The Russia-China War and the Lin Piao Affair

It has been forgotten that in 1970 there were battles between Russia under Brezhnev and China under Mao. The Chinese were no match for the Red Army. Mao had been particularly irritated by the Soviet Communist Party disputing his ideological supremacy and turned   China away from the Socialist camp and invited Nixon to banquet in Peking. A fraction in the Chinese Party felt Mao was mad, and had to be eliminated.

Lin was in charge of defense in the Politburo. He wanted to build up the army. He believed that the US and Japan were China's major enemies. Mao turned against Lin who suddenly felt so insecure that took a plane to Moscow. The plane exploded in flight.

My point is that the Chinese dictatorial regime invites conspiracies. A dictatorship, historically, invites coups and golpes-de-estado. The world will never hear about internal tensions but they must exist today as then.

Are Uyghurs White?

The above graph by a Chinese science group shows that Uyghurs are about half and half. They were White 3600 years ago, when they left those famous redhead mummies, and then there was mixing with Northeast Asians. About 700 years ago there was an injection of Europeans, probably females brought in by the Mongol conquests. The forced sinization going on today can be seen as the dilution and absorption of an ethnic group. Of course, there is nothing sacred about an admixture that coalesced in historical times, yet...  (Applying Prof. Maersheimer methodology of realism, Uyghur volunteers had joined the Islamic State and were no friends of the Jews, so the Chinese State is working for me by repressing those dangerous, barbarian fanatics.) 

Ancestry makeup and variations in admixture proportion within XJU. (A) ADMIXTURE results of XJU with West Eurasia, South Asia, East Asia, and Central Asia Siberia populations at K = 4 (in order https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/96943814/msx177f2.tifto show a full picture of Eurasian populations, all populations of the four major ancestries (including representative populations) were included.). Proportion of each ancestry in XJU was highlighted with a pie chart. Height of the bar is proportional to admixture proportion.

Happy New Year from Manchukuo (1930)

I was watching Prof. John Maersheimer's lectures about power policies,  and if China's rise will necessarily be opposed - militarily - by the USA. His answer is yes, it is inevitable. America has consistently all along its history engaged and destroyed potential peer powers such as: Indian nations in the continent, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, the Soviet Union, etc.

If China succeeds in rising, the Tibetan Lama Kingdom and the sinization of the Turki (Uyghur) nation reflects the future of its neighbors. The Chinese most hate the Japanese and the question is what will Japan do? With its sinking population, defanged of imperial ambitions, it may find a niche as a barbarian tributary state. (Postcard 1.1.1930). India is also nervous about a giant neighbor.

Maersheimer says that America is interested in the Middle East only because the oil is here. The power trying to dominate this area/resource is Iran. It follows that its clerical regime will have to change, it is something of a miracle that the mullahs still are in power thirty years after. If archeologists are right, priestly rule was common in the Mesopotamian States of the antiquity, a temple being the focus of the settlements. But in our days there are no other states ruled by God's Representatives on Earth. Our main interest is to keep Iran far from us. In this anarchic world (no one answering 911) we need to be part of a regional system. Who is the enemy of Iran? We should be their friend.    

Alignment of Forces in the Eastern Mediterranean

As if we had not enough problems with internal politics, now we are sliding into a regional confrontation initiated by Erdogan. Turkey will send troops to Libya at the request of the UN-backed government in Tripoli as soon as next month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today.

Libya's internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) has been struggling to repel a months-long offensive by General Khalifa Haftar's eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), which has been supported by Egypt, Jordan, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and France.

Last month, Turkey and the Tripoli-based GNA leader Fayez al-Serraj signed a defense cooperation deal and a separate one on maritime boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is locked in dispute with regional rivals Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel over access to waters rich in natural gas.

All this "plonter" was caused by Hillary Clinton and Obama, who destabilized the comic-opera dictator of Lybia, Colonel Khaddafi and caused his bloody decapitation. Why did she do that? Khaddafi had dismantled his nuclear project and was doggishly obedient of his masters. Even the stupidest Neocon could have predicted the chaos that followed his exit. Americans do not learn: Jimmy Carter ordered out elected "dictator" Tachito Somoza, not a bad man and slavishly "our", causing twenty years of Sandinista chaos and civil war. 

The Van Lake Migrant Trail

This night seven people drawned and 64 were rescued when a boat carrying migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan sank in Turkey’s Lake Van. The winter weather is harsh in those parts, they must have been desperate to intend to reach Germany by that route. Europe will have to build a wall too. 

Star Wars Over Israel

"Red alert" air raid sirens sounded Wednesday night in Gaza border towns, interrupting a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The alerts sounded while Netanyahu gave a speech at a Likud primaries conference in Ashkelon. The Prime Minister was escorted off the stage and taken immediately to a bomb shelter.

"The person who fired at us last time is not with us," Netanyahu said afterwards, adding that, "the one who fired now should start packing his belongings."

Halil Battanney (pic) appears to be the person in reference. It may be fake news, who knows why his pic appears on the internet? I do not know. We shall have to wait only a few days to know.

Kever Benjamin City (Kfar Saba, where I live) has been ranked number two among Israel wealthiest cities (Tel Aviv is number one). Apparently, we are well off. This morning I drove to Kalansuwa, a large Arab city 30 km north of Kfar Saba, and was shocked to see that the industrial area has no sewage system and the workshops have large plastic reservoirs for water, because there is no pressure in the pipes. The city is ruled by the largest and best armed clan. Elected by democratic vote, of course. Most people pay no municipal taxes (the arnona) nor water bills.  The Arabs I work with are very competent, buy as a collective they are unable to organize themselves effectively.  

Simmering Confrontation with Turkey

Turkey and Turkey dominated Lybia signed a maritime accord declaring the East Mediterranean their property (Map left below). We condemned the declaration as “illegal”, but  that doesn’t mean we are sending battleships to confront Turkey. Greece, which is a close ally of Israel and is at odds with Turkey over a host of issues, called the accord absurd because it ignored the presence of the Greek island of Crete between the coasts of Turkey and Libya. Greece's claims in the map right. Many countries are dividing the seas among themselves. China did it with the South Sea. Without an hegemonic power, as was the US, the world is sliding towards a catch-as-you-can-catch situation. Bad.