The Flog of War

 

Tom Cotton on Fox News Sunday: "As far as I'm concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas. Hamas killed women and children in Israel last weekend." pic.twitter.com/j1BiV7yjab

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2023

Sure. Make the rubble bounce.  As far as Tom Cotton is concerned. But I'm not Tom Cotton (thanks be) and I have a conscience and understand that just because Hamas sucks, doesn't mean responsible people get to be comfortable that innocent humans become collateral damage. This is why someone like Tom Cotton shouldn't really be a senator. One of my absolutes in a very small basket of them is sociopaths shouldn't be in office. If you have no empathy for other people, go be elsewhere. Sell patent drugs to gym rats. Produce reality television. Design hideous clothes for plus size people. You'd still be a horror-show, but you wouldn't this fucking dead-eyed horror-show, talking about how Palestinian kids are bearing responsibility for shit they never did to the extent that bricks should fall around their ears. 

He thinks he's talking about "rubble". He doesn't see that people, real humans, live in and around that. Kids are in, around, and under the rubble. They are starved and thirsty when supplies are denied them. He's a father. He isn't thinking about the rubble bouncing on his own kid. It never would. 

I'm a little sorry for my delinquent posting--but I took a couple days to think about why anyone needed to demand pictures of beheaded babies on Twitter to believe the Hamas massacre against Israelis existed, and why I saw so many pictures of Syrian dead babies I remembered from 10 years ago being called Palestinian dead babies. I'm having a hard, hard time understanding who is satisfied by pictures of dead babies at all. (This sort of thing isn't new at all and is for shock value.) 

He Thinks He's King Solomon, Over Here

This is a screencap of the real account of President Trump, who is confronting criticism over the likely disastrous consequences over his Turkey decision by touting his "great and unmatched wisdom".

Great and unmatched wisdom? Who is staying in the bunker with this self-aggrandizing goof?

While this sort of thing might just barely sound sarcastic (if Trump had self-awreness and a sense of humor, which would be a "no"), it hearkens back to his "chosen one" comments from not-so-long ago. Trump has surrounded himself with "yes-men", and he's definitely been told by evangelicals that he's part King Cyrus, part Queen Esther.

It's just worrisome, is all.

Whose Foreign Policy is This?

BREAKING: In an extraordinary Sunday night statement, the White House announces that the US "will no longer be in the immediate area" of Northern Syria, allow Turkey to launch an invasion in the region and give Turkey responsibility for captured ISIS fighters in the area. pic.twitter.com/tUES5gsqtF

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 7, 2019

So, under the auspices of one Donald J. Trump (who is unhappy because he thinks impeachment will look bad on his resume), the US is abandoning the Kurds, our allies in the fight against ISIS, to a potential slaughter by Turkey and giving Turkey "responsibility for captured ISIS fighters in the area" which basically just sounds like masses of them will be dumped out on the street available to return to ISIS(and ISIS is still active, weakened, but still a threat) or wherever else. And he's doing it despite warnings that this really doesn't further US policy interests? Announced late on a Sunday?

I'm not saying that Trump is playing foreign policy games to screw with the news cycle because he doesn't understand that nations have interests and no policy moves, but especially not foreign policy moves, should be conducted in one's own self interest, but yeah, I'm kind of saying that because I've said it before. I'm not even above speculating that Erdogan (or Putin, because why not?) may have made this choice easy for Trump, even while it is misery for the region.

Trump thinks it's being impeached that will look bad. He does not appreciate that what is bad are the many ways he is impeachable and untrustworthy. The message this sends to our allies: "Don't count on the United States." Or maybe, "Don't count on the United States (unless it benefits Trump's whims in some way)."

Panic and Pettiness

My opinion of the people currently in charge of the US is not actually very good. I think I've made my estimation of Donald Trump pretty clear, and am heartened to know that many people have made the Donald J. Coyote/Wile E. Trump connection that I did the other day. On one hand, it's nice that I am not alone in thinking that the POTUS resembles a cartoon of a perennially ineffectual schemer who doesn't ever achieve his goals. On the other hand, we appear to have a president who is a cartoon of a perennially ineffectual schemer who doesn't ever achieve his goals. 

Retired General Jim "Mad Dog" (although he doesn't actually even like that nickname?) Mattis served his country for a good long while and sort of had a bug about Iran that made Obama accelerate his departure at Centcom. But he was actually sort of good for a Trump Administration pick. He even resigned with a kind of decency and generosity--although his resignation didn't offer any compliment for the CINC he served, he nonetheless offered to retain continuity by working in his office through to February 28, to give the President reasonable time to find a replacement. 

