ANGELA MERKEL

TIME magazine "Person of the Year." Welcoming into Germany the throngs of Syrian refugees.

WAIT: I think it was Abraham Lincoln who advised, "Don't believe everything you see on the internet."

Jerry sent me a terrific article, you can locate it here: http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles/oil-prices-and-syrian-civil-war.php

It posits that oil and oil prices have a lot to do with the current Mideast crisis, and it goes on to explain a lot more than that since most of us would agree with the broad premise.

The following notes are my takeaways from that article, and I recommend your own reading of it if you have an interest.

LEBANON, 1975

What does this have to do with anything? Well, it is a good example of what might happen in the EU due to Merkel's policies. Not to Germany, but to others.

Back in the 1970's, there were 400,000 Palestinian refugees, primarily in Jordan. Jordan kicked them out and they went, mostly, to Lebanon. Lebanon was, at that time, prosperous and had a large Christian population dating back to the Crusades. Naturally, the immigrants overwhelmed the "Switzerland of the Middle East" and the country has never recovered. They turned their new home into a pigsty like they came from.

KEEP THE BEST, EJECT THE REST

Germany needs cheap labor and the Turkey connection has dried up as Turkey's economy has improved upon entry into the EU. The immigrants will fill the bill, and Merkel has given them nine-month permits. Out go the ones who don't work out...or work.

DUMP ON YOUR NEIGHBORS?

A short time ago, Germany sponsored legislation to require EU countries to accept migrants from other EU countries. Where will these rejects go? Likely places would be Sweden, Norway and Denmark who, unlike Germany with 81 million people, have much smaller populations (like, 5 million or so) that will be overwhelmed. Just like Lebanon.

Trump was roundly criticized for saying there were Muslim no-go districts for British cops. The police in Birmingham acknowledged that is the case. There are neighborhoods in the UK that are ruled by Sharia law, and the police do not go there.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?

Angela Merkel is in the "pole position" for that Prize. After some of these other events work out, do you think the committee will admit, as they did with Obama, that their choice was a mistake?

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

ISIS has said, "We'll use and exploit the refugee crisis to infiltrate the West." Boy, what a surprise, although when you hear the news networks, they are evidently unaware.

Here is the problem--Lebanese officials (back to Lebanon, and they might know a bit) estimate that 2.2% of Syrians in refugee camps are affiliated with ISIS. So, if we allow 10,000 Syrian immigrants to enter the US, that would allow 220 who are affiliated with ISIS. Wonder if they could do any damage?

OIL

Back to the original article--the whole Syrian conflict is based, as are most ME conflicts, in the oil business. The Shia-led countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria) want a pipeline to go through Syria to the Mediterranean. The Sunni countries (principally, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) want another pipeline to go through Syria and through Turkey.

The Sunni pipeline would seriously compete with Russia's pipeline to the Western EU. Russia has been aligned with the Shia for decades; the US with the Sunni. The Russians are going to wipe out ISIS that has been funded in large part by Saudi Arabia and Qatar (so was the Arab Spring until it got completely out of hand and turned into a bunch of criminals).

Note, however, two important concepts: this is about oil and about fine points of distinction between seemingly similar religions. The geography defined to prevent the reemergence of the Ottoman empire (the Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916) has less to do with it than religious matters. Sunni versus Shia. That fact does not square with our Western attitudes and is not recognized by our politicians and certainly not by the media.

Just a taste of the article, take a look, and special thanks to Jerry for forwarding it.