Obama Vs Putin in Syria

Obama has egg on his face. Putin thinks so to, because he put it there. I can’t help feeling a twinge of schadenfreude, even though I’m a very big patriot.

Vladimir Putin can beat the shit out of Chuck Norris (and Obama).

Vladimir Putin looking very smug right now. He could beat up Obama and Chuck Norris as a warmup for his morning exercise routine.

My point is that there is no moral difference between killing innocent civilians with poison gas than more conventional methods.

Two nuclear bombs directed specifically at huge concentrations of innocent civilians. Death toll estimated at 225,000. Agent Orange used indiscriminately against a civilian population. 400,000 killed or maimed. 500,000 birth defects. By far the largest stash of chemical weapons in the world ourselves. Remotely controlled drones killing terrorists (and a fair amount of innocent civilians) in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and God only knows where else, gives the USA very little moral high ground and absolutely disqualifies us from any position of leadership in the world. Particularly when we conveniently looked the other way because it suited our schemes in the region when Saddam Hussein used the same poisonous gas in the Iraq-Iran war and against the Kurds in his own country.

President Obama

He stole my lunch money again!

Let me make this perfectly fucking clear: Our less savory actions on the global political stage has come back to bite us in the ass. And I say that as a patriot. Fuck that; I don’t even know what a patriot is anymore. The word is so over-used that it’s become as meaningless and empty as the “God bless America” that every politician throws in to conclude their speeches, or the automatic “how are you?” I get from the checkout lady at the supermarket. She doesn’t really care how I feel. She has enough with her own problems, like trying to make a living on minimum wage.

But I digress. WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Obama Beats The War Drum

It was OK to kill 100k Syrians with guns and rockets for 2 years. Then about a year ago Obama claimed a red line had been crossed and there would be hell to pay for a certain Syrian dictator named Bashar al-Assad (not that there’s any shortage of dictators we’re all chummy with all over the world, now and past) and now he’s all resentful and pissed off and trying to act macho and shit because the American people, the US Congress, the Brits, NATO, the UN and everybody else tells him to back off and stop being a hypocrite, and Putin thinks he’s a girly man. He’s been such a wuss for so long I suspect he’s overcompensating.

We were quite happy to look the other way while upwards of a million Tutsis were massacred by Hutus in Rwanda back in the 90s. We’re still pretending we’re not aware of what’s going on in Somalia or Kongo. But they didn’t use gas or guns, just machetes, so international law probably wasn’t even violated. But now we have the Patriot Act and the Dept. of Homeland Security and the NSA that are so busy spying on its own citizens it’s even doubtful we have theĀ  the power to punish Syria with an already thinly spread imperialistic military. Anything and everything we do can and will be justified in the name of national security. I’m just thinking out loud here.

I wonder if a dead Arab cares if he was killed with poison gas, a bullet, a machete or a poorly aimed drone.

No matter how you spin it, what England, France, the US and other western powers dicked around with in the Middle East and south-west Asia, Central- and South America and Africa over the course of the last century, had unintended consequences that are now coming home to haunt us. Yes, I said it, we are not without blame in the political clusterfuck that is going on right now.

Like most 2nd term presidents Obama is more concerned with his “legacy” than getting shit done. I bet he’s going through designs for his Presidential Library as we speak.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m disappointed with his performance and don’t think he is a particularly good president, but he’s not exceptionally bad either. Generic, perhaps, except for him being black? He would make a good Ken doll. I voted for him twice and don’t regret it. But I was naive in thinking electing the first black president would make America a better place. I was wrong. It only brought the scum that had been hibernating for 40-or-so years out from under their rocks, more vile, hateful and belligerent than ever. But that’s a topic that deserves its own post.