[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

After two lengthy wars in these countries, it’s time to step back and analyze what we’ve gained.  It’s clear what we lost: war casualties—our combatants, their combatants, and innocent civilians; national wealth—billions and billions of dollars; good will in the Middle East; and good feelings among present and former allies.  Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo showed an ugly side of the war on terror that seems to contradict our worship of democracy and democratic institutions—whether you think that non-U.S. enemy combatants can be tortured or not, the fact that we did doesn’t sit well everywhere in the world.

Many Marines who participated in the battles of Fallujah were distraught when al Qaeda in Iraq (or are they from Syria?) captured the city.  They saw compatriots fall there.  The survivors brought home physical and mental wounds from the battles.  They have a reason to ask, “What did we do that for?”  This is a common theme in the Middle East.  No matter the national sacrifice in personnel and wealth, no matter the diplomatic overtures, and no matter the good will of many civilians living in the region, extreme elements come back to haunt us like antibiotic-resistant bacteria reinvading the body politic of the region.

Karzai in Afghanistan is showing his true stripes.  He and his corrupt family and friends have no real interest in turning that country into something beyond an opium-producing state.  Noises are being made about deals with the Taliban.  You can expect that any advances made during our time there will disappear, leading to the horrendous treatment of women and the slavish following of sharia law once again.  This is a tribal society—a collection of warlords and their fiefdoms, not a modern state.  There’s little chance it will ever become one.  Moreover, we might see this relic of the Dark Ages corrupting Pakistan in the future in a major way, leading to terrorists with nukes.

Whatever you have against Joe Biden (ex-SecDef Gates in his new book expresses no love for the man), you’ll have to admit he was right about Iraq (Gates is too stupid to do so).  There are three Iraqi states at least—Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd—and possibly four now with the incursion of al Qaeda from Syria.  The absurdity of this situation is that the Shiite Iranis possibly feel threatened by the al Qaeda Sunnis and other Sunnis in Iraq, which might explain somewhat their recent diplomatic overtures.  But, like in Afghanistan, Iraq’s central government is corrupt and inept and completely incapable of holding all the different factions together.  Syria, Iraq, and Kurdish Turkey are like the old Yugoslavia.  To hold them together, you need a tyrant.  With the tyrant gone, you need multiple nations, one for each ethnic group.

The whole Middle East is like quicksand—even when the situation seems favorable, you can start to sink.  Israel isn’t helping either.  Their resistance to a Palestinian state is always a sore point for the most tolerant of Muslims and offers a rallying point for the most bellicose.  Pakistan, long at odds with India, has gone its own way, and the Indian government is showing its backward ways in their unreasonable support of an exploitative diplomat.  Turkey, the only NATO member in the area, isn’t stable and also a fair-weather friend, for both EU and US.  From Istanbul and the SSR Muslim republics to Sri Lanka, the Middle East and from Morocco to Bangladesh, you have unstable governments whipping up ethnic and anti-US sentiments.  It’s hard to find a friend anywhere.  No wonder “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has been the corner-stone of American foreign policy in the region.

Europe doesn’t help.  European governments love to see the US spending money fighting terrorism that they don’t have to spend.  They love to see the US take the foreign policy hits.  The US is the EU’s biggest competitor, of course.  What Europe doesn’t see is that their myopic policies for treating the ethnic minorities providing their cheap labor will become their Achilles heel in the future.  Many of these minorities are poor Muslims—they have no love for the rich Europeans in charge of the economies throughout the EU.  They will place demands on the great socialist democracies of Europe and, if not met, there’ll be hell to pay.

Putin’s Russia is a loose cannon.  While the US and EU are debating same-sex marriage and human rights, homophobic Russia is heading in the opposite direction.  Led by Putin, that dark nation is returning to Stalinism, making a farce out of any democratic inclinations.  There are worse tyrants (the spoiled brat in North Korea is one), but narcissistic Vladimir rules the old land of the czars with an iron hand too.  He’s like the Godfather.  He and his friends form a mafia that is much stronger than any found in the old USSR, and they hide under the cloak of democracy.  Putin and therefore Russia deal with the Middle East erratically, as the contradictions between their support of Syria and their criticism of Iran show.  Again, there’ll be hell to pay because those former SSR Muslim republics haven’t forgotten the heavy boot of Stalin and his successors.

Given that the Middle East is so problematic in general and Afghanistan and Iraq in particular, what are we doing there?  The region won’t ever amount to anything.  Taking the region as a whole, you have a huge, mostly uneducated population that has never learned to get along.  I’m counting Israel here—if not the former (Bibi’s emotional responses don’t show much education, in my opinion), at least the latter.  It’s a strong argument for isolationism, by which I mean isolating the region and letting them settle their differences without our interference.  Becoming embroiled in the disputes in the region hasn’t proven to be a good idea historically.  One can say that “hands off!” should be our foreign policy mantra.

