Monday, June 23, 2014

The Mideast Situation Is Getting Worse

Stephanie Miller is saying that maybe why the media was so eager to have all those war hawks back on the Sunday news shows is because the media is thinking “Well we got it wrong on the war, so maybe if we get the really heavy hitters on the who were such serious “contenders” if you will, and they say that the war was a good thing then maybe we won’t look so bad”.  That’s something I didn’t think of.  I highly recommend all of my blog readers listen to Chris Matthews from last Friday night and this morning’s Stephanie Miller program.  Of course the big news is that Rand Paul is like me who believes we should just walk away from that whole situation and not do another thing.  Because as I told Paul “I can’t conceive of any material thing we could do that would help anything in that area but only make it worse”.   But of course I had Face the Nation yesterday afternoon around three.  There were technical problems like showing two commercials at once and having the pictures all out of sinc, so by the time I got to the second half of the show, I booted up the link just for the second half of the show and that worked much better.  But the situation as portrayed by Face the Nation is even more dire than even I imagined.  In the first place ISIS has captured for more cities, mostly along the Syrian borders and as such they are regarded as “smart to do this” because many people who were on a roll capturing one local after another would just keep going.  I’ve played enough games of Risk to know that this is not a wise way to proceed because you spread your manpower too thin.  But it would strengthen my idea, courtesy Joe Byden, of just consolidating the country into thirds and having an in place cease fire right where they are.  There was concern on the show expressed that ISIS would now go into Jordan and into Lebanon.  As such my philosophy is “containment”.  And we should strengthen Jordan in particular, and Lebanon, in order to protect Israel, which is the vital thing.  I am also pondering the Truth that perhaps my opinion on Libya and Syria was a little misinformed.   Qadafi was this terrorist who kills our servicemen in Germany and takes down the Pan Am Lockerbee Scotland flight- - but I hadn’t gotten the word that Qadafi is now a “good guy” and if you’re Pat Buchannon or Michelle Bachman- - now Quadafi needs to be protected.  I was told by the media that Bashier Al Assad was the mad man who wanted to take over the world and had killed 150,000 civilians.  Now according to these two guys on Face the Nation yesterday- - no, it’s Assad who is the “responsible’ guy and that ISIS was this powerful and dangerous insurgent organization who is seeking a vast “land base” in the area in order to plan terrorist acts against the United States.  We are informed that ISIS is heavily armed and also heavily financed by these stealth Westerners who go over there and offer their help.  So like, is this what Diocletian faced with the Christians in 305 AD?  I mean if we are to believe this Rogers guy, referred to as Chairman Rogers, Republican congressman from Michigan- - states that somehow the Al Qaida “messaging” is so perswasive that Europeans see the wisdom behind Al Qaeda and cant wait to enlist and help in any way they can.  Now you have this vast, heavily armed mass that’s controlled- - shades of Ghengis Khan or something.  They just seem unstoppable.  As to the matter of asking Meliki to step down- - this is easier said than done, and there seems no feasible way of doing it.  To get Meliki into power in the first place took from January of 2005 when the first Iraqi elections were held, to October of 2005 and that was with all sorts of help from NATO and such and negotiating and forming a workable coalition.  To suppose for a minute that Meliki is going to step down just because we want him to is really pie in the sky delusion.  It’s said on the show that if Meliki steps down at all, it will be because Shiite Clerics ask him to step down because we hear Iran itself is unhappy with Meliki these days.  But again I only know what the media lets us know.  I’m not psychic.  In fact you know perhaps my WORST record of psychic predictions concerns the course of Soap Opera plots- - because these people- - write scenarios that are implausible beyond belief and seem to be continually surprising me.  Thank God the real world usually isn’t like that.  But who would have predicted that we would NOW be debating whether to get back into the Iraq War, or the third war in Iraq in 25 years.  Rand Paul was on Meet the Press and I agree with his hands off policy on that, and I also admire his “enlightenment” on the idea of non violent convicted felons voting.  Because people shouldn’t be disenfranchised from voting for life because some silly drug conviction in their youth.  Henry Hyde, “It was an indiscretion of my youth”.   But as Stephanie Miller and the Mooks point out- - “It will be a strange Presidential Debate with Rand Paul staking out a position on Iraq to the left of Hillary Clinton, the democratic standard bearer”.  Indeed.   But as to the resumption of bombing- if we killed at least 120,00 Iraqi civilians during the war- - maybe this hardened their will.  Robert Kennedy in his book said “For a long time during the Berlin bombings in WW II, our bombs did not soften the resolve but only hardened it, and only twords the very end of the war- - did this will to keep fighting relent.”   This was the argument that Bobby Kennedy made against stepped up bombing in North Viet Nam.   And the Islamic community almost “feeds off violence” like mother’s milk.  Al Qaida wasn’t even in that theater of conflict will we declared war- - and bombed the hell out of their civilians.  So I guess I agree with Stephanie and the Mooks, that bombs are less than perfect “diplomatic implements”.  Mitch Mc Conell is disappointed that President Obama is not able to resolve a religious war in Iraq that’s been going on since the seventh century.  Yeah.  What incompetence!

