[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

NY Times article mentioned....will look for it.

[Carry_Okie]

I'm really disturbed by that string of ill-considered truisms I saw. These guys are talking about the "necessity" of the US controlling an outcome over which we never had any real possibility of control. The bulk of the people who have the will and passion to risk their lives to free themselves of Assad are the jihadis. No one else has the international networking to solicit, receive, and apply military aid. Hence, Assad was a bad guy channeling Iranian support for Hizbullah but the alternative is a pan-Arabic caliphate capable of transnational unity in its opposition to the existence of Israel.

Take your pick. We're not even talking about that choice in the one place where such policies are supposed to be discussed: Congress, the house of the people.

Well there's more to that choice. The Russians are invested in Assad, heavily. Further, to reduce and constrain Iranian influence in the Gulf means that whatever bilateral opposition within the Islamic world will have been eliminated. Do we really want a unified Islam? Or do we want them fighting each other internally with their own blood and treasure. Neither is very attractive. Yet there is ONE thing we can do that will slash the FUNDING available to perpetuate these conflicts: Deregulate our own economy in developing and delivering petrochemical fuels.

One would think that after defeating the Soviets by this very means that such an understanding would be on the tips of their heavily compensated tongues. Don't these idiots get it or is there some other agenda here? /rhetorical question

[RobinOfKingston]

There is a piece of folk wisdom that says, “There ain’t a horse that can’t be rode, nor a man that can’t be throwed.”

With all the “interventions” the Feral Government has been involved in, there is one helluva comeuppance waiting in the bushes ahead of us.

Even “foreign aid” has done nothing better than make nations who despise us because we can give them aid.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi