Eyes Both Closed
Although the New York Times has optimistically described the incident as an opportunity for both Israel and Egypt to make common cause against Islamic militants, the attack on an Egyptian army base on Israel’s border, like the escalating Syrian civil war, is not only a warning that the foreign policy storm is coming. It suggests that it is here.
Egyptian jihadis based in the Sinai launched an attack on an Egyptian military base, killing at least 16 Egyptian soldiers and kidnapping a number of others. “Egyptian military sources told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency that the terror attack was carried out against a central army position near the Kerem Hashalom crossing, which is known by the soldiers as ‘Tahrir Square.’”
If the Egyptians were taken by surprise, the Israelis were not. “One of the vehicles, likely boobytrapped, exploded as it rammed through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is shared by Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip. A number of terrorists succeeded in exiting the second vehicle before it was destroyed by an air strike. They crossed into Israel and engaged in a firefight with IDF troops.”
IDF sources said the attackers were probably Beduin residents of Sinai who were part of a larger global jihad terror cell based in the peninsula. Six terrorists were killed in the gunfight. …
The IDF said the attack was not connected to an Israeli air strike earlier in the day against a global jihad terror cell that was in the final stages of planning an attack against Israel and along the Egyptian border. The air strike killed one terrorist and seriously wounded another.
The Los Angeles Times, which also characterizes the attack as the new Egyptian president’s wake-up call, nevertheless points out the obvious. The struggle for Egypt has begun. It is between the “good guys” — the Muslim Brotherhood types like Morsi — and the bad guys, who are far, far worse.
“The extremists have increased since the revolution. They have blown up the gas pipeline to Israel. They have targeted checkpoints and fought with the Egyptian army,” said Sallam. “They seem to have political aims but no one knows what they are. We are worried they could get stronger.” The escalation by militants is complicating the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty, a centerpiece of Middle East security since it was signed in 1979. The U.S. and Israel, which has hinted it may act unilaterally in Sinai to protect its security, have urged Egypt’s military and its new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, to rout the extremists.”
Either way, it is not going to be happy times for Israel. Trouble is brewing to the north as well. Michael Totten notes that Hezbollah’s position is crumbling in Lebanon. “It’s already starting to happen even while Assad is still standing.” Assad has been on the receiving end of the best insurgency that money can support. Gunmen have kidnapped visiting Iranians in the Syrian capital. Syria’s first astronaut has defected to Turkey. Even Syria’s prime minister has defected to Jordan. He said:
“I announce today my defection from the killing and terrorist regime and I announce that I have joined the ranks of the freedom and dignity revolution,” Hijab said in a statement read in his name on Al Jazeera television.
To add insult to injury, the Syrian rebels have blown up the government TV station in downtown Damascus. It’s all being orchestrated, according to the BBC, from that secret base inside Turkey described in earlier posts. “Qatar and Saudi Arabia are also reported to be providing assistance for what has been described as a secret nerve centre for military aid and communications for the Syrian rebels. This is reported to have been set up in Adana.”
And it’s not just Alawite vs. Sunni any longer. According to NBC News, Syria is now about “Londoner versus Londoner.” “A British photojournalist has described the terrifying week he was held captive by radical Islamist militants in Syria, where he and another photographer constantly feared for their lives at the hands of ‘disenchanted’ young Britons.” I think the word they are looking for in place of “disenchanted” is “Islamist.”
But as is usual in these cases, to every action there is an opposite reaction. Iran, according to the Daily Caller, “is preparing for a direct attack on Saudi Arabia should Syria’s Bashar Assad be in danger of falling to rebel forces that the Islamic regime believes are being supported by the Arab kingdom, according to a source within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran also blames the Saudis for unrest in two of its provinces.”
“Dozens of Iranian ballistic missiles have been preprogrammed to hit Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia,” the source said. “Qatar will also be hit at the same time as it is directly involved with the events in Syria.”
And Syria is definitely feeling the crunch. The Washington Post reported that “Syria reached out to its powerful ally Russia on Friday, as senior officials pleaded with Moscow for financial loans and supplies of oil products — an indication that international sanctions are squeezing President Bashar Assad’s regime.” The most urgent need was for gasoline, according to Wired. “On Friday, Syria secured a crucial oil deal with Russia. Under the deal, Russia will ship refined gasoline to fuel-starved Syria. In exchange, the Syrian regime will ship unrefined crude oil to Russia.”
The reason for Syria’s economic troubles is Assad’s lack of extensive oil refineries. An oil pipeline to one refinery was blown up in January, and his regime has been choked by U.S./European Union sanctions. With as much as an estimated one-third of the regime’s budget coming from crude exports, Assad’s ability to pay his bills — and import refined gasoline to fuel his army — had been pauperized. Assad was forced to rely in part on the occasional Venezuelan tanker ship. “We need oil, oil products,” said Qadri Jamil, Syria’s deputy prime minister for economics. “Shortages of these materials are making the situation in the country difficult.”
The Libyan intervention, which was carried out in the name of the “responsibility to protect” civilians, has opened a Pandora’s box. A Harvard study claims that it has unleashed thousands of weapons upon the innocent. “Abandoned weapons that were once part of toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi’s arsenal pose an ongoing and serious threat to civilians in Libya, warned a report published by Harvard University on Thursday.”
“These weapons may have been abandoned, but their ability to harm civilians remains intact,” said Bonnie Docherty, leader of the research team sent to Libya by Harvard Law School and partner organisation CIVIC.
Weapons left behind after last year’s conflict range from bullets and mortars to torpedoes and surface-to-air missiles, creating an “explosive situation” in a country with a weak central government, the report said.
“The sheer scale of weapons here is shocking,” co-author Nicolette Boehland told AFP in Tripoli.
An administration which pursues gun control at home in the name of public safety has so far succeeded in unleashing thousands of weapons in Mexico, Libya, and now Syria — an irony only matched by Rudy Giuliani’s observation that the idea that Obama is a friend of the Jewish state is “the biggest joke” he’s ever heard.
Wretchard, it’s not that they forgot, it’s they “can’t” tell you (us) the truth, it’s far worse “for them” to tell the truth then to continue the lie! The Truth is banned from our Government institutions and it (the Truth) says it’s is going to get far worse… Dec 21 2012 is looking like a predication that just may come true!
