Sunday, February 27, 2011

If Mubarak Were Still In Power Egyptian Army Would Have Freed Libya, COIN Failure, Conservative Terrorists



"Economists say that with all this unrest, gas prices could rise to $5 a gallon. The good news is that instead of this money going to ruthless America-hating dictators, it will go to ruthless America-hating democracies." –Jay Leno

"The king of Saudi Arabia announced that he is giving his people $37 billion in subsidies and payments. It's not a stimulus package, it's a 'don't overthrow me' package." –Jay Leno

"George Clooney says he's had sex with too many women to ever run for office. He was immediately made Prime Minister of Italy." –Conan O'Brien

"A new poll shows that Donald Trump could beat President Obama in 2012. The poll was taken by Trump Polls International." –Conan O'Brien

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he wants to outlaw prostitution in his home state of Nevada. Prostitutes say they’re not going to take this lying down. For less than $50 bucks an hour." –Jimmy Fallon


It's ironic, if Mubarak were still in power, we probably could have convinced the Egyptian Army to have gone into Libya by now. They could become saviors of protesters all over the Middle East... Unfortunately, protesting is addictive. They are still protesting something or another in Egypt and Tunisia, waiting for an adult to come along and tell them to stop it, go home and clean your rooms...

The only other country to have used real bullets and killing its own people protesting was in Iraq. Guess we taught their military, police, and security forces well, we can be soooo proud of them! In fact, the most respected Ayatollah Sistani had to come out and make a public statement, asking the government to please listen to what the protesters are asking, and not to shoot them... Bombs were successfully planted in an oilfield, and may affect Iraq's ability to ship oil for export. Of course, it was blamed on the mythical al-Qaeda, instead of the faction in the government that is trying to shake down the Oil Ministry... Also noticed was the fact that over the weekend lots of news was generated over the Libyan atrocities, and the fact that we may never know how many people were shot and killed, while only a small paragraph was generated over the Iraq shootings. I guess 20 people count a lot less these days...

The US ignores these small blemishes because iraq is supposed to be our example of a successful democracy, what happens when the US uses military force to liberate one's inner democracy versus letting it happen through a more non-violent means, a more natural expression of a people's will. Iraq is also the jewel that proves how well COIN, or counterinsurgency theory, works. It works so well that we are using it in Afghanistan. COIN is a more humanitarian way to occupy a country, basically trying to keep the natives safe and not dominated by the nasty Talibans. The downside is that, despite the billions of dollars we have put into training their military, they are still considered to be a long way off from becoming independent or efficient. We have created a culture where the Americans do all of the fighting while the native Afghanis sit around and watch us, ready to turn on us at a moment's notice because we are still the invading infidel dogs and NOT Islamic heroes...


I also rant on about the runaway military budget, how quoting amounts of dollars in the billions has become so blase... If we took the amount of money that the Pentagon has requested for this year, we could balance the budget for all of the states and still have money left over...
Defense Secretary robert Gates is asking for at least $540 billion this year, and that does not include the costs of the war in Afghanistan, or spies in Pakistan, or advisors in Iraq... Drones cost extra, too.
“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” - Rober Gates



It's become quite clear that the current Republican political objectives have no correlation to reality or what the American people think they want. (Damn, and I swore to never use the trite phrase "American people" like I was some two-bit jaded politician. Using that phrase means the speaker hasn't the foggiest clue what the "American people" want, they are just blowing smoke and hoping the reporter is blinded enough not to challenge them further...) During the mid-term election campaign, the Republican talking points were to focus on the economy and to create jobs, jobs, and more jobs. As soon as the election was over, the freshman dogs were let out, barking and sniffing each other over deficit reductions. Because, if we take in less money, and spend less money to where we have to lay off hundreds, if not thousands, of government employees, that is a good thing.

Conservatives are proving that the elephant is an appropriate symbol for their party, because they are bringing all of their old bugaboos that they had previously lost, and trying to shove them back down our throats again, in the disguise of financial responsibility. And to make things worse, Newt Gingrich wants to announce his candidacy for president in 2012, and expects us to take him seriously. Newt is such an old has-been, his ideas are stale, he is morally bankrupt and working on his third wife. Yet the GOP thinks of him as a front-runner. Well, he is ugly enough to be the poster boy for the new crop of Conservative Terrorists or Constitutional Jihadis... give them enough time to prove how soulless and mean-spirited they really are. All shell with no egg inside, with absolutely no intellectual or nutritional value at all. Better, to paraphrase my mother's favorite Peter Seller's character, there is no There, there...

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