Alas, Trump watched enough tv this week to figure out the hidden disses of his foreign policy that were lodged deep within the hidden recesses of the Mattis resignation letter, that might have been unlocked by anyone with a fifth grade reading level. Incensed, he directed his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to do the actual dirty business of telling Mattis to box up his shit and git. That is apparently the way he rolls.

In other news, the US envoy who was overseeing the diplomatic efforts regarding the war against Daesh, Brett McGurk, accelerated his own departure in response to Trump's precipitous decision to withdraw from Syria, and to mark this occasion, Trump saw fit to "neg" him. 

When, really, Trump should have known who this was and probably consulted with this guy before deciding on a withdrawal during a phone call with Turkish president Recip Erdogan, because even Erdogan was kind of freaked out about how quickly Trump wanted to let him go and most likely attack Kurds, or whatever. (See BBBB for his thoughts on how we are screwing over what should be our great allies once again.)

It's stupid that Trump said that he did not know his top guy doing State shit in a key area of the Middle East, but it's also stupid that his Acting Chief of Staff has to try and explain why Trump doesn't know him:

And it's because Trump doesn't "follow this topic". Which is actually seriously infuriating, because Daesh is a kind of big deal, and one Trump promised he had a very special secret plan for. Of course that was obviously a lie, but it's disgusting he doesn't cover up his failure to perform even the minimum of following through on his lie even the least bit.

In the meanwhile, everyone might have noticed that the DOW and Nasdaq and all that have not been doing the greatest, and probably chalked that up to the economic uncertainty caused by the trade war and the shutdown and so on. But in an alarming aside, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been phoning the heads of different banks to just check in and make sure they are liquid, NOT THAT THIS IS A CRISIS OR ANYTHING, and saw fit to broadcast those conversations over social media which is very normal and not at all likely to cause anything like AN ENTIRE FUCKING PANIC. Not that we would know if there was any reason at all he should FEEL THIS WAY given that the Trump Administration has no grown ups.

The Trump agenda is motivated by pettiness, and now, panic. He blames the people around him, like his aides, or like Fed chairman Jerome Powell, for things he should look in the mirror about.

He was unqualified to begin with, and is proving to be an unqualified disaster. My disdain for those who can still support or even stomach his reign of error only grows.

There are not always words.

Yesterday, there were attacks on human beings in Berlin, in Ankara, and in Zurich. I have blogged about violence a lot, always with the same theme: it is pointless and senseless to perpetrate more misery through acts that don't strike at the heart of oppression, but only further it. I don't know any other way to say it or to let people know it. In the Berlin case, the wrong man seems to have been held for a while, but it still looks like an act of terror. In Ankara, the assailant called out the political support of Russia for what was being done in Aleppo--but phrases were used that tied the killer's outlook to al Qaeda. In Zurich, the puzzling thing I find about the reporting is that the shooter of a mosque had "no Islamist link"--why would we suspect a person committing an act of terror against a mosque to be linked to Islam in the first place?

Sometimes, when it seems like horrifying things have happened so closely, it feels like perhaps the world had gone mad, or maybe the people on it have. But I don't think that's the case. It's just that outrages are better reported now, and seem more immediate because we so often have video and first-hand accounts broadcast to us. Humankind, if history gives the accurate indication--has never been entirely well. But days like yesterday make one wonder what the hell we are doing to try and get right. Or if we even are trying at all.

What I'm trying to say is--if this is, as some news outlets have opined "the new normal", then how am I to remark on something "normalized" at all? If this normal isn't even all that new, what insight is there to add? Human nature hasn't changed in some significant way. The tragedy is fresh, and I offer condolences to those appropriate to receive them, and abjuration to those who should have blame assessed. And then we go on.  We just do.

None of these acts did anything but hurt people. That is all they did, and won't change a single policy or make anyone feel better about themselves or life as a whole. They won't even stop other people from hurting still other people.  People need to learn that hurt is not a language but the absence of sense and hurt after hurt doesn't bring understanding--but rejects the capacity to communicate at all. Force acts on bodies, but it doesn't change what humans are. We are creatures with speech and some capacity to reason. And we need to do these things.

