Still, in the wake of the Paris attacks, I have seen almost instantly:
* Hillary Clinton leading American gun-control advocates electing to mourn this as an incident of "gun violence," implying that we should defer to them in stripping us of our rights even though Paris has exactly the gun laws they would like us to have.
* Gun-rights advocates suggesting that France needs to adopt the 2nd Amendment -- Bruni cites Coulter among others.
* Bernie Sanders suggesting it just shows that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, like that despicable woman Clinton agreed to do in accord with George W. Bush.
* Libertarian isolationists suggesting that this proves that Western arrogance in the Middle East bears evil fruit that we more or less deserve.
* Climate change warriors suggesting this was all about climate change (Bruni deserves credit for seeing this one on his own side).
One person who didn't do this was retired Democrat Jim Webb.
Those in France and elsewhere should be able to feel safe and free from the forces of terrorism. This has been our policy for more than thirty years and it will continue to be. But this is not a time for emotional outbursts or empty threats. In key moments such as now it is vitally important for us to assemble a complete picture of what happened and why before recommending what specific actions need to follow. I would urge the President and other national leaders to work carefully with our national security leaders and to apply this approach in the coming days.That's pretty good advice.
7 comments:
Yeah, but it's always appropriate to kill Daesh. France appears to think so, too, or they've made the assessment.
Eric Hines
I mean, I was happy to do that anyway. It's not out of our way.
Well, Sanders is....not a deep thinker. But it's worth remembering that John Paul II sent GWBush a letter warning that deposing Saddam would have grave, long-lasting effects on the Middle East.
It's also worth noting that the Catholic Church has 'humint' in every country on Earth, far more than CIA ever dreamed of. A pity that GWB didn't heed the warning.
The Catholic Church's humint were greatly pruned when Islamic Jihad killed off Christians in the ME and Africa.
As for warnings, the number of data crunched out of Iraq and Gitmo interrogations, exceeded whatever human intelligence any Earthly government had on terror networks by orders of magnitude. Which is why France got caught blind now that Gitmo isn't providing them an inside look into terror networks.
Unfortunately, those same prisons in Iraq -- Bucca especially -- are the fertile ground that produced ISIS. It's an unavoidable fact that ISIS sprang from the union of Baathists and Islamists that we set up there, in the one environment where they could mingle and talk without being afraid of being killed by each other. They came together under our watch.
the number of data crunched out of Iraq and Gitmo interrogations, exceeded whatever human intelligence any Earthly government had on terror networks by orders of magnitude
You make the assumption that RC humint did not tell the US (and/or Egypt, etc.) a thing. I don't think you can substantiate that. Dick Cheney is happy to take credit for whatever we learned from Gitmo. But the Church is not going to blab to ABC News about their role (if any, see below).
It is also possible that US intel ignored or stiff-armed RC sources. Not as likely, but we don't know.
It's an unavoidable fact that ISIS sprang from the union of Baathists and Islamists that we set up there, in the one environment where they could mingle and talk without being afraid of being killed by each other. They came together under our watch.
Under Hussein's watch, because he funded and trained them, that is.
It is also possible that US intel ignored or stiff-armed RC sources. Not as likely, but we don't know.
There's a lot of things people don't know about.
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