed them access to cash sent from their father (who had gotten a job in the country of Jordan). They had smartphones all during their journey. They and their traveling companions used the internet and its GPS feature to find hotels, eateries, train stations, and the precise dividing lines of countries’ borders. They heard cautionary tales that taught them what to do and what not to do, through not only face-to-face gossip, but also online information-sharing.

At one point, the evacuation process became like a game: “That night, we sit in Burger King [in Budapest] as the square grows dark, posting selfies on Instagram and chatting online with friends back home.”

Nevertheless, psychologists in the U.S. would probably diagnose the author with PTSD and survivor’s guilt, given what she wrote of how she behaved and what she was thinking. Her lifelong dream was to be an Olympian swimmer. But after resuming her athletic training, she felt helpless to solve the various life-and-death issues involving the war in Syria, and affect the fates of the flood of refugees in the world.

Read the book to learn numerous additional details of Mardini’s suspenseful story, and how she was able to make a difference, despite her doubts and individual powerlessness.

Son of Hamas

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The Book of the Week is “Son of Hamas, A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” by Mosab Hassan Yousef, with Ron Brackin, published in 2010. In this alpha-male bragfest, Yousef’s unique position as the son of a top Hamas leader afforded him special treatment at the hands of the Israelis.

Born in the West Bank (in the Middle East) in 1978, Yousef was his family’s oldest son. His father and six other men formed Hamas in 1986 in order to assert their perceived rights to the territories occupied by Israelis (Jewish people). At the end of 1987, the group encouraged discontented, impressionable youths to throw stones and burn tires in protest.

Thus began the First Intifada, which was comprised of a boatload of violence in Gaza and the West Bank (the “Occupied Territories”). In the ensuing decades, the violence waxed and waned, pursuant to shifting hatreds and alliances between and among various groups. It was actually in the best interests of most parties (whose motives differed) to keep the fighting going.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a group on the side of Palestinians– had an ideological rather than religious (Muslim) bent. Hamas had the latter; its source book, the Quran, was considered the ultimate authority governing their lives. Its leaders staged school closings and work stoppages so that they wouldn’t have to pay as much in taxes than otherwise to the Israeli government. In the early 1990’s, Hamas and the PLO took turns inciting the strikes in the West Bank.

By spring 1991, without their leaders’ permission, impatient to reclaim Palestine for themselves, some younger Hamas members armed themselves with guns (rather than stones, spray cans for graffiti and Molotov cocktails) and committed serious violence against Israelis. Hamas’ leaders didn’t want to acquire a reputation for attacking their enemies with savagery, so they created a spinoff group (called Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades) for public relations purposes, that could take responsibility for particularly ugly attacks.

The bloodshed escalated through 1992. In December, the Israeli military arrested hundreds of leading Palestinian activists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood. Those detained were bused to southern Lebanon and jailed. During their confinement, Hamas members allied with Hezbollah, a terrorist group based in Lebanon. Various other historical events all but guaranteed that the vendetta would plague the region for a long while.

One major sticking point in the negotiations among the warring parties was recognition of the sovereignty of Israel. In the early 1990’s, PLO leader Yasser Arafat conceded such recognition in treaty discussions. He and Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a 1993 document (containing terms and conditions of a truce which didn’t last long) with the help of mediator, American president Bill Clinton.

On that territorial point, Hamas vehemently disagreed because, “… the land belonged to Allah. Period. End of discussion. Thus for Hamas, the ultimate problem was not Israel’s policies. It was the nation-state Israel’s very existence.” Hamas and Israel insisted they had to have the geographic entity they were claiming– they wouldn’t agree to settle on land elsewhere of equivalent size or value.

In 1996, at age eighteen, Yousef was an angry young man who wanted to wreak revenge by killing people such as members of the Palestinian Authority (formerly the PLO) and /or Israelis. He therefore tried to get hold of weapons through his cousin’s contacts in Nablus. He got caught. For, the Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet was tapping his phone.

Read the book to learn of how the course of events in Yousef’s life prompted a maturation process that led him to:

quell his anger at his perceived enemies;
play adolescent-boy spy games;
learn Israel’s techniques for dividing and conquering their Palestinian rivals;
learn why the United States was caught with its pants down in connection with national security that allowed 9/11 to happen;
study the Christian bible;
understand where his father was coming from (hint: Yousef’s father helped plot terror attacks carried out on the ground by restless young males temperamentally similar to his son, so he was able to rationalize away his sociopathic behavior); and do much more.

The Six Days of Yad-Mordechai – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Six Days of Yad-Mordechai” by M. Larkin, originally published in 1965.

Passionate, mostly Polish Holocaust survivors who were able to make their way to the Gaza Strip in Palestine in late 1943 worked tirelessly to establish a new kibbutz called Yad-Mordechai. The socialistic ideal of their farm collective was this: “Since economic dependence upon the father was what gave him power, such dependence was abolished in their society.”

