There's been this question floating about recently. Reporters want to pester Jeb Bush to see if he will admit his brother (W.) made a big mistake invading Iraq after 9/11. And whether or not that mistake led directly to ISIS.
Apparently the majority of Americans now see the invasion as unprofitable, possibly even wrong on some grounds or other. (Even before the advent of ISIS.)
And clearly, the power vacuum caused by our eventual withdrawal blew open the door for various radical factions, including ISIS. In addition, the civil war in Syria sucked various fighters together in a witches' brew of unhappy but aggressive folks.
But reporters want to concentrate on a single, simple question. (Oh how we love simple questions. We think these simple answers will solve many things that are wrong with our lives.)
The question: Did George W. Bush pave the way for ISIS?
Aside from slapping a guilty verdict on some fellow in order to make ourselves feel better about things, there is an implication that assigning blame might teach us something that will prevent future gaffs and other, inevitable crises.
We think (hope) we can mend the process of politics in order to avoid new disasters. We aim to fix our errant ways so we can lead better, more comfortable lives.
Is that a reasonable goal?
I'll tell you the answer in a moment. First, let's get back to the question of ISIS.
Blaming W. for ISIS is facile and juicy in an election year (they're all election years now). If Iraq had never been invaded, would ISIS exist today? Maybe.
Here's a more far-reaching and provocative question: Would ISIS exist today without the religion called Islam?
Surely (if I may call you that), some armed entity could be expected to be roaming the deserts and towns of Iraq following the exit of American troops. Power vacuums just naturally suck folks in and give them the hope of setting up their own regimes.
(There's only two strategies for avoiding this situation: Don't invade other peoples' countries; or—if you do—never leave. Can you guess the one I like best?)
ISIS, however, has the added kick of being a determined mass of deeply religious folks. (Politicians throughout the West are proficient at denying ISIS draws any potency from religious fervor. Come on!)
ISIS performs various brutalities for specifically religious reasons. Sharia law, and all that. Should a woman suffer a wardrobe failure that leads to her rape, she would absolutely be dumped into a pit and have a bulldozer push a pile of stones on top of her.
You can set your watch by their predictable behavior.
No question, Islam (or a misinterpretation of it) is the power behind the throne. Sure, humans are brutal a-holes, but they perform their best work when driven (excused) by deeply-held religious beliefs.
Given half a chance, humans will aways misinterpret divine instructions in order to free up work for the sharp knife, the well-stocked bench of torture implements, the stack of tinder-dry firewood, the cauldron of boiling oil.
("No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Really? Hate to tell you, but it's in our blood to behave this way.)
If you feel I'm being too harsh on Islam, please recall that Christianity is also a vast, gurgling heap of baseless and dangerous crap.
Which brings us to the lowest level of human behavior: the fundamental flaw in our brains that urges us to create systems of supernatural nonsense.
We just naturally gravitate to pulsating clouds of baloney gas. We refuse to believe the universe is an uncaring machine operating on simple laws of physics.
We need the universe to possess a personality—preferably a benign one—so that we can be protected from evil and rewarded when we display the ability to step back from murdering our fellow man.
(We also want to be rewarded when we step up to murder particular groups of our fellow man, those pointed out in our sacred texts as needed killing.)
A disturbing number of people want nothing more out of life but an opportunity to prove exactly how effed-up they are. And I mean effed-up in God's name.
To return to the question ("Can we learn from our mistakes and do better in the future?"), the answer is: Not bloody likely.
We seem to lack the ability to learn such things. We do, however, pack a talent for figuring out better and faster ways of getting the horror done.
Not the answer we were looking for, of course, but an answer nevertheless. Sometimes you just have to make do.
By the way, here's the answer to the title question: W. didn't create ISIS. He just made it extremely easy for the group to work its magic on the region.
President Obama didn't help, either, in his reluctance to get involved in Syria. But interfering in a civil war is a mug's game. (Remember Viet Nam?) And half the folks fighting Bashar al-Assad were (and are) members of al-Qaeda backed groups. And who wants to help them?
The enemy of my enemy is still some kind of enemy.
[For more on faulty human thought processes, see the book What's Wrong With Us, available in Kindle ebook format.]
Monday, August 24, 2015
Friday, August 14, 2015
DEALING WITH IRAN
Well, they hammered out a deal with Iran over nukes, and now the fun begins.