I was visited by Stewart Sutcliffe during Sixty Minutes and his views on everything are so controversial I wasn’t going to air them.  But I figured since I have been complaining about not having enough conversational interaction with “the other side” I figure I owe Stu that.  The first segment was on the Coptic Church of Egypt.  In the first place claims of having roots back to the first century are bogus.  Bones pointed out that they weren’t just tattooing those little children with crosses on their arms, but were actually branding them.  Stu says “Brands are the signs of slave ownership and God regards it as an abomination to be “mutilated” like that on your body”.    Bones was also less than sympathetic about all of the forty church bombings by the Al Qaeda type group.  Personally I think the military were the good guys.  But Stewart points out that Copts are “an extremist organization themselves”.  And “When you come right down to it the Islamic community represent a truer representation of God than do these Christians.  And what do you think about the idea that they have these exorcisms during every service.  You wan’t sit there and tell me these are normal people”.   On the subject of drones Steward said that “For any planet under Romulan cloaking and that includes Sirius A and Aldeberan VIII, that drones are illegal anywhere on the planet”.  I mentioned “Aren’t there a whole lot of interesting geological formations on Aldeberan VIII?  Seems to me you could get amazing photographs of that planet”.  And Steward says “Not with drones you don’t.  If those things ever came around here, the law explicitly states that if you see a drone, any citizen has the right to shoot it down on sight”.   There is something a little “disturbing’ about these drones.  They’re almost like android insects, or something, that are intelligent and know where to fly all by themselves.   Then there was the blind pianist.  Here Stewart went into hyper critical mode.  “He’s really not as good as this obvious puff piece says he is.  He’s too heavy handed”.   I was puzzled at what he meant, and Stu went on.  “That is, there is an altogether lack of finesse and manuel dexterity on the keyboard, almost as if he were impaired by alcohol or something.  And that old clip they showed back in the forties- - the piano playing was way better not to mention the whole band was better”.  Then it was John Lennon’s turn in the hot seat.  Stu actually claims to have been THERE in the studio when that “Dave” guy – Beatle memorabilia collector was visiting with John Lennon at a New York studio in December 1971.  Stu says “John seemed a little schizophrenic”.  And I expressed puzzlement.  Stu went on “Yeah, he expressed joy at seeing Dave and everything, but he seemed very unimpressed by all the collectables Dave dumped out on the table, except for that bootleg album that John had the strangest amnesia about not even knowing the fifteen songs that were actually on the Decca tapes.  You can tell instantly, you know- - by the sound engeneering, even if you had no background”.  I said “Well the drumming, too, is very different”.  And Stu says “Exactly”.   Stu actually tried to track down John Lennon when he came out of his nine year “soul sleep” or hiatus or whatever in late 1971.  But Stu says “After hanging around John Lennon a little I felt that I really didn’t know him anymore, and felt he wasn’t the guy I wanted to be hanging around”.  So Stu went back to his Torranto band and picked up where he left off in 1962, and the band had all the same members in it.  Stu doesn’t like Yoco.  David was bewildered by Yoco who just grabbed that card out of his hand in signed it.  She seemed almost almost cold.  She didn’t make a good impression at all”.   After eight- - I went out and talked to Glen.

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