Still, the community fell short of total gender equality, as the males did the hard manual labor on the infrastructure; an all-male militia except for one female fought against attacking Egyptians, and females did all the food preparation and childcare.

In November 1947, a majority of United Nations (UN) members voted in favor of partitioning Palestine between an Arab state and a Jewish state. The situation was to become official in mid-May 1948, when the British were to withdraw its officials from Palestine. Arab countries broadcast propaganda that gave their fellow tribesmen the impression they were only temporarily evacuating their homes by that same deadline, and would eventually conquer the Jews and return to take over the entire strip of land that was slightly larger than the state of New Jersey.

The Yad Mordechai kibbutz just happened to be located in the Arab state. The Arabs refused to recognize the UN vote, and decided to fight the Jews for the entire territory. The villains of WWII– ex-Nazis and Italian Fascists, plus Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians and Trans-Jordanians fought on behalf of the Arabs. The Jews had poorly equipped militias and intelligence cells called the Hagana, Palmach, Irgun and the Stern group.

Nevertheless, as of this writing, Wikipedia says this kibbutz still exists today, and its population is 737. It might be recalled that pure socialism thrived for a short time when the State of Israel was born. That was an extremely special exception, for the following major reasons; the kibbutzniks:

were forced to work together in order to survive in the desert, geographically surrounded by enemies;

were like-minded– oppressed for their religion– seeking a safe place in the world;

had a common goal bigger than themselves– building a country for themselves from the ground up– creating the political, social and cultural systems and infrastructure when everything was simple and their population was low;

had in common the shared, traumatic experience of WWII and/or the Holocaust; and

had substantial financial and military help from the United States.

Lo and behold, Yad Mordechai has since turned to capitalism to survive, selling certain brands of foods. However, the dangers of capitalism become apparent when financial scandals and crashes plague the nation due to EXCESSIVE DEREGULATION.

As is well known, there was consolidation through the 1980’s and 1990’s of the corporate auditing industry, and “Big Six” became the “Big Four” eventually, prompting businesses across the country to become even more incestuous (corrupt) in their relationships with their auditors.

In 1994, the big-name auditor Ernst & Young fired their in-house legal department and hired outside legal counsel. They must have been hiring employees from the competition, who brought a certain corporate culture to their legal department. In 2002, the Enron / Arthur Andersen scandal broke.

Certain wise folks can see a scandal coming. Like Ernst & Young. They don’t know exactly when it will hit the fan, but they know they don’t want to be there when it happens. James Baker of the Reagan administration was one of those sharp individuals. He switched positions with Donald Regan so that he would be far away when the Iran-Contra scandal became publicized.

In 2019, BB&T, a government bond broker, merged with Sun Trust Banks. Excessive deregulation can do wonders for the bottom lines (when they go hog-wild) of any profit-making organizations in the short term. BUT– it seems as though as the decades pass, financial-industry-players gain more and more experience in preventing lawsuits brought against them from their customers and clients by:

having the latter sign legal documents they never had to sign before, and placing disclaimers galore on all of their communications. The latest disturbing trend is for (previously low-risk) government-bond(!) brokers to do this.

Anyway, read the book to learn of the spirited beginnings, independence-warfare death toll and traumas suffered by the Yad Mordechai kibbutzniks, and their eventual fate. [And stay tuned for more traumas in the government bond market.]

Memoirs of A Fortunate Jew

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“We must therefore supply them with plausible news and only from time to time plant unverifiable items of propaganda and denounce personalities in the Fascist regime.”

–the philosophy of the author’s boss in the British Intelligence Service’s Psychological Warfare Department, in the early 1940’s

The Book of the Week is “Memoirs of A Fortunate Jew, An Italian Story” by Dan Vittorio Segre, published in 1985.

In December 1922, the author was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Piedmont, Italy. When his father had a reversal of fortune at the start of the Great Depression, his family moved to Udine in northern Italy to live with his mother’s rich relatives. In July 1938, he was expelled from public school for being Jewish. Since Italy hated Germany, Italy turned anti-Semitic only after Mussolini had decided to throw in with Hitler. In order to kiss up to Hitler, in 1938, Mussolini made Italy comply with the Nuremberg Laws.

However, that same year, the author’s father, who had previously become– under duress– a Fascist Party member, refused to comply with the Laws. He helped the author flee to Palestine by financing a visa for him. The author joined other brash, opinionated young refugees who became kibbutzniks. He didn’t believe in socialism, but he did want to fight for a cause bigger than himself– the Jews.

Human nature governed the conflict-fraught motley bunch of parties fighting and / or allying with each other in Palestine during WWII. In general, it was (in no particular order) Palestinians, Arabs, Jews and British subjects. The first three aforesaid groups acquired a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, imitating their British masters.

Read the book to learn the fates and ideological bents of the author, his family members, and others in his life and times.

