Memetastic Sunday III

Conservatives Without Chests, Part Two

     It is astounding to Estase how many people act as though there is something conservative about Orange Blatherskite.  O.B. is the Republican Bill Clinton:  an oversexed demagogue with no coherent foreign policy.  During the campaign, O.B. acted as though he would avoid enmeshing us with the attempt to remove Bashar al-Assad from power.  The Syrian civil war is a quagmire that even Oh Blah Blah was smart enough to only talk about engaging us in.  But now, before his first one hundred days have even elapsed, O.B.'s dubiously qualified Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is talking regime change!  
       Despite promising a pro-life Supreme Court justice, O.B. named a milquetoast Anthony Kennedy clone to replace Justice Scalia.  Unfortunately, the Republican voter is a fool who was gulled into choosing a candidate for his image rather than for substance.  O.B. talked a big game, and that made up for his lack of fluency on actual policy.  The ignorant red state voter is himself a conservative without a chest;  this is why they fell for someone who was all talk and no emotion.  "Make America Great Again" means being eighty percent identical to Peace and Love Incorporated (AKA the Clinton mafia).  Wesley Clark may as well be our head of the JCS.  Merritt Garland may as well be our newest Supreme Court justice.

Millions for Tribute, Not One Cent for Defense

       How did a river patrol boat find its way into Iranian territorial waters last spring?  Has the U.S. Navy been purged of every competent seaman?  It occurs to me that $400 million is a big gift for Oh Blah Blah to just give to Iran.  So he had to create some kind of excuse for sending them $400 million.  Don't call it ransom, call it the Danegelt.
      Under Oh Blah Blah, an old American motto has been reversed:  Millions for Tribute, Not One Cent for Defense

Mrs. Daesh

       Turkey is the land of destiny for the Middle East right now.  The Daesh will be reinforced or destroyed by Erdogan.  As of now, it looks like Turkey is intending to reinforce the Daesh.  The coup against Erdogan was likely a publicity stunt to serve as a prelude to an Islamist crackdown in Turkey.
       The fight against the Daesh by the U.S. appears to be a paper tiger.  When the Daesh attacked Paris and Istanbul, the official State Department mouthpiece, CNN, was sure to blame Bashir-al-Assad for the attacks.  Assad is one of the leaders fighting for his life against the Daesh, and somehow, he is responsible for the Daesh!  The same network that fed us a phony narrative of how the mean old Serbs were conducting a one-sided slaughter fest against the Bosnian Muslims (then, as now, on behalf of the State Department) is blaming Bashir-al-Assad for his own opposition.
        All the while, Hillary Clinton looks certain to be our next president.  This means certain war with Syria and Russia.  The irony of the current election cycle is that Trump, being an ignoramus and a brute, looks like a warmonger.  All the while, the pantsuited lesbian is the one who really means to start World War III.

Protecting Atavism

       Estase has a theory about why the Obama administration is reluctant to damage the Daesh (ISIS/ISIL).  1)  Obama's best friend in the region is Erdogan of Turkey.  Erdogan is the most likely beneficiary of a new caliphate.  2) Obama was supportive of rebels fighting Bashir al-Assad three years ago.  These rebels are what we now know as ISIS. 3) Under Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deliberately destabilized the governments of both Egypt, under Hosni Mubarak, and Libya, under Muammar Khadafi.  Obama and Clinton, however, have avoided responsibility for the chaos that has engulfed both countries in the absence of Mubarak and Khadafi.  What's more, Estase read a book on the Yugoslav civil war in the 90s that pointed out that Khadafi was a voice for moderation on the part of Muslims in Yugoslavia, a voice that, unfortunately, was ignored.  The one-time backer of terrorism had apparently mellowed with age, which is probably why he was a target for politicians looking to strengthen the hand of radical Islam.  The Benghazi debacle was a modest price to pay for helping the Daesh.
      In the wake of the Tunesia attack, Obama tried to prevent military action by the United Kingdom against the Daesh.  Is there any more telling evidence that Obama strengthened this group?  When Egypt and Jordan attacked ISIS, Obama opposed that action, too.  At the risk of being called a conspiracy theorist, why would a group of premodern butchers find a protecting hand in the White House?

Update:  Petasus tip to Rick Wells.  Lt. General Michael Flynn (USA, ret.), former head of the Defense Information Agency, opines that ISIS were fostered by the U.S. government.

