Welcome to the home of the very worst of the meretricious poetasters!
number 75 for 10-23-05:
Syria, Anyone?
I don't like how we've pussyfooted around Syria. It's a rogue nation, it's engaging in warfare, and all pressure should be brought to bear to bring it to rights.
Strike that. I mean that in 2001.
Back then, the United States military was not stretched thin across the world fighting ridiculous battles, back then, we were a post-modern war group prepared for domestic threats (as we should have been) as opposed to a land-war military. We had fewer bases, but more anti-terrorism capabilities. We were making the transition from a cold war military to an anti-terrorist force.
Bush repeatedly struck down bills to forward this before September 11, and then, September 11 occurred, and rather than taking practical and sweeping changes to make our military prepared to stop the domestic threat of terrorism, he instead created a spook cadre of CIA agents with the power to monitor art and hold detainees illegally as prisoners of war called the Department of Homeland Security, evoking both the Nazi symbolism of the FATHERland, and the Nazi spirit of scaring the shit out of anyone who doesn't exist within the mainline extremism Bush spouted.
Then, forgetting the fact that the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, he took our domestic military force and engaged it across the world in a land war invasion in a hostile foreign country, taking over illegally and instilling the "freedom" to have American values in the "heathen" mass. They also took out a sitting leader and turned him over to a kangaroo court.
This got rid of a bad man. Which is good. But also wholly ignored the threats of terror. Which is bad.
Now, Syria, North Korea, Iran, Lebanon, Darfur, and numerous other nations (including China, if you want to count Tibet, and I do), are all getting away with terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and violent governments, but the man who threatened Bush's daddy is gone.
So when Condoleeza Rice says that we need to take UN action against Syria, I say, "Fuck yes!"
In 2001.
Now, we just don't have the military. We don't have the impetus…and most importantly, we do not have the national INTEGRITY to demand that any rogue state stand down.
You shouldn't have nukes! (Well, YOU have nukes, USA!)
You shouldn't execute people you don't like! (Like, say, Iraqis who resent being invaded?)
You shouldn't remove leaders of other nations that you don't like, says Condoleeza Rice to Syria (Really, now?)
And if you don't, we'll invade you. (Well, good luck. That sure worked with Iraq.).
I grow cynical. Take a blank map out, right now, and point out Syria on it. Can you? We live in a country that doesn't know its basic geography, and yet we can make decisions for the rest of the world? How FUCKED is that?
Citation