Seems like all Republicans are against it. The thing is, you can't really tell what that means. If President Obama is for something, Republicans tend to be against it. On principle.
(The Principle of Knee-jerk Political Objection.)
So, is it really a bad deal?
It's designed to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon for ten years. The anti-deal ads on TV say Iran will then be able to produce a bomb in two months.
Really?
Even if that's true (and I doubt it), that means Iran won't have a bomb for ten years and two months. That's better than nothing, right?
Question: How long will it take them to get a bomb without this deal? Two months? Three?
Obama says the alternative to this agreement is some kind of war. Republicans say they never suggested war as an alternative. So I guess their solution would have to be a better deal. But is it possible to get a better deal right now?
The Republicans seem to assume they could force through a better deal if they were allowed to send in some tough-ass negotiators. (Donald Trump could do it, but he's too busy insulting Rosie O'Donnell and the like.) Problem is, it would probably take a Republican President to get 'er done. And the election is still quite a ways off. Do we even have that much time?
(Also, can they get a Republican elected?)
One of their objections to the deal is that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. Republicans point out if we reduce or eliminate sanctions, Iran would have more money to pursue its hobby.
To me, it sounds like limiting Iran's vexing behavior is a separate deal. First things first, I say. Nukes up front, terrorism later.
Because there's a fundamental difference.
Iran doesn't need to have the bomb (and they keep insisting they aren't even trying to make one). But they appear to have a driving need to turn the crank on the terror machine.
Mainly because they don't see it as a terror machine. Rather, it's a Holy War Against the West (America and Israel, mostly). This they are pledged to do. They might well claim Allah himself insists they man that crank day and night.
After all, Islam must be defended and bolstered and spread around the world. Folks who know this and want to help are often in the minority in their region and lack resources. Iran feels compelled to take up the slack and slip them a few bucks or the occasional shipment of arms.
Another Republican objection: They see the nuke deal as a temporary band-aid. They believe that as soon as those ten years clock down, Iran is virtually guaranteed to get the bomb. As if it were a prize for playing the game.
But I don't think there's anything in the deal that prevents the U.S. from reinstating sanctions as soon as time runs out. Further deals might well be in the offing.
Maybe in some future pact Iran will have to give up all nuclear facilities. We could make 'em go entirely Green: wind and solar power or nothing.
Also, we could simply cheat—if that's what it takes to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
Nobody is going to be bound by a deal that guarantees Iran the bomb. Especially not Israel.
In the past Israel has bombed Iranian facilities thought to be furthering progress toward an atomic bomb. I doubt they would hesitate to do so in the future. The deal reached with Iran should, at the very least, give Israel time to prepare their inevitable assault.
And if we're willing to be tricky enough to end Iran's nuclear threat once and for all, here's a devious path:
Forget deals. Just double the sanctions every year until the Iranians go nuts and start shooting. Then we'd be free to react in what used to be called a nuclear spasm—and turn the whole country into a parking lot paved with radioactive green glass.
(Maybe by then ISIS will have the bomb. Does anybody wanna try negotiating with those assholes?)
Iran is what it is—and the problem it presents—because of the nonsensical ideas carried about in the heads of the people who inhabit the country.
(That goes for the U.S. as well, unfortunately. American noggins are packed with a competing set of nonsensical ideas.)
Ideas have no measurable mass, yet they are the very devil to lift. People know what they know and they can't be wrong. Everything they see proves them right.
It can get pretty messy.
[For more on how this mental situation complicates life on our planet, see the book What's Wrong With Us. Amazon Prime members should be able to borrow the Kindle ebook edition for free.]
Seems like all Republicans are against it. The thing is, you can't really tell what that means. If President Obama is for something, Republicans tend to be against it. On principle.
(The Principle of Knee-jerk Political Objection.)
So, is it really a bad deal?
It's designed to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon for ten years. The anti-deal ads on TV say Iran will then be able to produce a bomb in two months.
Really?
Even if that's true (and I doubt it), that means Iran won't have a bomb for ten years and two months. That's better than nothing, right?
Question: How long will it take them to get a bomb without this deal? Two months? Three?
Obama says the alternative to this agreement is some kind of war. Republicans say they never suggested war as an alternative. So I guess their solution would have to be a better deal. But is it possible to get a better deal right now?
The Republicans seem to assume they could force through a better deal if they were allowed to send in some tough-ass negotiators. (Donald Trump could do it, but he's too busy insulting Rosie O'Donnell and the like.) Problem is, it would probably take a Republican President to get 'er done. And the election is still quite a ways off. Do we even have that much time?