Foggy Bottom: Smarter Than the Peasants Since 1792

         You know you really have to hand it to the State Department.  Just one day after my blogpost "Don't Monkey With a Buzzsaw" came out, the striped-pants brigade opined that Vladimir Putin was an Asperger's patient, thus explaining his "authoritarianism."  Oh, OK.  So if you won't cooperate with the U.S., you have a medical problem.  Very respectful of a foreign head of state.
           Perhaps instead of "Striped-pants brigade," I should call Foggy Bottom "the Striped-skirt brigade."   A blonde with Zooey Deschanel glasses named Marie Harf (rhymes with "barf?") came out yesterday, saying that ISIS was a problem because of lack of economic opportunity.  Yes, really.  Today, Ms. Harf is claiming that her critics (i.e.:  people with active central nervous systems) "lack nuance."  So, in other words, if you think that ISIS are cold-blooded ideological butchers, you just aren't terribly smart.  Foggy Bottom:  Smarter Than the Peasants Since 1792.

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

       There's a fine line between clever and stupid.--
                                                                "This is Spinal Tap"

          Just to show the results of college students wasting time with Chomsky and Derrida, here is an exchange between a reporter and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest (of whom it might rightly be said that he is less than earnest). ( Petasus-tip to John Podhurtz's Facebook page.)

              Karl:  well, back to the question Jim was asking about his description of the shooting at the kosher deli in Paris as being a bunch of--randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris, I mean, this was not a random shooting of a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris, this was an attack in a kosher in Paris, they attacked that deli because there would be Jews in that dele- deli?

Josh Earnest:  the writings they put out afterwards, we know that their motivation was, the adverb that the President chose was used to indicate that the individuals who were killed in there terrible tragic incident were killed, not because of who they were, but because of where they randomly happened to be.

            Karl: they weren't killed because they were in a Jewish deli, though, a kosher deli?

Josh Earnest: they were not targeted by name, this was the point.

            Karl: not by name but religion, were they not?

Josh Earnest:  well John, there were people other than just Jews who were in that deli.

            Karl:  that deli was attacked because it was a kosher deli?

Josh Earnest:  no, John.  I answered the question once.  Ed?

Don't Monkey With a Buzzsaw

           At the same time Islamist hordes threaten to take over the Middle East entirely, Secretary of State "Red" John "of the Battles" Kerry is greatly exercised over the war for Ukraine.  When the Russian aggression against Georgia caused George W. Bush to harshen our relationship with Russia, Red John and his cohorts pointed to the friction as a sign that Bush was a "cowboy," and too reckless in his dealings with Putin.  The idiotic Hillary Clinton tried to "reset" our relationship with Russia through a mind-boggling reference to a Staples office supply commercial that was certainly unknown to Putin.  Adding even more idiocy to an already dumb idea, a bonehead at Foggy Bottom mistranslated the word "reset" into Russian. ( Note to General Services Administration:  When hiring Russian translators, try to pick people who at least pulled a "C" in Russian class.) Vladimir Putin obviously learned quickly that the Obama Administration were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, more interested in soundbites and publicity photos than in seriously addressing the territorial ambitions of Russia.  Red John of the Battles is a fitting successor to Clinton.  An aging leftist who denies ISIS is Islamic will do no better than a frumpy, narcissitic opportunist like Hillary Clinton.
            Unlike ISIS, which is a threat to every civilized nation on earth, Russia is only interested in maintaining its hold on old Soviet territory.  While not optimal, one should remember that Franklin Roosevelt basically handed most of eastern Europe to Joseph Stalin during World War Two.  If the Baltic states, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albania, and Poland were essentially Russian property circa 1945, it beggars the mind why Ukraine should not be.  In a perfect world, the United States would delay the reassembly of the Soviet Union.  Given the present circumstances, it makes much more sense to use our limited military resources to attack ISIS.  Irritating the Russian bear makes as much sense as ballooning the public debt and flooding the country with illegal immigrants.  Which is to say, this is what Oh Blah Blah will probably do.

Note on Eighteenth Century Wars

Tag team wrestling and eighteenth century European foreign policy:
1)The odd Triple Alliance that linked usual enemies France and Britain (1716-1744)
2)The gradual abandonment of Austria in favor of Prussia by Britain

Thought for consideration:  What nations are we relying on for when the sh*t hits the fan?  Is it Britain, whom Obama has given the middle finger?  Is it Germany?  It certainly is not Russia, a problem Obama has yet to guard against.  We are cutting Israel loose, prey to the jackals that surround her.   Our current foreign policy seeks chaos.  It undermines all our traditional allies, and takes no heed of the economic crisis that confronts us.