It's the best we have got. Speak truth to power. Make sense. Enlighten. When you don't have words, then wait until they can come. But don't think this darkness helps anything.

When ISIS Targets Islam

When politicians mistakenly insist that we need to identify the rise of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, al-Qaeda, and other militant groups that formed within majority-Muslim nations as "radical Islam", they are using a framing that reinforces the claims those groups make towards being genuine practitioners of their faith and in some respects "disappears" the reality that these groups largely prey on Islamic populations.

Senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz has made this error, and current presumptive GOP candidate Donald Trump has made this language a particular criticism against the Obama Administration. It's basically a nonsense declaration, and the sort of rhetoric for which Trump is well-known makes him sort of a favorite among the terror-minded.

But when radicalized people make their assaults within Saudi Arabia, and particularly at the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, then it becomes a little harder to say these are people who revere the culture and holy places of Islam. When we look at the actions of ISIS-claimed attacks in Istanbul, in Dhaka, and in Baghdad, it becomes harder to say that the war ISIS is waging is particularly against "the West". The problem doesn't seem to be merely geographical or religious--it is political and it is based in hate.

This comment by writer Xeni Jardin pretty much sums up what is incredibly wrong with the claim that ISIS is simply "Islamic":

Dude ISIS is bombing Muslim people in Muslim communities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan how is ISIS Muslim no they're psychopaths

— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) July 3, 2016

All of these events during this holy month of Ramadan probably have their own political loci--but the character of their being heinous and also directed at Muslims suggests clearly, to me, that categorizing such terrorism as "radical Islam" is woefully incomplete. While it might be useful to address regional issues to some extent, the diversity and range of ISIS-claimed attacks makes understanding why they are happening basically useless in any religious context whatsoever.

These attacks are "radical" in the sense of being abnormal and violent, and "Islamic" in the sense of being carried out by people professing (for what it's worth) that religion. But they might as well be anarchists, nihilists, fascists, or any other-ists. To create such misery, their worldview is obviously trash, whatever they want to call it.

Take Your Thoughts and Prayers and Shove Them

We are going to hear a lot about terrorism as more details about Omar Mateen's rampage on an Orlando, FL gay nightclub become known, but what I want to make clear about all of this is--thoughts and prayers are an insult. They are lower than shit. Because I sincerely question the "thoughts and prayers" of people who have been NRA shills and I sincerely doubt the "thoughts and prayers" of people who have never given a damn about the gay community--anywhere. But on social media, it's inescapable--people who don't give a shit taking a moment to selfie themselves with this tragedy by commemorating it with the old "thoughts and prayers". Like sending a perfunctory "thank you note" to the cosmos for gifting one with an opportunity to signify your biases by writing in the blood of your fellow human beings.

So, if you are a shitlord former presidential candidate who wants to take a minute a handful of months after appearing on a stage with anti-gay preachers who want a federal law to kill gay people to pretend that your stance against terrorism does shit for these victims, right here? Just take your thoughts and prayers and shove them. Your thoughts aren't worth anything and your prayers are against the very people who have been harmed. Do something positive. Learn about gay people and Islam. Or just get the fuck out of public life.

Or, if you are a dramatically reality-detached personality cultist, maybe congratulating yourself on being proved right that terrorism is a thing (when, no duh) is so extraordinarily grotesque that instead of merely "deleting your account", you should probably delete your entire run for the presidency. Maybe saying the words "Islamic extremism" and calling once again for a ban on Muslims in the US is ludicrous when you consider that Christians can be murderous against this particular population as well; and also that this Mateen wanker was born here and therefore couldn't have been barred entry to a country he was born in, and that US persons have been born here and convert to Islam and have no terroristic intent at all--like the late Muhammed Ali. Trump congratulates himself for a position wholly incoherent and untenable. And still and all--sometimes the wankers aren't even Islamists.

I am heartsick about these many victims of this horrendous tragedy, and I know the content of my thoughts, and, being without faith, I know the uselessness of my prayers. I will work and vote to do what I can to make sure that suspected terrorists and domestic batterers are not able to easily obtain automatic weapons, and I will always, always, be a voice against homophobia and Islamophobia. And I will be mindful that in life there are intersections of identity--Muslim LGBT people, for example. How do we ban them from coming here to be free (remember the US standing for freedom?) when they might face vicious threats to their existence often in their countries of origin?  How do we deny their existence when their home of origin is even here?

In the words of one the greats--"when the power of love overcomes the power of hate, we shall know peace." (On which great said it first, the jury is out--but I think it's right all the same.)