(Also, can they get a Republican elected?)
One of their objections to the deal is that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. Republicans point out if we reduce or eliminate sanctions, Iran would have more money to pursue its hobby.
To me, it sounds like limiting Iran's vexing behavior is a separate deal. First things first, I say. Nukes up front, terrorism later.
Because there's a fundamental difference.
Iran doesn't need to have the bomb (and they keep insisting they aren't even trying to make one). But they appear to have a driving need to turn the crank on the terror machine.
Mainly because they don't see it as a terror machine. Rather, it's a Holy War Against the West (America and Israel, mostly). This they are pledged to do. They might well claim Allah himself insists they man that crank day and night.
After all, Islam must be defended and bolstered and spread around the world. Folks who know this and want to help are often in the minority in their region and lack resources. Iran feels compelled to take up the slack and slip them a few bucks or the occasional shipment of arms.
Another Republican objection: They see the nuke deal as a temporary band-aid. They believe that as soon as those ten years clock down, Iran is virtually guaranteed to get the bomb. As if it were a prize for playing the game.
But I don't think there's anything in the deal that prevents the U.S. from reinstating sanctions as soon as time runs out. Further deals might well be in the offing.
Maybe in some future pact Iran will have to give up all nuclear facilities. We could make 'em go entirely Green: wind and solar power or nothing.
Also, we could simply cheat—if that's what it takes to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
Nobody is going to be bound by a deal that guarantees Iran the bomb. Especially not Israel.
In the past Israel has bombed Iranian facilities thought to be furthering progress toward an atomic bomb. I doubt they would hesitate to do so in the future. The deal reached with Iran should, at the very least, give Israel time to prepare their inevitable assault.
And if we're willing to be tricky enough to end Iran's nuclear threat once and for all, here's a devious path:
Forget deals. Just double the sanctions every year until the Iranians go nuts and start shooting. Then we'd be free to react in what used to be called a nuclear spasm—and turn the whole country into a parking lot paved with radioactive green glass.
(Maybe by then ISIS will have the bomb. Does anybody wanna try negotiating with those assholes?)
Iran is what it is—and the problem it presents—because of the nonsensical ideas carried about in the heads of the people who inhabit the country.
(That goes for the U.S. as well, unfortunately. American noggins are packed with a competing set of nonsensical ideas.)
Ideas have no measurable mass, yet they are the very devil to lift. People know what they know and they can't be wrong. Everything they see proves them right.
It can get pretty messy.
[For more on how this mental situation complicates life on our planet, see the book What's Wrong With Us. Amazon Prime members should be able to borrow the Kindle ebook edition for free.]
Monday, August 3, 2015
MORE TROUBLE IN CINCINNATI
On July 19, not far from the University of Cincinnati, a young college cop pulled over a black man (Samuel DuBose) for not having a front license plate on his car.
Things went pear-shaped after that, and the young cop (Ray Tensing) shot and killed DuBose.
Despite the fact the encounter was caught on body-cam, there seems no variety of opinion concerning who was responsible for the killing.
"Without question a murder," says Hamilton County Prosecutor, Joe Deters. Tensing "should never have been a police officer," he says.
(Actually, Deters is against the very concept of university cops. What the hell do universities know about running a police force?)
Officer Tensing was suspended after the incident. He was then indicted for murder and involuntary manslaughter. After which he was promptly fired. He's out right now on a million dollar bond.
All because he murdered a guy for not having a front plate.
A "chicken-crap traffic stop," Joe Deters says. About the most asinine thing he'd ever seen, he says.
(Worse than the cop who shot the guy in the back as he ran away? Maybe Deters never saw that one.)
In this case, and we all can see it on the video, Ray Tensing asks DuBose repeatedly to produce a drivers license. DuBose can't do it, keeps asking why he was stopped in the first place.
(As if being grabbed up in a chicken-crap traffic stop meant you didn't need to produce a license.)
Officer Tensing tells the guy if he can't come up with the proper paperwork, he needs to slip out of his seat belt. There's an implication there, that DuBose will shortly be out of his vehicle, possibly in cuffs. In any case, he's done driving for a while.
DuBose responds by keying his ignition and putting his car in gear. Tensing had previously opened the driver's side door. DuBose reaches out to pull it shut again. He's had enough of this "asinine" conversation and is preparing, quite calmly and deliberately, to drive off.