Ding! Time's Up For Libya!

The Obamanator is in kill mode.  Despite the fact that the sixty days Oh Blah Blah was free to fight in Libya without Congressional authorization is up, the planes are still flying, at a cost of 716 billion Dollars so far.  Just as how Obama chooses to ignore the District Court decision that Obamacare is unconstitutional, he also chooses to believe that he has the right to go to war without Congressional approval.

Who we are helping in Libya still remains a mystery.  My guess is that it is the Muslim Brotherhood, or some faction similar to the rebels in Egypt that will take power.  Advancing the International Caliphate--the Obama foreign policy.

Clintonesque Use of Force--D Plus Eight

Well, the misadventure in Libya proves to be more than just a few Tomahawk missiles-- it seems to be turning into a third war.  This war has been engaged upon by a President elected out of disgust over Iraq, and engaged upon without any Congressional approval.  The war is being waged without any clear objectives, and without a timetable for withdrawal.  Remember back in 2007, when a timetable for withdrawal was Obama's sine quo non for Iraq?  And Libya is being engaged in while the Afghanistan misadventure looks more and more hopeless.  The high irony of Iraq and Afghanistan is that Iraq was always the controversial war, the one that was a quagmire.  Now it is Afghanistan, the "good" war that is becoming Vietnam all over again.   In Serbia (you know, that first Clintonesque use of force, the one that was intended to take everyone's eyes off the Monica Lewinski scandal?) it was not that we left off bombing of our own volition, it was that the Russians informed us that if we didn't quit bombing Sarajevo, they might explode an Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon over America.  I wonder how long it will take before the Russians end our misbegotten wars in Afghanistan, and now Libya.

A Clintonesque Use of Force, and Other Onanism

I'm going to talk about masturbation, both in foreign policy and elsewhere.

First, we are using Tomahawk missles against the Libyan dictatorship, about five days after it crushed the uprising trying to unseat it.  I'm no military expert (but then again, neither are Hillary Clinton or President Obama), but I don't think that a few blown-up air defense assets will of themselves get rid of Quaddafi.

Recently Mark Shea reminded us all of the moral peril of masturbation.  While masturbation is a sin (whether mortal or venial, I'll let my priest decide), and has great laugh value, in light of Benedict XVI's recent remarks on condoms, I don't see how it could be a big deal anymore.  After all, in Catholic moral theology, use of contraceptives and masturbation both count as Onanism--sex without potential for procreation.  If B XVI thinks that contraceptives can be morally preferable to spreading AIDS, it is hard to see why masturbation is not morally defensible because it is preferable to causing pregnancy, fornication, adultery, and any number of problems entailed with having sex with other people.  I don't know--the Stoics thought that masturbation allowed the distancing of sexual impulses, allowing the sage to remain calm and detached from the world. 
It is the sexual equivalent of firing a Tomahawk missle--it doesn't really achieve much, but it relieves the pressure to do something meaningful.

Freedom Trumps Democracy, Part Three

The overriding problem with the attitude of the Obama administration towards democracy seems to be a superstitious belief that democratic governments are good governments. This is based on the fallacy of assuming that foreign policy should be based on a priori rules that apply to all situations. This, as Jeane Kirkpatrick demonstrated, is madness, because a despotism that hates America and represses personal freedom is not any better just because it is popularly elected. Iran and Nicaragua are two examples of how democratically elected governments can be just as tyrannical as any military dictatorship, and, in fact, can be even worse when hostile to our own country. Turkey is the next example of this. If Obama succeeds in getting elections in Turkey, all it will do is create a new mullahcracy, one certain to be hostile to Israel and the United States. If this is what Obama wants, he should admit it. If it is not what he wants, he needs to get over this obsession with democratic despotisms.

More Trouble-Free Internationalism

"I had always thought it unwise and improper for American statesmen to plead domestic political pressures, or the pressures of public opinion, as an argument to support their positions vis-a-vis other governments." George Kennan

"This [9/11] has been such a horrible event that it has mobilized people in a way that two embassies and the Cole didn't." Madeleine Albright (quoted by Gabriel Schoenfeld)

It is happening again. Our foreign policy in Afghanistan is being run by popular opinion.