I don't think we need more thoughts or prayers--we need better gun policies and we need voices who speak out about tolerance and acceptance and not killing scores of people because you saw an act of affection between two men.  We need real action, not deliberate inaction, and local empowerment, not impotent talk.

Maybe some prayers and thoughts are decently offered, but they are not the answer to the great need for action we have.

Let's Check in with Marco Rubio

The last I checked in with Marco Rubio, I thought he seemed a little "checked out", so I thought I'd see where he is at the moment.

So, he bought a gun to protect his family. Okay. From ISIS. Hm. I feel like protecting his family was a really good point up to the "from ISIS" part.  Then, he kind of overshot. Just saying. Because if he envisions Daesh going on a door-to-door attack on the US, he might just be overestimating their capabilities a smidge.

Also, he thinks that the prisoner swap with Iran will just encourage them to take more prisoners. I think it's kind of a dumb argument because prisoner swaps aren't new and are often lop-sided. But mostly I just don't think there's any good reason to leave innocent Americans to rot in an Iranian prison.

He's a very near simulation of a presidential candidate though. You could be fooled.

Distilled Essence of Trump

The title here is a bit harsh, but not inaccurate. The Trump campaign's first ad says pretty much all the things Donald Trump has already been saying, even if they are kind of absurd. I think that's probably the point. Things like "cut the head off of ISIS and take their oil" sound great until you realize the this isn't ISIS' oil--they seized it from Iraq and Syria and it should go back to whoever it belonged to. A wall is nice, but won't stop people coming by boat or plane. Banning Muslims from immigrating is just...un-American.

But other than that...it should be very effective for people who like that sort of thing.

2015-Year in Review

In years past, I managed to complete my "year in review" or "blog round-up" post before the year was out, but for 2015, I wanted to experiment with something a little more elaborate. In looking back at the prior year's blog posts, it seemed to me that each month suggested an ongoing theme playing out at that given time, so I wanted to recap each month by tying the theme for the month in with posts that evoke that theme--it's a little ambitious, I know.

January: The violent attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine started the year off with what became a recurring theme: freedom of speech versus criticism, state penalties, and terror. I also addressed "political correctness" as a critique of speech that could be useful in some ways, censorious in others.

February: The theme for February was misinformation. The month kicked off with some irritation with anti-vaxxers, whose poor understanding of how vaccines work is a positive danger. I got irritated with people who don't grasp why "Muslims who do bad things" is only a subset of "all Muslims" in the same way that "Christians who do bad things" is just a subset of "all Christians". And I remain really mad at people who seem to deliberately misunderstand the US fight against Daesh for purely ideological reasons.

March: The theme for March was the "Obama-Haters For War to Keep us Safe". Franklin Graham seems to like saying Obama is influenced by Muslims, and I like saying Franklin Graham is a bigoted shitlord. Forty-seven Dumbass Ronin showed their asses, and Sen. Cotton was their king. Also, a couple people just frankly said "Bomb Iran and it will rain Viagra for 40 days and nights".

April: I think the theme was "Separation of Church and State". My former senator and 2016 GOP presidential candidate (for now) Rick Santorum was ready to stand with IN Gov. Mike Pence in his support for a bill that would protect the "right" to discriminate against people for religious reasons. (My fear with discriminatory measures is that what starts with sanctioning discrimination, can lead to tolerance of abuse and worse.)  It seemed to me that favoring discrimination, whether on religious grounds or not, was a failure to understand US history, which is something we need to learn from.  But I brought the topic back around to how church and state separation is a social necessity.

This Seems Like Progress

Islamic State suffers double blow as Ramadi falls, leaders killed https://t.co/sd9KQjHJdc pic.twitter.com/DX1fj1UYtV

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 30, 2015

So amidst the horse-race stuff having to do with the 2016 primaries (you know, like Gov. George Pataki leaving the GOP race, which doesn't quite merit its own post), it might be neat to take a look at what is actually happening outside the US--and look! Just like Daesh has been losing territory in 2015 because of the coalition against them, it appears they have just been dealt a couple big set-backs:

U.S.-led forces have killed 10 Islamic State leaders in air strikes, including individuals linked to the Paris attacks, a U.S. spokesman said, dealing a double blow to the militant group after Iraqi forces ousted it from the city of Ramadi.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi planted the national flag in Ramadi after the army retook the city centre from Islamic State, a victory that could help vindicate his strategy for rebuilding the military after stunning defeats.

