Monday, November 17, 2014

The dead on and the confused

Doug Bandow (Forbes) notes, "The administration appears to have lost its collective mind. The president has added ground forces to the battle in Iraq and the military has suggested introducing thousands more. His officials reportedly have decided to focus on overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the name of fighting the Islamic State."  He goes on to note the lack of any real progress and the false assertions by the White House:

The administration claims to have created a vast coalition of 60 nations, roughly 30 percent of the world’s countries. Alas, as in the past the celebrated gaggle assembled by Washington turned out to be mostly a PR stunt. The U.S. accounts for about 770 of the roughly 900 strikes on Iraq and Syria. The Arab states have done little in the air and nothing afoot. Only Iran, which Washington fears almost as much as ISIL, has put boots on the ground.


KTIV notes US President Barack Obama has decried the killing of humanitarian aid worker Peter Kassig in Syria as an "act of pure evil."

But what about the 15 civilians killed in Iraq last week?

As Bandow notes, the US is responsible for most of the air strikes in Iraq.

That likely includes the one that killed 15 civilians including four children.

If Barack wants to express horror over deaths, he should start with ones the US-led bombing coalition in Iraq are responsible for.  By refusing to do so, he looks like a hypocrite pointing the finger at others but unable to take accountability for his own actions.

H.A. Goodman has something at Huffington Post.  Don't call it a think piece.  It's too meandering to be a column -- although, it does read a great deal like those laundry lists Larry King tries to pass off as columns.  He's at his strongest here:

 Had President Mitt Romney just doubled our military presence in the Middle East and launched airstrikes that even the Kurds and the Free Syrian Army have criticized, the reaction would have been entirely different from liberals throughout the country. We once again have over 3,000 American boots on the ground in Iraq (without a peep from the anti-war left), only months after a VA crisis that caused veterans to die as they waited for health care, and about the same time as the publication of this book by an American general. To make matters worse, Congress is too cowardly to even debate the issue, despite calls for a discussion by Rand Paul. In the meantime, our values as a nation have succumb to fear mongering and paranoia.

He's falling apart everywhere else.  If Berkeley doesn't want racist, sexist Bill Maher on their campus, that's an issue they need to protest and Goodman needs to get over his sense of entitlement that leads to defend the grotesque Bill Maher.  (And Maher needs to get ready because all he's about to have left are limo liberals and posers who wish they were limo liberals.)

Mainly Goodman needs to learn to write.  That especially includes headlines.  Don't title your piece -- and he is responsible for the title -- "I'm a Liberal Democrat. I'm voting for Ran Paul in 2016. Here's Why." if, in fact, you may not be voting for him.

I don't just mean the fact that Rand Paul's not announced a run yet.  I don't just mean two years is a long time away.  But I do especially mean you can't use that title for a column that winds down with this:


 If Rand Paul picks Mike Huckabee as his running mate, I'll "evolve" towards Hillary. However, if Rand Paul picks someone reasonable who possesses his value system, I'll take my chances.


So, in fact, you're not voting for Rand Paul.  You might be.  Then again, you might vote for Hillary (who also hasn't announced she's running) who you spent an entire column trashing.

I'm not voting for Hillary.  If she runs.  Other than that, I don't know.

If I vote in the race for presidency -- primary or general or both -- it will be because someone earns my vote.  It won't be to say, "I voted!"  It won't be out of fear or to pick the lesser of two evils.

But that vote won't take place until 2016.  There are other things to worry about, real issues, someone tell lifelong delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton who also seems confused about real issues.

It's funny because before Barack became president, Eleanor could see Iraq as a real issue.

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Men of NBC" went up last night.




The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.












 
















Posted by at