Yes, the ironies abound. Perhaps the Mahdi malware was made possible by the Iranians reconfiguring the stuxnet virus.
The world today is more like that of 1917 than at any time since. The fruits of internationalism, of diminishing American exceptionalism, of confusing plebiscite with democracy, are ripening and falling to the ground.
Perhaps 1917 is not the date to compare with. Perhaps it is more like 284 or 378, on its way to 410.
In the beginning I suggested that allowing Iraq to break apart mayn’t be such a bad idea. What woulda-coulda happened if we had encouraged at the very least a Kurdistan made up of the Iraqi rump? Iranian Kurdistan would be more restless, adding fuel to the Iranian internal fire, Turkish Kurds would be a source of pressure on an ever more intransigent Turkey and now Syria.
If we had actually thought the chess game a couple of moves further out, we might have seen that a US friendly Kurdistan was more stable and more useful and equally centrally located as Iraq.
Of course the primary function of the State Department in those days was dissing the president. They even admitted it.
It seems that domestic Democrat Power politics overshadowed Bi Partisan National Interests.
Soo…nothing new here. Move along.
We may well look on the lost Pax Americana and say, “how on earth did we get that?” And then it is on to following the next sound bite in the New York Times, the next opportunity touted by those who will never tell us the truth because they have forgotten it themselves.
That is the problem faced by most false prophets and con artists. The Faithful actually believe the lies and start to rely upon them, never realizing that the lies were merely tools to use in pursuit of ulterior and hidden motives. But sooner or later it all starts to come apart. It can be a rude surprise when you are drowning and none of your loyal followers throws you a life preserver. After all, it never occurs to them to do so because you have always told them that you can walk on water–and they believed it.
I’m all for an independent Kurdistan made up of parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Best thing to happen to the region since 1948. On careful consideration I wonder if the Saudis might not agree, and if they do, then it might happen. OTOH they’re probably too constipated to think that far out of the box, … if that’s not mixing metaphors!
TV news report yesterday that in spite of JPL and the Mars lander, aerospace has been leaving California for thirty years and if the remainder flies away it will impact the state and especially Los Angeles very heavily, adding to the collapse of the state.
History proceeds apace all over the world, and really did anyone expect it to be a monotonically increasing trendline?
What else … oh yeah Egypt, Sinai, Israel. I heard Morsi just dismissed the governor of Sinai, probably a good move in western terms, and Morsi probably thinks of himself as at least partially western, but will it work in local terms? I dunno. Depends too much on Egyptian internals I haven’t a hint about. What on Earth did the attackers think they were going to get by such an act? I’m sure it’s a nuisance, but this just sounds to me like evolution in action.
A very timely commentary. One minor nit: it was not Ronald Reagan’s “thousand points of light” – that was George H.W. Bush. It was, curiously, reminiscent of Chairman Mao’s “let a thousand flowers bloom”.
Ronald Reagan’s “thousand points of light”
Wasn’t that George H. W. Bush?
The Iranian government stakes so much of its credibility upon keeping the Assad regime in power that the overthrow of the Assad regime becomes more and more in the interests of the United States. The Assad regime must fall, if only to spite the Iranian government. The question is not whether the Assad regime should fall, but who wins Syria.
I don’t think al-Qaeda has infiltrated the Syrian opposition; it was part of the opposition to begin with. The question is whether partisans of liberal democracy can sufficiently infiltrate the Syrian opposition to wrest control of Syria from the Sunni Islamists. Something must also be done to defend the rights of Syrian minorities, particularly against Sunni Islamists. The principal reason why Assad regime must fall is precisely because its atrocities and its alliance with the Iranian government endanger Syria’s religious minorities.
If Alawites want an autonomous zone, many people in the West would support that. However, that would be contingent upon Bashar Assad no longer being in any position of power, and neither Syria nor any Alawite enclave being aligned with the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei. It would help the cause of Alawite autonomy if Alawites within the Syrian military launch a coup d’etat against Bashar Assad in Damascus, declare a cease-fire against the Syrian opposition, retreat from Aleppo, and evacuate the Syrian embassy in Tehran.
Given how many factions have been itching for a pretext to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the firing of Iranian missiles at the Saudi Kingdom may turn out to be a perverse blessing. If Khamenei regime starts a war, it will be blamed for attacks on its nuclear sites rather than its enemies. The Iranian government likes to flap its mouth, but now that it has threatened to bomb Riyadh upon the fall of Damascus, its threats will ring hollow unless it follows through.
Let the curds have their whey.
If memory serves me, Woodrow Wilson favored establishing an independent Kurdistan but by the time Sykes and Picot drew the map, Wilson was incapacitated by his stroke.
How fascinating it is to see centripetal and centrifugal forces war against each other. We have balkanization and globalization going on simultaneously; we have secularization and fundamentalist sectarianism increasing at the same time; we have both individuality and central control wrestling with each other through technology. Can the center hold? I doubt it.
“What on Earth did the attackers think they were going to get by such an act?” I think that they were hoping for an over-reaction by the Israelis, which would turn into a shooting match between Israeli and Egyptian forces, which would lead to an ever-escalating series of events. They want a war with Israel. Nothing really complicated. Flawed thinking? Of course, but that’s never stopped Islamists before. We’re not dealing with rational actors.
Independent Kurdistan? Sounds great but how we get there without war is beyond me. Turkey and Iran won’t let the Kurds take control of their lands without a fight, and I doubt the Sunni/Shite Iraqis will let them go peaceably as well.
Like the USSR, the Left’s vision of Peace got better and better, more and more refined, ever so more nuanced and relevant, until it utterly collapsed.
Kinda reminds me of that old Twilight Zone episode with Billy Mumy. “Oh, it’s a good thing he did that! It’s so much better now!”
Hope Mitt has some special music set up for the convention, like for example:
“The Eastern world, it is exploding, violence flaring….”
9. stevesmith
Let the curds have their whey.
I’m giving you the “Walt” Award for that one!
The mullahs see Damascus as prolog.
Hence, they’re freaking out.
Like Hitler losing Normandy — Tehran figures the consequence will be a relentless roll-back.
They just can’t make their campaign pencil out: not enough stash.
I’d say that at least eastern Syria is lost to Kurdistan. I don’t see how the remnants pull it back into the fold. It only ever belonged inside Syria because of Sykes and Picot anyway.
