Another Wave of Rats

Another Wave of Rats 

Israel - Middle East 
Friday, June 20, 2014 
Alf Cengia 



More than once I've written about my misadventures with rats invading my house, years ago in Australia. Given the sudden ISIS chaos in Iraq, I think the story warrants another recap:


It started as an almost imperceptible scratching sound in the wall. My best and hopelessly optimistic bet was that it was just a mouse. However in the following days and weeks the sounds developed into loud scratching and scurrying noises up and down my walls.


Eventually the mating sounds and squeaks were keeping me awake at night. 


Copulating rats in one's wall are not sounds one looks forward to hear. Trust me.


People at work would ask me why I looked so tired and frazzled. How could I tell them it was the rats? Finally it got so bad that it sounded like the rats were playing Ten Pin Bowling in my ceiling spac


So I went to war.


I set a bunch of traps in the ceiling and caught around a dozen rats within two days. Then I planted the baits. I felt dirty. Why were so many rats attracted to my house? Then a friend of a friend in the same suburb caught over twenty rats in one weekend. He was a hardened martial artist but the experience tested his mettle. It took a while but we eventually won that battle.


Not long after that I was sitting in a friend's living room in a rented house and heard that familiar bowling sound. It was a possums, I was informed. Go tell your landlord you have rats, I tactlessly responded. And then there was my next door neighbor who claimed she had a possum in her ceiling and mice in her walls. I shook my head knowingly - perhaps appearing unsympathetic - and told her, "I'm sorry, you have rats."


One very important lesson I took away from that experience is that, while I did win a temporary battle, I didn't win the Big War. In time, the rats returned, and in full force. They always did.


To compare the terrorist group ISIS with rats is, perhaps, an insult to the rats of my experience. I've read that even Al-Qaeda won't have much to do with them.


 That doesn't make Al-Qaeda a nicer organization. I suspect it has more to do with having a different strategy and methodology for implementing the same ideology.


Like my rats, the terrorists have constantly been scratching away in Iraq while we have largely ignored them. My daily news feeds consistently contained some murderous bombing incident that most main-stream media failed to acknowledge.


In fact Islamist rats have been scratching all over Europe with their demands for rights and access to Sharia Law, and intolerance and persecution of Christians and Jews. We even have warning signs of a major flare-up in Libya but will the West heed them? Will Libya or Jordan be next?


Ironically, President Obama has recently made following statements:

Quote :

"Guard against cynicism. I mean, the truth of the matter is that for all the challenges we face, all the problems that we have, if you had to be - if you had to choose any moment to be born in human history, not knowing what your position was going to be, who you were going to be, you’d choose this time. The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed then it’s ever been. It is more educated than it’s ever been." (Emphasis mine)

Tell that to the Ukrainians, Syrians, Egyptians and Iraqis. Tell that to the diminishing Christian population in the Middle East. And tell that to the three Israeli teenagers who were recently kidnapped. President Obama knows better than that. But he also trusts that many will feed on the spin because a compliant media largely supports him.


Some occasionally break ranks.


The Daily Beast cites Army Col. Kenneth King as recalling that when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released from a U.S. detention camp, he told them, "I’ll see you guys in New York." At the time, Col. Ring didn't take it as a threat. He knew Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a bad dude, "but he wasn't the worst of the worst." Yet al-Baghdadi is now the leader of ISIS with some calling him "the most dangerous man in the world."


Col. Ring went on to reflect:

Quote :

“We spent how many missions and how many soldiers were put at risk when we caught this guy and we just released him.”

Yet the Obama administration resolves to release more rats back into the field. Why?


Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq has become so dire (another Syria?) that John Kerry was "open to discussions" on the possibility of teaming with Iran in ridding Iraq of ISIS. Again, the word "clueless" comes to mind. As two Washington Post writers rightly noted:

Quote :

"The idea that the United States, a nation bent on defending democracy and safeguarding stability, shares a common interest with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a revolutionary theocracy that is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world, is as fanciful as the notion that Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler could work together for the good of Europe."

I sometimes wonder how the Nixon administration might have fared had they been in power and enacted the same policies of the Obama administration. Would they have gotten away with Benghazi?


President Nixon would have been excoriated for some of the things President Obama has done or allowed to happen. Nixon would have been drawn and quartered and run through blazing coals. The current administration is enjoying free reign to do whatever it wants with relative impunity.


President Obama and his administration are either exceptionally inept or something far worse - even diabolical. Take your pick.


Personally, I believe it's the latter.


Either way, it is the perfect administration in place for that Perfect Storm which appears to be heading our way.


http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=7832

Just an aside [from the mention of Nixon above]...Now that we know how things really work in the world of politics, I have a strong feeling Watergate was a set up.  Kissinger did not want Nixon to send support to Israel during the Yom Kipper war of 1973. 
You've no doubt heard the story.
According to the telling of it, Golda Meir called Nixon at 3 a.m. and said that unless America helped
Israel immediately the nation would not survive.  Nixon recalled his Mother telling him when he
was a boy that someday he would be called to help the Jewish nation, and that he must do so.  And for this reason he took action.  And was severely punished for it, I think,  by TPTB.

Dove wrote:

Just an aside [from the mention of Nixon above]...Now that we know how things really work in the world of politics, I have a strong feeling Watergate was a set up.  Kissinger did not want Nixon to send support to Israel during the Yom Kipper war of 1973. 
You've no doubt heard the story.
According to the telling of it, Golda Meir called Nixon at 3 a.m. and said that unless America helped
Israel immediately the nation would not survive.  Nixon recalled his Mother telling him when he
was a boy that someday he would be called to help the Jewish nation, and that he must do so.  And for this reason he took action.  And was severely punished for it, I think,  by TPTB.

Wow!