In the meantime…
…a lot is happening in Syria. Although much of it is familiar from previous events in other parts of the Arab/Muslim world.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
…a lot is happening in Syria. Although much of it is familiar from previous events in other parts of the Arab/Muslim world.
Cultures vary, said Thomas Sowell, and differences have consequences.
I believe one o fhis examples had to do with a number of German farmers imported–whatever that meant in the eighteenth century–to Russia with their superior farming techniques.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, their descendants comprised 2% of the population of European Russia and 40% of the Czar’s officer corps. Blood will tell, or something.
Point is, a couple of elections isn’t going to take us very far.
It seems to me that when two factions that hate us are trying to destroy each other, it makes sense to stand aside and wish both success. I am not able to judge which hates us less.
I can be persuaded that the world is far too complex to warrant my simple response, but I have not yet read a convincing reason to do anything else.
Its what other larger countries are doing slowly that shoul get a bit of focus
Not a thing learned since 9/11. Not a darned thing. Still the same old, same old Pearl Harbor legacy misapplied, the doctrine of taking the offensive abroad with military against military.
How have these misapplied policies made the homelands–America, Britain, Sweden, to name just a few recent hotspots–safer? Countries like Syria should be left to stew in their own juices, while it’s the homelands that need dire attention. Yet policymakers stupidly, consistently do the reverse.
I’m one of the few here who would have a reason to be concerned about the situation in Syria, because of its proximity to my country; and yet, I’m not. The situation there is business as usual. In my lifetime I’ve witnessed Lebanon, for example, change hands from the PLO to Hezbollah, which for the Jewish inhabitants of the Galilee meant next to no change at all. The Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaida rising in Syria would be just another Islamic enemy to take into consideration–undesirable, but nothing radically different.
It’s the situation within the borders of my country that I’m worried about. For instance, the continued presence in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) of treasonous Arab members openly giving aid and comfort to the suicide-murderers. The snakes inside your home should be a lot more of a concern than snake pits way out in the wasteland.
This article covers the sad situation of Christians in Syria (by an Australian writer):
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/we_cannot_abandon_syrian_christians
There is not one solitary benefit to warrant US involvement in Syria.
McCain is, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps out of senility, providing future political cover for Obama when US aid to the jihadist rebels blows up in our face.
As to which hates us less, that would be Assad who is not going to go off half-cocked. His regime, though brutal and monstrous is a force for stability and restraint of jihadist terrorism, as his aid to jihadists is carefully calibrated not to threaten his power.
ziontruth,
It is the majority of liberals who haven’t learned anything. The Far Left knows exactly what is going on and is using Islamic terrorism to destabilize the West, as they view the Western right as a far greater obstacle to their agenda than Islamic terrorism.
Many on the right have learned incomplete lessons, primarily evidenced by support for isolationism and support for America militarily retreating from the world stage. There are a few neocons left who still believe that democracy can be force fed to M.E. cultures but they are greatly in the minority.
Many on the right however, perhaps a majority, have since 9/11 educated themselves regarding Islamic ideology based terrorism and are quite aware of the threat both foreign and domestic. They understand the fundamental incompatibility between classical liberal Western and Islamic values.
Another secret Obama war to fund and help his Muslim allies I see.
At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: “Go it husband, go it bear!”
A most telling thought I read on how some of the ME was set up by the Great Powers after the fall of the Ottoman: Empower the minorities (Alewites in Syria, Hashemites in Jordan) because the empowered majorities (Sunnis) will slaughter and extinguish the minorities, but the empowered minorities, while brutal, will not be able to slaughter the majority populations in their countries, whose ‘bizarre’ boundaries were set by the Great Powers for demographic, not geographic, reasons .
McCain is showing us once again. as if that were necessary, what a total a**hole he is and has always been. Whew!