I can’t imagine NATO sanctioning any Turkish attempt to annex eastern Syria/ Kurdistan.
At some point soon, Iran will erupt in bloody fighting. At which point, I’d expect her to permanently lose her Kurds and Baluchs.
These lands were only ever made a part of Iran in classic colonial times. They don’t economically or politically ‘fit.’ They are NOT money spinners for the central government — just a bone in the throat.
Like most of Oman, Baluchistan is useless bare rock — and one of the driest places on Earth. It’s only natural advantage is to be radioactive dump for the rest of the planet — for it is no one’s back yard!
The Kurdish area of Iran is like Switzerland – without the yodeling. It’s on the path to nowhere. That’s why they’re still there.
( DNA evidence places the Kurds in that part of the world circa 14,000 years ago, at least. Everyone else is a ‘recent’ arrival.)
[ And their closest genetic kin are the ancient Jews. A split between the Kurds and Jews apparently occurred some nine thousand years ago. ( It seems like only yesterday. ) This makes Jewish claims to the Holy Land of two thousand years history look mighty conservative. ]
This autumn could be most interesting in Tehran — since there is the very real prospect that their elite regime protection crew might be lost, trapped in Damascus, unable to lend their talents in the streets of Tehran.
Popcorn. Mmmmm.
Thankfully we have the sublime genius of Barack Obama in charge of American policy.
I’m sure he’ll know what to do to make everything come out OK in the end.
Tarnsman…
It was going to be the first shot in a YouTube war: video was to be uploaded within moments to the WWW.
And with that, AQ in the Sinai was to recruit far and wide.
My guess is that the opfor exercised poor operational security…
So, while it was easy to backstab their compatriots; the Israelis proved to be too much for the clown brigade.
Instead, THEIR embarrassment has been uploaded to the WWW.
Video immediately, story later.
Wretchard: “On every inch of the way the liberal press told us things were getting much, much better until they were suddenly far, far worse. A cynical person might conclude the Left has sold the public instability in the name of peace; a storm in under the guise of calm. It has certainly sold the public poverty in the name of prosperity.
But why not? Words are everything and lies are necessary so that we never ever guess at the truth. …..
… a perfect storm of events that have shred the veneer of sophisticated civilization”. Like many other things Detroit had been destroyed by an ideology which systematically replaced rational thinking with the chanting of slogans.”
The core of the problem may be that the Left needs to believe it’s own bull sheet. For not to believe, means that they must confront the decades of contradictions and evidence that their wonderful, compassionate philosophy not only doesn’t lead to peace, equality, freedom from the man, diversity, harmony et al; it, really in the end. leads to death, destruction, massive poverty and a ugly authoritarian fascism. Such a process, rigorously and honestly done, would mean a thorough re-examination of their whole political philosophy and their approach to life. Deep down they probably know they have a problem and that they are responsible for some terrible destruction. But they dread facing that reality. Psychologically, they know in their heads is this massive can of worms, so toxic and so frightening, once opened ,would lead to an excruciatingly painful examination of what they have wrought.
So they retreat into denial and lying. It’s a fearful, deep seeded denial that they can never ever let the truthful light of day shine some reality into their world. That is why they go so ballistic when anyone tries to expose them to the truth.
And now, we are seeing the consequence of the decades of these pathological lies.
Bill Whittle on Afterburner:
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=7267
Aerospace is moving to Texas, California is going for railroads to nowhere. “It burns!”
Let’s see Obama’s pivot to Asia, he’s sending harsh letters to the Chinese but leaving the Philippines out to dry as the Chinese steal their off shore Islands, fisheries, and potential sea bed minerals. This is leaving some US present and former military kind of pissed off.
‘Guantanamo was closed’ when?
Well said, Richard. This is why we read you.
Impeach Obama 19
Not taking any new clients (reservations)
Twenty years ago Quebec wanted to secede, Japanese corporations were pioneering a new international corporatism, and The New Tribalism was all the rage. Broadcasting was giving way to narrowcasting.
Now the Internet has made each person an Army of One, and any new tribalism seems an opportunity to “like” something in yet another tribe. Tribalism is now as much constructive and destructive – perhaps we are all already maximally deconstructed.
Meanwhile, Red states and Blue states are just about ready to secede from each other, maybe we can get Hillary to start working on a two-state solution for the occupied 48.
Even the New York Times is beginning to understand why Guanatanamo was effectively closed. It had nothing to do with humanitarianism, only with the appearance of humanitarianism.
All I can say is ha ha ha ha. I predicted this many times on this very blog. I argued that all this fake humanitarianism was going to do was sweep the dirt under the rug. If you want to genuinely guarantee the human rights of the enemy, then you have to accept casualties. But Obama knew his voters would never consent to risk their lives for a principle. They want to feel safe for free. He understand what they wanted,and he gave it to them.
All the humanitarians ever wanted was no legal and publicity connection with the business of counterterrorism. Instead of doing things openly and taking responsibility for it, Obama has decided to act completely in the dark and pretend nothing happens. He gave them the lie, and they loved it.
IDF Bedouin border scouts were first infantry to respond to the breech by the armored vehicle. They succeeded in turning it away from sensitive areas into the teeth of an air strike and three tanks who destroyed the APC. Good work.
Wretchard #23:
“It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals.”
The good news is that this same bureaucratic ritual will come in handy for implementing Obamacare, for the good Dr. Emmanual’s Death Panels.
14. blert
You’re wrong about the Kurds. They are Indo-European descendants of the Aryans who settled the area c. 1900 B.C. when the Aryan clans broke off from the main Indo-European migration streams into northwest India. They made this move a little after the Hittites, another Indo-European group, penetrated Anatolia, and when other IE groups (e.g., the Greeks) were moving west into Europe from their homeland in west-central Asia (i.e., Ukrainian Steppe-Caspian region). The Aryans introduced the horse and the light spoke-wheel horse-drawn war chariot to the Near East. They established themselves as overlords of the Hurrian peoples then resident in the region and founded the Kingdom of Mitanni in the Great Bend of the Euphrates (modern Kurdistan). Mitanni was destroyed in the wars of the Hittite king Suppilluliuma I, and the remnants of the kingdom were subsequently absorbed by the upstart Neo-Assyrian state. The latter would subsequently battle and conquer a legacy polity of the vanished Mitanni, the Kingdom of Urartu. The Kurds have no connection with the Hebrew people: as I said, they are Indo-Europeans. Your information is severely outdated–obsolete scholarship.