Sandstorm

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The Book of the Week is “Sandstorm, Libya in the Time of Revolution” by Lindsey Hilsum, published in 2012.

Just prior to WWI, Libya was colonized by Italy in three sections, when the Ottoman Empire was in its death throes. Pursuant to where they live in Libya, various rivalrous tribes exhibit traits of the Middle East and Europe, or Africa. The country is located on the continent of Africa, but has major trade routes that go to the Middle East. Its population is about six million, and oil and gas supports its economy. Many of its people go overseas to attend university.

Beginning in 1959, big-name Italian, British and American companies negotiated agreements that allowed them access to newly discovered fossil fuels, and military training and weapons-testing grounds in the desert in Libya. In September 1969, Muammar Gaddafi became the new leader. He continued to impose one political-party rule (in place since 1952) and instituted one religion (Muslim). He punished political dissidents more harshly than Libya’s previous autocrat, King Idriss. But he made Libyans proud to be Arab. He took a swipe at the British by banning the English language in his country.

By the early 1970’s, Gaddafi’s actions were prompting brain drain and capital flight. His nation did need water, but he could have acquired it much less expensively and with a lot less trouble than he did. “It was one of man’s extravagant dreams, come true because no one dared counter him and too many were profiting from his grandiose visions.” In 1982, Gaddafi formed a political group that was allegedly going to fight against Imperialism, Zionism, Racism, Reactionism and Fascism.

As is par for the course for men such as Gaddafi, his enemies (such as the CIA and the king of Morocco) plotted assassination attempts against him. Smuggling guns and grenades into Tripoli and Benghazi were for nought, as the 1984 plotters were discovered and were killed. Through the last few decades of the twentieth century, the United States vacillated between allying with Qaddafi, and railing against him.

The Reagan administration railed against him. Qaddafi was strongly suspected to be the mastermind of the December 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103. That turned out to be a major historical incident that had worldwide repercussions. However, the tide turned through the 1990’s. George W. Bush wooed Qaddafi.

By the single-digit 2000’s in Libya, nepotism and tribalism had become crucial to survival. Families are comprised of multi-generational networks with tens of people on every level of the family tree. Disaffected, jobless young males became jihadists in Iraq, killing Americans in suicide bombings, as the terrorists had been brainwashed into expressing extreme hatred for the West.

Nevertheless, after 9/11, various nations such as Russia, Turkey and China were drooling over the money to be made in Libya in banking, accounting, construction, hotels, shipping, and of course, oil. But the U.S. held back (Bush was very conflicted) due to its complicated relationship with Israel.

As is well known, in February 2011, ordinary Libyans jumped on the “Arab Spring” bandwagon after Tunisia and Egypt. They used the worldwide forum of social media to publicly express their displeasure with their leader. Also, protesters personally gathered in Benghazi and Tobruk, and then farther east.

Gaddafi, distrustful of his own military, hired mercenaries from Algeria, Niger, Mali, Morocco and Burkina Faso to violently disperse crowds of youths standing around shouting slogans, as Internet access became unreliable. Gaddafi’s own military, angry at his disloyalty, turned against him. In Tripoli, attorneys formed a group to publicize human rights abuses, represent political prisoners, and start an underground resistance movement. Through the four decades Gaddafi stayed in power, he knew how to exploit discontent: bribing Muslims to build mosques and go on pilgrimages to Mecca.

Read the book to learn many more details about Gaddafi’s reign, including those relating to: shenanigans of his son Seif, and Bahrain, Qatar and Iran (hint: Everyone knew the UN arms embargo that applied to fighters on both sides was a joke.); his Green Book, Stalin-style purges, oil-industry machinations, propaganda campaigns and governmental policies; his contradictory stance on his nation’s female citizens; his providing of military training and arming of certain groups; and the reaction of certain countries of the world at his downfall.

By Way of Deception

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The Book of the Week is “By Way of Deception, The Making and Unmaking of A Mossad Officer” by Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, published in 1990. The former’s slightly sloppily edited, detailed account asserted that the Mossad (a spying agency in Israel that acted like a self-regulatory organization– that conducted operations with neither the government’s permission nor knowledge, so that leaders would have plausible deniability) had become too big for its britches. By the mid-1980’s, the Mossad had about twelve hundred true insiders and an unknown number of agents or contacts worldwide.

The author was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada in November 1949. He grew up in Canada and Israel, and began his Mossad training in the early 1970’s. At that time, the Mossad pretended to recruit women, but never actually hired any to be insiders; for, women were harder to protect, and even though women were used as enchantresses and seductresses (and were killed when necessary) no Arab men (Mossad’s main target) would accept them as their bosses.

For starters, the author passed months and months of numerous, rigorous hiring tests that required him to be dishonest yet naturally creative and charismatic– getting strangers to do his bidding. During his two years’ training to be a spy, the author was brainwashed into living a lie without a second thought. In his business, one also needed to be paranoid.

