Beating the Drums; Hating the Needy

This morning, my conservative friends all of the sudden found their 2004 E-mails, the ones containing the memes they sent around back then, the ones saying, "vote Democrat to make the Terrorists happy," "You can't support the troops unless you vote Republican," and "if you support the Democrats, you might as well nuke an American city."  That was a good reminder of how such an incompetent boob like W. was able to win a second term; irrational fear being encouraged to burn.

Since the Paris attacks on Friday night, the GOP has been in full spin mode.  They've a bag of left over Halloween candy no one wants (the GOP Presidential field) and they're trying to convince America to not take a bite of the full size, popular candy bars they actually want (the Democratic candidates for President).  They know they can play upon the raw emotions of a country shocked by terrorist attacks, and push forward an inferior product as a viable option.  It worked for them before.

The right is trying to make the Paris attack/ISIS their international policy bellwether.  Since this attack happened, they've deftly played the public's lack of familiarity with the ISIS situation, and convinced many this is a personal failure of President Obama, insisting their candidates would have nuked something by now.  Their ignorance, and the willingness of a large portion of the population to go along with them, needs to be fought.

First, let's remind people how ISIS got started.  Through the insanely stupid decision to start an unjustified war with Iraq, in a pathetic attempt to get control of their oil reserves, the W. Bush administration went forward with a 'bomb first, plan later' approach, very similar to the post-Paris ones being proposed by many conservatives today.  In their reckless haste, they never had a plan to deal with Iraq, or their military, after the war.  They created a societal/political vacuum, alienated certain sub-groups of the Islamic faith in Iraq, and let the military leaders who had run Saddam's armies just go off and do their own thing.  The US military was under orders to withdraw all troops out of Iraq, signed by W. Bush prior to leaving office (remember the shoe throwing press conference?  That was the announcing of a full US military withdraw, something Bush's critics said he shouldn't do).  The US's military presence was soon gone, and no one else in the region wanted to deal with this new threat.  This was the beginning of ISIS, and it was well established when W. handed Obama the keys to the broken down, leaky clunker, insisting "it runs like new!"

Colin Powell - "You break it, you own it."

Today, ISIS has built up it's strength in Syria and Iraq, living in the shadows of the region's super powers, and their reluctance to do something that might help the others.  And there's no way to get them (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and Turkey) to all work together.  Now that ISIS has evolved a new strategy (the infiltration of countries who are trying to stop them) and started attacking civilian populations, there's a renewed desire to get something done.  The problem is the size, strength and power of ISIS in the region.  Here's a link to a sobering realization of what it would take to beat them, as conveyed to Stephen Colbert by Colonel, and Medal of Honor recipient, Jack Jacobs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0Il4a2wzs

The main point of his comments?  To take out ISIS today, we'd need hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground (250,000 in Syria alone) and at least a decade, if not two.  This opposed to what idiots say; "Bomb somethin'!!!" If you explain this to one of these 'nuke 'em all' types, and they're still gung-ho for war, give them the number for US Army recruiting, 1-888-550-ARMY, and ask them which of their family members will enlist to fight the war they have deemed so important.  It's always easy to volunteer other people's kids to go die for your causes.  Remember, sacrifice starts at home!

As far as the meme's being sent around on social media go, many of them feature a 'terrorist' in front of the wreckage from 9/11, with a message like "Vote Democrat: it makes terrorists happy!"  The fact they're using 9/11 imagry in an anti-Democrat campaign is rich.  If one of your friends or family members posts one of these memes, please feel free to copy and paste the following paragraph into their comments section:

• Hey, great anti-Democrat post!  TOO FUNNY!!!  By the way, just a clarification:  one of the reasons 9/11 happened was the number of times the W. Bush administration ignored warnings about an upcoming attack by al-Qaida.  We now know, in the months leading up to 9/11, there were at least twenty warnings from senior level intelligence officials about an impending attack, all of which went ignored by the White House.  The senior intelligence community was screaming at the W. White House to pay attention to the warnings, but instead, the W. administration took the entire month of August off on vacation, insisting they had 'complete control of government.'  Afterwards, when the W. administration allowed the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks to get away in Tora Bora (thank goodness Obama got him!) the W. administration ended up creating the latest terrorist threat, ISIS, by invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and then mismanaging the post combat responsibilities horribly.  Just a clarification about terrorism... 

The ugliest aspect of Conservative America's response to the Paris attacks is the insistence we not help any Syrian refugees.  This is to be expected from simpletons.  They don't understand one of the main goals of ISIS' attack was to create fear and hatred for the refugees trying to escape the Assad/ISIS nightmare in their country.  The world turning it's back on the Syrian refugees would lead to more of them enlisting into ISIS.

I would be a fool if I didn't acknowledge the new ISIS strategy of infiltrating refugee groups to get terror cells into a country.  And considering the proliferation of guns and weapons in the US, we've made it easy for the terrorists when they get here.

But, I won't allow that as an excuse to bolt myself into the basement.  The vast majority of these people have left everything behind, have nothing but the clothes they're wearing, and have been through hell.  Call me crazy, but welcoming them in, after we've determined which individuals don't have a questionable past, and helping them get back on their feet, might just stop the endless creation of more new terrorists.  And, I won't have to beat my soul and consciousness with a shovel to stop me from caring.

By the way, if you do have a conservative friend with a religious slant posting anti-refugee posts on social media, here's a list of Biblical passages which tells them, if they are a good Christian, they need to help (Thanks Raw Story!):  Matthew 25:35-40, Luke 10:25-37, Hebrews 13:16, James 2:14-17, Proverbs 19:17, John 3:17, James 1:27 and, to finish off your argument, Philippians 2:4.

Many of these Biblical passages are also great for counterpointing Republicans who want to take away welfare, food stamps, health care and aid for the elderly and needy.  Feel free to use them at your own discretion.  Nothing makes Christian Conservatives angrier than pointing out how much of the Bible they intentionally ignore!