Such as the five percent rule for drug smuggling. The rule is that you only catch five percent of all the drugs smuggled across your border. Sometimes you get more. Sometimes you get less, but generally you only get five percent.

In other countries, like Russia, it’s actually worse.

What prompted this Little stream of consciousness is a bit of BBC reporting on the IAEA’s (International Atomic Energy Agency) attempts to secure radioactive materials and suppress the smuggling of those materials.

Why is the IAEA attempting to get a hold of radioactive materials? Materials that cannot be made into an atom bomb?

Because these materials can be made into a radiological bomb – a bomb that uses conventional explosive to shower radioactive materials over a wide area. A wide area such as downtown New York, or Washington D.C.

Can you imagine the terror that would result? Just two or three of those bombs could shut down the commercial capital of the US, for days or weeks - and send the economy of the US (and even the world) into a tail spin.

Or, they could choose the top financial cities of the world, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London and paralyze them simultaneously. Can you imagine the result?

If you could paralyze the financial districts of these cities for one week, the economic system of the world would totally collapse – especially if you added Frankfurt, Milan, and Paris. Just pack a few bombs with easy-to-get radioactive materials and place them on top of a few tall buildings. You could literally destroy the world economy.

So, why did I start with a discussion of drug smuggling?

Well, there is a HUGE amount of HIGHLY radioactive material floating around the former USSR, and there is this one, tiny little team of experts from the IAEA attempting to get it. Unfortunately, they are in a race with other teams that aren’t so small. However, the IAEA is attempting to allay our fears by claiming that they are catching this radioactive material at the border.

What the IAEA is not telling you is that security at these borders is lousy, and easily circumvented. And, they also aren’t telling you about the five percent rule for drug smuggling.

So, remember this. The more that the IAEA claims that they are intercepting… well, at least 20 to a 100 times more than that is getting through.

Now, tell me that this isn’t an obscure fact. 

Deserts are harsh and unforgiving. Deserts consume the weak. Deserts demand everything that you have, and then a little more.

When you live in the desert, you live by desert rules, and if you forget those rules… you die.

However, desert rules don’t apply everywhere. It’s not necessary to live by desert rules in the rain forests of Africa and Southeast Asia. Desert rules don’t make sense in the fertile plains of the American Midwest.

In fact, Desert Rules only apply… in the desert.

So, what do you think happens when you bind up Desert Rules into a religion and spread it around the world? What happens when you take a people who have been forged by the harsh realities of the desert, and point them at the soft underbelly of ‘softer’ peoples? What happens when you apply Desert Rules to unwinnable conflicts?

Hatred. Violence. Death. Destruction. Famine. Pain. Suffering.

Let me put it this way, rabbits are cute furry little creatures. I love rabbits. My cats love rabbits. Almost everyone loves rabbits.

But, in 1859, some idiot (Thomas Austin) released 24 wild European rabbits in Australia. Those rabbits went on to multiply into millions and cause the extinction of 1/8th of all mamalian species in Australia. They created serious erosion problems by eating plants necessary for soil integrity. And, who knows how many plant species became extinct?

The Rabbit is an animal that conforms to European Rules, but when introduced to an environment that operates under Australian Rules… there is disaster.

Islam is a religion conceived under the hot sun of the desert – by the Arabs, a people forged by the harsh rules of that same desert.

What happens when a religion and people of harsh rules spread into a different system? History provides an answer to that one.

Hatred. Violence. Death. Destruction. Famine. Pain. Suffering.

(Think also of the Viking invasions of Britain. The Germanic invasions of Europe. The Mongol invasions of China.)

What happens when this people comes into conflict with a people that operates under a Judeo-European set of rules?

Hatred. Violence. Death. Destruction. Famine. Pain. Suffering.

I see that you have the picture.

That’s why I’ve been so spotty with my blogging. However, I should be entering a quiet patch in November which should allow me to be more consistant.

Why November?

Well, I’m running around like a crazy person, trying to get everything ready for a major trip to the US. Some things are going smoothly. Some things aren’t.

When it rains, it pours.

Of course in Israel, that is both true and a blessing.

Rain is a life and death issue in Israel, so when it rains we feel better. There’s nothing like the pitter patter of rain on the roof to give you that nice warm fuzzy feeling. Just like there’s nothing like reports that the Kinneret (Sea of Galilea) is rising. Or, that we’ve exceeded the yearly rainfall averages.

It’s that important.

In Israel, when it rains on your parade, you’ve been blessed.

———— 

I’ve made the point about the connection between water and war.

But, the point is really more about sophistication. It’s about societal development.

There are A LOT of reasons why societies don’t develop, and it seems that most of them are concentrated in the countries in our neighborhood. Egypt is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. The Syrians are viciously repressive of their people. The Lebanese are constantly on the brink of civil war.

I could go on.

The only exception seems to be Jordan. More on her later.

In all of these examples, the level of education is abysmal – which means that their chance of becoming sophisticated, non-agricultural societies is zilch. (Well, except for Jordan.)

If you want to know why it’s important to be sophisticated and non-agricultural, read last Friday’s post.

The point is that Israel needs to be aware of the societal development in her neighbors, because it is precisely that LACK of societal development that makes them a long term threat to Israel’s security.

As long as the water-poor countries in the Middle East are agriculture based… (which of course, means all of them) Israel will always need a large, sophisticated army.

Who would have thought that the lowly tomato could start a war. 

Unfortunately, 1.5 billion people in the world can’t do that – at least with anything that is clean and delightfully crystal clear.

However, drinking water isn’t the point.

It takes a thousand tons of water to produce one ton of wheat. Think about that the next time you go to the supermarket. That one pound bag of flour represents a thousand pounds of water.

That’s why water poor countries must import their wheat – and their vegetables and their meat and anything else that consumes that much water.

Agriculture is amazingly water intensive. Thank God that this planet has lots of it. The problem is when countries don’t understand the implications of this.

Ah, I see that you are ahead of me on this one. Water poor countries need to get out of the agriculture business – and into businesses that consume less water. And THAT means that they need to IMPORT their food.

Of course, countries in the business of growing food will need something in return. They will want something that they can use. And if it isn’t food…

Well, what’s left is human services and manufactured goods.

The problem is that manufacturing and human services require infrastructure and education. You need engineers and teachers. You need parents who encourage their kids to higher levels of education. You need roads and bridges. You need power plants and school buildings.

You need sophisticated societies.

The problem is that in MY part of the world, it is generally the LEAST sophisticated societies that have the least amount of water. What happens when an unsophisticated society runs out of water?

They try to take it from someone else, and that means war.

You do the math.