There were no second chances for the inexperienced. In June 1973, a PLO terrorist thought he was careful in checking his car for explosives (under the hood, underneath, in the trunk, and in the exhaust pipe) on every occasion prior to driving. However, he was killed by a pressure mine under his car seat.

In the 1970’s, France possessed the Exocet, a missile with cutting-edge technology– it could walk on water, undetected by radar. Israel wanted this weaponry, but its reputation in the world was tarnished, so France and the countries that bought it wouldn’t sell to Israel. In 1976, the Mossad stepped in and brokered a secret deal among Chile’s number two man under Pinochet, and Panama’s number two man under Noriega. The agency successfully paid a million American dollars for the head of the missile, which was all Israel needed to reverse-engineer it and manufacture it.

In the eventful year of 1981, the Mossad didn’t want to see peace in the Middle East. It launched a complicated operation involving missiles, raisins and hash that put millions and millions of dollars in its coffers (the revenue was a happy side effect) “… with the ever-treacherous PLO… the key was to ensure that everything was synchronized in Vienna, Hamburg and Frankfurt…” It wrapped up in July, when the said cities’ local police arrested tens of spies, and at least one person was killed.

Read the book to learn of additional ways the Mossad’s sociopathic operatives disregarded rule-of-law in order to achieve their missions in mostly playing adolescent-boy spy games, but occasionally orchestrating international incidents in which the course of history was significantly changed, and in which innocent people died.

Inside the Kingdom

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The Book of the Week is “Inside the Kingdom, My Life in Saudi Arabia” by Carmen Bin Ladin, published in 2004.

Born in the early 1950’s, the author grew up in Switzerland. Her mother was Persian. When she married into the Bin Laden family (of Osama fame; a sprawling, super-wealthy and powerful family), her husband had tens of siblings. She, her husband and baby daughter moved to Saudi Arabia in 1975. According to the author’s account (which appeared credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), four years later, Iran’s religious craziness spread to Saudi Arabia, so that fanatical Muslim males began to abusively rule every detail of females’ lives.

The author described many other aspects of Saudi Arabian culture (whose religious extremism has increased in recent decades), and how it compared to the values and beliefs of Western culture. She learned Muslim culture from her mother, but was partial to the freedoms and opportunities females enjoyed in Europe and the United States. She wanted to expose her daughters to her husband’s Saudi lifestyle (which was mildly religious compared to many of his siblings’ and contacts’), but also have the same chances to succeed that she did.

The author observed that, in the late twentieth century, Western mentality encouraged entrepreneurship; on the other hand, traditionally, Saudi Arabia’s sons had hierarchically inherited their wealth pursuant to birth order, and were expected to stay in their lane– work in their existing family businesses, and not start their own. The author’s husband bucked the trend and despite his success, his older brothers professionally and socially ostracized him for it.

In the early 1980’s, the author’s oldest daughter started school (at the time, a rare opportunity for females). The education system was all rote learning– of Arabic, arithmetic, history, and most importantly, the Koran. Her daughter wrote in her exercise book, “I hate Jews. I love Palestine.” The author was powerless to change the school’s curriculum, but at home, tried to foster critical thinking in her daughters. Even so, “… her teacher would always give a Bin Laden the best marks, whether she deserved it or not.” One other interesting factoid: the female teacher was allowed to slap a student’s face for the purpose of discipline.

Read the book to learn a lot more about how the author, her family and her (super-rich) in-laws lived in Saudi Arabia, and about her and her daughters’ fate at the book’s writing.

ENDNOTE: As is well known, the Muslim religion fosters gender inequality. And even in the United States, certain cultures of peoples have more gender inequality than others. The overturning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Roe V. Wade is not just about female reproductive rights or religion or rich or poor. The demographic groups who think of females as property are most affected by the changing of the law. They need to change their own cultures themselves before they trot out excuses as to why they are oppressed by society at large. They need to stop oppressing themselves!

Sand and Blood

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The Book of the Week is “Sand and Blood, America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border” by John Carlos Frey, published in 2019. This investigative journalist did his homework. He actually practiced what was known in the 1970’s as New Journalism, experiencing for himself what migrants go through. He hired a people-smuggler, and his account was factual and professional. He did NOT throw a pity-party, did NOT spout the kind of daily, tiresome, self-absorbed minutiae of American reality-shows on the idiot box.

The author pointed out that the major focus of U.S. military action is currently at the Mexico border (rather than in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Central America, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Syria, etc., etc., etc.). The twentieth century saw a large increase in demand for farm workers in the southwestern states to provide food for the nation. Between 1942 and 1964, a federal law called the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement allowed Mexican migrants to enter the U.S. to work. They were provided with housing but were ill-treated and exploited. For the next couple of decades, the country was distracted by various military actions around the world.

Finally, in 1986, president Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which conditionally (regardless of smears and lies in sound-bites on the idiot box; as an aside– undocumented immigrants have never been allowed to get welfare services, Social Security or Medicare without identity papers) let illegals earn permanent U.S. residency and eventually, citizenship.

