Ah, the good old days

What happened to the world I grew up in?  We had rules, and we by-and-large obeyed them.  Countries were expected to act in a certain way.  When one crossed the line of decency, they were slapped down.  The good guys banded together to smite the offender.  It was country vs country, tank vs tank, plane vs plane.  You knew who your enemy was.  Now in many parts of the world, particularly the Mid East, boundaries are no more.  Ideologies have no boundaries.

Guerrilla warfare has been around probably forever, but it was in Vietnam that the Bad Guys realized it was the civilized world's Achilles Heel.  Toss a grenade, then run back to tending your fields.  "Who me?  I didn't do it, nobody saw me, you can't prove a thing."  It wouldn't take long for public opinion to force accommodation with the forces of evil.

And of course, there's good old religion.  It's all about peace, and tolerance, and love.  Right?  No?  The Crusades are ancient history, but I sense a stirring for Crusades, The Sequel.  Us vs "them".

I can't figure out Islam.  My heart still wants to honor the concept of Freedom of Religion, but Muslims are making it hard for me.  My head says "Don't trust 'em.  Watch 'em like a hawk.  Don't turn your back on 'em."

Which leads to "profiling".  Bad, right?  You can't single out African Americans, or Hispanics, for example, for special scrutiny.  Except, maybe, it's OK to profile Muslims?  Is that where we're heading?  I'll admit, when I see someone I can identify as Muslim on the street, I stiffen.  I wonder.  

Most are just regular people like me...they work, they have families, they bother no one.  But some, too many, seem to be torn between being loyal Americans (or Brits, or Aussies, or Danes, etc), honoring the civilized rule of law, and the rising sentiment of identifying with the forces of evil gaining strength in the Mid East and being rapidly spread via the internet.  And yes, when you cut off peoples heads, you're EVIL!

So now guerrilla warfare has come to America.  Work in your shop or your office during the day, and make bombs and assemble an arsenal at night.  Is this where we're headed?

What happened to the world I grew up in?

S

What is that definition of insanity again?

"Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

Why can't we get the Mexican drug cartels to line up for a photo op like this?

 

The United States has a serious problem with drug cartels physically venturing into US territory to expand their base of operations.  Do we go to the UN and ask that they put together a coalition to come help us?  Do we put in calls to France or New Zealand or South Korea and ask them to come to our aid?  NO!  It's in OUR back yard, making it OUR problem.

So why does the world always start chanting U...S...A... when it hits the fan in the Mid East?  In case you weren't aware, Turkey is a formidable power in that region.  So is Iran.  And obviously so is Israel.  And don't forget Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  If ISIS succeeds in Syria / Iraq, those countries have an immediate problem.  It's in THEIR back yard.  (America's problem with ISIS will be a bit longer range.) 

What I want to know is, what are THOSE countries gonna do about ISIS?  IMO those countries should be in the starting lineup.  We should be in the bull pen.  Those countries have their own planes and bombs.  We know this because WE sold them to them (along with Russia, the UK, France, and a few others).  

They save their weaponry for parades and fly-overs (and occasionally crushing a dissident group at home) while we expend ours.  While they spend their money on massive social programs for their citizens, our infrastructure crumbles, our schools struggle for adequate funding, and our food banks have trouble meeting demand.

Ever since Vietnam showed the world our military Achilles heel we haven't been able to defeat a guerrilla-style enemy.  That's because we value life.  We won't wipe out a city block to get one bad guy for fear of killing innocent civilians.  It happens, and we agonize over it, but we do make a valiant effort to prevent it.  Our guerrilla enemies have no such conscience.

We've become a foreign policy "Jack of all trades, master of none".  We try to be everywhere, but we actually accomplish very little.  Trying to prop up "countries" that were just figments of some post-WWI European diplomat's imagination is a lost cause.

I say let "those people" thrust and parry among themselves.  Let them decide their own borders.  Let them organize themselves by clan or tribe or whatever.  Let them establish their own balance of power.  It will be bloody, yes, but even if we try, we can have very little (if any) lasting influence.  It's called "reality".

We need to be backing up the Mid East regional powers who are truly on the front lines, and not the other way around.

Just sayin'.

S