This may be where Prosecutor Joe Deters nodded off. DuBose is moving so calmly and nonchalantly he seems to have put Deters into a hypnotic trance. Perhaps Deters sees whats going on, but he can detect in DuBose's action no threat to the officer. No threat at all.
In fact, what just happened was this: DuBose transformed his inert vehicle into a lethal weapon. Just like that, everything changed. Deters missed it.
Now here's where young Officer Tensing betrays his lack of experience. Procedure dictates he jump back from the car, to avoid injury to himself.
Procedure: Step back and let the man drive away, then return to the unit and radio in the beginning of Part Two of the encounter—the high-speed chase.
Sure, doing it this way makes it possible for DuBose to crash into whatever comes into range, perhaps killing innocent drivers and pedestrians.
But that's on him, see? The officer is in the clear. Procedure doesn't require any heroics on his part. Just step back and let nature take its course.
But he chose instead to reach into the car, in an attempt to turn off the ignition and grab the keys, keep DuBose from driving off. He yells "Stop!" several times and also pulls his service weapon, points it in the man's face.
Here's where Tensing made his next two mistakes. He yelled "Stop!" but failed to add those magic words: "—or I'll shoot!"
If you don't yell "—or I'll shoot," you're not allowed to actually shoot. That's the law.
Or maybe it isn't. I'm a little hazy on that point.
In any case, Tensing gave the fellow almost no time to react to the gun in his face before pulling the trigger.
On the other hand, there wasn't a lot of time to play around with here. The motor was running, the car was in gear, and the only thing keeping that thing from zooming off was DuBose's foot on the brake pedal.
In these desperate circumstances, one might cut Tensing a little slack on the matter of whether the car was in motion just before he fired his weapon or just after. He suggests his left hand may have been threaded through the steering wheel in its grab for the keys. DuBose had only to lift his foot and Tensing would be dragged away, possibly killed under the wheels of the car.
This was a very vulnerable position, to be sure.
But it's one he put himself into when he violated Procedure: Jump back and let the guy drive off.
Maybe you can see why he might have tried to end the matter right here, rather than proceed to Part Two and whatever mayhem that could lead to.
End this here, he may have been thinking.
Nonsense, say many others. Tensing was thinking one thing only: Shoot the black guy!
For no reason.
Just like the guy's mom said on TV: That cop shot her son for no reason.
It's always for "no reason."
(And by "no reason" they mean: Because that white cop was a racist.)
And after a year or so of these sorts of events, some caught on video, some not, a lot of folks seem to have settled on the black view: White cops shoot black guys for no reason.
White prosecutors agree. Tensing "purposely killed" DuBose, says Joe Deters.
Well, yeah. Tensing is not claiming his gun went off accidentally. But he violated Procedure, okay? Step back and let the guy drive off. That's what you do. That's what real police officers do, right?
What do universities know about policing? Stopping a man for a missing front license plate!
Maybe we should follow the Prosecutor's implied suggestion and remove all these chicken-crap laws from the books. Clearly this is not a time to have a bunch of excuses out there for white cops with murder in their eyes to stop black guys on the road.
No more chicken-crap laws. And for almost all of the rest of the laws—the more reasonable, less chicken-crappy laws—just document the violation on video and mail the guy a bill.
For the real bad stuff, the driver leaned out the window blasting away with his MAC-10, simply light him up with your Hellfire missile and be done with it.
Case closed.
And let the grieving mother say anything she wants.
That's always going to happen.
[For more information on how humans think, check out the Kindle ebook, What's Wrong With Us. There's a link on the right-hand side of this page. Just double-click the book cover to go to Amazon.]
Things went pear-shaped after that, and the young cop (Ray Tensing) shot and killed DuBose.
Despite the fact the encounter was caught on body-cam, there seems no variety of opinion concerning who was responsible for the killing.
"Without question a murder," says Hamilton County Prosecutor, Joe Deters. Tensing "should never have been a police officer," he says.
(Actually, Deters is against the very concept of university cops. What the hell do universities know about running a police force?)
Officer Tensing was suspended after the incident. He was then indicted for murder and involuntary manslaughter. After which he was promptly fired. He's out right now on a million dollar bond.
All because he murdered a guy for not having a front plate.
A "chicken-crap traffic stop," Joe Deters says. About the most asinine thing he'd ever seen, he says.