In 1991, president George H.W. Bush signed a bill with a new immigration goal: to use the American military to target drug-smugglers, so Border Patrol could focus on catching illegal-border-crossers.

In December 1993, president Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, which caused more poverty in Mexico. It is not rocket science to infer that more poverty will lead to stronger motivation in more migrants to seek a better life in a land that is conveniently nearby. In 1996, Clinton helped enact a law that denied any and all immigrants due process if they were convicted of an aggravated felony (i.e., entering the U.S. illegally).

In 1994, California governor Pete Wilson was reelected on the scapegoating-illegals-ticket via the passage of Proposition 187. Up until that year, the childhood residence of the author of the book, in the Tijuana River Valley, just north of the Mexico border– was a demilitarized zone in which Mexicans and Americans could freely (at no-cost and with no harassment) enjoy beautiful nature on either side of the border. By the mid-1990’s, the border was a war zone. For, a U.S. Marines and Green-Berets task force was on the job.

After 9/11, the War on Terror was in full swing, yet the initiative caught zero terrorists who had illegally crossed the border. Bloated bureaucracy soon followed, with the burgeoning of the multiple new sheriffs in town: Homeland Security– the boss of INS, Border Patrol, ICE and Customs and Border Protection. By 2005, the border-protection budget had soared to $40.2 billion. That could have paid for a lot of social and education programs instead. Unsurprisingly, the whole border security apparatus became a Self-Regulatory-Organization (translation: fox guarding the hen house).

An infrastructure, security, aircraft, data-processing and spying extravaganza ensued, what with military contractors jumping on the gravy train in winning business from the U.S. government, as the contractors made the following political donations in 2012 (which included but were not limited to):

Barack Obama: $127,000 from Lockheed Martin and about $191,000 from Boeing;

Senator Charles Schumer: $49,500 from Lockheed Martin; and

Senator Lindsey Graham: $16,500 from Boeing.

That said, every politician begins his or her career with such high hopes and idealistic goals. As one of the most powerful men in the world, the American president begins his first term planning to do a big project or perhaps a bunch of them on the same issue– that brings health, education or social benefits to the American people– for which he will be remembered, he hopes, forever.

However, in recent decades especially, with so many factors out of his control, such as

term-limits;
the lack of time to review proposed and existing policies, legislation and issues– which increases the power of special-interest groups’ financial influence on all elected officials at all levels of government. And those officials’ behavior and votes can affect his popularity;
vicious political enemies; and
previous failed attempts at the same programs that just happened to lose their propaganda wars, etc.,

he ends up playing cheerleader for his agenda in between countering smears and lies against him for every little thing.

Here is a brief rundown of the “legacy lottery” of sorts of the last sixtyish years– accomplishments the president and his supporters argued were beneficial to society– for which each president became best known; the programs that were started or were amended on his watch that endure to this day (a few failures bear mentioning), though they have waxed and waned reputation-wise and funding-wise, through the decades.

PLEASE NOTE: viewing or reading one source of historical info is never sufficient for providing an accurate picture of anyone or any event (not even one book.) This blogger suggests reading at least tens of books (if possible) on one era or events detailed in personal accounts or about one person with historical backdrop, that are clearly labeled non-fiction. Even then, there is propagandizing. The following should be supplemented with further readings.

JFK-Peace Corps (ironic, because young Americans are serving other countries), EEOC. A lot happened in less than three years; though he did inherit oodles of family-power and money.
Lyndon B. Johnson– Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Project Head Start; five years crowded with incident.
Richard Nixon-First Term: EPA, Clean Air Act of 1970. Was always angry, resentful and vengeful for NOT inheriting immense family-power and money. Second Term: Insisted he was not a crook!
Gerald Ford-??? Too short a tenure to do much on short notice, and didn’t inherit huge family-power and money.
Jimmy Carter-Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (Superfund program)– almost completely gutted in recent years; his administration was taken hostage in various ways.
Ronald Reagan-First Term: Renewed Voting Rights Act and made MLK Day a federal holiday, but only under grass-roots political pressure from civil rights groups. Second Term: Enriched profiteers in the criminal justice industry by signing a drug-enforcement bill, but did raise awareness of the high costs of drug and alcohol-related problems.
George H.W. Bush-Passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, and an amendment to the Clean Air Act and yet, oil-profiteered for himself; this was one cause of his propaganda-war loss on his reelection bid.
Bill Clinton-First Term: Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993; tried to implement a national-healthcare plan, which turned out to be a dress rehearsal; grade “A” for effort. Second Term: Signed some laws that helped children and families with healthcare, foster care and adoption, but he lost the propaganda war historically.
George W. Bush-First Term: Unfortunately succeeded in passing the No Child Left Behind Act– but did raise awareness of the high costs of running education like a business. Enriched medical-industry profiteers by partially privatizing Medicare in a massive overhaul. Second Term: proposed privatizing Social Security, and proposed immigration reform while advocating for more funding for beefing up military presence at the Mexican border (igniting all sorts of controversies), but it was his entire disaster, military-conflict, and oil profiteering-oriented tenure that caused him to lose his propaganda war historically, big-time.
Barack Obama–First Term: While putting out fires of his immediate predecessor, signed an amendment to an anti-hate-crime law and repealed DADT. Signed the Affordable Care Act, whose way was paved for him in the mid-1990’s; tenuous win thus far and needs lots of modifications– but a major feat. And need it be said? Didn’t inherit family hegemony and ginormous wealth. Second Term: Signed an amendment to the Affordable Care Act.
Donald Trump-Proposed building a Mexican-border wall! No one knows its current status. Did wonders for profiteers (his family and cronies) in health, labor and the environment by signing numerous Executive Orders. Inherited massive family-power and money.
Joseph Biden-Spent his first year putting out fires of his immediate predecessor. He’s a transition president like Ford, and also didn’t inherit superlative family-power and money.

