Barak Obama’s shortsighted energy policies in concert with intrusive environmental policies that have prevented the United States from building even one new oil refinery in the last thirty-seven years as well as keeping our country from exploiting its own oil reserves may very soon create a massive oil shortage in this country. The cause? Besides Obama and the environmental lunatic fringe, the cause is WAR! But not the war you’re expecting it might be . . . and, if America is caught napping, blame it 100% on willful ignorance . . . .
Americans as a people, unfortunately are ultra-lazy when it comes to learning about other nations, their cultures and languages around the world. For example, GM put an enormous amount of money into introducing their sporty little Nova into the Latin American markets way back when. It seemed after their studies, PERFECT. It was small and manueverable but roomy inside, got great gas mileage and not too expensive; it was also pretty attractive, GM bigwigs thought Nova was a natural to play out a big winner in South and Central America.
OOOOPS . . . . Nova was a complete bust. After that, the Japanese totally dominated the new car market south of the Rio Grande. Indeed, it was much worse than a bust, it was the laughing stock of Latin America. Why? Consider this, if the Japanese instead of Toyota and Honda had tried to sell Americans a car called “Doesnotgo” would you buy it? Any first year Spanish student in high school should know that “No va” means exactly that, “Won’t run.” That was a costly mistake, one of many that GM made that brought them to their present situation, a mistake built upon gross ignorance. So now our ignorance of Muslim culture may very soon leave us oil-less. NICE!
In a nutshell, here’s the background . . . People who know their Bible, know that the Arabic peoples sprang famously from the loins of Ishmael. Muslims, most Jews and almost all Christians all agree that Ishmael was the first-Arab and the firstborn son of the Jewish prophet Abraham (specifically, the child of Abraham’s wife Sara’s handmaiden, who was named Hagar). As far as is known, Ishmael was the first deliberately circumcized Arab in history. Ishmael is credited in Genesis with living 137 years, hmmmm, giving him lots of time to be fruitful and multiply. After those few factoids, Arabs and Jews have agreed on little else. According to the B’hai faith it was Ishmael and not Abram’s second son Isaac (from Sara) who was almost sacrificed by Abram before his name was changed to Abraham. One of many disagreements.
Ishmael was also the first Prophet of the Muslim tradition, according to the Koran, and all things began with Ishmael. However, the greatest Arab according to Muslim history sprang up roughly 2,300 years later: their Prophet Mohammed. Blending the early Christian and Jewish traditions and oral and written histories (the Bible and Torah) Mohammed, like Christ, is reported to have had direct divine contact and frequent revelations from God. In any case his new religion, Islam, swept the world more quickly than any religion in history. The word “Islam” means “complete surrender to God.” It came to dominate not only the Middle East and much of the Far East including much of India and Indonesia, but much of South Eastern Europe, all of Northern Africa and all of the Iberian Penninsula (Spain and Portugal) by 711 A.D. and reached into France before being stopped by defeat to the Frank King Charles Martell in 732 A.D. which is why the Holy Roman Empire came to be and Iberian history is so different from the rest of Europe and why Spain and Portugal were so advanced while Europe was undergoing its Dark Ages.
Those early Muslims, Moors or Saracens, whatever you wanted to call them, were among the most enlightened and tolerant people in World History, their list of technical advancess and advancements in learning were impressive to say the least. Famous Muslim gifts to Europe include chess, the windmill, trigonometry, wine, the Arabian horse, etc. Religious freedom was universal. Great architectural advances, the zero in number theory came to Europe through them as did algebra and most astronomical advances (these advances stopped at the Pyrenees where the Holy Roman Empire began). It was the most glorious religious accomplishment of all time according to Muslim teaching . . . objectively, they may well be correct.
All Muslims do not agree on how Mohammed died . . . some reports have a headache with death following three days later. But according to one account, the roots of the festering war (which Americans have never heard about) that we’re about to discover occurred roughly a century before Charles Martell’s victory . . . at a lamb and goat dinner in 629 A.D. where the Prophet Mohammed was guest of honor. According to some, he took just one bite of the main course and immediately spit it out, but it was too late. He was poisoned and soon died. He was buried nearby and an empty tomb was placed next to his, for the prophet Jesus, according to Muslim tradition.
But there was this questionable business . . . murder most foul by poisoning, and no one knew or knows who did it. More importantly, in the wake of their prophet’s death, no one knew who should take over and that is the root of many problems we’re seeing today. In the Arabian Peninsula since that day, Muslims have been killing Muslims over that argument ever since. The very first recorded Muslim intolerance and the only recorded Muslim intolerance for centuries was Muslims at each other’s throats.
This disagreement has lasted over thirteen and a half centuries. Sunni Muslims such as the late Saddam Hussein today control Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and many other Middle Eastern countries. Shia Muslims now run Iraq (thanks to U.S. involvement) as well as Lebanon and Syria and most infamously Iran under the vocal nuke-seeking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran, once known as “Persia,” was at one time the greatest empire existing in the world and remembering their glorious history, Iranians chafe at the outrages heaped upon Iran by the hated Sunnis.
The Sunni are the controllers of most of the countries in the Middle East. And the Sunnis are Iran’s most hated rivals. While it’s true, you cannot be a Middle East Muslim without hating Israel . . . but in Shia Muslim eyes the controlling Sunni’s policies of intolerance and torture toward Shia Muslims has created huge amounts of bitterness across the region. For centuries the Shia have been the heavily oppressed underclass citizens in Arabia. In fact, no one knows how many Shia there are because most of the dictators don’t choose to count them during census. Unlike the original Muslim tolerance for religious freedom . . . Sunni schools teach that Shia are not really Islamic people. They’re never given government representation. They can’t marry Sunnis. They can’t testify in trials in the high courts and can’t become judges. They are third-class citizens and frequently locked up, tortured and at a minimum arrested and hassled any time a powerful Sunni feels like it. Sunni schools are institutions conveying religious hatred toward the Shia. Shia Muslims often are also taught to hate their Sunni leaders from birth. Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Shia, wants his nukes for Israel, perhaps, but for Sunnis as well. The region is a lit powder keg and Iran is already the #1 exporter of terror. They’ve kept a Shia revolution in Yemen going for over a decade. They’ve sponsored terrorism in Saudi Arabia; in Iraq; in Afghanistan; the list continues to expand.
While all this is going on, Barack Obama is keeping a tight lid on American oil and has done nothing to quash Iran’s nuke program . . . go figure. One truth is not deniable, all this heating up of intra-Muslim conflict cannot be good for oil supplies, oil prices, or oil-dependent America. So until Washington produces a solar car, Americans may find themselves up the infamous creek without a means of locomotion.
Ya'll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