"Over the past month, we've killed 10 ISIL leadership figures with targeted air strikes, including several external attack planners, some of whom are linked to the Paris attacks," said U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamist group also known by the acronym ISIL.

In other news, 25K lbs of uranium has been shipped out of Iran and is heading for Russia as part of that deal thing that most of the 2016 GOP candidates for president have said they would scrap at once on getting into the White House. Which would leave us with no effective plan of stopping an Iranian nuke program--which strikes me as making things worse. 

I'm not sure why they want things to be worse, but it's their campaigns.

A Schlong too Far?

Gosh, it seems like we're always waiting on the one thing that Donald Trump will say that will simply founder his campaign, and it simply hasn't happened. So, consider my jaw in no danger of contact with the floor when the candidate resorts to puerile misogyny in referring to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's using a restroom (as folks do) as "disgusting" and saying she was "schlonged" by Obama in 2008.

It's not new for Trump to say things that are shocking. Even the misogyny isn't shocking (yet) because he's already suggested that Fox anchor Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she gave him a line of questioning he did not like (and then pretended only pervs would have thought that was what he meant) and went off at a lawyer who wanted to take a breast-pumping break. A little bit of a germophobe, maybe he considers the human body in general, and not just female bodies, kind of gross. But the way he says it--what she was doing in there was disgusting"?  Everyone knows that "Everyone Poops".  World leaders do, too (Hitler, one could mention, had chronic constipation and terrible gas).

But really? Fox News personality Andrea Tantaros (who, like Clinton, also uses ladies' rooms and presumably sits down to pee--and full disclosure, your author does as well) has already decided that this particular attack from Trump is "masterful". Presumably in a purely political way, and not in a "pee-shame me again, Big Daddy" kind of way.

I think the argument over whether Trump is threatened by Hillary Clinton is more interesting. He doesn't seem to have a good answer to whether his words have been inflammatory and probably good propaganda for Daesh, so he sputters that they aren't distributing videos of him.

And one might well respond, well, pish-tosh. MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS and FOX have uploaded to YouTube and on their own respective sites hours of Trump saying dumb inflammatory stuff that anyone with an internet connection can look at and judge for themselves.

For what it's worth, even if you couldn't prove he was directly stirring up Daesh, we've got some colorful proof he's stirring up the homebrewed horrorshows. 

Maybe Clinton has him pegged?

Broken Glass

Comparisons, a certain genius has one of his characters assert, are odorous. It's true. Analogies are ever a bit imperfect, and for some people, foot is to sock as hand is to glove never actually makes perfect sense. So maybe how I'm registering the atmosphere isn't entirely apt. But when I heard about a family in Texas that has had their windows broken a couple of times, possibly because they are Muslim, I wonder what's going on, and think it's a prelude to worse.

It appears that threats and vandalism at mosques are at an all-time high. People are becoming uncivil, and even violent, regarding Muslims just going about their daily business. Recently, a California mosque experienced a fire believed to be arson, but a California Sikh temple has also been vandalized recently, too, as if by some person whose hate is too great to be less indiscriminate in their discrimination--reminiscent of the Wisconsin gurdwara that was shot up by a white supremacist, or the Indian man who was pushed to his death by a vicious woman in Queens who hated foreigners (and somehow believed that Hindu and Muslim were the same thing).

How Ron Fournier Pissed Me Off 2

Maybe @POTUS should wait until Monday, Pearl Harbor Day, and declare, "The only thing we have to fear is calling this thing terrorism."

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) December 4, 2015

Now, don't get me wrong. Just because I've done two in a series doesn't mean I've decided that Ron Fournier is a Very Bad Man and I think I should mess with him--no. He's just a Both-Siderist of the High-Broderist line. I'm usually not pissed with people because I think they're hopeless and hacky--those people just get the usual factcheck to the boards. I think, absent constructing false frames and then awkwardly trying to poke what the president is doing into it, Fournier could even be a useful productive journalist-citizen.

Useful to who, I just can't even...