All of the above presidents have had to make serious ethical compromises in order to try to secure their legacies; pursuant to the amount of power wielded over them by the opposition-party during their time in office. Those who won the “profiteering lottery” favored money over people without a second thought. And, ALL of them felt they needed to do politically expedient military spending, or else their impact on history might suffer.

Incidentally, one turning point in the history of the McCarthy Era occurred when the Republican U.S. senator from Wisconsin, criticized the military. After that, it was downhill for him. One turning point in the history of the Trump administration occurred when the Republican U.S. president from New York State, criticized the military. After that, it was a faster downfall for him.

Anyway, notwithstanding the humungous amount of taxpayer money diverted to militarization of the border, “A weakening [U.S.] economy helped slow migration more than fences did.”

Read the book to learn: about Boeing’s epic fail; why certain areas have no deterrents to migrants; why the government can’t even say how ineffective its militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border has been; how migrants risk their lives; about the smuggling cartels; about a Native American reservation and a church near the border; about how frustrating the U.S. border’s complaint-processing system is; and much more about recent conditions / deaths at the border.

The Life and Times of the Shah

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The Book of the Week is “The Life and Times of the Shah” by Gholam Reza Afkhami, published in 2009. This tome (whose roughly chronological contents were organized by political issues, which made it redundant in spots) provided a history of two leaders known as “shah” or king, of Iran, and global context, beginning with the father, Reza Khan, born in a village near the Caspian sea in 1877. Iran’s first Constitution was written in 1907.

A 1919 agreement signed between Persia (which became known as Iran in 1935) and Great Britain basically stated that the former was to become a colony of the latter. Reza Khan and his fellow Iranian government officials chafed under the agreement and refused to sign it. Iran’s soldiers were resentful that Britain’s military arrogantly came to train them. Nevertheless, the Iranians did approve of Britain’s taking control of northern Iran, a region of Cossacks (anti-Bolshevik Russians).

In October 1919, Mohammad Reza (the shah-to-be) was born. February 1921 saw his father survive a failed coup, declare martial law and arrest tens of members of the old-line Iranian aristocracy. In the 1920’s, there was a shuffling around of governmental cabinet members, and no real improvement in the country’s affairs. Diverse tribes with their various rivalries populated Iran’s different regions. But Reza Khan was a social democrat and a nationalist– the people should take pride in being Iranian, irrespective of tribe or religion. He believed in: the English system of law, compulsory education, land reform and separation of church and state.

In December 1925, the leadership committee in Iran, called the Majlis, named Reza Khan king of Iran, or shah. His son was named crown prince, and at twelve years of age, was sent to boarding school in Switzerland. By 1933, the shah was fed up with foreign powers’ exploitation of Iran’s oil. He signed an agreement giving Iran more control, although Iran lacked the expertise and resources for maximizing profits from all things oil-related. Even so, the years 1938 to 1941 saw Iran profit handsomely due to Britain’s straitened circumstances in its dire need for fuel. However, Reza Khan had to tread lightly with all parties (the Allies and Axis nations) because any party could take over Iran.

In September 1941, after a series of untoward events, under British pressure, shah Reza Khan went into exile in Mauritius and eventually South Africa, transferring power to his son. In 1942, in exchange for declaring war on Germany, Iran became a candidate for membership in the then-proposed United Nations. Meanwhile, there was domestic unrest in connection with a newly formed Iranian political party called the Tudeh, which was neither Communist nor revolutionary, at least initially.

By the end of WWII, the Soviets were entrenched in the Tudeh party, and occupied the northern region of Iran, eager to acquire the oil in Azerbaijan. The Iranians had regained control by summer 1947, but martial law had to be declared. Again. For, against the wishes of ordinary Iranians, their government had signed an oil agreement with the Soviets.