“Iran” is a derivation of “Aryan.” The Kurds and the Persian/Iranian peoples are kin to each other. Carved on the tomb of Cyrus I (“The Great”) is this inscription: “Arya, Arya, Parsaya Puthra, Arya, Arya, Cithra.” Or: “I am an Aryan, son of an Aryan, an Aryan of Aryan Descent.”
“These weapons may have been abandoned, but their ability to harm civilians remains intact,”
What! Is some fluffy bunny liberal actually suggesting that guns don’t kill, people do?
Now I have seen everything.
On the other hand, as I pointed out when Syria started wobbling so many months ago and the cowards mantra was “If we get involved, the Whole Middle East will go up in flames”, that was going to happen regardless of any actions by the USA. IIRC, I pointed out that the ME has pretty much BEEN in flames for a looooong time.
The best thing the USA can do is use our technological advantage to kill tyrants, despots and dictators. Where ever we find them. You cannot force democracy on people but you can kill those that use force to prevent the people from embracing democracy.
Not even Pootie is safe.
Islam has a large component of delusion built in. Fools still think Egypt won in ’73. That is because it took 19 days for Israel to defeat Egypt AND Syria. Today the balance of power is greater for Israel then it was in ’73.
The sad truth is that many of us want to be lied to, even in love. When we want to start over again after betrayal, when we want to forgive, the rational thing is to understand the facts, so that we can give absolution. But sometimes the truth is so awful that we would rather deny that anything horrible happened. We don’t want to forgive, we really want is to pretend the bad thing never happened.
Obama’s greatest insight, like that of a creep with a hold over a woman, is the knowledge that she wants to be lied to. She wants to believe that the money he borrows from her is for a business, not the other woman. She wants to think he’s really looking for a job, not sponging off her; she wants to imagine that the drugs he offers her are just because he wants to make her feel good. She knows it’s a lie. But she wants to hear it. And he, in turn, is happy to tell it.
It’s the politics of a punk, but it takes two to tango. Sure this is the most ethical and humanitarian administration to ever come along. A very wise person once told me that it is never safe to leave important things at the level of abstraction where you can be swept along by fine words and soaring visions. The truth, she said, was to be found in the particular, in the fine print.
Campaigns, she said, are won in the abstract, but governance occurs in the concrete. President Obama could lie to the voters for as long as he stayed on the plane of smoke and mirrors. But when it came down to who lived and died; what money there was or was not; what worked or did not then the truth became unavoidably evident.
r @ 26: The Kurds have no connection with the Hebrew people
So that character Abraham from Ur (now Irbil Iraq, more or less), wasn’t a native, or doesn’t represent the Hebrew people?
Your recitation reminds me of Dan Akroyd and company in Ghostbusters, researching the origin of Zul and Gozer the Gozarian. Are you the Keymaster?
Anyway, at the risk of setting you into yet too much more detail, at some point later than you left off the Kurds succumbed to Islam and yet maintained both a tribal and a religious identity of their own, right to this day.
29. Josh
Abraham was a Semite and Ur of the Chaldees was located well south (and downriver from) the Mitanni lands. Your question about Abraham is meaningless. There was no connection–linguistic, cultural, ethnic–between the Aryans of Mitanni and the Hebrew peoples from lower Mesopotamia.
Is that too much detail for you? If so, we can stick to talking about Ghostbusters.
28. wretchard
Ouch.
Been said here, or perhaps elsewhere, that the Persians have a quick die-off birth rate. Far below replacement. Other ethnic groups, most troublingly for the mullahs, are growing rapidly.
What do you do when you have leveraged minorities against each other and then…you’re the smallest of them.
The October Surprise is beginning to take form…
Dostoyevsky (forgive my spelling) understood your main point very well, Wretchard. Remember the Grand Inquisitor from the Brothers Karamazov? “The people will love us, because we allow them to sin. Yes, even sin we will allow them, and we will take the responsibility upon ourselves. You (Jesus) cared only for the strong, those strong enough to follow you. But, we, we care for all, including the millions who are not strong.”
For sin, let us substitutute taking a stand on principle, the principle of fighting a war openly, taking prisoners, taking responsibility for ones actions. The Left wanted none of it. They, as you say, wanted the lie. So, in the open Guantamano Bay takes no more prisoners, no more inmates. There is no more talk of torture. Instead, suspected terrorists are simply…executed. Quietly, without fanfare. A strange way to safeguard human rights, I would think – except the Left can tell themselves, with the lie, that they mean well, that they are unlike the brutal chimphitlerbush, and therefore their hands are clean. I imagine the people who condemned Cambodia to Pol Pot and South Vietnam to conquest, re-education camps and boat people felt the same way.
As for the Fires and Furies in the Middle East, well, I can only say that this, too, is the fruit of the Left in America. This too, is what they want. It must be. Anyone with basic common sense would know exactly what would happen if the World Policeman, the Hegemon, packed up and went home. Just as anyone knows what would happen if the police in his local city were to walk off the job. Without the state to impose order, the result is not Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, its Lord of the Flies. If I can know that, Wretchard, anyone can. So I can only say to the Left: ” enjoy the wars, enjoy the oil price hikes that will follow. Enjoy the pain and suffering of those who cannot protect themselves. For this is what you have willed into being.”
“These weapons may have been abandoned, but their ability to harm civilians remains intact…”
Anybody recall the Left’s complaints that Bush did not instantly secure the weapons stockpiles in Iraq?
And now, whoyagonnablame? Whose policy was RTP? Nobody’s? Anybody’s? Ah! I know! Everybody’s! The standard DC answer!
And as for Syria, what comes to mind is that just before the Shah fell it was the US shipping fuel to Iran. Now the Russians get to play that role.
A strange way to safeguard human rights, I would think – except the Left can tell themselves, with the lie, that they mean well, that they are unlike the brutal chimphitlerbush, and therefore their hands are clean.
The only thing that ruins the scheme is the possibility that God exists. Or if that notion isn’t for you, put it another way: what if the truth matters? Then how can the lie save us?
