Londonderry News

President Obama, with the approval of Congress, has blundered ahead to fund and arm so called moderate Sunnis in Syria to fight the radical Sunnis in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This is a huge error because there are no moderate Sunnis.
In the Middle East it is all about religion. The so called moderate Sunnis in Syria will turn the arms against President Assad of Syria and his Shiite followers. Their enemy is Assad and the Shiites, not the fellow Sunnis of ISIS. If they succeed in overthrowing Assad, the so called moderate Sunnis and ISIS will incorporate all of Syria and part of Iraq into their caliphate.

This will mean we will have to continue our air campaign in Iraq and Syria, but now we will have to go after a much wider and more entrenched target which is equipped with our equipment.

We should continue the air strikes, arm the Kurds, and provide advisers to the Iraqi Army. If we must provide arms to the Syrians, they should be obsolete and in poor condition without spare parts.

Don Moskowitz is a well known prolific writer on subjects of the nation and the world that spark his interest. Retiring from the US Navy in 1967 as a Lieutenant, he often writes on military and political maters he is very active in the Londonderry American Legion. A long career in corporate management he retired after developing a successful business with multiple locations in southern New Hampshire.

He lives in Londonderry, New Hampshire with his wife Betty, they have three children and four grandchildren.

July 28, 2014 marks the one hundred year anniversary of the official start of WWI.
A local newspaper reader asked me to write about WWI and the impact on the Middle East. The problem in doing this is complying with the typical 200 word limit of many newspapers, but I decided to do it anyway since I owed it to my wife’s father, Alton Jones and her uncle William Howard Jones, both WWI Marines who fought in France and Belgium in Maj. Gen. Lejeune’s Second Marine Division. They fought in many WWI battles, including Belleau Wood, the Verdun operations, Aisne-Marne Offensive, Meuse-Argonne Offensive, St. Mihiel Offensive and the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge. William Howard received the French Croix de Guerre and the U.S. Silver Star for his service at Blanc Mont, France on October 3, 1918. The award stated “by lying down in middle of road using his automatic pistol so effective that he staid the enemy- counter attack until remainder of group could get in line.”

The Ottoman Turks, who were aligned with Germany and Austria during WWI, were defeated between 1915 and 1918 by the British and French and an Arab insurgency sparked by “Lawrence of Arabia”. In 1919 Britain and France carved up the former Ottoman Empire into various Middle East Arab countries based on geographic parameters and did not take into consideration religious, sectarian or ethnic preferences of the local populations. The countries included Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Additionally, Great Britain enacted the Balfour Declaration which promised a homeland in the Middle East for Jewish people, which came to fruition with the formation of Israel in 1948.

The current warfare and volatility in the Middle East reflects a history spanning almost 1500 years. The religious and sectarian conflicts have been going on in the Middle East since at least the Seventh century when the Prophet Muhammad died in 632. Some Muslims chose a close friend of Prophet Muhammad, Abu Bakr, to become Caliph, the leader of Islam, and they were titled Sunnis. Other Muslims chose to follow Ali, Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, and they were titled Shias, or Shiites.

The borders established by Great Britain and France after WWI did not reflect the wishes of the Middle East inhabitants and only inflamed their deep rooted animosities based on religious/sectarian and ethnic loyalties. The current fighting in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel are a partial consequence of decisions made by European powers after WWI.

Donald A. Moskowitz
Londonderry, NH

Don Moskowitz is a well known prolific writer on subjects of the nation and the world that spark his interest. Retiring from the US Navy in 1967 as a Lieutenant, he often writes on military and political maters he is very active in the Londonderry American Legion. A long career in corporate management he retired after developing a successful business with multiple locations in southern New Hampshire.

He lives in Londonderry, New Hampshire with his wife Betty, they have three children and four grandchildren.