After a few more years of international shenanigans and posturing, and violent domestic gyrations, in March 1951, Iran nationalized its oil industry. The British believed this action was going to hinder the modernization of Iran. Nevertheless, by summer, Iran had formed its own oil company, snubbing Britain’s oil company– which was co-owned with Iran and had been in Iran’s industry-oligopoly for decades. In October 1952, Iran broke off diplomatic relations with the British.

American president Dwight Eisenhower was concerned that Iran would cave in to Soviet influence. Also in 1952, Iranian citizens were expressing their displeasure with their government’s actions, through street protests and rioting. Political opponents of Iran’s prime minister were arrested. The shah didn’t want to be deposed, so he dismissed the prime minister, and held a people’s referendum on whether to dissolve the Majlis. Although voters were physically harassed, dissolution won out, thanks to a secret CIA operation dubbed TPAJAX. Alpha males (the kind who later fancied themselves as James Bond) in the American and British intelligence services claimed credit for the regime alterations. The shah and his queen flew to Baghdad (a place friendly to Iranians at the time) for a tabloid distraction– er, uh, diplomatic visit– until things calmed down. Unresolved oil issues prompted Iran to resume diplomatic relations with Britain in December 1953. In August 1954, an oil consortium was formed.

In the mid-1950’s, Iran’s economy began to improve due to various factors, including U.S. aid, oil profits, and anti-Communist regional alliances of Iran’s neighbors. As a world leader, the shah considered his job to be head of human resources of his government’s top leaders, pursuant to Iran’s Constitution. He looked at the two-party system of the United States, and liked what he saw. However, in summer 1958, in the shah’s view, “We did not have the security guarantees that NATO enjoyed” so Iran signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets. But in March 1959, it signed a bilateral defense treaty with the United States.

After clearing various hurdles, Iranian women got the right to vote in January 1963. However, the shah failed to see a future power struggle he would have with the ayatollah Khomeini, whom he had arrested and exiled (to the unwise location of Paris) in June 1963. As is well known, Khomeini wanted to make Iran a theocracy. In autumn 1964, Iran signed a controversial piece of paper with the United States in connection with court jurisdiction and adjudication of crime-cases of U.S. military personnel and U.S. embassy workers in Tehran.

Khomeini and his followers were livid at America’s double standards and the fact that the shah was an American puppet. Too, in the next several years, for various reasons, Iran’s energy needs couldn’t be entirely satisfied by oil and gas, so it was looking into nuclear power plants. By the mid-1970’s, Iran had become a storage dump for nuclear waste.

By summer 1975, the shah was starting to get too big for his britches, even though he had brought certain aspects of democracy to Iran. His government was on its way to one-party rule. His new political movement would be governed by three major sources which contradicted each other: Iran’s Constitution, the Shah-People Revolution, and the imperial order. That last one conflicted with whether the shah was the ultimate authority over the governing of his country (in later years, there was a conflict also with the authority of Iran’s top military leader), but he was a king, indefinitely.

The United Kingdom is also a Constitutional monarchy, BUT the head of the royal family is merely a figurehead, while the prime minister and government bodies have all the power to, and do, all the work of governing the country. Those bodies can be forced to resign pursuant to a vote of no-confidence– between formally scheduled election days, which increases uncertainty in the system and for the people governed.

In the United States, the First Family is not supposed to be a royal family. Its system does have problems, but uncertainty due to resignations en masse is not one of them. The two major parties keep each other’s power in check. The president is always a member of one or the other.

Anyway, by spring 1977, the international community was pressuring Iran to curb its human rights abuses. Oops. It was already too late. The shah was unable to see the writing on the wall: that Khomeini was a threat to his power (even from Paris!); and that he was giving mixed signals by declaring martial law but at the same time, failing to train Iran’s law enforcement officers to control crowds and instructing them to refrain from firing on street protesters to quell violence in Iran’s major cities. So there appeared to be chaos and anarchy. Not to mention revolution.

Khomeini’s propaganda had been inflaming the masses for years. One tabloid item in spring 1979 from the government of the Bahamas revealed that the shah kept a large quantity of money in Swiss bank accounts. Unsurprisingly, the shah and his queen went into exile. In the next year or so, protesters angrily surrounded every residence in the world where they were temporarily tolerated.

In the shah’s absence, Iran’s military was rudderless because its members had always practiced blind obedience to the shah. Besides, Iran’s law enforcement and security personnel had always thought of themselves as ordinary Iranians, so they didn’t want to harm people like themselves.

Read the book to learn about: how, in the regime’s last several years, the U.S. mishandled Iranian foreign policy and misjudged Khomeini; plus much, much more. Here’s a little ditty that explains how Americans can keep our country from becoming a Constitutional monarchy (or theocracy), like that of Iran’s:

VOTE

sung to the tune of “Vogue” with apologies to Madonna.