So, on Day 1 of the San Bernardino Massacre, President Obama is actually asked by Norah O'Donnell what he thinks about the events yet ongoing, when people still thought the assault was perpetrated by three white dudes. He brings up terrorism, as in, why would we be letting people we wouldn't allow on planes, have guns? So, not uncomfortable talking about domestic terrorism, just not pinning this one down on terrorists when it's too soon in the investigation to tell. But he's now clear with calling it an "act of terror". Because he's the president and not some rando whose speculation doesn't mean anything, it made sense for him to hold off on calling it "terrorism" until an investigation cleared up the details. Because what presidents say matters on a different level than what regular assholes say, you know, like me, the D-list blogger, and like Ron Fournier.

Why am I pissed off? Because this attitude of demanding that the president say some combination of "radical Islamic terrorism" is really nonsense. We are allies with Saudi Arabia--ish. Are they milquetoast Islamists? How do we work things out with Pakistan or whomever? Do we call them out for having radical Islamicooties and say we can't be friends? No, because that is childish, bigoted and dumb.

Yes, I'm saying a lot of Republican faces are childish and dumb. I totally mean it. What does saying the magic words "radical Islamic terrorist" even do? Will the radicalized jihadists hear that, and think, "Oh snap. they're on to us. I don't even want to play this game, now." Nope. They still will be radicalized, and what's more, they will feel validated for getting a shout-out. They will totally clip out the moment they got treated like a big-boy terror cell and paste it in their scrapbook for inspiration on how to do it so big next time.

What world leaders say isn't just for a really small audience. Like in Mockingjay 2, Haymitch points out to Katniss that she isn't just talking to the rebels anymore, but has to make a message for rebels, for loyalists, for the Capitol, and for everyone. That's how leadership works--talking for and to all the people. In case Fournier did not know, this is how Obama leads. That's his job.

Carly Fiorina's Ridiculous Rhetoric

Believe it or not, I really am not going to go into whether Fiorina wants to dig deeper into defending the CMP videos in the aftermath of the Colorado Springs shooting--it's really her characterization of President Obama as "delusional" over connecting climate change with terror that I find astonishingly short-sighted and wanted to address.

Actually, to be honest, she didn't just characterize President Obama as delusional. She mentioned Obama, Hillary Clinton, and "anybody else" who wanted to make the assertion. Apparently, she isn't very familiar with the entire brace of people who have made that very assertion. This opinion is backed up by the Pentagon, the Navy, by other world powers. Quite reasonable people have set forth the chronology whereby drought in Syria lead to the economic and population stressors that led to the Syrian Civil War. Military experts and scientists alike understand that climate change benefits terror groups, while also understanding that these groups have very specific reasons for wanting nothing to be achieved by climate confabs like COP21.

Who, exactly, is delusional, when we have this many people capable of putting the dots in order, while poor Carly is still figuring out which crayon to use?

The problem isn't entirely that Fiorina is an utter neophyte to world affairs having little background in politics, nor that her tech experience didn't actually rely on scientific know-how. I think the real reason is that she isn't really a "big picture" person. She manages details, but sucks at taking in sweeping trends. Take this interesting view of her weaknesses.

For the many who are unfamiliar with her record, it is not a strong one. The primary mark on her CV is negative, having run Hewlett-Packard into the ground as CEO. “Call her the anti-Steve Jobs,” wrote Infoworld, who put her on a list of tech’s all-time top 25 fiascoes. During her tenure, the company’s stock lost nearly 50% of its value, thousands of employees lost their jobs to layoffs, and Ms. Fiorina was forced to resign (read: “fired”) by HP’s board. In USA Today, CBS Moneywatch, and Portfolio.com, she was ranked among the “worst CEOs in America.” On the day her departure was announced, HP’s stock went up—and she received a $21 million severance package.
 

The "anti-Steve Jobs" slight is especially telling. Jobs had a reasonably good eye for what customers would want. He had vision--a big picture. He succeeded in selling people--lots of them--stuff that was useful and catchy and became indispensable. He understood the broad spectrum of how people used tech.  This was her job-the thing she made money at, and she wasn't good at it. Why does anyone think she knows what she's talking about now? She doesn't understand the broad spectrum of how science relates to social change. How dim can one be? Because to be honest--that's astonishingly dim.

 

Carrying a Cross and Wrapped in the Flag

I don't like the flavor of the current political atmosphere much these days, as I keep returning to how the attacks in Paris turned into a hotbed of concern about accepting Syrian refugees in the US. Tengrain, at the risk of Godwinning, took a look at the kind of things that were being batted around, and heard that as the "dog whistle heard round the world." I think that's exactly right. Politicians right here tend to not realize there is a whole entire world outside of the US with the ability to see what we're doing. And what we're doing is very Christian-signifying.