We somehow think that a falsehood solves things. Yet rationally, when did it ever? In every case ever examined reality demands its due. Nothing is too big to fail. Everything has a price. The lie is a false comfort. Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor can no more change reality with deception than a snake oil salesman can cure a terminally sick man.
We know this. We know it. And still, it is better not to think it … The niggling thought that may even now be bothering thinking liberals is this: what if the consequences of their lying are coming? Not perhaps the judgment of God as commonly conceived, but the consequences of reality which is to some others the same thing.
What happens on the day when the front page of the New York Times won’t stop things any more?
Nah. It will never happen. You hope.
Roughcoat…
The link is purely from the DNA sequencing — which is slowly unraveling connections all over that are up ending all prior assumptions about who came from where and when.
The connection runs a mere 5 to 7 thousand years prior to the written record.
As you can imagine, the discovery was a complete surprise. Absolutely no one saw it coming.
===================
The DNA linkage between the Basques, Irish, Scots-Irish, Welsh and English was also completely confounding.
It turns out that a given culture can be utterly transformed WITHOUT any significant shift in the population’s DNA.
In the case of the English they entirely abandoned their native tongue in favor of a Viking tribe — recently of the western side of Denmark down towards Hamburg — known simply as the Angles. It seems to have occurred because the militarily successful Angles had a written language — and all land dealings had to be in writing — whereas the Britons did not.
===============
Much more recently the entire theory that Asiatics were the first humans into North America has been up ended.
It now appears that Europeans (Basques/Solutreans) came from the east and Asians ( Ainu/ Japan’s imperial bloodline ) came from the west.
The American Indians are NOT wanting it.
stevesmith # 9 This situation isn’t very punny.
Whenever the world lacks a Roman Empire, a Royal Navy or an assertive Uncle Sam, we are sure to look upon The Face Of Chaos. If corrective actions are not forthcoming the end result shall be Ye Olde State of Nature.
Interesting times, ain’t they.
r @ 30: Abraham was a Semite and Ur of the Chaldees was located well south (and downriver from) the Mitanni lands.
Not Irbil up north in current Kurdistan? OK, Googling around seems to confirm your version. I don’t have any idea where the idea came from the the Kurds and Hebrews were related, maybe it comes from the later Babylonian exile or something, but then I’ve also read about the DNA evidence blert mentions.
So maybe Abraham was from a Semitic family living further north, and went home and founded the Jewish nation, I dunno, but I was basically asking if you’d run across anything reconciling all the various tales.
b @ 37: It now appears that Europeans (Basques/Solutreans) came from the east and Asians ( Ainu/ Japan’s imperial bloodline ) came from the west.
Really, the Europeans arrived circa 30,000BC? Were they able to walk from Europe, plus or minus short portages less than 30 miles?
Do we presume the two sides met and crossbred thoroughly before populating most of north and south America?
About the Bedouins. In Israel they are supply trusted units of the IDF. In Jordan they formed the base of support for the relatively moderate Hashemite regime. So why are the Bedouins of the Sinai forming the shock troops for Islamists, who are elsewhere based among disaffected urban middle class youth? Did something happen during the 1967-’74 period of Israeli occupation?
Truth, what is truth?
Czarist Russia was a terrible ruthless lie that went on for generations, and then was followed by and even more brutal lie, Soviet communism, that killed millions, brewed a world war, and threatened to set the whole world on fire. Yet who now speaks the truth for the millions dead? Putin, the arrogant bald-headed Checkist in the Kremlin?
Yet just lately a living apologist for Soviet Russia, Gore Vidal, passed on and was hailed in some corners as some brilliant thinker. In other corners, as a hateful atheist bisexual pervert. Yet, which is the more widely held “truth”? Which “truth” was published in the mass media, and the papers of record?
When Khaddafy was killed, who remembers the cackling of our SoS about “we came, we saw, we killed him” ? And how appropriate was that to say, from this women who leads our foreign policy to say? And just how many Americans actually saw it?
Truth, political truth, is whatever these bastards can get away with. And that goes for whether they are the bastards on our side or the other side. Truth is whomever, at the end of the day, can wield enough raw power to shape the world to their liking. The United States may be the pre-eminent economic and military power on Earth, but if the leadership of the government is too weak, corrupt, venal or stupid to use that power to achieve a worthwhile end for our country or for the ideals we allegedly support, then the power is rendered meaningless, and the bald headed Russian Checkist in the Kremlin will try to form his own truth for the world to see.
And even now, the historical truth that the Islamic killing juggernaut is getting wound up again is becoming clearer also. In all history, the biggest killer of Muslims has been other Muslims. The Sunni – Shia schism will bleed all over the Middle East. And that is a truth that dare not be spoken quite yet by our political leadership.
What is the truth? … Truth, political truth, is whatever these bastards can get away with. And that goes for whether they are the bastards on our side or the other side. Truth is whomever, at the end of the day, can wield enough raw power to shape the world to their liking.
Bryan Preston at the Tatler, asks the same question. Do lies ever have consequences?
Preston thinks, as some others do, that there’s a limit to the fraud we can perpetrate against reality. Sooner or later, reality bites. The Tower of Babel falls. The too big to fail eventually fails. Personally I believe that in the short run swindlers win. But over the long term the truth catches up with them, somewhere somehow. Maybe I’m wrong.
But it’s an open question.
The trick, as most swindlers have already figured out, is to shuffle off the mortal coil before the furies overhaul you. Shakespeare is of two minds about that strategy.
I have often wondered why we think we can escape the truth by interposing so slender a curtain as death between us and It. I would hate to lose that bet.
When you have nothing to run on you go dirty. Simple. Obama really has no other choice. If he runs an issues campaign, he loses. So they go dirty. Plus I think the Obama campaign is trying to goad Romney; make him get angry and make a mistake/gaffe that they can exploit to divert attention from the fact that they have nothing else. Will it work? I doubt it. Seems to me that Romney’s smart enough to see through the ploy. But it might prompt Romney to quit being Mittoast and fight back. He does that and he might win some of us over whose support is only because he is the ABO candidate.
Blert @37:
Do you have a link to the research article? I have a few things to add to the discussion but will have to wait until tomorrow. What Roughcoat has said squares pretty well with what I remember, but I had Kurdish interpreter who once told me that the Kurds and the Jews were related. Whether that is really true or not is anyone’s guess…. In the meantime, I would love to have a look!
