Forgive me
for employing the sobriquet “debate” to describe this mess. It lends too much dignity to the proceedings. But we should move past that rhetorical obstacle
quickly in the interest of conservation of time.
This was
the nine Republican “frontrunners,” down to and including the “three
percenters,” Rand Paul, Jeb! Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich (!) and Carlie
Fiorina (!!!). It was, in short, a
massive affront to human dignity, devoid of useful ideas or evidence of
statesmanship.
EDITORIAL
COMMENT: None of these people are appropriate candidates for successfully
walking a dog without killing it inadvertently or selling it to a laboratory intentionally. I wouldn’t let them anywhere near a pistol,
much less the war making power of the United States of America.
The
debacle, I mean debate, lasted for two hours, and all they talked about was
either war or protecting the American people.
Maybe this was the fault of the questioners, who were functionaries of
CNN. The participants never tried to
change the subject, though. War against
any old body and protecting the American people from specters in the wind were
fine with them as subjects.
Regarding “War,”
everything that any of them said was flippant and massively counterproductive. They were mostly concerned with war against
ISIS. Let’s take a look at a couple of
their ideas.
The War Against ISIS
They all
seemed to agree that there should be a war against ISIS, and that President
Obama was getting it all horribly wrong.
Maybe Rand Paul was something of a voice of reason here, making one of
the evenings few reasonable points that we may have pissed away enough treasure
already on such pipe dreams.
There were
two major fallacies in their mostly unhinged rantings about ISIS:
1. We need to let our Sunni Muslim
allies carry the ball on the ground; and
2. We must bomb ISIS into submission,
if not out of existence.
Regarding
our “Sunni Allies,” and it flatters them to be described thusly, none of the would-be
presidents seemed to be aware that ISIS is a pawn in the power struggle between
Sunnis (led by Saudi Arabia) and Shiites (led by Iran) that is now playing out
across the Middle East. ISIS is a pawn
on the Sunni side, and I mean firmly, not somewhere out in the middle. This is a huge misunderstanding of the basic
situation for which they are prescribing murderous solutions that are doomed to
failure, seemingly without a care in the world for the costs or the consequences.
Regarding “bombing
them into submission,” they are equally uninformed and wrong-headed.
Let’s
consider two historical situations where that was tried. First, against Germany in World War II; and second,
against Vietnam in that huge mistaken effort that we have unfortunately
forgotten the lessons of.
Germany was
a large industrial society and we tried to cow them into terrified submission
with a terror bombing campaign that went on for several years. Every city in Germany was flattened in a
comprehensive manner. None of that
seemed to bother them at all. By the end
of the war, after a couple of million civilians had been killed, the German
people had only been made very pissed off and resolute, and production of war
goods only increased right up to the end of the war.
Vietnam was
an agricultural country without much industrial capacity, much like the ISIS
territories. Carpet bombing them only
made them even angrier than they had been since time immemorial against the Chinese,
then the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, and then at us. The
bombing didn’t seem to work at all on the Vietnamese.
Bombing
alone won’t work on ISIS either, unless by “working” you mean gaining them more
recruits. The only thing that really
works in situations like this is closely approaching opposing forces, on the
ground, and either shooting them, or blowing them up, or bayonetting them at
close range. This, I should think, is common
knowledge among informed observers.
But it’s not
knowledge of any kind for our Republican presidential wannabees!!! Amazing, it is. Sick, it makes me.
They’re
full of stupid ideas. Let’s have a
no-fly zone! A few of them said
that. Lots of problems with that idea,
most of them bearing red star insignias.
Let’s make a safe zone! Oh, just
how would you accomplish that, pray tell?
They sounded like a bunch of morons.
War In General
None of the
nine people on the stage have had any experience of war, nor of military
discipline, nor have any of their children been subjected to those
realities. That did not stop them from
glibly offering war at its fullest degree to any and all comers.
There was
general agreement that President Obama has allowed the American military to
sink to unfrightening levels of readiness and capacity to destroy. They climbed all over one another to be the
one most willing to spend whatever it took to make America terrifying
again. Carly Fiorina has been the point
man for a vast increase in defense spending.