SHOP around.
Election time is in the offing.
Find out where YOU need to go.
(shop around)

You elect the people who’ll help you improve,
the LIFE that-you-know.
(life-that-you-know)

You can get ACtive in politics,
or just research candidATES today.

I know a time when you can make the change.
It’s called election day
and you can make-the-losers pay.

So c’mon, vote.
Feel your power-as-an-American.
hey hey hey
C’mon, vote.
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(you know you can do it)

All you need is your own registration.
So use it. You count, rich or poor.
(both rich and poor)
It’s democracy. Show-you-believe-in-the-process.
More VO-ters open the door.
(open up the door)

It makes no difference if you’re Left or Right,
if you’re pro-this or pro-that.
Free and fair elections ensure sta-bi-li-ty.
You’re a civics star,
yes that’s what you are.
(you know it)

C’mon, vote.
Feel your power-as-an-American.
hey hey hey
C’mon, vote.
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(you know you can do it)

Leaders need to govern well,
not just deny and cover up.
Soul is in society.
That’s where we feel so LIStened to.
Learn from mistakes, keep us safe.
Get things DONE-on-the Congress floors.

Vote.
Feel your power-as-an-American.
hey hey hey
C’mon, vote.
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(you know you can do it, do it, do it)

(vote vote)
(Leaders need to govern)
(as Amer-i-cans)
(vote)
(Leaders need to govern)
(not all nations)

Adolf Hitler, Juan Peron, Milosevic and Marcos
Kim Il-sung, Saddam Hussein
got 99-percent-of-votes-in-their-name.
“The people love me” they did gloat.

Others seized power, you should note:
Joseph Stalin, Pinochet,
Khomeini, Papa-Duvalier.
They had weapons, they used force.
Mao-Tse-Tung had no remorse.

Gaddafi, Franco, Castro too.
Kim Jong-un, is anything new?

Leaders with an attitude,
some of whom the U.S. wooed.
Don’t put up with bad government.
Take a position.
You can make a dent.

(vote vote vote vote)
(vote vote)
(oooh, you’ve got to)
Feel your power-as-an-American.
(oooh, you’ve got to do it)
Not all nations HAVE what we have.
(oooh, you’ve got to)
Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

My Father and I

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “My Father and I” by Camelia Sadat, published in 1985.

Born in July 1949, the author grew up in a distant suburb of Cairo, but possessed nostalgia for her father’s home village– Mit Abul-Kum, in the Nile delta. Her father was Anwar Sadat, whose mother was half Egyptian and half Sudanese, and whose father had eight wives; only the last two wives bore thirteen children between them. Anwar was the second oldest child of his father’s seventh wife.

Born in late 1918, Anwar’s young adulthood was typical of Muslim men of his generation who were headed for a political career. He chose his alliances and enemies pursuant to his future leadership role in mind. During WWII, he allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group desirous of replacing Egypt’s monarchy of King Farouk, with an independent Muslim theocracy. The British supported the king. During and after the war, Anwar did stints in jail for his pro-Axis, pro-Egyptian-independence activities. Further, he was discharged dishonorably from the Egyptian army.

By the late 1940’s, Anwar had two wives and two babies. The younger of the latter was Camelia. However, Anwar’s first marriage ended in divorce shortly thereafter. At thirty, he began his second marriage with his nineteen year-old bride. In 1950, he resumed his military career. He was appointed by Gamal Nasser to lead the group fighting for sovereignty for Egypt– the Free Officers’ Organization.

Anwar moved quickly up the political ranks. In July 1952, he and his cronies ousted King Farouk. In December 1953, he helped found a revolutionary newspaper, working in the communications (translation: propaganda) department of Egypt’s government. The very next year, he was named Minister of State. In 1956, Egypt saw the end of British occupation.

Camelia was a headstrong, independent child. When she was twelve, a marriage was arranged for her. The groom was 29. Unfortunately for them, a quiet, serious wedding reception (which was uncustomary) was the order of the day because Egypt was breaking its diplomatic ties with Syria.

Initially, Camelia accepted her fate as an obedient housewife (which was required by the Quran, and was the culture in Egypt). But after a couple of years, she became emotionally exhausted by the bossiness and physical abuse of her especially insecure husband. Camelia told her uncle about her marital problems, and reprimanded the husband. However, Anwar found out and told Camelia that a wife should obey her husband.

In the 1960’s, unrest in Yemen led to difficult geopolitical jockeying among Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and of course, the United States. In December 1970, Anwar was elected president of Egypt, at which time, it was on the outs with America. In 1971, he foiled a coup attempt against him. Egypt wasn’t diplomatically benefiting from Soviet financial aid, either, as the Soviets’ reputation for aggression made the U.S.S.R. an isolated state in the industrialized world.

Anwar was best known for his willingness to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel’s leader Menachem Begin, through an intermediary, America’s president Jimmy Carter. Read the book to learn many more details of his and his daughter’s life and career, and a bit of Egyptian history.