Josh #39:
*****Do we presume the two sides met and crossbred thoroughly before populating most of north and south America?
Yes.
The Solutrean Culture followed the icepack along the North Atlantic in oxhide boats.
Known as the Solutrean Hypothesis. See also Haplogroup X (mtDna).
19. impeach 0bama
‘Guantanamo was closed’ when?,
My question as well.
#40 Blast from the Past: I made the same observation. I have a passing experience with the Sinai Bedouin. They were mostly interested in preserving their way of life. The news reports that they are responsible for the recent terrorist attacks don’t ring true. The natural jihadi recruiting grounds in the Sinai would be among the disaffected poor in the towns of Al Arish, Gorah, etc.
This brings to mind the “So you want to have a revolution” conference the US State Department held a few years ago in DC. Some of the kiddies that pulled the Egyptian and other Arab Spring revolutions came to learn how to maintain communications, organize street riots, etc. They managed to get rid of Mubarak but did not have the support nor political machine to hold on to power. Now instead of a not so nice but friendly to us strong man in Egypt, we have the Muslim Brotherhood. Same in many of these other countries.
If the Romney wins and the Republicans get Congress, they should investigate this. It would just like a bunch of “Democracy” worshiping idealists to think they could have a revolution and not risk bad people coming to power and starting a war. Bush was much the same, invading Iraq and replacing a dangerous man but one who acted as a check against Iran with, well, the mess that Iraq is now plus throwing away Americas military credibility.
I am VERY interested in your DNA source material , contact me off this site re. your sources. docbill72@gmail.com
Thanks.
40. Blast From the Past,
I travelled the Nile back in ’70 with an Austrailian bushman who was also a Doctor of Anthropology at Oxford. He told me that the Bedouins were Egyptian outcasts. That ancient Egypt did not have prisons and did not murder citizens. Criminals were cast out of society, to live or die in the desert.
I have no idea if that was true or not. Sir Charles was much smarter then me and he could have been having a little fun with his poor dumb bodyguard.
But it made a lot of sense. Bedouins are far from united. Nomadic cultures tend to develop along the same lines. There are cultural similarities between Bedouins, Huns, and the Plains Indians of north America. Disaparate groups of humans, when faced with similar problems develop similar solutions.
Bedouins with the Jordan Army probably self identify with Jordan. Those in the Israel Army with Israeli. Those of Al Qaeda as Islamists. For ALL of them, their primary group is their tribe.
Mr. Fernandez,
The Los Angeles Times’ characterization of the standoff is fraudulent. The greatest threat to the Muslim Brotherhood is not the Jihadis, indeed they are one and the same. Nor is it even the Israelis.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s greatest enemy is the Egyptian Military.
That is why you don’t see any terrorist attacks against the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s also why President Mohamed Morsy has no interest in hunting down the terrorist support net – it’s their own net.
Instead, Morsy is using the incident to purge his enemies in the Egyptian Military and Intelligence communities. I personally believe he’s also worried about what the Egyptian Military might find if they push their operations and investigation far enough against the terrorists in the Sinai. They’re not naifs. This is taken seriously within the US defense establishment, even though many anticipated that something like this would eventually be the outcome.
Among the attempted political purge against the Egyptian Military is Major General Hamdi Badin in what looks like a panic move by Morsy trying to run a government by press edict. He’s trying to dismiss the top MP Chief Badin but apparently had no idea about the protocol to do so, nor with whom to replace him with.
The worst case scenario, however, is that Morsey installs some political Islamists into leadership roles in the Military who proceed to turn the Egyptian Military against itself.
To say nothing of the fact that this is all happening with the blessing of an American President.
The train is off the tracks.
This is the inevitable slow-motion wreck.
The saving grace in the emerging Islamist disaster is that those who help provoked it in the first place, like the Saudi rulers, pull back when its fires burn too close to home. The Saudis are great at talking tough about the evil Zionists (and I am sure they are quite sincere when they speak on the topic), but their pragmatism – desire to keep throne, money, lives – trumps the wild lusts…human nature has its benefits.
About the situation in Egypt, it is both alarming and reassuring to view the extent of the disaster. You present it, as usual, cogently and pithily. Again, the advantages to those who favor sanity is that the Saudis have the wild side of Morsi by the _______ ______. So, they are probably ‘suggesting’ to him that he get the Brotherhood, including Gaza, under control, or his people will starve. At that point, his first thoughts are less about the glorious and coming imposition of Sharia and more about thoughts of revolutionaries turning him into Qaddhafi.
The good news for Israel is that Bibi is quietly efficient, perhaps not bold as some of us would prefer, but cautiously building up the ramparts as the madness around grows.
Bryan Preston has nailed 0bama and his close supporters but also the Progressive/Liberal and today’s Demoncrat’s! unlike most of the past Demoncrats 0Bama’s kind really “Don’t care”! It is all or destroy it all, leave nothing, they are the “ANY MEANS justify the ends”! I do not think Mitt will overcome unless as Bryan say’s 0bama and his ilk are pushed to go over the tipping point and like Bryan says it’s hard to say where that point is.
Shouldn’t be too long now before that ‘Man of Peace’ shows up somewhere in the ME or Central Asia. It’s a good bet he comes out of a soon to arise Kurdistan. It’s a shame Dallas Theological Seminary came up with that hokum about a European ten nation consortium. Bad hermeneutics. The consortium will center in ancient Byzantium. I think they got it right though about the army of the North. Russia’s demon is old and strong. Look for that greatest of all cities to be destroyed in one hour. And Damascus to be utterly destroyed.
The niggling thought that may even now be bothering thinking liberals is this: what if the consequences of their lying are coming? Not perhaps the judgment of God as commonly conceived, but the consequences of reality which is to some others the same thing.
The aspect of this that is most dangerous in consequences is the self-deception. The arrogance conclusion that we know better how to manage the lives of others, our knowledge of the affairs of mankind being superior to the hoi polloi. We must therefore deceive them so that we gain control for their ultimate benefit.
You can’t think this, unless you believe, first, that you have stumbled upon the solutions for the problems of mankind. If only they would listen to me. And by the way, I have a few ideas for God, as well. He didn’t do such a good job creating the universe and mankind.
That’s not far off of the thought process that got Lucifer in hot water. The main point is, at the genesis of this thought stream is genuine evil. The terminal end of the thought process must necessarily be evil also. What sprouts from evil cannot eventually produce good.