On the other hand, that huge population is a huge market and certain countries in the region provide oil, more to the EU than the US.  I’d suggest that we let the European countries assume the peace-making role.  Let them try to broker the diplomatic deals that might win peace in the Middle East.  They have more to lose.  Unfortunately, Europe has shown that they’re inept in most things diplomatic.  We’ve more or less taken the attitude that it’s a dirty job, but someone has to try to make the different parties sit down and make peace.  I don’t see that ending well.

And so it goes….

[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

The evil one who shall not be named decided Uncle Jang (Jang Song-thaek), his mentor, was a threat to solidifying his power in this oppressive, dark, and paranoid country.  Exit Uncle Jang.  Hanging…poison…ten thousand lashes…does it matter?  While some people in Washington might think this is just a distraction from their negotiations with the Persian nutniks in Iran, I call on them to remember that, in contrast to Allah’s warriors, he who shall not be named already has nukes and missiles to carry them—if not to the U.S., at least to South Korea, Japan, Vladivostok, and Beijing.  Any of his neighbors that pisses him off and sends him into a spoiled brat’s tantrum better be prepared for a nuclear attack.  And, as the case of Uncle Jang shows, it doesn’t take much to piss him off.  Talk about dysfunctional families.

Like Grandpa and Daddy, the North Korean leader doesn’t give a rat’s ass that his people are starving, that North Korean children are turning into low IQ zombies from malnutrition, that his prisons are just thinly disguised torture camps, and that his economy is the laughing stock of the Asian world.  He’s a sociopathic psychopath so much into establishing his own cult of personality—he wants to become God—that psychiatrists wouldn’t know what to do with him, except put him in a strait jacket and lock him up in a padded cell.  He makes Kaddafi, Pinochet, Amin, and even Hitler look like angels.  Given the state of his economy, he probably smoke-cured Uncle Jang and is slicing ham from the carcass for his breakfast.

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We often talk about the flip-side of the coin.  In Thursday’s NY Times editorial, the Times editors, like many people ignoring the flip-side of one particular coin, lamented the civilian lives lost in drone attacks in the Middle East.  The two sides of the coin—at least, in recent experience—are drone and special forces versus “boots on the ground,” lots of boots!  The Times editors either suffered a lobotomy, or, like many pacifist activists with blinders on, have forgotten the perils of massive invasions and nation building.  Many more innocents were killed in both Afghanistan and Iraq when the massive U.S. war machine was launched against terrorists, a small minority hidden among a much larger majority.

Like many people, I think war is hell and would like to see the end of it, but, with respect to terrorism, we didn’t start it…and we have to finish it!  The real choice—and I don’t have a coin for this—is to decide whether we’re going to practice Old Testament policies or New Testament ones.  The problem is that the terrorists don’t give a rat’s ass which one we choose.  If we turn the other cheek, they’ll lop off our heads.  They’ll do that too if we fight—as long as there are terrorists left breathing.  I remember—do you?—an interview where a reporter asks a grinning and dentally challenged Taliban if the fanatic would kill him if he suddenly found himself free.  Remember what the Taliban said?  That sounds like it should be in a fighting song to the tune of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”—we should always remember what that Taliban said!  Off with his head, he said!

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I read most of Tom Clancy’s books until he started writing about a secret, privately financed, vigilante organization…a bit over the top for even this old thriller writer.  Up to that point and independent of his politics, I thought he could spin a good yarn backed by enough techno-babble that it all seemed real (see the Clancy quote running across the banner of this website).  In fact, I’d wager that some higher mucky-mucks in the Pentagon weren’t happy at times with his description of U.S. and Soviet military capabilities.

More importantly, Clancy covered an era from Cold War to counterterrorism.  His first two books, Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, portrayed anti-Soviet operations featuring the U.S. Navy (the latter is an interesting Tolstoy-length account of what World War III might have been like).  The last books I read focused on terrorism (did the Japanese pilot who flew his aircraft into Congress in Debt of Honor provide ideas for the 9/11 terrorists?).  In between, he even touched on the emergence of China (The Bear and the Dragon), although he didn’t predict the kind of fascist capitalism that has taken over in that country.

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“Want cream or a gun with that latte?”  Starbucks allows you to have a gun with your bad coffee when the gun isn’t expressly prohibited by state law.  While I don’t expect anyone to shoot the barista because the company’s coffee is so bad, allowing guns seems a bad policy.  Of course, it’s bad policy to allow people to carry guns in the first place, no matter where you live (OK, maybe on the edge of Damascus, but they won’t help you against sarin gas).  Only people in special occupations should carry guns.  Period!

Recent cases around the U.S. present good evidence for gun control.  A disaster like what happened in Newtown would have occurred in Decatur, Georgia, if the school accountant hadn’t talked that mental case into putting down his weapons.  She earned my complete admiration.  But she, or anyone else, shouldn’t have to do that.  The crazy dude stole his automatic weapon from a neighbor.  Why did the neighbor have an automatic weapon?  Because he could.  It’s his right to have it for target practice (Why not something more challenging than a target shredder?  Why shouldn’t the range only allow rented guns?) and hunting (Can we equip the deer and other game with something as lethal against humans?).

