It's getting to where White House press conferences should just come out and say "we're deeply concerned and are closely monitoring the situation." Any followup questions about plans for specific action can be met with, "Yes, as I said, we're deeply concerned and are closely monitoring the situation."
I'm not sure I can make an unanswerable argument for why we should spill blood and money to intervene in this one. What I am completely convinced of is that it's contemptible to rely on the phrase "We're deeply concerned" as a quick, cheap way to preen about our generosity of spirit, and "we're closely monitoring the situation" as a quick, cheap way to preen about our competence--when in fact we are doing nothing and planning to do nothing, but don't want to admit it just yet.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I can make an unanswerable argument for why we should spill blood and money to intervene in this one.
ReplyDeleteThere are very often no unanswerable arguments for getting into a fight. There are, however, very good reasons for intervening here:
-it's a chance to kill terrorists.
-it's a chance to kill Taliban look-alikes who live to vandalize historically and religiously important property of others
-there are 40,000, more or less, innocents starving in the mountains and waiting to be killed by terrorists if they don't just starve quickly enough to suit the monsters
-it's a chance to support the Kurds, who'd be on our side--even after having been abandoned by a previous administration--if we'd only let them
-it's a chance to support a Kurdish homeland, which likely (though not certainly) relieve pressure on the Turks
-it's a chance to set up a functional counterweight against Maliki, which is a chance to hurt Iran
-it's a chance to burn ISIS, quite apart from simply killing terrorists
-it's a chance to send a message to suitable recipients that maybe we're beginning to learn the error of our recent ways and we're getting assertive
There are lots more, but killing terrorists, giving succor to those innocents, and helping the Kurds are my personal favorites, so far.
Eric Hines
I'm in favor of fighting, but I usually am in favor of fighting. There are innocents to defend, and friends, and a terribly wicked foe. I would fight for those reasons alone.
ReplyDeleteNow Obama has just said we're air-dropping relief supplies to those innocents "on the mountain," and making "targeted airstrikes, if necessary."
ReplyDeleteWhich only raises questions: what are the allowed targets? Whose definition of "necessary?" Who makes that assessment--Johnson, er Obama?
Not a word of dropping weapons and ammunition for the Kurd soldiers. Nothing useful to support the fight or to do the innocents any lasting good.
Just another token gesture, apparently, an attempt to push this string down the road in the hope it'll change and go away.
Eric Hines
They're trying to figure out how to get more Americans killed, while getting more Iraqis killed too.
ReplyDeleteThat's extremely difficult, on the level of winning a 200,000 man war with only 10-50k actual combatants.
I actually have a post I'd like to write on this later. But as a quick spoiler (and to get you thinking about the topic), contrast the world/US reaction to the Yazidi situation and Gaza.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do!
ReplyDelete