Please read this sober sitrep on the Middle East situation, via Sense of Events.
Who cares?
1. We have, for at least nearly two more years, a virulently anti-American President;
2. That President is a terrible combination of naivete, incompetence, and ideological sympathy (or more) with long-standing enemies of individual freedom (e.g., transnational socialism, Islam);
3. The US has been for sixty-five years intimately involved in the domestic affairs of the nations in the regions, almost always with shocking levels of diplomatic and strategic indiscipline;
4. That involvement has fed massive amounts of resentment against American interests;
5. The primary American interest in the region is accessibility to oil, which is increasingly threatened by resurgent Islam at the same time the FedGov is both proposing disproportionate military budget cuts and discouraging domestic energy production; and
6. The best-organized ground game in the area belongs to expansionist Islamic groups such as the Nazi-allied Muslim Brotherhood and its ideological allies.
All of the spew on the MSM last week about "freedom rising" in the Middle East will likely prove to be a cruel joke.
And we - the individuals in the American FreeFor -- will be among those who are not laughing.
I'm reminded of General Garrison when, in 1993, he was asked about the US military's attempts to capture Mohammad Farah Adid:
ReplyDelete"Tell them the situation is...fragile."
"1. [...] 6."
ReplyDeleteIf you believe that situation originated with the last Democrat president, you have been suckered in by the Republican apology for big government. The situation in 1-6 started when the US Constitution was written, and the new English/Scottish-American ruling class started playing the Great Game against France and Britain. Those new aristocrats secured their government-positions-for-life and hung out in Paris at taxpayer expense. The first anti-American president was the first president, when he squashed the Whisky anti-tax pro-freedom rebellion with an army as large as the one for the so-called revolutionary war. This was really the "replace English aristocrats with American aristocrats" war.
The US currently accounts for a disproportionate percentage (half) of the world spending on militarism, so it deserves correspondingly disproportionate military budget cuts.
The trouble in that part of the world should be a wake up call to start the drilling for oil off the coast of California. U.S. dependence on foreign oil is foolish, short-sighted and allows us to be held hostage to these types of scenarios.
ReplyDeleteKPN3%
Well, that's just a ray of sunshine isn't it?
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work sir.
For those of you who are demanding that the US not be the World's Policeman, that's all well and good. However, you DO need to understand that THERE WILL BE a World's Policeman, and if WE choose not to be it, WE do not get to decide WHO DOES. Let me assure you that China will be glad to perform that function if we do not. As will Russia, and Iran, and even the NORKs. Chavez would not be far behind.
ReplyDeleteBut ah, you say - we can stop them. Well, NOT UNLESS we are the World's Policeman.
So if you don't mind living under Chinese rule, or Russian rule, or Sharia, then your choice is fine. If, on the other hand, that bothers you, then MAYBE you ought to rethink your admonitions.
Anon 12:49,
ReplyDeleteDon't you remember what they have been saying for the last few years? We can't start new drilling in the US because it will take at least 5 years to see results.
C'mon, man. Use your head.
-JoseyWales
Young Syrian blogger blogs about lack of freedom of speech -- gets seven years in prison.
ReplyDeletehttp://headlines.verizon.com/headlines/portals/headlines.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=headlines_portal_page__article&_article=3324398
In Philadelphia, they only charge you $300 for a license.
There does not need to be a world policeman.
ReplyDeleteWe do not need 900 bases in 135 countries.
Even if you are naive enough to believe that crap, it is irrelevant - we can no longer afford 900 bases in 135 countries and we will not be the world's policeman much longer - one way or the other.