Take the idea that being Christian should specifically be privileged in accepting refugee applications. I really hate this idea. The Assad government isn't specifically bad to Christians at all, but they definitely have a problem with Daesh and other militant Islamist groups--I just don't see how this makes life worse for them than Muslims who apply, or why we should view them as better because "there's no meaningful risk" of Christians committing acts of terror. And sure, in context, Syrian Christians won't, and for the same reason Muslims wouldn't--pretty fucking grateful to be here and not where the bombs and bullets are!  But if the slinger of that bullshit, son of a Cuban refugee and a supporter of refugees until like, a minute ago, Ted Cruz, wants to talk about whether Christians ever do terror--yeah. Right here in the US, they sometimes do.

AUMF's Can be Magical

I’m going to introduce an authorization to use Military Force against ISIL that is not limited by Time, Geography or Means.

— Lindsey Graham (@GrahamBlog) November 18, 2015

At first, one might look at Senator Lindsey Graham's call for an authorization for military force against Daesh as just being an invitation to an open-ended total war with no exit strategy, and every grinding, bloody, anti-civilian tactic on offer.

But that phrase: "not limited by Time, Geography or Means".

Sounds sinister:  We will fight them on the oceans and seas, on land, and on the astral plane? We will fight them in R'lyeh and Carcosa. We will go back in a time machine and mess with their grandpappies. Dark forces will be invoked. Zombies may be deployed.

I don't like the sound of it, is all I'm saying.

The Often-Backwards Santorum

I'd been lamenting that I was seldom getting the opportunity to rake Rick Santorum over like a gently-aged pile of mulched garbage, but Hark! He's actually been caught by media people saying things:

“This president has been following, this president makes excuses for not acting, and if you look at what this president has done with ISIS, it is the worst foreign policy in the history of America,” the former senator told Brian Kilmeade during an episode of his program Kilmeade and Friends. “The president’s policy toward ISIS is to contain ISIS. ISIS’s policy in order to gain credibility as a caliphate, in the Middle East, and around the world, is to maintain their territorial integrity.”

“Let me repeat that: The president’s policy is to keep ISIS within their bounds; ISIS’s objective is to keep their territorial integrity,” continued Santorum. “Now, what does that sounds like? It sounds like president Obama is in cahoots with the strategy of ISIS to maintain their territorial integrity.”

“And he doesn’t realize, by having this strategy he provides the greatest recruitment tool for ISIS, which is: America is fighting us, and we are maintaining our territorial integrity, and we are winning this battle,” he added. “The president is helping ISIS every single day by the policies we have, and he doesn’t even know it because he refuses to accept the reality that ISIS is a caliphate.”

Every part of that is completely backwards. All of it. The US is engaging in airstrikes in the region and is leading a coalition to combat Daesh.  Daesh's "territorial integrity" is being contained, and even shrunk. The strategy isn't mere containment, although that's a start--it's beating them back. Because they are not, as Santorum wants to insist, a caliphate, although they would like very much for people to acknowledge that they are. They're an occupying force.

The airstrikes are intended to weaken Daesh's hold on occupied areas so they eventually can't hold them. They aren't building a bloody wall around the area and calling it a day. It just takes time.

Profiles in Chickenshit

Today was like watching an amazing case of "follow the leader", where state governor after state governor decided to Make! A! Political! Statement! that they would no-way, no-how, be accepting any Syrian refugees in their state. AL Gov. Bentley managed to combine his statement refusing to accept any Syrian refugees (which his state as of to date hasn't done) with a prayer for "those who have suffered loss." Nice. Syrian refugees have lost family, neighbors, their homes. He'll pray for them--but by the way, they can fuck off. A slew of other governors followed on this small-hearted and shallow-souled wake. (One even signifying on a Louie "Terror Babies" Gohmert level of ridiculousness.)

It's obscene that the Paris attacks, mostly carried out by people already French or Belgian citizens, are causing a problem for Syrian refugees, who did not do this. The one case where a Syrian passport was found near a suicide bomber (which was cited by TX Gov. Abbott, because of course a person can blow themselves up and their passport survives, and who doesn't take their passport to a suicide bombing?) it was very probably a fake.

And why would anyone do that? Because Daesh wants Westerners to reject Syrian refugees. They want to drive a wedge between people, polarizing them, eliminating the middle. Imagine, for example, what happens when Syrian people are turned away from a place to shelter. They are facing the possibility of returning home to die, because there are a lot of ways to die in Syria right now. They knew, depending upon the length and path of their route that they might be facing death anyway--and that this would be especially hard on children.