No comprehension of the tragic circumstances of mankind, our inherent flaws & deficiencies. The total depravity of the soul regarding the capability of propitiation of God.
It’s not just overseas that Obama is facilitating the pitting of “brother” against “brother”. Witness the “off the chart” gun sales here. If/when Obama loses in November, the ensuing race riots will make Watts, Detroit, and Compton look like a walk-in-the-park.
The lie concealed not very well in the statement ‘you didn’t build that’ is that the business is not personal property. That the people have joint ownership and can place a demand for a piece of the pie. Ownership is socialized. The people have a claim on profits as well.
The evil behind the Estate Tax derives from the same perverted thought process. When the principal dies, ownership is realized by the state.
It’s necessary, of course, to inculcate such tripe, if you’re intending to ensnare the people with socialism. No such thing as private property, unless the government gives it to you. We all have common ownership. Of course, government must have the controlling interest in all property.
Regarding the eternal battle between truth and the the renamed lie of ‘truthiness’ that saturates contemporary propaganda: hardly a day goes by where I’m not reminded of the essential Truth of Kipling’s’ Gods of the Copybook Headings.
“…With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know’…”
And so it goes.
#57
Land property taxs are set such that if you don’t pay them the state can force change of ownership of property ie. you don’t actually own the property in fee simple, the state only lets you keep as long as you work for the state, pay the taxs.
Whats different about this and Obammas statement at the bottom line?
…the New York Times has optimistically described the incident as an opportunity for both Israel and Egypt to make common cause against Islamic militants
I suppose that could be true if Egyptian senior government toadies were not themselves the militants. As reported by D. Goldman the families of the killed soldiers know very well that the MB are the perpetrators and that the government is the hands of the MB. What do the Egyptians see that the State Department and DOD cannot?
The real action in Egypt is between the military and the MB, as even the most casual observer not receiving a Federal paycheck would have figured out more than a year ago. What is surprising is the level of local opposition to the MB as described in Goldman’s article. I assumed the MB to be much more successful at grass roots organizing than it now appears.
It’s a fools’ game to expect the Obama Administration to have a realistic policy that advances US interests in the ME when it’s impossible to find a single soul in the administration who would even be willing to define US interests, or that such a ridiculous thing was even desirable. I’m sure they could all tell you what each option might mean to Obama’s polling numbers – but beyond that nothing.
We live in a world where truth is a transient object and reality is only what you say it is, at the moment. “Assad is a reformer.” “The Muslim Brotherhood is only a political party.” Hopefully, we will end up with some adults running the show before the hole gets too deep to climb out of.
# 59 – the difference is ownership. Who owns it? That doesn’t mean that ownership cannot be changed, by force if necessary, after due process.
If you don’t pay a mortgage, ownership of the property will be changed. Will it not? That doesn’t mean that there is no ownership.
Of course, taxes pay for military, police, and other stuff necessary to protect a free people. If you own property here, you benefit from that protection. This is not inconsistent with the Constitution, is it?
If you die, ownership will change again. The issue becomes who has stronger claim, the heirs and assigns, or the public by way of onerous, confiscatory estate taxes.
Some thoughts on this are at: http://www.fates.org/moc/?p=2345
OT but I have been astounded with the very notion that Mitt Romney is the reason that steel industry jobs have been lost. Really? The US steel industry has been going down the toilet since the end of WWII.
Employment in the United States steel industry 1974, 1990 and 1996-2000
1974 – 521,000
1990 – 204,000
1996 – 167,000
1997 – 163,000
1998 – 160,000
1999 – 153,000
2000 – 151,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_steel_industry_%281970-current%29
“Allentown” Billy Joel (1982)
Well we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time
Filling out forms
{…}
Well we’re waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked
If we behaved
So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real Iron and coke
And chromium steel
And we’re waiting here in Allentown
But they’ve taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away …
# 59 – On second thought, there is another line of pursuit there.
If the plumber or electrician comes to perform repair, they do not gain an ownership interest in your house. They get paid instead.
If you contract with an electrician or plumber for the purpose of constructing a home, or business, they do not gain an ownership interest in the house. Again, they get paid instead.
All of the employees get paid, instead of gaining ownership interest. Of course there are exceptions where remuneration includes shares or profit sharing policies, for example.
On the interwebs, you can peruse “Your Dog Owns Your House” by Anthony De Jasay.
Business owners pay taxes, like the rest of us, to finance roads, bridges, police, military, libraries. We have no further claim on their business.
KURDISTAN NOW!!!!!
William – #48:
The jury is still out on Bush’s Iraqi gamble. There is a functioning democratic government in Iraq elected in free and fair elections. Yes, there are problems and thorny issues yet to be resolved, but then there are those in our own 220+ year old democracy. There is a free press there unlike anywhere else in the ME, save Israel. In June the IMF forecasted that the growth rate in the Iraqi economy this year will reach 11.1 percent this year, accelerate to 13.5% in 2013 and to continue at 9-10% though 2016. This despite the occasional spikes in sectarian violence in the country. If the US economy had a third of that growth rate Obamao would win in November hands down. Fueling this growth is Iraq’s increasing oil production as well as foreign investment. Again, despite the occasional sectarian violence in the country. As prosperity increases watch the violence decrease as those who would fight others decide to get in on the action. And as the Iraqi people prosper and have relative peace in their country while participating in Iraqi style democracy the peoples of the other ME nations will take notice and say to themselves, “Hey, if the Iraqis can do it, why can’t we?” That is what the mullahs in Iran fear, that is what Bush hoped to achieve. But part of that plan was to have an American military presence inside Iraq to act as a stabilizing force. And Obamao threw it all away, as well as our ability to influence events in the ME.
As to “throwing away Americas military credibility”, really? We came, we saw, we kicked ass. The Iraqi campaign in 2003 was the fastest mechanized advance against an enemy in the history of warfare. This following the campaign Afghan in which we ended Taliban control of that country with local militias supported by Special Forces and air power if anything increased the credibility of the US military in the eyes of the world. There is a reason why Kaddafi turned over his WMD shortly thereafter. He thought he was next. The problems of in both Afghanistan and Iraq after our exercise of US military might are more the fault of gutless American politicians and a whiny Left/press than those of the military. And now we have a CiC that seems bent on neutering the US military and its credibility.
