In a speech this morning from Estonia, Pres. Obama suggested that we must "organize the Arab world" in an effort to reduce ISIS to a "manageable size".
WHAT?
The Arab world cannot be organized by anybody to do anything, and certainly not by an effete American President for whom most of the civilized and uncivilized world has zero respect. Does Obama think that the Arab world will bend to his will because his name sounds like theirs?
The time to have acted on ISIS was a year or two ago when he first received actionable intelligence on them from Syria. They control part of Syria and most of Iraq now and they're somehow raking in $1-$2 Million every day by most reports, from the very Arab states from whom Obama would seek assistance......there's no making them manageable.
We have two choices now that we've sat around with our thumb up our butts for two years. Either we continue to watch the weekly beheadings of American and British civilians while we wait for ISIS to bring the fight to our doorstep, or we re-occupy Iraq and possibly Syria for like the next 20 years trying to clean those countries of these animals.
What's it going to be?
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Or…we could get our troops, black ops, and cloak and dagger types out of the Middle East, quit meddling in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern nations, and stop doing the myriad of other things that result in wholly predictable (and, in the minds of many, understandable) blowback. I’m just sayin’.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” H.L. Mencken
I've used that Mencken quote many times myself.....one of my favorites.
Though I'm not sure ISIS is either imaginary or US-manufactured. You think that if the US had never done anything in the ME since the establishment of Israel, that some group like ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Taliban wouldn't have formed anyway?
No one can say what might have formed or not formed had we not stuck our nose in where it doesn't belong, Ed. What difference does it make? Who cares?
It makes a shitload of difference. Either we are reacting to events that affect us, or we are in essence chasing our own tails, by funding and creating anti-western terrorist groups, who but for our meddling would have limited their activities to goad herding, opium addiction, and sheep sex.
It makes a difference to me.
"...but for our meddling would have limited their activities to goad herding, opium addiction, and sheep sex."
That is just the point, Ed. If we stopped meddling in the Middle East, even if this group or that one formed 1) our people would not be there in harm's way and 2) there would be no more meddling making them hate Westerners.
They hate us now because we have worked hard at making them hate us. We've got it coming. When you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind.
If our "leaders" had any sense at all they would stop sowing. If we did that it wouldn't make any difference how many alphabet-groups cropped up in the Middle East. They can fight among themselves until the camels come home for all I care.
I have no appetite for being in their backyard and no tolerance for any disturbance they cause us. How about we get out of the ME, stop funding any and all groups, and cut them off completely. If/when they step out of bounds we thump them on the head...hard. Their free time should be fighting amongst themselves for whatever resources they can conjure from the shit-hole of an area they live.
We have our own problems to solve, right here: massive "immigration", moral/ethical decay, a decaying populace (workforce) unable to compete in the global market, decaying attitude of self-reliance (demand for $15 minimum wage), onerous economic environment encouraging companies to leave (Burger King), and poor leadership.
Our "leaders", those we elect, are paralysed by fear of taking action. They are too afraid of a public or political backlash. This paralysis cascades from top to bottom. In the end the rules are bent or ignored by all except a few with integrity and the system is warped into rewarding dishonesty, sloth, and indifference. Excellence is touted but missing. And the good people go elsewhere leaving an ethically-impoverished country garnished with a flimsy facade illuminated with the smoldering remains of golden-age thinking.
Well stated David.
The only caveat to withdrawing entirely from the ME is what do we do about Israel? Do we continue our long history of giving them $3 Billion in aid every year, simply because they are the middle east's only democracy? Or do we leave them to their own devices, over the objections of most of the American voters?
And will the American people tolerate nightly TV-news images of savagery, brutality, and genocide among middle east countries that will surely increase if it is known that we won't intervene to stop it?
In theory I agree with cutting Israel off, and every other ME country, from our aid unless they do what we say year to year. But what would that do to the world price of gas for the cars Americans are so in love with? How politically manageable is $8/gal gas here at home?
I'm just saying that it is far easier said than done to just pull out and leave the middle east to which ever country is strong enough to dominate all the others.
"...will the American people tolerate nightly TV-news images of savagery, brutality, and genocide among middle east countries that will surely increase if it is known that we won't intervene to stop it?"
U.S. open and clandestine efforts to destabilize the Middle East is the source of much, if not most, of what you describe, Ed. (It is naive to think that we are anywhere in the Middle East for the purpose of establishing democracy.) Once we butt out "savagery, brutality, and genocide" will decrease, not increase.
"...what would that do to the world price of gas...?"
If oil fields all over the Middle East were not in flames and not in the hands of "rebels" and incompetents, The price of oil (and, thus, gas) would go down, not up.
I mostly agree with you Isaac. I'd much rather the oil fields be in the hands of brutal dictators than in the hands of inept, US-supported rebels who don't have a clue how to manage them.
And I don't think the brutality with which Muslims treat each other has anything to do with the US. They don't like us, but our not meddling there won't change how they deal with each other in our absence. And honestly, I couldn't care less about those people and their genocidal leaders.
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