11 thoughts on “News Flash

  1. Lone wolves. Every one of them. Those muslims do not practice Islam, they are tied to Tea Party.

  2. In the greater scheme of things, terrorists don’t actually cause many deaths, or even a significant fraction of violent deaths. Transport, crime, and angry friends and lovers cause many more. Terrorism is a risk, but it is a small one. As we get used to it, it will become less effective. Terrorism must always strive for the new and different to avoid becoming just another violent crime. That is one of its weaknesses as a persuasive technique.

  3. You are truly one of a kind, EmeryTheAntiSemiticSoci@list. Your logic, or lack therefore and naiveté is staggering. The world you live in is truly populated by fairies and unicorns. You are completely divorced from reality. I pity you.

  4. In the greater scheme of things, terrorists don’t actually cause many deaths, or even a significant fraction of violent deaths.

    December 6, 1941: “Enemy air attack causes almost no deaths in America…”

  5. Well there you go, Emery. Heart disease and cancer kill far more people than does murder, so we should give up on prosecuting murderers. It simply isn’t that big of a deal. For that matter, neither is drunk driving.

    Honestly, Emery. You should be ashamed of saying things that stupid.

    One quibble with my gracious host; I don’t think it’s appropriate to call the current crowd in the White House the JV. Many JV players are very talented and work hard for the chance to eventually make the varsity, and those that do not learn life lessons they’ll cherish. They simply don’t deserve the slam of being compared to Mr. Obama and his minions.

  6. “In the greater scheme of things, terrorists don’t actually cause many deaths, or even a significant fraction of violent deaths.”

    Fatuous twaddle!

  7. In the greater scheme of things, terrorists don’t actually cause many deaths, or even a significant fraction of violent deaths. Transport, crime, and angry friends and lovers cause many more. Terrorism is a risk, but it is a small one. As we get used to it, it will become less effective.

    Every year they try and kill more people. They work at their plans tirelessly.
    I guess I need to quote from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy again.

    Dearths, tempests, plagues, our astrologers foretell us; Earthquakes, inundations, ruins of houses, consuming fires, come by little and little, or make some noise beforehand; but the knaveries, impostures, injuries and villainies of men no art can avoid. We can keep our professed enemies from our cities, by gates, walls and towers, defend ourselves from thieves and robbers by watchfulness and weapons; but this malice of men, and their pernicious endeavours, no caution can divert, no vigilancy foresee, we have so many secret plots and devices to mischief one another.

  8. I am always skeptical about plans to “refute” someone else’s ideology. Just because we can perceive “fallacies” or “errors” does not mean that others will accept our verdict. I find ISIL ideology repugnant, but some of the adherents to that ideology find it very persuasive. If I were a dark-skinned Muslim living in an immigrant ghetto in Paris I might find compelling clarity and logic in the ISIL pitch.

    I truly doubt we can win by talking them out of it.

  9. So ignoring them is way to go? Riiiight… Next time you get a little red in your poo, eTASS, please ignore it. It will save us reading your fatuous twaddle in the long run.

  10. Emery, while you’ve stated the obvious–“A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still” and all that–it seems to me that if we don’t engage them in rhetoric and policing (and showing many of them the door for criminal acts), we will then get the chance to engage them in battle. To use the historical parallel, if we capitulate in Munich, we risk capitulating on the Rhine as well. And yes, they’re reading the autobiography of the guy who put all that together. It’s a best seller in some places of Arabia.

  11. Our engagement with Islamic extremism in the Middle East has become increasingly complex and involves an ever-increasing number of players and interests.

    Start with ISIL. The fighting against ISIL/ Daesh has become at least three different and interrelated conflicts:
    1.a fight against Daesh, a low-level sectarian and ethnic civil conflict in Iraq, and
    2.an intense civil war in Syria. It also, however, is
    3.part of a far broader regional and global conflict with sub-parts:
    ·a global against terrorism and extremism,
    .part of the competition between the United States and Russia,
    ·part of the competition between the Sunni majority of the Arab world and Shia Iran, and
    ·part of an emerging struggle for a Kurdish identify and some form of “federalism” and/or independence that further divides into
    1.A Turkish-Kurdish component
    2.An Iraqi-Kurdish component
    3.An Iranian-Kurdish component
    4.an ISIL/Daesh-Kurdish component

    One can go one and add more to this list of sub-conflicts and cross-cutting conflicts. Which of our “allies” are with us in which of these conflicts? Against us? Agnostic? Playing both sides against the middle? How many ways does the Palestinian issue crosscut these conflicts. How many simultaneous games is Israel playing with the various groups, ethnicities and interests?

    Whose interests align with whom? Crosscut whom? Are opposite whom?

    Do most players have both shared interests and opposing interests with most other players? Even the US and Iran pose this question.

    Suffice it to say that neither Trump, Hillary, Ted Cruz nor Bernie have evinced evidence that they comprehend the complexity and multidimensionality of the this complex set of national security challenges.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.