So in this great and generous, and some would even claim, Christian nation--what are these elected officials doing? Pretending to send people who are most likely no threat at all, and who are themselves under terrible threat, away from people in their states who they would like to convince they just did a wonderful brave thing for--because they are chickenshits. And they would rather fake leadership by making this basically annoying stand,  because the alternative is learning stuff and being decent and showing actual courage and compassion--and who even has time for that?

Because the people who make these mouth noises about how we can't really know who's who? Apparently have no clue that refugee application involves multi-agency inspections and can take 18-24 months to process. The US has only taken about 2000 people to date since 2012, and here's the scorecard on who is actually dangerous to our fellow Americans. Counting 9/11 as basically sui generis, you've got a lot of homegrown horrorshows. And here's my point--toddlers have, in any given year but 2001, killed more Americans than terrorists have. Take, like, any four American school-shooters, and you'd have an event that rivals the Paris attacks. The actual risk of a Syrian refugee actually turning out to be a Daesh operative is seriously low. It's ridiculous to angst over--

And in the meanwhile--think about the generation of Syrian youth who just got the message that we considered them disposable. Is that not radicalizing?

It's chickenshit. It's leading by following uninformed opinion. It's pants-pissing xenophobia and nationalistic signifying.

And Mike Huckabee wants Paul Ryan to step down if he doesn't stop the refugees from slowly dribbling in as they've been doing. And Ted Cruz wants to ensure that Syrian Muslims, specifically, are barred from entry. I can't imagine responses that would make Daesh happier, honestly. They couldn't be playing into what Daesh wants more if they tried. Are they that stupid? That pandering?

And what about the Authorization of Force against ISIL/Daesh Obama requested?

Right. Chickenshit.

"We'll See What Happens"

Dr. Ben Carson recently gave an interview on foreign policy where he suggested he'd be fine with the US shooting down a Russian plane. When questioned about the possible aftermath of that decision, he replied:

"If they violate it, we will, in fact, enforce it. We'll see what happens. For us to always be backing down because we're afraid of a conflict, that's not how we became a great nation, Chris," he said.

We'll see what happens.  Yes, two nuclear-armed states potting each others' planes over Syria. We'll see what happens.  That doesn't seem to me to be how responsible people think. But what else did he say?

"My point being that if we get out there and we really lead and it appears that we're making progress, that all of the Arab states and even the non-Arab states who are, I think, beginning to recognize that the jihad movement is global" will join, Carson said.

"Beginning to recognize that the jihad movement is global"? This isn't new to the rest of the world--this is only new to Carson. And the "really lead" stuff: please for the love of anything, Google "US-led coalition" and get back to us.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that Dr. Carson is uniquely unqualified on foreign policy--after all, Senator Marco Rubio is throwing around some "clash of civilizations" crap that is specifically unhelpful (I'd say it makes more sense to consider Daesh "anti-civilization"), and Jeb Bush, whose brother did not keep us safe, seems to think that we should only take in Christian refugees. (Senator Cruz says that, too, but wouldn't he? Really?) And then there's Governor Huckabee, who doesn't seem to know that Iran is at war with Daesh, also.

Yes, guys, let's be idiots and make this about Christians versus Muslims, exactly how the terrorists want us to behave.

These Republican candidates are just awful. Are they so warped by the need to appeal to the lowest common denominator of their base that they can not articulate even one reasonable response? (Yes, that was rhetorical.)

Update:  You know, parse this statement from Sen. Cruz's website:

“Such steps, however, are defensive reactions to an enemy that will continue to try to attack us until they succeed once again. We must immediately recognize that our enemy is not ‘violent extremism.’ It is the radical Islamism that has declared jihad against the west. It will not be appeased by outreach or declarations of tolerance. It will not be deterred by targeted airstrikes with zero tolerance for civilian casualties, when the terrorists have such utter disregard for innocent life. We must make it crystal clear that affiliation with ISIS and related terrorist groups brings with it the undying enmity of America—that it is, in effect, signing your own death warrant.”

 So, because Daesh has indiscriminate disregard for life, we should tolerate civilian casualties just like they do to show that anyone associated with them (like the people they kidnap, capture, oppress, sell) should die? I don't think that helps. I really don't.