The language of TV commentators and politicians: so casual and assuming about US military “strategy” in Syria, Iraq, even Ukraine. They speak with a cavalier entitlement as if our military options in other countries are like coffee choices at Starbucks. Many accept a correlation between video games and a level of desensitization to violence but what of the media’s culpability in desensitizing us to terms like “US intervention”, “military options”, “surgical air strikes” and many more. Why is it wholly unremarkable to hear these people talking matter-of-factly about bombing here and bombing there like possible moves on a chess board? These televised parleys are relegated to debates about targets, timing of strikes, what kind of munitions to deploy and very occasionally about the various benefits of bombing but never about the actual right to bomb. The right to bomb is a given in these dialogs. We feel threatened or we feel there might be a threat in the future. After all there was 911, our “never again” moment (by the way, how has that “never again” strategy worked out for the Jewish people in the middle east?) We feel a paternity toward a world filled with nations and people centuries older than our own. We feel the power of unrivaled wealth (albeit morphing). The deal is we have the biggest stick, currently. Each of these fail to support the right to bomb other countries. Additionally, we continue to be inoculated against the principal question of the right to bomb with the “US interests in the region” serum. Now that covers a multitude of sins. Who defines all of these interests and which countries they are lodged in? We were once sold the very long and expensive Vietnam War as vital to US interests, ooops, not really. There’s the oil of course and the prime military base real estate to be considered to name a few. “US interests” can dissolve foreign boarders and sovereignty and our very own Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of The Constitution. “US Interests”: a powerful term that has migrated to normal. Who in the US profits financially by these critical decisions and who loses, always the same people.
Power to the People
Port Tack 
Threat Level
8 SepRight Left, doesn’t matter the propaganda out of DC and the media is that we must stop ISIL before they reach the homeland. “Defeat them over there” is the patriotic battle cry . (Queue the multi-racial group of little children waving little American flags). Still no mention of oil.
Defeat ISIL, like we defeated the Taliban and al Qaeda and the myriad of like splinter groups. Webster defines defeat: “ to win a victory over (someone or something) in a war, contest, game, etc : to cause (someone or something) to fail : to control or overcome (something”). After all these years of death and money thrown at the ever popular defeat strategy, how we doin’? We can easily remember when al Qaeda was billed for years as the cataclysmic threat to the American homeland, why to the very fabric of “the American way of life” (that would have to include Ferguson). History is loaded with examples that groups mutate and morph constantly. Nazis have become neo-nazis, skin heads, white supremacists, etc. Al Qaeda becomes al Qaeda in Iraq becomes ISIS becomes ISIL becomes Islamic State. Whatever. So now this iteration is the worst we’ve ever seen, oh my God . . . . until, of course, the next one in the revolving door of war. How long are we going to buy the snake oil (the lubricant) and drink the cool-aid? This cool-aid concocted and distributed here at home is the threat to poor people and our middle class. After years of applying defeat military style what’s the score, ah, conspicuously worse than before we invaded. Our predictable military response to all things that sparkle is so primitive and strangely at odds with our intense interest in such things as technology, at the very least it’s embarrassing. Time to evolve past the global pro wrestling circuit. Time to formulate a plan B; a non- military way of navigating the planet and powering our cars. Plenty of perfectly nice nations do it without being brought to their knees.
The logistics: how would it work? The dooms-dayers and war hawks never give a description of how it would work. The DC and media outlets say that in addition to being the most barbaric group ISIL is also the most well funded of the bad guys at large. Assuming for the moment that this is true, how soon before they have an air force with highly trained pilots, air craft carriers to transport it, jet fuel (not crude oil), radar and satellite communication, missiles and bombs to arm it? Regardless of the revenue stream, how soon before they build this air force for themselves? Or, how soon before sympathetic supporter(s) gift them with a fully functioning air force as described? Or, how soon before they conquer/capture a complete air force and kidnap pilots (which they would have to resist beheading)? Can you see mega masculine Saudi Arabia or Iran allowing their military to be taken over by anyone? These are countries, like all countries, with men at the top that very much like their power and will get violent to retain it. How long before ISIL can fly over and bomb us, or launch long range ballistic missiles at us from the middle east, or launch missiles from their submarines or war ships? ‘Cause they’ve had the capability for years to come to the US and do one-on bombings; place bombs in crowded places, blow up a suicide bomber, etc. We don’t have to spend billions more dollars over seas, they can do one-on bombings right now. The Arab nations that circle ISIL must be thanking Allah daily for the abject foolishness of the United States.
Power to the People
Tags: Cowards in Politics, Foreign Policy, Media, Military, Money, Oil, Political Fortitude, War