She wants, what is it, a six hundred ship navy? Lots more ships. More infantry divisions, more planes, more
everything. Ben Carson today suggested
that we need to replace our Ohio class attack submarines, our Minuteman missiles,
and our B-52s. How breathtakingly stupid
is that? To say that all in one breath,
wow, one has to wonder if he’s done the math on that or thought it through in
any meaningful way. No time line, just “we
must do it.”
But
war! These inexperienced dilatants stood
there and suggested one war after another, more or less simultaneously.
War In Particular
Russia! This one includes ad hominum attacks against
Vlad Putin. “I’m not afraid of a guy
riding a horse with no shirt on.” One of
them said that recently, I forget which one.
They also
talk about “standing up to Putin,” by putting new missiles in Poland and
holding military maneuvers in the Baltic States. (Geography alert: that would be Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,
which were part of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 or so, and which provided
Russia with access to the Baltic Sea, which happens to run ice-free to the
North Atlantic almost all year, unlike northwest Russia.)
North
Korea! They were briefly mentioned in a question posed to Ben Carson. Dr. Carson vaguely (big surprise!) suggested
that we do something about them, including getting other Asian countries to
bother them about something and getting China to talk to them. He didn’t go any further, and everyone else
dropped the subject with a silent prayer.
North Korea is actually scary, and even this crowd of war mongers would
rather just shut up, avert their eyes and cross the street, hoping for the
best.
China! They
were more forthcoming about China. We
must retaliate for China’s cyber attacks!
We need to push them on human rights!
There was talk that sounded like a containment policy regarding the
South China Seas. Sure, let’s do
that! We only owe them uncounted
billions of dollars, and they only have the power to bring the dollar down single
handed, so sure! Let’s just jump in
their shit big time! We’re tough
guys! God help us if any of these
numbskulls gets elected.
And the
rest of you, out there in “the world,” which is an American playground, any of
y’all motherfuckers want some?
Chickenhawks Anonymous will be happy to pay their friends for plenty of
bombs and weapons, minus the kickbacks, and they’ll be delighted to send our
children to get killed behind some new bullshit scheme to prove how tough they
are. It’s pathetic.
Protecting The American People
This seems
to consist mostly of additional surveillance of Americans, reducing the mobility
and the rights of association of Americans, and eliminating more of the pesky
freedoms that obviously need to be sacrificed on the altar of our
security.
The police
state needs to be expanded, and refugees from pretty much everywhere need to be
blocked. That would especially be Muslim
refugees, because those people are trouble.
They want to kill us! Let’s
conveniently forget that these Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq are fleeing
from conflicts that we engendered by stupidly invading Iraq with no legitimate
reason at all and no plan for follow through whatsoever.
Now it’s “you’re
on your own,” which is only fair, because the message of these
self-aggrandizing politicians to their own constituents is the same: “you’re on
your own.” We’re all on our own.
Final Word
If they
talked about anything else it was while I was in the shower. I didn’t sit there like a mental patient
listening to every word.
Between war
and protecting us, they didn’t even have any time to talk about their real
agenda, which is cutting taxes on corporations and the rich; unwinding every
social program since the New Deal; deregulating business; privatizing
everything; and gutting environmental protection legislation. With a program like that, it’s better to keep
it a secret and stick to fear mongering about war and terrorism. Neither was there any mention of Global
Climate Change or the problems of gun violence.
They couldn’t even find a moment to mention their precious unborn.
All they
talked about was war as they misunderstand it and wrongheaded ideas about “protecting”
us from terrorists. These ideas will
only produce more conflict and more terrorists.
War must
only be resorted to when nothing less than war’s most primordial and horrifying
attributes will solve the problem. It
must always be resorted to with great reluctance.
Protecting
the American people would be much better accomplished by helping to solve the
social problems of the world and trying to help people achieve fulfillment and
happiness. If you just threw up in your
mouth a little bit, or chocked a silent scream, or laughed out loud, then maybe
we should all just give up.
If the
majority of voters have the same bad attitude as these nine hopelessly inept
politicians, maybe we should just lock the door and go home.
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