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Politician’s are known for irresponsible hyperbole—for example, Dubya’s famous “Mission accomplished.”  Now Obama is guilty of bowing to media pressure and ready to declare an end to the war on terrorism.  My distrust of politicians grows day-by-day.  While the public should never expect too much from people who are mostly failed lawyers, I’m amazed at how politicians are so accustomed to bend in the wind that they continue doing it when it’s no longer necessary.  Obama will not run for re-election.  So, why is he discontinuing one of the only successful policies that have taken the war on terrorism to the terrorists?

Much handwringing has been done about drone strikes.  C’mon!  There are no American casualties.  And the number of “innocent civilians” who are victims, the so-called collateral damage, is far less than the number of casualties involved in the boots-on-the-ground approach in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Moreover, terrorists are cowards who tend to hide behind their women and children, who, like bin Laden’s extended family, are too often willing participants in al Qaeda’s tactics.  The handwringing by the media and other mentally challenged people, who are aghast at the surgical lethality of the drones, is uncalled for and gives no rest to the victims of terrorist attacks and their families and friends.

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Dennis Rodman made an ass of himself as an NBA player.  Now he’s playing diplomat—rather, Kim Jong Il’s favorite pal—and continuing to make an ass of himself.  There have been articles in our enlightened media on how this “basketball diplomacy” just might work.  BS!  That  theoretical flatulence has been quieted a bit after Rodman’s trip because the boy wonder of North Korea postures and threatens the West, testing missiles as a way to threaten South Korea and the U.S. in general and in their joint defense exercises.

Rodman must have had one too many blows to the head as other NBA players returned the hits from his flaying elbows.  He’s now certifiably crazy.  Or, completely naïve.  In any case, the North Korean dictator, in a fascistic variation of North Korea’s “three generation rule,” learned from granddaddy mostly because daddy was a moronic recluse.  Garcia-Marquez in his Autumn of the Patriarch painted a picture of the archetypical South American dictator.  Kim Jong Il makes Gabo’s dictator look like a choir boy.

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It might seem like forever, but only two weeks ago the American public had to face two acts filled with terror.  One of them was avoidable; the other, probably not.  The avoidable one was the fire and explosion at that fertilizer plant just seventy plus miles from Dallas in West, Texas.  The unavoidable one was the bombing at the Boston Marathon.

It’s ironic but expected that the event in Texas occurred where states’ rights and minimal federal government intervention is strong.  Our federal inspection system has been anemic at best, traditionally starved for funding and personnel and filled with corruption.  The GOP in general and the Tea Party in particular don’t want to fund anything that even carries the faint aroma of meddling in the affairs of the States, unless that meddling implies sending bacon back home to their constituent areas.  The sequestering will only exacerbate this.

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Readers of this blog know that I’ve long supported drones and special forces as effective ways to battle terrorism.  Now these tactics are coming into question in the liberal media.  The criticism contains the usual complaint that innocents can be killed.  It also complains about due process, especially for those terrorists who are also U.S. citizens.  The Obama administration has recognized the effectiveness of these policies.  Ironically, both sides of the political aisle are criticizing.  Maybe not ironic, but absurd—it’s as if all those NRA supporters in Congress have suddenly become vocal sycophants of the ACLU.

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Although I doubt any gun fanatic reads this blog, if you think you might be one, read the following characteristics.  Please note that I’m not talking about a gun enthusiast (simple hunter, skeet shooter, authentic target-range aficionado, etc.).  Again, if you don’t understand the difference between fanatic and enthusiast, read on.  For other people, some of the characteristics below might be amusing, others just plain sad…because there’s always truth in humor!

1) Go to a gun show and watch how a buyer picks up and caresses the weapon, whether he buys it or not.  If the gun seems to be just an extension of you-know-what, he’s a fanatic.  Don’t be surprised at the number of men you see doing this, even if their bathrooms aren’t loaded with porno pics.  Note that this doesn’t apply to women unless she has a particular kind of Freudian envy.  Or, she caresses the weapon while smiling at him.

2) If you’re out in the woods and run across a deer hunter—or any kind of hunter, for that matter—and he tries to convince you he needs an assault rifle to bring down his intended targets, you have a gun fanatic.  This definitely applies to women too.  By the way, what the hell are you doing in the woods during hunting season?  Hunters kill other people, even ones dressed in those loud orange clown suits they’re supposed to be wearing.  Without that suit, you’ll just look like game to them, even if the hunter you meet is like that sharpshooting GoDaddy CEO who’s out to kill an elephant.  Although most hunters, like Dick Cheney, can only hit the broad side of a judge, you can’t count on that!

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