(Worse than the cop who shot the guy in the back as he ran away? Maybe Deters never saw that one.)
In this case, and we all can see it on the video, Ray Tensing asks DuBose repeatedly to produce a drivers license. DuBose can't do it, keeps asking why he was stopped in the first place.
(As if being grabbed up in a chicken-crap traffic stop meant you didn't need to produce a license.)
Officer Tensing tells the guy if he can't come up with the proper paperwork, he needs to slip out of his seat belt. There's an implication there, that DuBose will shortly be out of his vehicle, possibly in cuffs. In any case, he's done driving for a while.
DuBose responds by keying his ignition and putting his car in gear. Tensing had previously opened the driver's side door. DuBose reaches out to pull it shut again. He's had enough of this "asinine" conversation and is preparing, quite calmly and deliberately, to drive off.
This may be where Prosecutor Joe Deters nodded off. DuBose is moving so calmly and nonchalantly he seems to have put Deters into a hypnotic trance. Perhaps Deters sees whats going on, but he can detect in DuBose's action no threat to the officer. No threat at all.
In fact, what just happened was this: DuBose transformed his inert vehicle into a lethal weapon. Just like that, everything changed. Deters missed it.
Now here's where young Officer Tensing betrays his lack of experience. Procedure dictates he jump back from the car, to avoid injury to himself.
Procedure: Step back and let the man drive away, then return to the unit and radio in the beginning of Part Two of the encounter—the high-speed chase.
Sure, doing it this way makes it possible for DuBose to crash into whatever comes into range, perhaps killing innocent drivers and pedestrians.
But that's on him, see? The officer is in the clear. Procedure doesn't require any heroics on his part. Just step back and let nature take its course.
But he chose instead to reach into the car, in an attempt to turn off the ignition and grab the keys, keep DuBose from driving off. He yells "Stop!" several times and also pulls his service weapon, points it in the man's face.
Here's where Tensing made his next two mistakes. He yelled "Stop!" but failed to add those magic words: "—or I'll shoot!"
If you don't yell "—or I'll shoot," you're not allowed to actually shoot. That's the law.
Or maybe it isn't. I'm a little hazy on that point.
In any case, Tensing gave the fellow almost no time to react to the gun in his face before pulling the trigger.
On the other hand, there wasn't a lot of time to play around with here. The motor was running, the car was in gear, and the only thing keeping that thing from zooming off was DuBose's foot on the brake pedal.
In these desperate circumstances, one might cut Tensing a little slack on the matter of whether the car was in motion just before he fired his weapon or just after. He suggests his left hand may have been threaded through the steering wheel in its grab for the keys. DuBose had only to lift his foot and Tensing would be dragged away, possibly killed under the wheels of the car.
This was a very vulnerable position, to be sure.
But it's one he put himself into when he violated Procedure: Jump back and let the guy drive off.
Maybe you can see why he might have tried to end the matter right here, rather than proceed to Part Two and whatever mayhem that could lead to.
End this here, he may have been thinking.
Nonsense, say many others. Tensing was thinking one thing only: Shoot the black guy!
For no reason.
Just like the guy's mom said on TV: That cop shot her son for no reason.
It's always for "no reason."
(And by "no reason" they mean: Because that white cop was a racist.)
And after a year or so of these sorts of events, some caught on video, some not, a lot of folks seem to have settled on the black view: White cops shoot black guys for no reason.
White prosecutors agree. Tensing "purposely killed" DuBose, says Joe Deters.
Well, yeah. Tensing is not claiming his gun went off accidentally. But he violated Procedure, okay? Step back and let the guy drive off. That's what you do. That's what real police officers do, right?
What do universities know about policing? Stopping a man for a missing front license plate!
Maybe we should follow the Prosecutor's implied suggestion and remove all these chicken-crap laws from the books. Clearly this is not a time to have a bunch of excuses out there for white cops with murder in their eyes to stop black guys on the road.
No more chicken-crap laws. And for almost all of the rest of the laws—the more reasonable, less chicken-crappy laws—just document the violation on video and mail the guy a bill.
For the real bad stuff, the driver leaned out the window blasting away with his MAC-10, simply light him up with your Hellfire missile and be done with it.
Case closed.
And let the grieving mother say anything she wants.
That's always going to happen.
[For more information on how humans think, check out the Kindle ebook, What's Wrong With Us. There's a link on the right-hand side of this page. Just double-click the book cover to go to Amazon.]
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)