@ 63. epignosis. Not quite. When a tradesman or materialsman provides labor or materials to your property he has established rights under the various “Mechanics and Materialmans” laws (lien laws) of the individual states. These rights allow him to foreclose on the property if needed. YOU the owner of the property forestall this action by prompt and proper payment. You also should insist on a signed release of lien from any and all suppliers/ tradesmen. If they tell you no, or that they don’t understand, bovine waste. It is a requirement that a tradesman pass the lien law test (like a drivers license test in most states, 25 to 50 multiple choice) in order to get a license. In fact the license is about lien laws, not trade skills, they are handled under other auspices in each state.
Did nobody notice that Israel caught Israeli Arabs from Nazareth helping Hezbollah in the smuggling of explosives into Israel proper to be used at a later date?
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=280591
michael @ 66 – Sooner or later, someone with knowledge of the law comes to the fray.
But, seems like to the un(law)trained mind, if he is paid according to the contract, he has no further claim on my house. Thus no ownership.
If not paid, then the encumberance must be adjudicated. Is this correct?
Point being, when his claim is satisfied by proper payment, he does not retain ownership interest, which is pretty much what this is about.
Isn’t there a bailment if you deliver your car for repair at the shop? He returns your car, repaired as desired, you pay for that repair. Then you don’t have ownership interest in the repair shop.
Re 14. blert, 44. Highlander
( DNA evidence places the Kurds in that part of the world circa 14,000 years ago, at least. Everyone else is a ‘recent’ arrival.)
[ And their closest genetic kin are the ancient Jews. A split between the Kurds and Jews apparently occurred some nine thousand years ago. ( It seems like only yesterday. ) This makes Jewish claims to the Holy Land of two thousand years history look mighty conservative. ]
…
From Genesis it is readily apparent that when Abraham trekked west from to the Holy Land he left close family behind in what is now Iraq. Abraham sent his servant back to his homeland, Aram Naharaim (means between the two rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates) to make a match for Isaac from his own kin (Gen 25). Isaac himself sent Jacob back to Kurdistan to find his mates, and on the return trip Jacob made a peace treaty with the locals (Gen 31).
One can hope the Israeli leadership will open their Bibles and take the hint.
Re 39. Josh
“So maybe Abraham was from a Semitic family living further north,”
Abraham was first living in Ur-casdim (thought to be in southern Iraq) and got into trouble with the authorities for monotheism. As a result he and his family/tribe first moved North-Northwest into Kurdistan. Eventually Abraham went all the way to Israel, leaving some of his kin in Kurdistan. Although Israel is due west, the route from Ur to Israel is to go north first, then west, then south. You cannot go west first, there is no water.
Re 40. Blast From the Past, 50. stoicheion
“Did something happen during the 1967-’74 period of Israeli occupation?”
The Sinai Bedouins were very cooperative while Israel was in charge. But when Israel packed up and left in exchange for a piece of paper, they didn’t look like a strong horse anymore.
The Israeli Bedouins are known to be loyal and decorated soldiers. Some people are very sensitive to the local strong horse even without opinion polls.
Great thread.
42 Wretchard
Economics determines the longevity of falsehood. Wealth enables self-deception (wishful thinking.)
Scarcity exposes falsehood. When survival is at stake, truth is revealed. It is all that remains in a survivor.
42. wretchard “I have often wondered why we think we can escape the truth by interposing so slender a curtain as death between us and It. I would hate to lose that bet.”
Valid point. Guess I’ll have to put some more effort into getting my affairs in order.
Only slightly OT: Here is an excellent cartoon from 1948
http://nationaljuggernaut.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-cartoon-seemed-far-fetched-in-1948.html
that perfectly expresses the central theme of our current presidential campaign.
Even Morsi knows that he cannot lose control in Sinai and still hold political power. Egypt military can. Today Israel gave the nod to more gunships over the limits but you can bet that this is now a collaboration with the zionists hated by MB. There is no way not to talk with the Israelis even if we will not read about those conversations here.
If MB learns realpolitik they can hold on for now. They are going to need the military and the military needs Israel.
Listen friends, and mark my words in this moment and this hour–
God is jealous for his name for his name is jealous.
Nor is this a charming flower to set before a man
nor one of his commands.
Yet, without Jesus, this is more than we can love as we desire peace,
and less than we can know as we desire joy.
For the sacred fire
that makes us liars–
I mean, that separates speech from dreams,
and separates our flesh from the future–
is God’s power manifested.
So, in the year and the hour– for his sake, invest your desire in Jesus.
Follow his holy fire for right now. Right now he intercedes for us in heaven!
Some will say we are people of the way.
We are people of the way.
We praise his holy name
Yahweh.
I am who I am.
I cause things to be.
I am the first cause of creation.
We praise his holy name
Elohym.
And say “Thank you Jesus for your precious blood–
better, so much better than the blood of Abel.
How then should we pray?
I pray bless me a lot oh God.
Show me your kingdom and righteousness
in such a way that my thoughts words and deeds
reflect your wisdom and power–
and that– for the sake of your honor and glory.
So that I will live in your presence
in this life and the next.
For your name sake
Let me hear my children praise your name
And their children too.
Let them woo 10 generations
coiled up in their dimensions
to the praise of your name.
Let my neighbors, friends, family, enemies
strangers praise the baby in the manger-
the risen Lord Jesus.
I pray all that in Jesus name.
Not sure if this is off topic or not. I never did figure out if Richard was addressing the entire mess in the ME or just a slice of it.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/312893/after-assad-falls-clifford-d-may
Cliffy is correct that now is the time to figure out what to do after Assad’s funeral.
Those of you that erroneously think the USA has no dog in this fight will share responsibility for the thousands slaughtered by the Jihadists after Assad’s demise.
That is why killing Assad is such a good thang. That allows us to tell his replacement to play nice or we bomb him too. Kill enough wanna be despots and eventually they will switch from bullets to ballots.
Or is the idea of votes replacing IEDs too liberal? Should I change my Nome de’ Web from stoicheion to fluffy bunny?
Man Sentenced to 30 Days for Catching Rain Water on his Own Property Enters Jail By Kendra Alleyne August 8, 2012
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/man-sentenced-30-days-catching-rain-water-own-property-enters-jail