Well I'm for Nuking Isis. Only problem, being a Bleeding Heart Commie Queer, is the 99% of innocents they're hiding behind. So we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. Like the Marines did in the Pacific. Dig the fuckers out cave by cave. That, and try not to shoot the kids, and grandma while we do it. The Marines were on the whole, with some horrifying exceptions, good at that. See below.
Post from my Facebook pal,.....(Miguel Wilkins):
How can "heroes" make horrifying exceptions? Goody guys don't become hired goons for the world's most prolific mass murdering machine of the last 70 years. It must be in the region of 20+ million killed or allowed to be killed in order to "protect the USA" by now, even though there has never been an existential threat to it.
If "Isis" managed that amount, then they'd truly be a global threat.
My reply:
U.S. a "Mass Murdering Machine? In some ways yes, but it's not that simple. We're not doing it alone...never have been. Still if ya like okay...True. I mean "true" if you count all the proxy wars between the U.S. China, and Russia since 1945.
It's worse than the 20million you mention. Actually I read that there are maybe as many as 30/40,000,000 dead in all of the Cold War conflicts. 1945 to now. All of the coups revolutions insurrections land wars dirty wars clan wars corrupted elections theft of resources ethnic cleansings assassinations internal social disruptions...the culture war the drug wars the race wars the tech wars.
All inspired by the Bi-Polar Rivalry, and it's aftermaths. Still as for "Isis" perhaps the most deadly ideology since 20th century German National Socialism, and the so far worse blow back of western interference in the Mid-East.
Ultimately regards Isis we'll have to dig'em out, and kill'em perhaps one at a time like on Iwo Jima
Hence my earlier "Marine" reference. In short another long dirty type war. The alternative is what the French are doing in vengeance for the attack on their capital Paris. "Area" bombing killing the innocent with the guilty. This of course is what we'll eventually probably do...it's faster than "Hearts, and Minds. That, and it makes good headlines.
I just read the Russians want a "Worldwide Coalition" to obliterate "Isis" after the attacks today in Mali which killed a number of Russians. Them Isis maniacs are probably both too stupid, and too committed to fucking them "72 Virgins" to be saying "...Oh Shit!!" "We done it now!"
We can only hope so.
Stay Tuned.
I'm glad the Russians are gung-ho to stomp the wannabe Caliphate, and I wish them much success. Maybe we can too, if we really want to. It's probably better than droning wedding parties.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe we'd be wiser to just get out of the way. So far our meddling in the Middle East has only made things much worse; there'd most likely be no IS without it. Furthermore, wars are expensive and we're not exactly in great shape economically. Are we really ready to start shipping out the body bags in serious numbers?
Step #1 toward something resembling peace or least putative sanity is to stop destabilizing the region by trashing countries and killing their leaders, a dumb policy if ever there was one. For instance, there's no good reason why "Assad must go." That sort of thinking is the principal cause of the troubles in that part of the world, meseems. US foreign policy for the past 25 years has been a clusterfuck of feckless neocon fuckwaddery, and Europe is now paying the price with an influx of refugees far more numerous than can be sanely integrated into European societies, and much too rapid for migrants even to be screened for communicable diseases. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. I mean come on, 400,000 immigrants in TEN DAYS? Jebus!
Another factor contributing to an awful situation is the drought that's been going on in Syria (and, I suppose, in adjacent regions) for the past few years. Prince Chuck even mentioned this the other day in the Guardian.
Also, I find mention online that the Saudis and other Gulf states are major sponsors of IS. Are we just gonna sit with our thumbs up our butts and keep on sending them big fat checks for Regular, Diesel and Premium for the foreseeable future? What's the point of getting tough with their proxies while *they* snuggle up to their eunuch-bedizened harems?
If we *really* wanna help clean up the mess we made, we need to get a reasonable foreign policy; and maybe we need, like the Scarecrow, to get a brain.
Z
PS - I should have rounded off my last remark with this: it seems to me that too much of the reason we do what we do is predicated on our deep psychological need to hurl ourselves into a frenzy of National Security Theatre histrionics, while at the same time vainly attempting to control the whole world. Reasonable policies require more rational motives than that.
ReplyDeleteZ
Having read your post I have only one question. Would 'you' like to be Secretary of State?
ReplyDeleteOf course not! No sane person would want to head up any major office of the Federal government as currently composed. Today, they are there to do the bidding of corporations and neocon crackpots. A few decades ago, things weren't this bad; the institutional culture hadn't so decayed. I'm willing to admit that I'm not cut out for that kind of a job, even under the best of circumstances: but then, I'm not trying to run the world, just pointing out the evident irrationality of those who currently happen be attempting that. One of our late great statesmen - I'm blanking on his name, but you'd know him - expressed dismay toward the end of his life a few years ago that all the benefits of his hard diplomatic work were being flushed.
ReplyDeleteI'm not claiming to have a solution to our problems. There is no solution, just the possibility of palliative damage control. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening. Historians have observed that late-phase empires tend to intensify all the processes that accelerate their decline. We're doing that.
This said, I'd be delighted to see someone crush IS. Doesn't matter so much who, as that it get done. Death cultic looniness must be stamped out.
Come to think of it, the USA's first international military involvement was actually quite a creditable one. The U.S. Navy stamped out the Barbary corsairs, who had been preying on Mediterranean shipping for 250 years and enslaving quite a few Europeans. Putting them out of business was a good deed. Maybe we can return to being Boy Scouts?
Z
BTW, I've got some medical probs I developed lately. I won't go into specifics, but the general picture will be familiar to you - cracked teeth, planned and unplanned hospital visits, squads of strong men carrying me into an ambulance, that sort of thing. Encroaching, uh, middle age is a thing to be contended with. I think I'll resort to doing some smutty drawings to cheer myself up.
ReplyDeleteZ
Smutty drawing, and collages...yeah i was thinking along the same lines.
ReplyDeleteAs for matters of state good point.
Fuck it. it's really just damage control as we slip into the role currently in use by the former British Empire. maybe the world will like us better when we stop fucking them over so much.
I look forward if I live that long to seeing our wealth which by the way is still there only in a tiny number of hands. I'll be happy to see them Mega Bucks put to good use like fixing the bridges highways schools playgrounds, and Senior Citizen Gulags which I'll soon be entering.
Sorry your body is breaking down...you'll get used it it.
Yeah big guys dragging one into the meat wagon. Been there done it alot. The good thing is one still comes home from all that swell fun. At least so far. So get on with the smutty art, and leave bombing the hell out of Medieval Nazi to strong young Russian Bomber pilots.
The American ones are in Turkey, and on carriers without orders to do anything. I don't blame them I blame that useless pussy in D.C. for their just sitting around playing cards while the Mid-East bled to death.
As always I mean all this in a Nice way.